Should Hank and I ... box each other??

2022-06-14 · letter vlog · John · 3:44 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Personal life (also: Internet & YouTube) · mode: Comedy & performance

Prompted by a lucrative YouTuber boxing exhibition, John comically weighs whether he and Hank should box each other for charity, citing his Booklist boxing-book reviews and his boxer wife Sarah as qualifications. He concludes they should not, partly because he does not want to promote regulated violence as a growth strategy for creators.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — John asks whether the brothers should box each other, after a YouTuber boxing exhibition

• ★★ John asks Hank whether they should box, noting that in 41 years as brothers their relationship has been aggressively non-violent and they rarely even raise their voices. (playful) — 00:00:00
• ★★ John says a recent YouTube boxing exhibition, in which YouTubers boxed each other, generated a lot of revenue although the boxing was sub-professional. — 00:00:00 · YouTube
• ★★ John is nearly sure that boxing Hank in a public spectacle raising money for healthcare systems in poor communities is a terrible idea, but part of him wonders if it is a bad million-dollar idea. (playful) — 00:00:29
• ★ John confesses he is only considering it because he is pretty sure he would win. (joke) — 00:00:29

00:00:58 — John's qualifications (boxing books, Sarah), fitness, a Rocky-style sequel and Bob Fitzsimmons

• ★★ John says that, though he has barely thrown a punch, for many years he reviewed books about boxing for Booklist and has read over a hundred of them. (playful) — 00:00:58
• ★★ John mocks the school administrators who recently banned his books, saying they can confirm that reading about something makes you want to do it and good at it. (satire) — 00:00:58
• ★★ John says his wife Sarah was a very competitive boxer when they met and could train him, but she called the plan the worst idea she had ever heard and refused to help. — 00:01:27 · Sarah Urist Green
• ★★ John says the threat of losing to his brother would make them both get fit, potentially extending their health spans, barring serious injuries, which their weak punching makes unlikely. (playful, hedged) — 00:01:56
• ★★ John finds fighting his brother in front of an audience, with a winner feeling good and a loser feeling bad, utterly unappealing. (playful) — 00:01:56
• ★ John imagines Hank coming back to beat him in a sequel, as in Rocky II, and millions watching a trilogy fight on pay-per-view. (joke, speculative) — 00:02:26
• ★★ John says 40-year-old Bob Fitzsimmons, the Freckled Wonder, withstood a 30-round match in 1903 to become light heavyweight champion of the world, which he learned from the book Lanky Bob. — 00:02:26

00:02:55 — Reasons it is a terrible idea; the better use of nine months; sign-off

• ★★ John gives two reasons against: he does not want shirtless pictures of them online, and the public correctly sees them as liking each other, an image a boxing match might harm. — 00:02:55
• ★★★ John says he doesn't know that he wants to lift up regulated violence as the number one strategy for content creators to grow their platform or revenue. (hedged) — 00:02:55
• ★★★ John concludes the brothers should spend the next nine months writing books, making educational videos and raising money for Partners In Health rather than training to box, a shame since he could have been a contender. (hedged) — 00:03:24 · Partners In Health

Humor (significant)

• John cites his years of reviewing boxing books as a qualification, with a jab at administrators who banned his books — 00:00:58

  “reading about something makes you both want to do it and good at it”

• John lists boxing terms he can say, such as switching to southpaw — 00:01:27

  “basically, you know, basically being able to do them”

• John says his wife, a former competitive boxer, could train him, then reports her reply — 00:01:27

  “that is the worst idea I've ever heard, and if you think I'm going to help you, you're incorrect”

• John says he does not want either brother to feel bad about losing — 00:01:56

  “I don’t want you to feel bad when I TKO you into the second round,”

Threads in this video

• restate · Is physical fighting ever an appropriate way to communicate or settle conflict? — John says he doesn't know that he wants to lift up regulated violence as the number one strategy for content creators to grow their platform or revenue. (00:02:55)

Mentioned

People: Bob Fitzsimmons · Sarah Urist Green

Works: Rocky II

Organizations: Booklist · Partners In Health · YouTube

Concepts: book censorship · Boxing · physical exercise · violence

Only in the description or credits: Lanky Bob

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