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Behind the Scenes of my TUMBLR MEME LORD ERA

2023-01-24 · letter vlog · John · 3:55 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Internet & YouTube · mode: Personal update · tags: self promotion, community lore

John reports that, after turning his Twitter over to the Awesome Coffee Club, he has rejoined Tumblr not as himself but as the club, a coffee company that isn't a person; he finds Tumblr fun, announces the club's decaf roast Paradoxica, and casts himself as the world's only ethically sourced unpaid intern.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — Greeting; John is back on Tumblr and gives its backstory: joined in 2011, later left

  • ★★ John tells Hank he is back on Tumblr and offers a behind-the-scenes look at his new Tumblr, which is sort of his. — 00:00:00 · Tumblr
  • ★ John calls Tumblr an ancient, creaky social media platform known for friendliness to brands, its abundance of ships and its fondness for copypasta. (playful) — 00:00:00 · Tumblr
  • ★★ John felt very welcome on Tumblr when he joined in 2011, later felt less welcome and eventually left; neither he nor Tumblr expected a reunion. — 00:00:00 · Tumblr

00:00:29 — John gave his Twitter to the Awesome Coffee Club, missed the social internet and rejoined Tumblr

  • ★★ A while back John decided he didn't need a Twitter and turned his Twitter account into the Awesome Coffee Club's. — 00:00:29 · Twitter, Awesome Coffee Club
  • ★★ John says the Awesome Coffee Club, with its cousin the Awesome Socks Club, is a really important part of ongoing funding to fight maternal mortality in Sierra Leone. — 00:00:29 · Awesome Coffee Club, Awesome Socks Club, maternal death, Sierra Leone
  • ★ Feeling the club, not he, should have all those followers, John handed the password to longtime nerdfighter Payton and bid farewell to Twitter. — 00:00:58 · Twitter, Nerdfighteria
  • ★★ John then missed the social internet: partly making low-quality memes, partly the adventure, the adrenaline and the dread. — 00:00:58 · Twitter
  • ★★ Though several loved ones begged him not to, John rejoined Tumblr, but as a coffee company. — 00:00:58 · Tumblr

00:01:31 — The algorithm-picked username and what makes Tumblr fun now

  • ★ John let the Tumblr algorithm pick his new username, sizzlingsandwichperfection-blog. (playful) — 00:01:31 · Tumblr
  • ★★ To John's surprise Tumblr is pretty fun: users collectively made a non-existent 1973 film, Goncharov, make lots of art and still debate Supernatural. — 00:01:31 · Tumblr, Goncharov

00:02:00 — The Awesome Coffee Club launches its decaf roast, Paradoxica

  • ★★★ Today the Awesome Coffee Club launches its decaf roast, Paradoxica, named like all its roasts after a Sierra Leonean butterfly; it now covers light, medium dark and decaf. — 00:02:00 · Awesome Coffee Club, Sierra Leone
  • ★★ On Tumblr John sometimes answers questions but mostly posts memes about being famously bullied off Tumblr and returning not as a soul-endowed human but as a charitable coffee company. (playful) — 00:02:00 · Tumblr, Awesome Coffee Club

00:02:29 — The persona: a coffee company, not a person, run by an ethically sourced unpaid intern; club subscribers and profits

  • ★★ John says he no longer wants to be an individual, with all its inherent fragility; he wants to be a company and would rather not be a person on the internet again. (playful) — 00:02:29
  • ★★ Posting on, John invented his own lore: having worked unpaid for the Awesome Coffee Club, he is the world's only ethically sourced unpaid intern. (playful) — 00:02:29 · Awesome Coffee Club
  • ★★★ John says the Awesome Coffee Club supplies coffee, now including decaf, to over 10,000 subscribers in the US and Canada and donates 100% of its profits to charity. — 00:02:58 · Awesome Coffee Club, United States, Canada
  • ★★ John urges viewers to join the club, maybe not on Tumblr but definitely at awesomecoffeeclub.com. — 00:02:58 · Awesome Coffee Club, Tumblr

00:03:28 — How it will end (catastrophe), the pull of the social internet, sign-off

  • ★★ Asked how this will end, John jokes it will end brilliantly, then admits it will end in catastrophe, but he can never resist the social internet. (playful) — 00:03:28 · Tumblr

In the description and comments

  • ★★ In a channel comment John says decaf usually sucks because of how it is made, but the club decaffeinates by the more complex, expensive sugarcane method that makes it not suck. — creator comment · Awesome Coffee Club
  • ★★ Asked in a comment about an independent auditor of the club's profits, John says PIH itself is currently the auditor and he will ask PIH whether it can formalize or publicize something. — creator comment · Partners In Health, Awesome Coffee Club

Humor (significant)

  • John describes one of his low-quality memes about Twitter — 00:00:58

    “Twitter wasn't a bad website. It was the worst one.”

  • Tired of human fragility, John says he would rather be a company — 00:02:29

    “I want to be a company, which is also a person if you ask the US Supreme Court.”

  • John declares his coffee-company mission on Tumblr — 00:02:29

    “I am here to drink milk and sell coffee, and I just finished my milk.”

  • Realizing he has never been paid for his coffee-club work, John names his role — 00:02:29

    “I am the world's only ethically sourced unpaid intern.”

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Awesome Coffee Club · Tumblr

Also: People: Payton

Projects: Awesome Socks Club

Works: Supernatural

Organizations: Supreme Court of the United States · Twitter

Concepts: Decaffeination · maternal death

Places: Canada · Sierra Leone · United States

Memes: Goncharov

Only in the description or credits: Partners In Health

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