Project for Awesome 2026 Kickoff!
2026-02-13 · other · John, Hank, Henry Green, Joia Mukherjee · 8 h 16 min · watch on YouTube
Topic: Global development (also: Nerdfighteria, Economics, Books & writing, Personal life, Pop culture, Philosophy & meaning, Everyday life, Art & visual culture, Internet & YouTube) · mode: Announcements · tags: calendar ritual, fundraising ask, self promotion, community lore, guest or collab, civic or action cta, heavy topic
Opening the 19th Project for Awesome livestream, John and Hank joke that it is 2027 and every 2026 problem is solved while pitching perks and a $1.5 million matching fund; John, hosting with his son Henry and Partners In Health's Joia Mukherjee, says the P4A funds real change and organized advocacy cut TB drug prices, as the total passes $1.1 million in two and a half hours.
What is said
The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).
00:00:00 — Before the livestream begins
00:15:37 — Opening: the '2027 Project for Awesome' under the sea, confetti, John's mustache, the Banana Loca lesson, first totals
- ★★ Hank opens the livestream with a bit: they skipped a year, so this is the 2027 Project for Awesome, held under the sea, and every 2026 problem is solved. (joke) — 00:16:04 · Project for Awesome
- ★ John says he bought his own banana stuffer, a Banana Loca, and asks Hank to teach him how to use it. — 00:16:45
- ★★ John announces that the 2026 Project for Awesome has already raised over $432,000, thanks to its matching donors. — 00:17:31 · Project for Awesome
- ★★ John worries that this year's (2026) P4A may have too many matching donors: for the first time he wonders whether they will raise enough to use the whole match. (hedged) — 00:17:31 · Project for Awesome
- ★★ John grew a thick mustache for the Project for Awesome, planning it for about 16 weeks while Sarah asked why he didn't shave. — 00:20:40 · Sarah Urist Green, Project for Awesome
00:24:03 — Perks: a new Anthropocene Reviewed episode, Dear Hank and John, the dadcast, a juice that went wrong, Zombicorns
- ★★★ John brings back his podcast The Anthropocene Reviewed only for the P4A, with an episode reviewing the Galapagos Islands and Kurt Vonnegut's novel Galapagos, for a $10 donation. — 00:24:03 · The Anthropocene Reviewed (podcast), Project for Awesome
- ★★ John lists P4A 2026 perks including exclusive Dear Hank and John episodes and a dadcast with Travis McElroy and Hank. — 00:24:45 · Dear Hank and John, Project for Awesome
- ★ Hank admits that one year he offered a juice as a P4A perk; it was a huge mistake, too much work and maybe illegal, and was never sent out. (hedged) — 00:25:06 · Project for Awesome
- ★★ John offers Zombicorns as a perk, calling it his surprisingly good zombie apocalypse novella that he will no longer apologize for. — 00:25:29
- ★★ John announces that the 2026 Project for Awesome has passed half a million dollars. — 00:26:46 · Project for Awesome
00:27:16 — The matching fund and Mike Green; cheese in a banana; Hanklerfish prints
- ★★ John thanks the P4A 2026 matching donors (Partners In Health, Save the Children and hundreds of Nerdfighters) and the people who run the fund, including his father Mike Green. — 00:27:16 · Partners In Health, Save the Children, Nerdfighteria, Mike Green, Project for Awesome
- ★ After stuffing a banana with cheddar using the Banana Loca, John finds the first bite bad but does not hate it once the flavors mix. (playful) — 00:30:37
00:32:00 — The last year of pressed pennies; Orin and the penny; hay pennies
- ★★★ John says no more pennies can be had because the US stopped minting them; money exists to facilitate exchange, which pennies have not done since the 1970s, so it came 50 years late. — 00:32:38
- ★★ Hank says his son Orin was very upset that the US is getting rid of the penny. — 00:33:09 · Orin Green
00:34:56 — John signing his name over and over again
- ★★ John shows he has been signing his name on a few thousand sheets of paper again, despite having said never again, but insists he is announcing nothing. — 00:36:04
00:37:06 — The 2027 bit: one new technology a year, life under the sea, Mars and the podcast name, gills
00:44:23 — Fish prints, Rushmore and signing, the Olympics
- ★ Hank reports 72 of 300 of his signed fish prints left and 50 of 300 of John's. — 00:46:05
- ★ John says he loves signing his name, paraphrasing Max Fisher in Rushmore that the meaning of life is to find something you love doing and do it forever. (playful) — 00:47:13
- ★★ John calls the current Winter Olympics very close to the best ever; he has cried more during them than during almost any Olympics of his life. — 00:47:50
00:48:42 — John's dream of an orca, and the Galapagos
- ★★ John tells Hank of a dream in which, whale watching from a Zodiac with Hank and his mother-in-law Cece, a whale landed by the boat and an orca ate Cece. — 00:48:42
- ★★ John says the Galapagos remind you that humans are not what the story is about: it is a story of life stretching back some 4.1 billion years. — 00:49:49
00:50:17 — Where the money goes: Partners In Health, Save the Children, community-voted grants
- ★ John reports that the Partners In Health matching gift is maxed out, so each dollar now counts as $2.50. — 00:50:17 · Partners In Health
- ★★★ John explains that P4A money pays for community health workers and children's services in refugee communities through Partners In Health and Save the Children, plus charities the community votes for. — 00:51:13 · Partners In Health, Save the Children, Project for Awesome
- ★★ John says a Nerdfighter advisory group helps list the smaller charities that get P4A grants each year, which can be transformational, and that the P4A has raised about $17 million over the years. (hedged) — 00:51:43 · Project for Awesome, Nerdfighteria
00:52:00 — Hot takes: Cars 2, Frozen, the Mid Gatsby
00:53:15 — A new livestream host and website after the old one disappeared
- ★★ Hank says the P4A livestream looks just like last year's (2025), although the company that hosted it before suddenly disappeared about a month ago. — 00:53:41 · Project for Awesome
- ★★ Hank thanks the P4A livestream producers: the website is new and the whole back end of the Project for Awesome had to change. — 00:54:17 · Project for Awesome
00:54:46 — Harry Styles, fashion designers, Taylor Swift bird puns, Stan Muller, the Popemobile
- ★★ John says his close friend Stan Muller, himself a birding influencer, narrates the Zombicorns audiobook. — 00:56:41
00:59:00 — How the cars in Cars piss; the planus; the $1.5 million matching fund
- ★ Hank says Katherine calls the exhaust hole at the back of a plane 'the planus'. (playful) — 00:59:00 · Katherine Green
- ★★★ Hank says hundreds of matching donors came together to create $1.5 million of P4A 2026 matching funds, about as much as they could use. — 00:59:45 · Nerdfighteria, Project for Awesome
01:00:55 — Perks: small Hanklerfish canvases and the Good News Bridge prints; Mike Green
- ★★★ John offers 20 prints of the Good News Bridge, which his mother painted after learning Hank's cancer was treatable rather than the worst case; John and his parents were on a walk there when they heard. — 01:00:55 · Sydney Green, Mike Green
- ★★ Hank says the small Hanklerfish canvases he offers are experiments with new ways to make Hanklerfish: few, priced highly and about four inches across. — 01:02:03 · Hanklerfish
- ★★ John says his father Mike Green, who donated, helped run the P4A matching fund with Amy, and thanks his parents for making a P4A perk again this year (2026). — 01:02:42 · Mike Green, Sydney Green, Project for Awesome
01:03:34 — The cars chant, Silly Nelson and Willie Nelson, unstuck in time
- ★ John says Willie Nelson, at 94, is still on the road, and that he went to see him not long ago. — 01:04:53
- ★★ John announces he will host the next two hours of the P4A while Hank rests, joined by Dr. Joia Mukherjee of Partners In Health. — 01:05:49 · Partners In Health, Project for Awesome
01:08:14 — A hard early 2026, $838,000 raised, John's first swear word
- ★★★ John says he found early 2026 very stressful and difficult; he needs the Project for Awesome every year, but especially this year (2026). — 01:10:53 · Project for Awesome
- ★★ John says the 2026 Project for Awesome has raised $838,000, already more than any of the first ten Projects for Awesome. — 01:10:53 · Project for Awesome
- ★★ John recalls first trying a swear word, the one starting with S, when a kite fell during a beach outing; his parents were unperturbed, which defanged swearing for him. — 01:12:13 · Mike Green, Sydney Green
01:13:07 — How to vote and donate; Hank's cancer book; Hank leaves
- ★★ Hank points viewers to the P4A videos at projectforawesome.com: half the money goes to Save the Children and Partners In Health and half to charities the community votes for. — 01:13:07 · Save the Children, Partners In Health, Project for Awesome
- ★★ John says they have worked with Partners In Health and Save the Children for over 15 years and trust them: extraordinary organizations expanding access to healthcare and nutrition for the most vulnerable. — 01:13:35 · Partners In Health, Save the Children
- ★★★ John asks viewers who can to donate at projectforawesome.com/donate, and those who can't to watch P4A videos and vote for the charities they want supported. — 01:14:04 · Project for Awesome
- ★★★ Hank says his new book, offered as a P4A perk in early form, is about the biology of cancer and his experience of having cancer; the perk is probably its first two chapters. (hedged) — 01:15:08 · Project for Awesome
- ★★ John says his work in progress is taking a long time to write: in early 2020 he read it aloud in semi-secret livestreams, when he was sad, depressed and alone like everyone else. — 01:15:37
01:16:23 — John with his son Henry: boxing, the million-dollar punch, Looking for Alaska at 21, the mustache
- ★★ John says his 16-year-old son Henry, a very good boxer, will punch him when the P4A reaches a million dollars. — 01:17:37 · Henry Green, Project for Awesome
- ★★ John says Looking for Alaska turns 21 in two weeks. — 01:22:02 · Looking for Alaska (novel)
- ★★ John says someone posted an embarrassing 2003 video of him to Reddit; he can't believe that was him, or that his wife fell in love with that person. — 01:22:24 · Reddit, Sarah Urist Green
- ★ John grew the mustache for the P4A but not Pizzamas because he planned poorly for Pizzamas and did not want a thin mustache. — 01:22:47 · Pizzamas, Project for Awesome
01:23:24 — What the Project for Awesome means to John and what it has funded
- ★★★ John calls the 19th Project for Awesome the most special thing he gets to do each year, and treasures that Nerdfighteria still exists and still makes things together. — 01:24:08 · Project for Awesome, Nerdfighteria
- ★★★ John says the P4A makes meaningful change: community health workers hired in Lesotho, Save the Children's work in refugee camps he visited on the Syrian border, and small charities like This Star Won't Go Out. — 01:24:38 · Project for Awesome, Save the Children, This Star Won't Go Out (charity)
- ★★ John says there are not many things like the Project for Awesome on the internet, and few that have lasted as long. — 01:25:07 · Project for Awesome
01:26:01 — Waiting for the punch: canned fish, the UFC game, the shirts
- ★★ John plays Henry's UFC video game with him: when your 16-year-old will do anything with you, you want to do it with him. — 01:29:25 · Henry Green
01:31:44 — With Joia Mukherjee: health workers, TB advocacy, bedaquiline prices, Henry Reider, hope
- ★★ John says the more community health workers, nurses, doctors, midwives and birth attendants are employed, the better health care systems get: a place where we can move the needle. — 01:33:41
- ★★ John says many TB fighters will be on Capitol Hill next month (March 2026) to talk to representatives about tuberculosis and global health funding. — 01:34:18 · tuberculosis, global health
- ★★★ John says forces in power want people to forget they have a voice, but attention and money matter: TB and global health funding were preserved beyond anyone's expectations thanks to people standing up. — 01:34:47 · global health, tuberculosis
- ★★ John recommends The Fight of Our Lives (as heard) by his friend and co-author David Levithan, a brilliant, comprehensive history of HIV and HIV activism in 1980s and early-1990s America. — 01:36:23
- ★★ John says access to bedaquiline took Phumeza Tisile and her friend Nandita suing the Indian government, which ruled Johnson & Johnson's attempt to extend its patent was not meaningful innovation. — 01:40:08
- ★★★ John says that in the last two years the price of curing multidrug-resistant TB fell by over 60%, to under $300, whereas it cost tens of thousands of dollars when Partners In Health began treating it. — 01:40:38 · Partners In Health
- ★★★ John says the pace of change is frustrating, insufficient and inadequate, but real change is still possible. — 01:41:07
- ★★★ John says P4A donations support structural change and individual lives like his friend Henry Reider, in the chat, whom he wrote Everything Is Tuberculosis about and who would not be alive without Partners In Health. — 01:42:50 · Everything Is Tuberculosis, Partners In Health, Project for Awesome
- ★★ John thinks this is the 15th or 16th year the P4A has supported Partners In Health. (hedged) — 01:43:19 · Partners In Health, Project for Awesome
- ★★★ John says it is a barometer of the ill health of our social orders that tuberculosis still thrives though curable for 70 years; it is a glaring injustice and a lens on other injustice, which is why he wrote about it. — 01:44:52 · tuberculosis, Everything Is Tuberculosis
- ★★★ John says we can accomplish infinitely more together than alone, and the Project for Awesome always reminds him of it. — 01:45:36 · Project for Awesome
- ★★★ John says that since he graduated from college, yearly child deaths have fallen from 11 million to 5 million: still far too high, but huge progress that is easy to forget. — 01:46:24 · child mortality
-
★★★ John says distrust of expertise and the undermining of institutions in the US and elsewhere should scare us, but must not make us think hope is irrelevant: hope still has every reason to be part of our worldviews. — 01:47:01
“hope still has every reason to be in this world, every reason to be a part of our worldviews”
01:48:00 — TB Hill Day needs South Dakota; APOPO; new perks
- ★★ John relays that the TB fighters need one participant from South Dakota for 50-state coverage at the US TB Hill Day, and asks South Dakotans to reach out. — 01:48:28
- ★★ John says APOPO trains rats to detect landmines and tuberculosis: TB has a smell some human super smellers can detect, but rats can too and are cheaper. — 01:49:48 · tuberculosis
- ★★ John adds two P4A perks: one of his own T-shirts from his wardrobe, and personalized book recommendations from him in a 10-minute conversation, for a large donation. — 01:50:18 · Project for Awesome
01:51:27 — Featured video about APOPO
01:55:51 — The perks, one by one
- ★★ When a viewer makes the original Nerdfighter joke, John says he still thinks of 'auto power off, still some kinks to work out' all the time, because his camera still makes the same noise. (playful) — 01:57:42
- ★ John says only five of the ten T-shirts from his wardrobe are left and his personal book recommendations have sold out. — 01:58:11
- ★★ John calls the Nerdfighter art perk his favorite: art made by a Nerdfighter goes to the DFTBA warehouse in Missoula and is sent to a donor; he gets it every year. — 01:59:23 · DFTBA Records, Missoula, Montana, Nerdfighteria
- ★★ John says the P4A digital download bundle includes a Delete This episode and Like Letters, the podcast he and Sarah make every year. — 02:00:14 · Sarah Urist Green, Delete This, Project for Awesome
- ★★ John says Sarah printed a book of the emails they wrote each other in the two years they were close friends before dating; they had known each other since high school. — 02:00:39 · Sarah Urist Green
- ★★ John says the Galapagos episode of The Anthropocene Reviewed explores his humanism: why he is broadly in favor of humans and life, and why we should celebrate what is good about our species. — 02:01:27 · The Anthropocene Reviewed (podcast)
- ★★ John says this is the last year of P4A pressed pennies, because pennies are no longer being made. — 02:02:28 · Project for Awesome
- ★ John offers the 19th yearly P4A commemorative coin, which glows in the dark. — 02:03:25 · Project for Awesome
- ★★ John offers 460 leftover signed quote posters from P4A 2024, each signed by one of Brennan Lee Mulligan, John, Hank, Alexis Nikole Nelson, Tyler Thrasher, Sabrina Cruz, Travis McElroy or the SciShow Tangents hosts. — 02:04:31 · Project for Awesome
- ★★ John says that for a $3,000 donation the creator of the Pizzamas role-playing game will host a one-shot with the donor. — 02:05:01 · Pizzamas
02:05:31 — Passing $1 million with a $30,000 gift; babies; Henry punches John
- ★★ John misses holding babies; Sarah forbids him to ask strangers, and his own children are now his size, Alice taller than Sarah. — 02:07:39 · Sarah Urist Green, Alice Green
- ★★ John says it is great that people are still bringing children into this broken world. — 02:08:07
- ★★★ John announces that the 2026 Project for Awesome has passed a million dollars. — 02:08:07 · Project for Awesome
- ★★ John says an anonymous donor just gave $30,000, which he thinks is the biggest gift ever made during a P4A stream. (hedged) — 02:08:36 · Project for Awesome
- ★★ After the P4A passes $1 million, John takes the live camera to his home gym, where his son Henry punches him in the stomach. — 02:09:17 · Henry Green, Project for Awesome
- ★ John tells Henry that Harry Houdini died after someone punched him in the stomach and his appendix burst. (hedged) — 02:11:36 · Henry Green
- ★★ John says the 2026 P4A has raised $1.065 million with matching, which he believes already passes each of the first 11 Projects for Awesome. (hedged) — 02:13:06 · Project for Awesome
02:14:35 — Potato, no overnight streaming, Holden's hat, a wig
- ★★ John says his dog Potato is not fully potty-trained or friendly to strangers, but punches back if you punch at him and give him a treat. (playful) — 02:15:29
- ★★ John says watching the video of himself at 24 made him feel he is still in progress. — 02:18:28
- ★★ John says the P4A will not livestream continuously through its 46 hours: they learned a few years ago that streaming at 3 a.m. is too much, and want people to sleep. — 02:19:49 · Project for Awesome
- ★★ John says streaming the full 48 hours turned out not to raise more money or votes, so it was counterproductive. — 02:20:37
- ★ John calls Holden Caulfield's hat one of his favorite metaphors in all of American fiction. — 02:20:37
02:25:18 — Chat questions: Heated Rivalry, the World Cup and FIFA, Fortnite and Red Dead Redemption 2
- ★ John says P4A 2026 donations are coming in at a rate between those of 2024 and 2025, closer to 2025. — 02:25:18 · Project for Awesome
- ★★ John is on the fence about going to the 2026 World Cup: it is extremely expensive and his kids don't love soccer. — 02:26:44
- ★★ John thought Heated Rivalry was great, and wonders whether he may say he liked the book better. — 02:27:22
- ★★★ John always feels weird about supporting FIFA, a wildly corrupt organization, yet loves the World Cup: it is how he measures time and his greatest joy every four years. — 02:27:22
- ★★ John announces that tomorrow he will play Fortnite as a pacifist on the P4A stream with Stan Muller, co-founder of Crash Course Humanities. — 02:27:50 · Project for Awesome
- ★★ John plans, once his FIFA series wraps up, to play another Rockstar game on John's Channel, Red Dead Redemption 2, keeping to his own morals. (hedged) — 02:29:41
02:31:19 — John reads the first chapter of Zombicorns to Henry
- ★★ John reads Henry the first chapter of Zombicorns, whose narrator recalls his corn-obsessed father, whom he shot a year earlier, while holed up in a Lincoln Square cellar. (fiction) — 02:31:19 · Henry Green
02:34:29 — Pressed nickels, dimes and quarters; Zombicorns under Creative Commons
- ★ John notes that his son Henry has proudly never read a John Green book. — 02:34:29 · Henry Green
- ★★★ Asked about pressed nickels, John muses that cash could be rounded to the dollar: quarters still somewhat facilitate exchange, but he is not sure dimes do. (hedged) — 02:35:23
- ★★ John believes he released Zombicorns under a Creative Commons license, so it belongs to the public, but having it emailed is possible only during a P4A. (hedged) — 02:36:09 · Project for Awesome
02:37:43 — Last words, Crown Hill and its mausoleums
- ★★★ Asked for his last words, John says the cheesiest are 'I love you', but he would most want his family to know he loved them and the world. — 02:39:02
- ★★★ John says he wrote in his will that he was kidding about wanting to be buried on the hill at Crown Hill, and wants the normal, cheap part of the cemetery. — 02:41:04
- ★ John has heard that a mausoleum on the hill at Crown Hill Cemetery costs a million dollars. (hedged) — 02:41:04
- ★★ John says a Crown Hill mausoleum of a family named Bane has a stained-glass leprechaun doing the Lucky Charms leprechaun's dance, which made him laugh hard. — 02:43:11
02:44:05 — $1.1 million; romance and mystery writing; hosting the P4A; featured menstrual-health video
- ★★ John says the 2026 Project for Awesome raised $1.1 million in its first two and a half hours. — 02:44:05 · Project for Awesome
- ★★ John has written no romantasy but would like to; the things he loves writing and reading most are romance and mystery novels, though he says he is not very good at either. — 02:45:22
- ★★ John says hosting the Project for Awesome is always exhausting, thrilling, nerve-wracking and wonderful; every year it goes astonishingly well thanks to the people who work on it in the background and all year. — 02:46:46 · Project for Awesome
- ★ John introduces a featured P4A video on menstrual health and dignity in Kenya, Uganda and South Sudan. — 02:47:56 · Project for Awesome
02:48:24 — Featured video: menstrual health and dignity in Kenya, Uganda and South Sudan
02:51:29 — How to vote and find the perks; $1.116 million
- ★★ John explains how to vote in the 2026 Project for Awesome: open any video at projectforawesome.com and press the red 'vote for charity' button. — 02:51:29 · Project for Awesome
- ★ John thanks viewers for the 29,730 P4A 2026 votes so far; voters must register quickly, which helps prevent spam, traditionally a significant problem. — 02:52:12 · Project for Awesome
- ★★ John says the 2026 Project for Awesome has raised $1.116 million overall, with almost $400,000 in Tiltify donations. — 02:53:39 · Project for Awesome
- ★★ John says that, having done the Project for Awesome since 2007, he thinks its team has gotten very good at it. — 02:53:39 · Project for Awesome
02:54:03 — Jared, Project Hail Mary, the last pressed pennies, Zombicorns
- ★ John tells Henry that Hank fact-checked something in Project Hail Mary and changed something in the book at the galley stage. (hedged) — 02:54:32 · Hank Green, Henry Green
- ★★ Asked who Jared is, John says Jared is a crypto billionaire and also a concept, a divisive figure who sometimes appears during the P4A; the Projects for Awesome without him are John's favorites. (playful, hedged) — 02:55:03 · Project for Awesome
- ★★ John tells a donor that, according to the website, 2026 is the last year of P4A pressed pennies because the mint is no longer making pennies, but he will advocate for doing them again. — 02:56:20 · Project for Awesome
- ★ John says Zombicorns has a strong first chapter and peters out a little, but has good twists and a shock ending. — 02:56:20
- ★★ John says the Project for Awesome is his favorite time of year, his favorite time to be a Nerdfighter and in general to be a person. — 02:56:57 · Project for Awesome, Nerdfighteria
02:57:23 — John's novel about two kids in a movie; The Trauma Plot
- ★★★ John says the novel he has not finished is about Hollywood, about two kids who are in a movie; he is trying to finish it and would like it published someday, though that is never certain. (hedged) — 02:57:23
- ★★ John says he wrote a whole book called The Trauma Plot (as heard) and then kind of abandoned it; he is always working on something, and not everything works out for a writer with as much self-doubt as he has. — 02:58:39
02:59:31 — With Henry: brothers who no longer fight, wigs, 100 Days, Billie Eilish
- ★★ John tells Henry that he and Hank don't fight anymore, and that Henry and Alice get along really well, which makes him proud. — 02:59:31 · Hank Green, Henry Green, Alice Green
- ★ John tells Henry that he once met Billie Eilish. — 03:03:01 · Henry Green
- ★ After checking that it is public, John says Billie Eilish is dating Nat Wolff and that they confirmed their relationship on February 1, 2026. — 03:03:01
- ★★ John says he loved 100 Days: one of their least successful projects, but he feels it made a difference in people's lives. — 03:05:19 · 100 Days
- ★★ Asked about a second 100 Days, John says he doesn't know: at 48 he can't move as he did at 39, when he made 100 Days, but he could maybe do it with Henry. (unsure) — 03:05:49 · 100 Days, Henry Green
03:07:36 — The Shaws and the mysteries John never managed to write
- ★★ John recalls The Shaws, a mystery he worked on with Sarah: it was super fun, but it got very convoluted and nothing ever came of it. — 03:07:36 · Sarah Urist Green
- ★★★ John says he desperately wants to be a proper mystery and romance novelist but can't write a proper mystery: Turtles All the Way Down mostly became about OCD, and Paper Towns about imagining other people complexly. — 03:07:36 · Turtles All the Way Down, Paper Towns, perspective-taking
- ★ John notes that Paper Towns won an Edgar Award. — 03:07:36 · Paper Towns
03:08:43 — A tour of John's background: gifts, the self-talk text, Harvey, Woody Guthrie
- ★★ John shows the background behind his desk, filled with things Nerdfighters have given him over the years. — 03:08:43 · Nerdfighteria
- ★★ Among the things in his background, John shows a sign of the positive self-talk he once accidentally texted to his friend Craig. — 03:09:41
- ★★ John's background includes a baseball signed by Harry Caray that he got for his 16th birthday, a Swindon Town 2011 FA Cup champions plate given to him, and his MTV Movie Award for The Fault in Our Stars. — 03:10:35 · The Fault in Our Stars (film), The Fault in Our Stars
- ★ John shows his silver YouTube plaque for reaching 100,000 subscribers on John's Channel. — 03:11:08 · YouTube
- ★★ John shows a poster for Harvey, a very important movie in his life, given to him by his mentor Bill Ott, who died a couple of years ago. — 03:13:17
- ★★ Showing a photograph of Woody Guthrie whose guitar says 'this machine kills fascists', John notes that this used to be uncontroversial, when everyone opposed fascism. — 03:13:44
03:14:31 — Donors and perks; Henry has never used Twitter; waiting for Hank
- ★ John thanks the anonymous donor of $30,000 earlier in the stream, the largest P4A 2026 gift by a factor of about 10. — 03:15:14 · Project for Awesome
- ★★ John says he is not convinced Twitter raises much money for the P4A, but knows it makes Hank really unhappy, and would rather see Hank happy. — 03:16:29 · Hank Green, Twitter, Project for Awesome
- ★ Hearing that Henry, 16, has never used Twitter or met a Twitter user, John calls it damning to Elon Musk. (playful) — 03:17:18 · Henry Green, Twitter
03:18:39 — Handover to Hank: $1.144 million and 2027 as the mascot
- ★★ Handing over to Hank, John says the 2026 Project for Awesome has raised $1.144 million, ahead of 2023 and 2024 at this point and just behind 2025. — 03:18:39 · Project for Awesome
- ★★ John says the most likely mascot of the 2026 Project for Awesome is '2027', which speaks to how good 2026 has been so far. (joke) — 03:20:07 · Project for Awesome
03:21:09 — Cars couplets, dog o'clock and Threads
- ★ Hank says Threads will not share your content if you link off the site. — 03:21:09
03:22:15 — With Gary of Save the Children: Gaza and Sudan, flexible funding, why stay 50 years, boards
- ★ Hank tells his Save the Children guest that in Montana he has not shoveled his walk once this year (2026). — 03:24:04 · Montana, Save the Children
- ★★ Hank says nonprofit work shows decisions made because of strings attached to donations: he thinks the Boston Museum of Science must display a man's gun collection under a 1950 donation. (hedged) — 03:35:43
- ★★★ Hank: Asked why he keeps at it, Hank says that in many ways he works for his audience, this community, which is tricky because it is a lot of bosses who don't all agree on everything. — 03:39:38 · Nerdfighteria
- ★★ Hank says they keep at it because, having ended up in this situation, he has an obligation to do the best he can with it. — 03:40:39
- ★ Hank says consistency appeals to him, such as making a video every Friday forever. — 03:41:07
- ★★ Hank says he is building a board of directors right now and asks his Save the Children guest for advice. — 03:42:45 · Save the Children
- ★★★ Hank says whatever the community does to turn people's attention toward those doing good in the world, instead of the news's nightmare of the day, is really valuable, because the work doesn't get done unless people do it. — 03:45:30 · Nerdfighteria
03:45:56 — How the money is split; $1.185 million; Katherine's Little Arts
- ★★ Hank says the 2026 Project for Awesome has raised $1.185 million some three and a half to four and a half hours in. — 03:48:35 · Project for Awesome
- ★★ Hank says his wife Katherine spends much more time making her Little Arts than he spends making his anglerfish; hers are very beautiful and a steal by comparison. — 03:50:07 · Katherine Green
03:51:03 — Perks sell out; the 2027 lore and resonant social media
- ★★ Hank says Katherine's Little Arts perk, 50 small canvases at $200 each, is almost gone already, with five of 50 left. — 03:51:29 · Katherine Green
- ★ Hank says Travis McElroy has made a yearly Project for Awesome podcast with him for nine years. — 03:52:47 · Project for Awesome
- ★★ Hank: Continuing the 2027 bit, Hank says they fixed every problem by moving into the ocean and giving the fish the land: humans now have simple fish problems and the fish complicated human ones. (joke) — 03:56:56 · Project for Awesome
- ★★ Hank: In the 2027 bit, Hank contrasts 2026 social media with a 'resonant social media' that is much better because it is about utility rather than capturing attention. (playful) — 03:57:54 · social media
03:59:22 — Balloon tasks: bad helium, why popped balloons are cold, the reverse Macarena
- ★ Hank guesses that the helium sold at Michaels is not a high percentage of helium, since helium is an element and cannot be good or bad, yet his balloons deflate so fast. (speculative) — 03:59:22
- ★★ Hank explains that a popped balloon feels cold because the stretched latex, in a higher energy state, shrinks back; it has nothing to do with the air inside. — 04:03:26
- ★ Hank: A P4A balloon task tells Hank to do the opposite of the next one, which says to dance the Macarena in total silence with a stern face, so he dances to the Macarena played backwards with a happy face. (playful) — 04:03:26 · Project for Awesome
- ★ Hank says he still goes to the gym but does barely any cardio, which he finds harder and does not like. — 04:10:18
04:11:33 — The Jared poll and the giant squid lore
- ★★ Hank runs a donation poll on whether Jared appears on the P4A stream and states the Jared rules: 15 minutes' warning beforehand and no more than 15 minutes on stream. (playful) — 04:14:23 · Project for Awesome
04:21:11 — Hunting the balloon paper, a lost earbud, three push-ups; Ettore Rossetti's featured video
- ★ Hank introduces the featured video from Ettore Rossetti for the Rossetti Brothers Pickleball Project for Awesome 2026. — 04:26:36 · Project for Awesome
04:27:58 — Featured video from the Rossetti brothers; Hank as Batman
04:39:44 — Bat Hank signs off: the fish war and carcinization
04:42:03 — A $10,000 gift, the Connections poll, the Sara Sandoval mural print
- ★ Hank thanks a donor for a $10,000 gift that came in during his Batman segment. — 04:44:01
- ★★ Hank offers foil prints of the mural he and Sara Sandoval painted when he was in Los Angeles; 437 of 500 are left. — 04:46:51 · Los Angeles
- ★★ Hank lets donors vote on whether he plays Connections live on the P4A stream, noting that on Hank's Channel he edits out the parts where he is confused, so he always looks very smart. — 04:47:57 · hankschannel, Project for Awesome
04:50:24 — Hank plays Connections live
- ★ Hank: After playing Connections live, Hank says he should have seen the answer sooner: it is harder with people watching. — 04:57:53
04:58:37 — Never a cigarette, counting to zero, Sara Sandoval's art
- ★★ Hank says he has never smoked a cigarette: it always seemed dumb to him, because many people he knew got addicted, and it was expensive and smelled bad. — 04:59:05
- ★ Hank says he has smoked one cigar, and it made him very high. — 04:59:44
- ★★ Hank advises viewers not to suck smoke into their lungs, herbal cigarettes included: there are other ways to get what they are going for. — 05:00:15
- ★★ Hank says he asked his son Orin on the way to school whether zero is a number: Orin thought it was, and then, asked to argue that it wasn't, he did. — 05:01:20 · Orin Green
- ★ Hank recommends Sara Sandoval's art on Instagram. — 05:03:44
05:04:13 — Perks, infinities in The Fault in Our Stars, pressed nickels, Diet Coke; featured Print the Love video
- ★★ Hank: Accepting the chat's answer that some infinities are larger than others, Hank says the way The Fault in Our Stars explains it is not right, because sometimes kids are wrong. — 05:06:18 · The Fault in Our Stars
- ★★ Hank says the P4A pressed pennies were about destroying pennies, which they thought were bad; now that the penny is ending, he no longer has to worry about it. — 05:07:52 · Project for Awesome
- ★★ Hank says Diet Coke is 99% water, the rest aspartame, flavorings, colorings and preservatives, so it holds more water than regular Coke, which is 10% sugar. — 05:10:19
- ★ Hank says P4A 2026 voting and donations close in four days, 19 hours and 33 minutes. — 05:11:52 · Project for Awesome
05:12:31 — Featured video about Print the Love
05:16:46 — Tyler Thrasher's Moonbeam Conservatory in Tulsa: glowing flowers, crystallized cicadas, The Universe in 100 Colors, perks
- ★ Hank welcomes Tyler Thrasher as a guest on the P4A 2026 livestream. — 05:16:46 · Project for Awesome
- ★★ Hank says Tyler Thrasher has three P4A 2026 perks up, including a signed Tyler Thrasher fish print. — 05:22:06 · Project for Awesome
- ★★ Hank confirms he wrote the foreword to Tyler Thrasher's new book The Universe in 100 Colors, signed copies of which are P4A 2026 perks. — 05:23:45 · Project for Awesome
- ★ Hank: Told of a shade of blue that lures tsetse flies into traps, Hank finds it wild to kill flies with a color, rather than with biologically active chemicals. — 05:25:28
- ★★ Hank: Seeing the Moonbeam Conservatory's glowing flowers, Hank says this is what today's robber barons should be paying for: cool places to go and hang out. — 05:26:34
- ★ Hank says 20 or 50 of Tyler Thrasher's books are left and his glowing flowers are sold out, but items left in unpaid carts come back online about 10 minutes later. — 05:27:55
05:29:25 — Tyler's first question: the one idea Hank would put in everyone's head, attention and salience engines
- ★★ Hank asks viewers to donate to the P4A and buy perks, because he wants to reach $500,000 before John comes back. — 05:29:25 · John Green, Project for Awesome
- ★★★ Hank: Asked which one idea he would make all humanity understand at once, Hank says that, as the beauty of a sunset is in the viewer, so is how easy something is to pay attention to. — 05:30:47
- ★★★ Hank says content platforms select for the quality of being hard to look away from, and some of the properties that give it are good: they indulge curiosity, are cute or hopeful. — 05:31:31 · attention economy
- ★★★ Hank says the idea he would most like in people's heads is that the most capable machines ever made exist to find the media easiest to pay attention to, whose pull can be good, like beauty, or bad, like rage, fear and superiority. — 05:32:39 · recommender system
- ★★ Hank says that once people fully grasp how attention is captured, it is a powerful way to notice that they are being manipulated. — 05:33:07
-
★★ Hank calls today's content systems ultimate salience engines that keep people from ever looking away. — 05:33:36 · recommender system
“the ultimate salience engines”
05:34:25 — Absurd questions: the centaur, Stitch or Donkey Kong, sharks on wheels
- ★★ Hank says he wants people to be more and more in charge of their attention. — 05:34:25
- ★ Hank: Asked what kind of centaur he would be, Hank chooses front half human and back half hyena, for its durability, speed, compact size, vicious nature and quick healing. (playful) — 05:36:53
- ★ Hank: Choosing between a fight with Stitch armed with a machete or Donkey Kong with brass knuckles, Hank picks Donkey Kong: he could forge his own brass knuckles into a gun, which could kill Donkey Kong but not Stitch. (playful) — 05:41:03
- ★ Hank: Asked how long humanity would last if every shark got four-wheel-drive wheels, hated humans and could stay out of water half an hour per kill, Hank says humanity wins. (playful) — 05:41:56
- ★ Hank: Continuing the 2027 bit, Hank tells Tyler Thrasher that after a war with the fish, the fish got the land and humans the ocean. (joke) — 05:42:36 · Project for Awesome
- ★ Hank argues that wheeled sharks could never win, only draw: after killing the last person they could reach, they would be too far from the ocean to get back. (playful) — 05:43:26
- ★ Hank says people who find housing too expensive should give middle America a try, such as Indianapolis or Ohio, which are also shark proof. (playful) — 05:45:20 · Indianapolis
05:46:05 — Orin joins: flying or mind reading; kitty time with Gummy Bear
- ★ Hank says the total is at $487,000, and $13,000 more would pop another balloon before John arrives. — 05:47:54 · John Green
- ★ Hank: Offered flight that makes his soles an inch taller per use, or mind reading that raises his forehead, Hank chooses flying as more useful in an emergency. (playful) — 05:50:01
- ★ Hank: At kitty time Hank shows his cat Gummy Bear, a 16.5-pound majestic cat he calls his big boy. — 05:51:13
05:53:25 — Visiting the Moonbeam Conservatory; Tyler's books left; Tyler signs off
- ★ Hank says three of Tyler Thrasher's 50 signed books are left as P4A 2026 perks. — 05:55:10 · Project for Awesome
- ★ Hank calls Tyler Thrasher's Moonbeam Conservatory very cool, weird and special and says the world needs more of that. — 05:55:47
05:56:56 — Featured video from giveinternet.org
- ★ Hank introduces a featured P4A video from giveinternet.org, 'No internet, no opportunity': potential does not matter without internet access. — 05:56:56 · Project for Awesome
05:57:39 — Featured video from giveinternet.org plays
06:01:35 — How the money is split; Hank and Orin show the P4A and Crash Course coins and a destroyed die
- ★★ Hank explains that the P4A raises money through a Tiltify campaign and other ways, and that half of it goes to Save the Children and Partners In Health, two extraordinarily effective global health organizations. — 06:01:35 · Save the Children, Partners In Health, Project for Awesome, global health
- ★ Hank: Showing his collection of Project for Awesome and Crash Course coins with his son Orin, Hank says they have been making the P4A coin for a long time. — 06:04:52 · Project for Awesome, Orin Green, Crash Course coin
- ★★ Hank shows that they keep the dies used to press their Crash Course coins, and sometimes destroy them with an angle grinder, to prove they will never make that coin again. — 06:05:30 · Crash Course coin
06:06:21 — Racing with Orin to $500,000: Beanie Sanfurbs, a bake-sale cookie, a chicken shop, the balloon pops
- ★ Hank says that in the United Kingdom he went to a chicken shop and got a sandwich, but did not go on Chicken Shop Date. — 06:10:12
- ★★ Hank announces that P4A 2026 Tiltify donations have reached $500,000. — 06:17:16 · Project for Awesome
06:18:11 — Balloon task: Hank orders a none pizza with left beef from Domino's; the mustache poll
- ★★ John opens a donation poll at projectforawesome.com/donate on whether he keeps his P4A mustache all weekend, looking like Ned Flanders, or shaves it that night. — 06:19:11 · Project for Awesome
- ★★ Hank: For a balloon task, Hank phones Domino's and orders a medium cheese pizza plus a pizza with nothing on it but beef on the left side: a none pizza with left beef. (playful) — 06:21:26 · None pizza with left beef
- ★ John says that for him secondhand embarrassment is almost as bad as firsthand embarrassment. — 06:23:48
06:26:19 — With Sarah: the collage portraits she made with Alice, and naming them
- ★★ John says part of what he enjoys about writing stories is feeling in control and not in control at the same time. — 06:32:01
06:37:08 — Where the money goes, John's regrets, how the matching fund works
- ★★ John says that whether or not viewers can donate, they can be part of the P4A by voting at projectforawesome.com, which has had around 30,000 votes so far. — 06:37:38 · Project for Awesome
- ★ Asked to log his regrets, John says a list of them would be endless: he has more regrets than anyone he has met and is amazed by people who claim none. (playful) — 06:38:35
- ★★ John says the P4A 2026 matching funds include $500,000 from a Save the Children matching donor and almost $1.5 million from Nerdfighters who came together to form a matching fund. — 06:40:31 · Save the Children, Nerdfighteria, Project for Awesome
- ★★ John says the 2026 P4A has far more matching money than ever but less from Partners In Health, which slows the overall donation rate but keeps matching going much longer, each dollar counting as $2.50. — 06:41:16 · Partners In Health, Project for Awesome
06:41:45 — The giant squid of 2027; the Galapagos double, Zombicorns and Like Letters
- ★★ Extending the 2027 bit, John says a giant squid came to Earth to hug rather than attack, unifying humanity into a utopia where climate change is past tense and due process is back on the menu. (joke) — 06:43:01 · climate change
- ★★ Describing Like Letters, in which he and Sarah read the emails they wrote before dating, John recommends that people in love archive their emails and print them into a book. — 06:45:42 · Sarah Urist Green
06:46:29 — Shave it wins; naming rights; Sarah reading John's story; January deadlines
- ★ John says the mustache poll ended in favour of shaving after someone gave about $2,000 at the end to have it shaved, which he calls a great decision. — 06:46:29
- ★ John reports that the pizza Hank ordered arrived as a none pizza with right beef, which was still a pretty good job. — 06:49:29 · None pizza with left beef, Hank Green
- ★★ John says that when Sarah reads something he has written he feels intensely vulnerable, even terrified, while she does not seem to feel that way sharing her art. — 06:50:30 · Sarah Urist Green
- ★★ John says the story of his that Sarah has been reading is the one he read aloud in semi-secret livestreams in the earliest days of COVID. — 06:51:04 · Sarah Urist Green
- ★★ John says January was one of the most intense work months of his life, his 'Cheyenne, Wyoming' of creative productivity, although he did not actually have to finish in January. — 06:51:50
06:53:45 — Valentine's Day, $18 million since a lark, the none pizza photo, museum wings and the John Green Stand
- ★★★ John says the Project for Awesome has raised over $18 million for charity since it started. — 06:54:24 · Project for Awesome
- ★★ John says the Project for Awesome began as a lark, an attempt to hack the YouTube algorithm for good: they were not thinking of raising money and had never made a dollar from YouTube. — 06:55:13 · Project for Awesome, YouTube
- ★★ Wishing viewers a happy Valentine's Day, John calls this community his valentine. — 06:55:13 · Nerdfighteria
- ★★ John recalls that Sarah found out on a livestream that he had sponsored a stand at Kingsmeadow, AFC Wimbledon's old stadium. — 07:01:28 · AFC Wimbledon, Sarah Urist Green
- ★★★ John says a community is much funnier than an individual, and can do things in fundraising and in creative production that no one could do alone. — 07:03:01 · Nerdfighteria
07:03:49 — Byron Kim's sky paintings and the perks
- ★★ John shows paintings by the Korean-American artist Byron Kim, who paints the sky every Sunday and writes a diary entry on it; John loves them and calls Kim brilliant. — 07:05:13
- ★★ John offers Sarah and Alice's Natural Intelligence portraits, strange collage portraits of human beings, as P4A perks, along with the right to name one for $100. — 07:07:23 · Sarah Urist Green, Alice Green, Project for Awesome
07:09:05 — Kurt Vonnegut: Albert Lieber's land, the Galapagos episode, the cigarette in Tuscaloosa; shaving at $1.5 million
- ★ John says the land he lives on in Indianapolis, like his local McDonald's, Walmart and Starbucks, was owned by Kurt Vonnegut's grandfather Albert Lieber. — 07:09:46 · Indianapolis
- ★★ John says he has been obsessed with Kurt Vonnegut, his literary hero, since high school, and now lives in Indianapolis, where Vonnegut grew up. — 07:10:10 · Indianapolis
- ★ John says Kurt Vonnegut's mother, after breaking off her engagement to a German army officer, lived for a time about 2,000 yards from his home, among some of the same 200-year-old trees. (hedged) — 07:10:10
- ★★★ In his new Anthropocene Reviewed episode John explores his complicated relationship with Galapagos: though Vonnegut was a great humanist, it is a kind of anti-humane novel, and John fears turning anti-humanist as he ages. — 07:10:35 · The Anthropocene Reviewed (podcast)
- ★★ John recalls seeing Kurt Vonnegut speak in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, as a kid: told by security he could not smoke in the room, Vonnegut said, 'I can smoke or I can leave.' — 07:11:23
- ★★ Taking up a suggestion, John says he will shave his mustache once the 2026 P4A total reaches $1.5 million. — 07:12:54 · Project for Awesome
07:13:38 — Today is the middle of the story: John then and now, and better worlds
- ★★ John tells viewers aged 18 to 25 that one's life feels like a story that ends today, but today is the middle of the story, not the end. — 07:13:38
- ★★★ John says he once thought smoking cool and earnestness the worst thing to be; now he thinks smoking the lamest thing, handing money to tobacco companies, and earnestness super underrated. — 07:14:39
-
★★★ John says where you are is not where you will always be, for a person or for the species: that should be a source of hope, a reminder that we are not stuck with the present and can create better worlds together. — 07:15:19
“Where you are is not where you will always be.”
-
★★★ John says Hank is joking about a better 2027, but the world really can be better in 2027 than in 2026, with fewer children dying; he does not know that we are good news, but truly believes we can be. — 07:15:19 · Hank Green, child mortality
07:18:05 — Chat: BTS and Swifties, Liverpool and AFC Wimbledon, Agnes Martin, the Winter Olympics
- ★★★ John says what he loves more than the source material of any fandom, whether BTS, Taylor Swift or his own books, is the community that emerges around it. — 07:18:05
- ★★ John loves Liverpool, but AFC Wimbledon a little more, because he is more literally invested in AFC Wimbledon. — 07:22:25 · AFC Wimbledon
- ★★ Asked for his current favorite artwork, John says he is a big fan of Agnes Martin, an artist who painted with her back to the world. — 07:22:25
- ★★ John loves the Winter Olympics: he wakes every morning at 5:30, walks the dog and watches them all morning. — 07:23:35
07:24:29 — $1.5 million: John shaves his mustache
- ★★★ John announces that the 2026 Project for Awesome has reached $1.5 million, three quarters of the way to $2 million. — 07:24:29 · Project for Awesome
- ★★ After the P4A passes $1.5 million, John shaves off his mustache on camera and feels profound relief, saying he looks 27. — 07:26:06 · Project for Awesome
07:27:09 — With Danielle Bainbridge: her two books and perks, supportive fathers, her grandfather, Complexly as a nonprofit, Booklist
- ★★ John says his guest Danielle Bainbridge offers two P4A perks: a review of someone's manuscript, which he might get himself, and a personal essay workshop. — 07:29:23 · Project for Awesome
- ★★ John says he thought Danielle Bainbridge's memoir Dandelion an incredible, vulnerable book; he blurbed it, and he does not blurb things lightly. — 07:30:54
- ★★ John says his Uncle Mike, famous in the family for using no unnecessary words, once wrote to the brothers after reading about Good Store in the Financial Times that what they were doing was really good. — 07:33:05 · Good Store
- ★★ John says his father ran the brothers' company for many years when they were wildly incompetent, teaching them how to do payroll. — 07:34:05 · Mike Green
- ★★★ John says his father, who worked in nonprofits for most of his career, including the Nature Conservancy, offered to help with donor development and the matching fund, which now brings in about $1.5 million a year. — 07:34:32 · Mike Green
- ★★★ John says that when he told his father he wanted to be a writer, his father asked his English teacher whether he was any good, then went all in, becoming a bigger fan of the idea than John himself. — 07:35:22 · Mike Green
- ★★ John says that in many ways he is on the far edge of the privilege curve, and the biggest part of it is having parents who really support you. — 07:35:55
- ★★ John says Complexly becoming a nonprofit is a relief to him and exciting; he remains its founder emeritus. — 07:44:31 · Complexly
- ★ John says Complexly, now a nonprofit, is a regular charity except that it is not eligible for Project for Awesome grants. — 07:45:08 · Complexly, Project for Awesome
- ★★ John says Complexly has many great people doing important work and he feels lucky to work with them every day. — 07:45:37 · Complexly
- ★★ John recommends Sabrina Strings' Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia, which Sarah gave him: it was fascinating and taught him much he had no idea about. — 07:47:19 · Sarah Urist Green
- ★★ John says that at Booklist he reviewed Islamic history, much YA fiction and all the boxing books, and one of his subcategories was 19th- and early-20th-century freak shows and circuses. — 07:48:28
- ★★ John says the closest he has come to a personal memoir is a book of somewhat personal essays, but in The Anthropocene Reviewed he could always deflect, which Danielle Bainbridge never does. — 07:49:31 · The Anthropocene Reviewed (book)
- ★★★ John says he has not published a novel in nine years, though he has published other books, and would like to publish one at some point. (hedged) — 07:49:56
07:50:52 — Danielle's manuscript perk; featured Habibi Works video
- ★ John introduces a featured P4A video from Habibi Works on what it has done over the last 10 years and how it has evolved to meet its community's needs. — 07:51:54 · Project for Awesome
07:56:58 — Older than the P4A: none pizza, John's kids, 2027 lore, middle school and the 20s
- ★ John says None Pizza with Left Beef also dates from 2007, making it as old as the Project for Awesome. — 07:56:58 · None pizza with left beef, Project for Awesome
- ★ John says his son is now 16 and his daughter 12 and a half, both younger than the Project for Awesome. — 07:57:56 · Henry Green, Alice Green, Project for Awesome
- ★★ John says the 2026 Project for Awesome has raised $1.526 million in total. — 07:58:58 · Project for Awesome
- ★★ Asked for 2027 lore, John says what a relief it is that every problem was solved by 2027: in February 2026 he doubted civilization would get through, and now everyone lives under the water. (joke) — 08:00:12 · Project for Awesome
- ★★ John says middle school was the second hardest period of his life, after his early 20s, though that is not universal. — 08:01:14
- ★★ John says he has found his 40s even more fulfilling than his 30s, deepening many relationships that matter to him, though things are not easy. — 08:03:25
08:04:01 — Hank's cancer book, a super bundle idea, $550,000
- ★★★ John says he has read a couple of versions of the manuscript of Hank's book about cancer, offered as a P4A perk, and calls it brilliant on how cancer works and what it wants. — 08:05:05 · Hank Green, cancer, Project for Awesome
- ★ Correcting himself, John says he thinks cancer has existed for as long as there has been multicellular life. (hedged) — 08:06:01 · cancer
- ★ John calls a viewer's idea, a super digital download bundle of earlier bundles for the 20th Project for Awesome, a great idea. — 08:06:01 · Project for Awesome
- ★★ John says the 2026 Project for Awesome could reach $2 million that night or early the next morning. (hedged) — 08:07:18 · Project for Awesome
- ★ John announces that P4A 2026 Tiltify donations have passed $550,000. — 08:07:47 · Project for Awesome
08:08:39 — The signed mystery book sells out; why John loves signing; Soft Landing Missoula
- ★★ John launches a signed mystery book perk: a signed copy of one of his books, such as Turtles All the Way Down, Looking for Alaska, The Fault in Our Stars, The Anthropocene Reviewed or Everything Is Tuberculosis. — 08:08:39 · Turtles All the Way Down, Looking for Alaska (novel), The Fault in Our Stars, The Anthropocene Reviewed (book), Everything Is Tuberculosis
- ★ John says the $100 signed mystery books sold out quickly because they were underpriced, a lesson learned: they will not underprice them next time. — 08:09:51
- ★★ John says he could not enjoy forging someone else's signature: touching paper a reader will touch makes the exchange physical, and signing his own book has felt great since he was nine. — 08:12:30
- ★ John introduces a featured video for Soft Landing Missoula, which helps refugees and immigrants find a home, housing, work and community in Missoula, Montana. — 08:15:00 · Missoula, Montana
Humor (significant)
-
Hank opens the 2026 livestream by announcing it is the 2027 Project for Awesome. — 00:16:04
“I don't know if you know this, John, but we skipped a year.”
-
Hank shows John how to assemble the Banana Loca banana stuffer. — 00:22:37
“That looks like a device for delivering medicine to the inside of a rectum.”
-
John misreads a $125 donation for a sweatshirt as $125,000. — 00:23:33
“I've been hoping that someone would donate $125,000 to get a sweatshirt, and it finally happened.”
-
In the 2027 bit, a global council now approves one new technology each year. — 00:37:35
“we're not making AI more capable, but you can have an Epstein-Barr virus vaccine.”
-
Stirring up controversy 'to get attention on the charities', the brothers trade hot takes on classics. — 00:52:51
“more like more like the mid gatsby am i right”
-
In 2027 Harry Styles is prime minister, and only fashion designers are elected. — 00:55:14
“if we just picked from among the fashion designers, we'd be better off than if we picked from among the real estate tycoons”
-
Hank's question about the anatomy of the Cars films becomes a chant likened to a Gregorian hymn. — 01:04:03
“How do the cars piss in the Cars films?”
-
John, who earlier said he has a very weak core, takes his son Henry's punches. — 02:10:58
“Fortunately, I think I'm going to be okay because of my strong core muscles.”
Threads in this video
- milestone · The Anthropocene Reviewed: John's podcast reviewing facets of the human-centered planet (2017) — John brings back his podcast The Anthropocene Reviewed only for the P4A, with an episode reviewing the Galapagos Islands and Kurt Vonnegut's novel Galapagos, for a $10 donation. (00:24:03)
- thanks · Hank asks donors of more than $500 to join the P4A 2026 matching fund at projectforawesome.com/matching (2026) — John thanks the P4A 2026 matching donors (Partners In Health, Save the Children and hundreds of Nerdfighters) and the people who run the fund, including his father Mike Green. (00:27:16)
- restate · Should the penny (and other low-value money) be abolished? — John says no more pennies can be had because the US stopped minting them; money exists to facilitate exchange, which pennies have not done since the 1970s, so it came 50 years late. (00:32:38)
- setback · P4A 2026 edition — Hank says the P4A livestream looks just like last year's (2025), although the company that hosted it before suddenly disappeared about a month ago. (00:53:41)
- result reported · Hank asks donors of more than $500 to join the P4A 2026 matching fund at projectforawesome.com/matching (2026) — Hank says hundreds of matching donors came together to create $1.5 million of P4A 2026 matching funds, about as much as they could use. (00:59:45)
- retold · Hank's Hodgkin lymphoma diagnosis and chemotherapy (2023) — John offers 20 prints of the Good News Bridge, which his mother painted after learning Hank's cancer was treatable rather than the worst case; John and his parents were on a walk there when they heard. (01:00:55)
- reminder · John asks viewers to donate to P4A 2026 at projectforawesome.com/donate for perks (2026) — John asks viewers who can to donate at projectforawesome.com/donate, and those who can't to watch P4A videos and vote for the charities they want supported. (01:14:04)
- update · John writes his first novel in almost ten years (2025) — John says his work in progress is taking a long time to write: in early 2020 he read it aloud in semi-secret livestreams, when he was sad, depressed and alone like everyone else. (01:15:37)
- restate · What is the community's charity drive for: attention for causes, money, or the community itself? — John says the P4A makes meaningful change: community health workers hired in Lesotho, Save the Children's work in refugee camps he visited on the Syrian border, and small charities like This Star Won't Go Out. (01:24:38)
- mentioned · John and Henry Reider, a Sierra Leonean teenager with multidrug-resistant TB he met at Lakka hospital (2019) — John says P4A donations support structural change and individual lives like his friend Henry Reider, in the chat, whom he wrote Everything Is Tuberculosis about and who would not be alive without Partners In Health. (01:42:50)
- restate · Do people achieve more together than as individuals? — John says we can accomplish infinitely more together than alone, and the Project for Awesome always reminds him of it. (01:45:36)
- restate · Is human life getting better; is now the best time to be alive? — John says that since he graduated from college, yearly child deaths have fallen from 11 million to 5 million: still far too high, but huge progress that is easy to forget. (01:46:24)
- restate · Is it reasonable to be hopeful about the future? — John says distrust of expertise and the undermining of institutions in the US and elsewhere should scare us, but must not make us think hope is irrelevant: hope still has every reason to be part of our worldviews. (01:47:01)
- callback · Hank's 'Auto power off, still some glitches to work out' line from the first vlogbrothers video (2007) — When a viewer makes the original Nerdfighter joke, John says he still thinks of 'auto power off, still some kinks to work out' all the time, because his camera still makes the same noise. (01:57:42)
- milestone · P4A 2026 edition — John announces that the 2026 Project for Awesome has passed a million dollars. (02:08:07)
- update · John's family gets a puppy, Potato (2023) — John says his dog Potato is not fully potty-trained or friendly to strangers, but punches back if you punch at him and give him a treat. (02:15:29)
- restate · Can a person really change who they are? — John says watching the video of himself at 24 made him feel he is still in progress. (02:18:28)
- refine · Should the penny (and other low-value money) be abolished? — Asked about pressed nickels, John muses that cash could be rounded to the dollar: quarters still somewhat facilitate exchange, but he is not sure dimes do. (02:35:23)
- callback · Jarrod (Jared): the cryptocurrency-vampire P4A 2024 mascot (2024) — Asked who Jared is, John says Jared is a crypto billionaire and also a concept, a divisive figure who sometimes appears during the P4A; the Projects for Awesome without him are John's favorites. (02:55:03)
- looked back · 100 Days: John and Chris's health and fitness show (2016) — John says he loved 100 Days: one of their least successful projects, but he feels it made a difference in people's lives. (03:05:19)
- mentioned · John's Paper Towns wins the Edgar Award (2009) — John notes that Paper Towns won an Edgar Award. (03:07:36)
- retold · John accidentally texts his positive self-talk to his friend Craig (2021) — Among the things in his background, John shows a sign of the positive self-talk he once accidentally texted to his friend Craig. (03:09:41)
- restate · Is the internet, including social media, good for people? — In the 2027 bit, Hank contrasts 2026 social media with a 'resonant social media' that is much better because it is about utility rather than capturing attention. (03:57:54)
- callback · Hank lengthens his P4A announcement video by playing Connections and TimeGuessr (2025) — Hank lets donors vote on whether he plays Connections live on the P4A stream, noting that on Hank's Channel he edits out the parts where he is confused, so he always looks very smart. (04:47:57)
- callback · John's 'Cheyenne, Wyoming': his shorthand, from Rushmore, for being deeply immersed in a project (2017) — John says January was one of the most intense work months of his life, his 'Cheyenne, Wyoming' of creative productivity, although he did not actually have to finish in January. (06:51:50)
- looked back · Project for Awesome 2007 edition: the final Brotherhood 2.0 project (2007) — John says the Project for Awesome began as a lark, an attempt to hack the YouTube algorithm for good: they were not thinking of raising money and had never made a dollar from YouTube. (06:55:13)
- promised · John: shave off his P4A 2026 mustache on stream once the total reaches $1.5 million (2026) — Taking up a suggestion, John says he will shave his mustache once the 2026 P4A total reaches $1.5 million. (07:12:54)
- mentioned · John's teenage mistreatment of his body and later quitting smoking and running (c. 1993-2005) — John says he once thought smoking cool and earnestness the worst thing to be; now he thinks smoking the lamest thing, handing money to tobacco companies, and earnestness super underrated. (07:14:39)
- kept · John: shave off his P4A 2026 mustache on stream once the total reaches $1.5 million (2026) — After the P4A passes $1.5 million, John shaves off his mustache on camera and feels profound relief, saying he looks 27. (07:26:06)
- looked back · Complexly: the brothers' production company, renamed from EcoGeek (2016) — John says Complexly becoming a nonprofit is a relief to him and exciting; he remains its founder emeritus. (07:44:31)
- predicted · John: the P4A 2026 total will reach $2 million on the night of February 13 or early February 14, 2026 (2026) — John says the 2026 Project for Awesome could reach $2 million that night or early the next morning. (08:07:18)
- restate · Should ideas be ownable, and is copyright law working? — John says access to bedaquiline took Phumeza Tisile and her friend Nandita suing the Indian government, which ruled Johnson & Johnson's attempt to extend its patent was not meaningful innovation. (01:40:08)
- restate · Which causes deserve the most support? — John says it is a barometer of the ill health of our social orders that tuberculosis still thrives though curable for 70 years; it is a glaring injustice and a lens on other injustice, which is why he wrote about it. (01:44:52)
- restate · Do platforms treat creators and viewers fairly? — Hank calls today's content systems ultimate salience engines that keep people from ever looking away. (05:33:36)
Where the stories that moved here went next
- John: shave off his P4A 2026 mustache on stream once the total reaches $1.5 million (2026) — kept
- P4A 2026 edition — completed; last: milestone, 2026-07-08
- Hank asks donors of more than $500 to join the P4A 2026 matching fund at projectforawesome.com/matching (2026) — reported back; last: thanks, 2026-02-14
- John: the P4A 2026 total will reach $2 million on the night of February 13 or early February 14, 2026 (2026) — came true
- The Anthropocene Reviewed: John's podcast reviewing facets of the human-centered planet (2017) — completed; last: looked back, 2026-10-13
- John's family gets a puppy, Potato (2023) — followed over 9 videos (2023–2026); last: update, 2026-02-15
- John writes his first novel in almost ten years (2025) — told 2×, last update 2026
Mentioned
Central: Attention · Danielle Bainbridge · Joia Mukherjee · Moonbeam Conservatory · Partners In Health · Project for Awesome · Save the Children · tuberculosis · Tyler Thrasher · Zombicorns
Also: People: Abraham Lincoln · Agnes Martin · Albert Lieber · Alexis Nikole · Alice Green · Andy Warhol · Bill Ott · Billie Eilish · Billy Ray Cyrus · Brennan Lee Mulligan · Byron Kim · Chris Waters · Craig · David Levithan · Elon Musk · Emily Dickinson · Ettore Rossetti · Francis of Assisi · Gary · Harry Caray · Harry Houdini · Harry Styles · Henry Green · Henry Reider · Katherine Green · Kurt Vonnegut · Mike Green · Nandita Venkatesan · Nat Wolff · Orin Green · Phumeza Tisile · Sabrina Cruz · Sabrina Strings · Sara Sandoval · Sarah Urist Green · Stan Muller · Sydney Green · Taylor Swift · Travis McElroy · Willie Nelson · Woody Guthrie
Projects: 100 Days · Complexly · Dear Hank and John · Delete This · DFTBA Records · Good Store · hankschannel · John's Channel · Pizzamas · SciShow Tangents · TBFighters · The Anthropocene Reviewed (podcast)
Works: Beanie Sanfurbs · Cars 2 · Citizen Kane · Connections (game) · Crash Course coin · Currencies of Cruelty: Slavery, Freak Shows, and the Performance Archive · DadCast · Dandelion · Everything Is Tuberculosis · Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia · Fortnite · Frozen · Galápagos · Good News Bridge · Hank's book about cancer and cancer biology (untitled here) · Hanklerfish · Harvey (film) · Heated Rivalry · I felt a Funeral, in my Brain · Like Letters · Looking for Alaska (novel) · Macarena · Minions · Paper Towns · Pizzamas one-shot · Project Hail Mary · Red Dead Redemption 2 · Rushmore (film) · Slaughterhouse-Five · Snorks · Ted Lasso · The Anthropocene Reviewed (book) · The Fault in Our Stars · The Fault in Our Stars (film) · The Fight of Our Lives · The Great Gatsby · The Trauma Plot · The Universe in 100 Colors · Turtles All the Way Down · Turtles All the Way Down (film) · Watchmen
Organizations: AFC Wimbledon · APOPO · Booklist · Creative Commons · Domino's · Edgar Award · FIFA · Financial Times · GiveInternet.org · Government of India · Habibi Works · Johnson & Johnson · Liverpool FC · Michaels · Museum of Science · Reddit · Soft Landing Missoula · Swindon Town FC · The Nature Conservancy · This Star Won't Go Out (charity) · Threads · Twitter · YouTube
Groups: BTS
Concepts: attention economy · autograph · cancer · cardinality · child mortality · climate change · community health worker · due process · embarrassment · Fandom · fascism · giant squid · global health · helium · HIV/AIDS · hyena · intellectual property · internet access · last words · money · multidrug-resistant tuberculosis · Nonprofit organization · obsessive-compulsive disorder · patent · perspective-taking · profanity · recommender system · refugee · Self-talk · shark · social media · tobacco smoking
Places: Crown Hill Cemetery · Galápagos Islands · Hollywood · Indianapolis · John Green Stand · Kenya · Kingsmeadow · Lesotho · Los Angeles · Missoula, Montana · Montana · Ohio · Plough Lane · Sierra Leone · South Dakota · South Sudan · Syria · Tibet · Tulsa, Oklahoma · Tuscaloosa, Alabama · Uganda
Events: FA Cup · FIFA World Cup · MTV Movie & TV Awards · Olympic Games · Valentine's Day
Characters: An Imperial Affliction · Batman · Billy Pilgrim · Donkey Kong · Holden Caulfield · Jarrod · Ned Flanders · Pickett Center for Tuatara Research · Stitch · Vulcan
Products: Banana Loca · Bedaquiline · Coca-Cola · Diet Coke · Lucky Charms
Policies: Abolish the US penny
Myths: Centaur
Memes: None pizza with left beef
animal: Gummy Bear · Potato (animal)
Only in the description or credits: Tiltify
Also centred on Attention: The Meaning of Life with Hank and John
Also centred on Joia Mukherjee: How do you cross the Sad Gap?
Also centred on Tyler Thrasher: The Juiciest Hank in the World
Also centred on Zombicorns: My Zombie Apocalypse Novella · CONCUSSED Question Friday · QUESTION FRIDAY: Spelling is Hard Edition · Am I ... Good?
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