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I Closed My Boob in a Door

2024-04-19 · letter vlog · Hank · 5:28 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Books & writing · mode: Personal essay · tags: self promotion, recurring series, civic or action cta

Hank finally addresses the online mockery of April May's tweet about closing her boob in a door in An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, defends it with real tweets and by what the tweet does for the character, and argues that writing people unlike yourself means getting things wrong and learning from readers and experts; he closes by launching the Nerdfighteria Census and a merch drop.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — The boob-in-a-door discourse: the Reddit post, early readers' doubts, Hank's Twitter search of real cases, the new German edition

  • ★★ Hank recounts that four years ago a post on the MenWritingWomen subreddit, with 5,100 upvotes, held up his novel An Absolutely Remarkable Thing over the line about the main character closing her boob in a door. — 00:00:00 · An Absolutely Remarkable Thing
  • ★ Hank notes that the poster conceded the women characters in the book are on the whole generally well written. — 00:00:29
  • ★★ Hank says one of his favourite parts of writing his books was talking to experts who gave him perspectives he could not have, such as what it is like to be a woman. — 00:00:29
  • ★★ Hank admits that more than one of his early readers questioned how a woman could close her boob in a door. — 00:00:59
  • ★★ Hank says that when he wrote the line he had searched Twitter for the phrase and found hundreds of people who had closed their boobs in doors, and he reads several examples. — 00:00:59 · Twitter
  • ★★ Hank shows the new German edition of An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, out this week (week of 15 April 2024), asks viewers to tell their German friends, and thanks his German publisher for continuing to give the book life. — 00:01:56 · An Absolutely Remarkable Thing
  • ★ Hank says the discourse means people now feel they must tell him whenever they close their boob in a door. (playful) — 00:02:32

00:03:01 — What the tweet does for April, and why writing someone unlike yourself needs readers and experts (Phyllida Swift)

  • ★★ Hank says he will defend his main character's ability to close her boob in a door to his grave: he doesn't know how, but people everywhere manage it. (playful) — 00:03:01
  • ★★★ Hank likes the tweet because it shows April's balancing act: seeking attention, status, influence and power while calling those who see her as powerful ridiculous, a silly girl things happen to. — 00:03:01 · An Absolutely Remarkable Thing
  • ★★★ Hank says that writing a woman's perspective without having been one, you will get things wrong, so it is great to have people read the book before publication and give feedback. — 00:03:47 · perspective-taking
  • ★★ Hank says asking someone to read a whole book about a woman's life and say what he got wrong gave him an unmatched way to ask what being a woman is like, with lessons he has kept. — 00:03:47
  • ★★ For a character with visible facial trauma in his second book, Hank talked to Phyllida Swift, whose appearance changed after a car accident and who is CEO of Face Equality International. — 00:04:09 · A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor
  • ★★ Hank says the world is full of different perspectives, it is amazing to get to see them, and this makes him want to write more fiction. — 00:04:09 · perspective-taking
  • ★★★ Hank says the Nerdfighteria Census is out today and asks viewers to answer it via the top link in the description. — 00:04:09

00:04:38 — Nerdfighteria Census 2024 and a merch drop; sign-off

  • ★★ Hank explains that for 10-plus years the brothers have run a yearly census in which the community says what it likes, how its life is, what to do next and its priorities. (hedged) — 00:04:38 · Nerdfighteria
  • ★★ Hank says he does a census analysis on Hank's channel, finding weird and fascinating things about the community and the social internet. — 00:04:38 · hankschannel
  • ★★ Hank announces a merch drop: Red Deacons items, a dubious advice shirt and notepad, We're Here Because We're Here in a spiral, John's original Crash Course 'The Test' monologue, and mugs. — 00:05:07 · Crash Course, John Green

In the description and comments

  • ★★ The description says that, since some felt the tweet ruined the book, Hank probably should have made April's point another way after hearing it seemed weird, though real women do tweet that. (hedged) — video description
  • ★★ The description worries that the vital awareness of the world's inequities can turn into refusing to enjoy anything and hyper-vigilance for imperfection, which Hank thinks is not great. — video description

Humor (significant)

  • Hank opens by speaking April's tweet in the first person, as if aliens built him and he closed his own boob in a door — 00:00:00

    “I would be coordinated enough to not close my boob in a door. And yet!”

  • Hank says he talked to experts on what it's like to be a woman — 00:00:29

    “You know, women.”

  • Hank asks whether those experts flagged that closing a boob in a door would be hard — 00:00:59

    “Yes, actually they did.”

  • After reading tweets from women who closed their boobs in doors, Hank says he doesn't know how they do it either — 00:01:27

    “I don't know what it's like to have a boob, let alone two.”

  • Hank sums up his position on the discourse — 00:03:01

    “ultimately I will go to my grave defending my main characters ability to close her boob in the door”

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: An Absolutely Remarkable Thing · April May

Also: Projects: Crash Course · hankschannel · Nerdfighteria Census

Works: A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor · We're Here Because We're Here

Organizations: Face Equality International · MenWritingWomen · Twitter

Concepts: perspective-taking

Only in the description or credits: Phyllida Swift

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