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A Love Letter to My Brother, Basically

2020-12-08 · letter vlog · John · 3:46 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Projects · mode: Personal essay · tags: self promotion, fundraising ask, community lore

John argues that ideas do little until they are realized, mostly through collaboration, and celebrates Hank as the family's realizer, from 2D Glasses and VidCon to the charity-funding Awesome Socks Club, which he then pitches before sign-up closes.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — Vlogbrothers was John's idea, but ideas must be realized; Hank as the family's realizer

  • ★★ John says starting a collaborative video blog back in 2006 was his idea. — 00:00:00 · Vlogbrothers
  • ★★★ John says ideas on their own don't do much: they have to be realized. — 00:00:00
  • ★★★ John says Hank has always been the realizer in their family: he created their YouTube channel, designed their website and animated their 2007 intro. — 00:00:00 · Hank Green, YouTube

00:00:29 — 2D Glasses: Hank's ambitious projections versus John's pessimism

  • ★★ John recalls Hank inventing 2D glasses for 3D movies and projecting a million sales; John expected about 12, and Hank sold thousands. (playful) — 00:00:29 · Hank Green

00:00:58 — Collaboration as the key to realizing ideas; the list of Hank's projects; profits to charity

  • ★★ John says this began the brothers' long, fruitful tension: Hank believing anything he did would succeed beyond all possibility, John believing anything they did would fail completely. (playful) — 00:00:58 · Hank Green
  • ★★★ John says one of the most important parts of realizing an idea, maybe the most important, is collaborating with others. — 00:00:58
  • ★★ John says Hank has always had great collaborators because he is a great collaborator himself, and so realized many more ideas. — 00:00:58 · Hank Green
  • ★★ John lists ideas Hank has realized: VidCon, NerdCon, Subbable, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, Truth or Fail, Crash Course, SciShow, a podcast, card games, T-shirts, Eons, books and coffee mugs. — 00:01:27 · VidCon, Subbable, Crash Course, SciShow, Eons
  • ★ John doesn't know how Hank does it all; asked in interviews how he writes books and makes videos, he answers: have you met my brother? (playful) — 00:01:27 · Hank Green
  • ★★ John says a few years ago the brothers decided their portion of the profits from these businesses should go to charity. — 00:01:27

00:01:56 — Life's Library and the story of how Hank conceived and built the Awesome Socks Club

  • ★★ John says Hank then kicked into high gear, realizing ideas with a new mission: ongoing, long-term, open-ended support to build better healthcare systems in impoverished countries. — 00:01:56 · Hank Green
  • ★★ John says Hank helped him and Rosianna start Life's Library, a book club whose members read together and raise money to fight maternal mortality. — 00:01:56 · Rosianna Halse Rojas, maternal death
  • ★★ John recalls Hank calling to propose a sock club instead of a book club: socks by independent artists every month of 2021, all profits to charity; John liked it but didn't know how to make it real. (playful) — 00:02:26 · Awesome Socks Club, Hank Green
  • ★★ John says Hank made the sock club real by working with others to find artists and manufacturers and by an extremely strange and effective podcast and TikTok marketing campaign. — 00:02:26 · Awesome Socks Club, TikTok

00:02:55 — John's pitch for the Awesome Socks Club, its response and February double shipment; 'What's next?'

  • ★ John says he joined the Awesome Socks Club after hearing an ad on his favorite podcast, 99% Invisible. — 00:02:55 · Awesome Socks Club
  • ★★ John says Hank put much work into a project that won't make him a single dollar, and the response has been amazing, much closer to Hank's ambitious projections than John's pessimistic ones. — 00:02:55 · Awesome Socks Club, Hank Green
  • ★★★ John asks viewers to join the Awesome Socks Club at awesomesocks.club/vlogbrothers in the next three days, as a present too, using that link so Hank knows John sent them. — 00:02:55 · Awesome Socks Club
  • ★★ John says that because sales have been so high, members will get two pairs of socks in February and one each month after, with 100% of profits to charity. — 00:03:24 · Awesome Socks Club
  • ★★ John says Hank astonishes him, and he has only one question left: what's next? — 00:03:24 · Hank Green

In the description and comments

  • ★★ The description says the video contains a clue leading to a secret livestream: the clue is where John started this videoblog. — video description
  • ★ The description notes that 2-D Glasses are still for sale. — video description

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Awesome Socks Club

Also: People: Rosianna Halse Rojas

Projects: Crash Course · Eons · Life's Library · NerdCon: Stories · SciShow · Subbable · Truth or Fail · VidCon

Works: 2D Glasses · 99% Invisible · The Lizzie Bennet Diaries

Organizations: TikTok · YouTube

Concepts: 3D film · card game · maternal death

Later videos replying to this one

  • 2020-12-11 · The /W/orst Letter (Hank) — answers — “John, at the end of your last video you asked, what's next?” (00:03:41)