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Gifts That Changed My Life

2020-01-21 · letter vlog · John · 3:50 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Everyday life (also: Personal life, Economics) · mode: Personal essay

John grants economists that gift-giving is inefficient, but argues gifts carry meaning beyond their price and occasionally change a life, as The Body in Pain from Mike Rugnetta and a weighted blanket from his Reddit Secret Santa did for him; if unused gift cards are the cost, he thinks it might be worth it.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — Economists on the inefficiency of gifts: unspent gift cards, cash, Aunt Agatha's gift card

  • ★★ John says he has often heard economists criticize gift-giving for its massive inefficiency, which he finds fair enough. — 00:00:00
  • ★★ Something like three billion dollars in gift cards goes unspent every year in the United States, John says. (hedged) — 00:00:00 · United States
  • ★★ John says giving cash would leave everyone better off but seems thoughtless, so instead an imagined Aunt Agatha gives an Outback Steakhouse gift card every Christmas. (playful) — 00:00:00 · Christmas

00:00:29 — Gifts' value beyond efficiency: Sarah's Liverpool jerseys, Hank's Aero Fighters machine, the world on a turtle, The Body in Pain

  • ★★ Physical gifts are inefficient too, John says: a sweater that doesn't fit must be returned, and one that fits but is hideous goes unworn. — 00:00:29
  • ★★ John says his wife Sarah has solved the problem: every Christmas she gets him a Liverpool jersey, exactly what he wants. — 00:00:29 · Sarah Urist Green, Christmas
  • ★★★ John argues that cold calculations of economic efficiency ignore much of the value of gifts. — 00:00:29
  • ★★ John tells Hank that the Aero Fighters video game machine Hank gave him meant much more to him than a check for its cost would have. — 00:00:29 · Hank Green
  • ★★ John shows the world on a turtle that his parents gave him, which means a lot to him because of its symbolic resonances. — 00:00:58 · Mike Green, Sydney Green
  • ★★★ Another upside of gifts: occasionally, not usually, you get something you didn't know you needed that changes your life for the better. — 00:00:58
  • ★★★ A few years ago Mike Rugnetta gave John Elaine Scarry's The Body in Pain, which he would never otherwise have read and which totally changed how he thinks about pain and language. — 00:00:58
  • ★★ John says that without that gift he might not have written Turtles All the Way Down. (hedged) — 00:00:58 · Turtles All the Way Down

00:01:43 — Reddit Secret Santa and the weighted blanket that ended up in four sizes for the family

  • ★★ Every year John signs up for the Reddit Secret Santa exchange, which pairs you with two random people: one you give a gift to, one who gives to you. — 00:01:43
  • ★★★ This year (2020) John gave to a college student in Oregon and received from a nerdfighter in Pennsylvania a $100 donation to Partners In Health and a weighted blanket. — 00:01:43 · Nerdfighteria, Partners In Health
  • ★★ John calls the packaging line 'people who cannot move the blanket cannot use the blanket' one of the most beautiful sentences he has ever encountered. (playful) — 00:02:12
  • ★★ The roughly 25-pound blanket was amazing while John watched soccer; then Sarah and the kids wanted one too, and the family ended up with four weighted blankets. — 00:02:12 · Sarah Urist Green
  • ★★ John says the stranger in Pennsylvania somehow knew exactly what his family needed to get through the frigid, gray Indianapolis winter. — 00:02:42 · Indianapolis
  • ★ John loves the blanket so much he doesn't want a brand deal, which would sully their innocent relationship. (playful) — 00:02:42

00:03:11 — Conclusion: gifts are inefficient but worth it; thanks to the Secret Santa, sign-off and P.S.

  • ★ John asks viewers not to tell him any reasons weighted blankets are terrible, since the blanket is easing his way through this vale of tears. (playful) — 00:03:11
  • ★★★ John concludes that gift-giving is irrational and inefficient, but gifts can signal goodwill, ease loneliness and occasionally make life better; if unused gift cards are the cost, it might be worth it. (hedged) — 00:03:11
  • ★ In a P.S., John tells Hank he is getting a weighted blanket for his birthday. (playful) — 00:03:40 · Hank Green

Humor (significant)

  • John imagines Aunt Agatha's yearly Outback Steakhouse gift card — 00:00:00

    “because 23 years ago we mentioned to Aunt Agatha in passing that we enjoyed a Bloomin' Onion”

  • The world on a turtle his parents gave him topples as he shows it — 00:00:58

    “Oh God! Everything's fine, Mom. The world is still on the turtle.”

  • After praising the packaging line about being unable to move the blanket — 00:02:12

    “ultimately that's the reason I had to stop using Twitter because I couldn't move it”

  • A P.S. to Hank about his birthday present — 00:03:40

    “It's a weighted blanket.”

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: gift · The Body in Pain · weighted blanket

Also: People: Mike Green · Mike Rugnetta · Sarah Urist Green · Sydney Green

Works: Aero Fighters · Turtles All the Way Down

Organizations: Liverpool FC · Partners In Health · Twitter

Concepts: economics · gift card · loneliness · pain

Places: Indianapolis · Oregon · Pennsylvania · United States

Events: Christmas

Products: Reddit Secret Santa

Only in the description or credits: Elaine Scarry

Also centred on gift: John's 2022 Gift Guide

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