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The Christmas Creature

2020-12-04 · story · Hank · 3:58 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Books & writing (also: Pop culture) · mode: Comedy & performance · tags: song or performance, self promotion, calendar ritual, guest or collab

Hank reads Erin Kubo's creepy illustrated Christmas poem The Christmas Creature, animated by Sam, then reflects that taste is not universally good or bad but reflects our values, worldviews and experiences, and that we should both examine and indulge our aesthetics.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — Intro and the reading of Erin Kubo's The Christmas Creature

  • ★★★ Hank shares a book by Erin Kubo that he saw as a Twitter thread twelve months ago and loved so much he turned it into a video: a reading of The Christmas Creature. — 00:00:03 · Twitter, Christmas
  • ★★ Hank reads the poem: to appease the Christmas creature children pass strange tests, climb the hill with offerings and a mirror, and get their stolen toy back, now in the creature's debt. (fiction) — 00:00:20 · Christmas

00:02:39 — Why he loves it: aesthetics are weird; the Ratatouille musical; taste reflects values; examine and indulge

  • ★★ Hank says aesthetics are weird: he would have to look long and hard to understand why he loves that story so much. — 00:02:41
  • ★★ Hank says he rarely asks Twitter creators to license their work, yet here he had Sam animate it, licensed music and recorded narration for about two hours to get two minutes. — 00:02:48 · Twitter
  • ★★ Hank says he doesn't know why he spent about ten hours in recent weeks on his piece of the unofficial TikTok Ratatouille musical. — 00:03:08 · TikTok
  • ★★★ Hank says taste is not universally good or bad: it is our values, worldviews, experiences and ideologies. — 00:03:16
  • ★★ Hank says the Vlogbrothers Project for Awesome 2021 calendar, designed by Megan Toenyes, is available now, and he loves it. — 00:03:24 · Vlogbrothers, Project for Awesome
  • ★★★ Hank says it is good to examine our aesthetics but also to indulge them, hence the Christmas Creature, the Ratatouille musical, the P4A calendar and the socks. — 00:03:33 · Project for Awesome, Christmas

00:03:44 — Where to buy the book, calendar and socks; sign-off

  • ★★ Hank says Erin Kubo sells physical copies of The Christmas Creature on her website, linked in the description, as are the calendars and the socks. — 00:03:44 · Awesome Socks Club, Christmas

In the description and comments

Humor (dominant)

  • The asking bird test: you must tell the truth because the creature can hear lies. — 00:01:00

    “The Christmas creature can hear your lies and watch you through your own dog's eyes.”

  • Offerings to bring the creature: a lock of hair, a real good stick, and, if naughty, — 00:01:30

    “a pint of blood, a haunted chalice, a mound of mud”

  • After the ritual the stolen toy reappears in the snow. — 00:02:25

    “Mostly the same, but a little wet. And now, you're in the creature's debt.”

  • After listing what can be bought from the description links, Hank adds his musical piece. — 00:03:52

    “The Ratatouille musical is not for sale.”

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: aesthetics · Erin Kubo · The Christmas Creature

Also: Awesome Socks Club · Christmas · Project for Awesome · Project for Awesome calendar · Ratatouille the Musical · TikTok · Twitter

Only in the description or credits: DFTBA Records · Megan Toenyes · Robert Austin · Sam Schultz

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