Foolish · Beautiful

2020-01-14 · Q&A · John, Hank · 4:00 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Nerdfighteria (also: Personal life, Pop culture) · mode: Q&A & conversation · tags: recurring series, guest or collab, community lore

Together in a hotel room for Question Tuesday, John reads viewer questions on beauty and foolishness (best words, foolish endeavors, whether humanity is worth saving) while Hank fails to spot the theme; they also touch on Hank's nearly finished book, hotels, John's sports Twitter and movies that make them cry.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Greetings on a hotel bed; John sets up Question Tuesday with a hidden theme

00:00:18 — Beautiful words, foolish childhood acts, Anthropocene beauty, favorite foolish endeavor; Hank misses the theme until 'foolish but beautiful'

★★ Hank names 'penumbra' as the most beautiful word. — 00:00:21
★★ John's most beautiful word is 'ongoingness'. — 00:00:23
★ Hank adds that he does not like the word 'twelfth'. (playful) — 00:00:25
★★ Hank: Asked the most foolish thing he did as a child, Hank remembers getting in a lot of trouble for throwing glass bottles off their fort. — 00:00:31
★★ Hank: For the most beautiful phenomenon of the Anthropocene, Hank guesses some colors that did not exist until humans came along. (hedged) — 00:00:39
★★ John's answer is humanity's understanding of the speed of light. — 00:00:43
★★ John's favorite foolish endeavor: Tony Hawks hitchhiked around Ireland with a refrigerator to win a bet, and the resulting book is as amazing as you would hope. — 00:00:52 · also in: John and Hank Hanging Out but they Keep Getting Younger and More Pixelated
★★ Hank's favorite foolish endeavor would have been all of humanity. (playful) — 00:01:09
★★ both: Asked what is foolish but also beautiful, both brothers answer in unison: the internet, and humanity. (playful) — 00:01:43

00:02:02 — Advice from kids, the 'auto power off' line, whether humanity is worth saving, and Hank's nearly finished book

★★ Hank: The best advice Hank has had from his kid: sometimes Orin says 'Feel happy.' — 00:02:04 · Orin Green
★★ John's best advice from his kids: one of them once told him 'It's just YouTube.' — 00:02:09
★★ John says he still uses Hank's line from the very first vlogbrothers video, 'auto power off, still some glitches to work out', whenever the camera goes wrong 13 years later. — 00:02:14 · Vlogbrothers, Hank Green · also in: John and Hank Hanging Out but they Keep Getting Younger and More Pixelated

“Auto power off, still some glitches to work out”
★★★ Hank says humanity is 'super yes' worth saving; he has thought about it a lot, and John notes it is what Hank writes about in his novels. — 00:02:44
★★ Hank says his new book goes fairly deeply into whether humanity is worth saving, and that he is almost done with it. — 00:02:47 · A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor · also in: John and Hank Hanging Out but they Keep Getting Younger and More Pixelated
★★ Hank says he will send John the book, probably on Monday. (hedged) — 00:02:54 · A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor, John Green

00:02:56 — Hotels since the Picasso room; whether John should go back to sports Twitter

★★ Since the 2012 hotel room with the Picasso, the brothers have stayed nowhere close to as good; they almost always stay at a Courtyard by Marriott. — 00:02:56
★★ John asks Hank whether he should go back to his sports Twitter account, @sportswithjohn, rather than regular Twitter. — 00:03:11 · Twitter
★ Hank says John should do what he wants. — 00:03:17
★★ John jokes that since he left Twitter Liverpool have not lost a Premier League game, so why would he go back. (playful) — 00:03:19 · Twitter

00:03:34 — Movies that made them cry: Little Women and Cats; sign-off

★★ Hank: The last movie that made Hank cry was the last one he saw, Little Women, which was very good. — 00:03:34
★★ John says every movie makes him cry; he hasn't seen Cats yet but is sure it will. — 00:03:39
★ Hank says he wants to see Cats. — 00:03:44
★★ John doesn't want to see Cats but supports those who do: thank God somebody likes something somewhere. — 00:03:46

“thank God that somebody likes something somewhere”

Humor (significant)

Asked whether he has figured out the video's theme, Hank admits he has not — 00:01:24

“I wasn't paying a ton of attention.”
After both name the internet and humanity as foolish but beautiful, Hank adds a third — 00:01:51

“And porcupines.”
John credits Liverpool's unbeaten Premier League run to his leaving Twitter — 00:03:31

“I'm the one who's making it happen!”
John, saying he supports people who like Cats, blends two idioms — 00:03:49

“I'm not here to harsh on your yums.”

Threads in this video

callback · Hank's 'Auto power off, still some glitches to work out' line from the first vlogbrothers video (2007) — John says he still uses Hank's line from the very first vlogbrothers video, 'auto power off, still some glitches to work out', whenever the camera goes wrong 13 years later. (00:02:14) → refers to Brotherhood 2.0: January 1st
promised · Hank: send John the nearly finished A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor, probably on Monday (2020) — Hank says he will send John the book, probably on Monday. (00:02:54)
mentioned · The brothers' Houston hotel mix-up and luxury room with a Picasso print on the tour (2012) — Since the 2012 hotel room with the Picasso, the brothers have stayed nowhere close to as good; they almost always stay at a Courtyard by Marriott. (00:02:56)
progress update · John: take a year off Facebook, Reddit, Instagram and Twitter, starting when P4A 2018 ends (2018) — John asks Hank whether he should go back to his sports Twitter account, @sportswithjohn, rather than regular Twitter. (00:03:11)
predicted · John: the film Cats will make him cry when he sees it (2020) — John says every movie makes him cry; he hasn't seen Cats yet but is sure it will. (00:03:39)

Where the stories that moved here went next

John: the film Cats will make him cry when he sees it (2020) — unresolved; last: predicted, 2020-01-14
Hank: send John the nearly finished A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor, probably on Monday (2020) — kept
John: take a year off Facebook, Reddit, Instagram and Twitter, starting when P4A 2018 ends (2018) — changed; last: progress update, 2025-06-24

Mentioned

People: Orin Green · Tony Hawks

Projects: Sports with John

Works: A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor · Brothers on a Hotel Bed · Cats (2019 film) · Little Women · Picasso print 'Seated Woman' in the Houston hotel room · Round Ireland with a Fridge

Organizations: Courtyard by Marriott · Liverpool FC · Premier League · Twitter

Rituals: Question Tuesday

Concepts: Anthropocene · Internet · penumbra · porcupine · speed of light

Places: Ireland

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