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The Best Fan Mail I Ever Received

2026-03-03 · list · John · 7:07 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Personal life (also: Sports, Nerdfighteria, Books & writing, Philosophy & meaning) · mode: Personal update · tags: community lore

While away lobbying in Washington, D.C., John gives star ratings to the memorabilia in his middle-school knapsack (fan mail, report cards, early Vlogbrothers tapes, his third-grade writing award) and concludes from his clingy college emails that the self is a story that keeps changing.

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 films ahead because he will be lobbying in Washington; introduces his middle-school knapsack

  • ★★ John filmed this video in advance because next week (week of 9 March 2026) he will be in Washington, D.C., lobbying on Capitol Hill for global health and tuberculosis funding with hundreds of TB fighters. — 00:00:00 · global health, tuberculosis
  • ★ In middle school John wore a knapsack instead of a backpack, fancying himself a seventh-grade Che Guevara; he now keeps memorabilia in it. (playful) — 00:00:15

00:00:29 — Star reviews of items: fan mail, ID kit, childhood photo, YouTube partner envelope, report cards, beanie, college story

  • ★★ John's favorite fan mail: a high school freshman wrote that Looking for Alaska left them unsettled, with a feeling they had never felt before. — 00:00:33 · Looking for Alaska (novel)
  • ★ John recalls the 1980s child ID kits (fingerprints and details recorded in case of kidnapping): a big thing then that definitely freaked him out, though he doubts it helped anyone. — 00:01:20
  • ★★ Looking at a childhood photo, John says he hated himself when it was taken, but now finds the boy cute and sweet and cares about him as the child could not. — 00:01:25
  • ★★ In 2007 YouTube told the brothers it would share ad revenue with creators; John wrote down the math on an envelope as they explained it. — 00:01:34 · YouTube
  • ★★ John's envelope concluded it was not enough money to matter without daily videos; that was wrong, as it has mattered for many, the brothers included. — 00:01:49 · Instagram
  • ★★ John reads his 11th-grade report cards (a tailspin, underachievement, eight absences in a no-absence trimester); his junior year was not great, and he later wrote a book about it. — 00:02:03
  • ★ John shows the beanie he got in 11th grade and wore constantly at boarding school, unsure then whether it was ironic; four stars. — 00:02:25
  • ★★ John's college story Things Remembered, Things Forgotten, about his grandmother growing up in eastern Tennessee, aimed for Vonnegut's style; his professor found the title so bad he proposed banning John's titles. — 00:02:49
  • ★★ John says the story does not come together (two stars): he was on the wrong track, trying to sound like someone else instead of himself. — 00:03:10
  • ★ John's 1987 fourth-grade report card from Audubon Park Elementary shows all A's except a B in English and the honor roll; he was never a good English student. — 00:03:24

00:03:40 — Childhood soccer: desire and hustle without spatial sense or coordination got him nothing

  • ★★★ John loved soccer as a child but lacked the spatial understanding and eye-foot coordination it takes; his desire and hustle got him nothing, so it is not all about hard work. — 00:03:45

00:04:38 — The physical tapes of 2007 and 2008 Vlogbrothers videos

  • ★★ John shows the physical tapes on which early Vlogbrothers videos were recorded: all of 2007 and 2008, plus material he deleted, before transfer to a computer. — 00:04:38 · Vlogbrothers
  • ★★ John is thankful they started making YouTube videos in 2007, or they never would have made it: now you have to be so good, then you just had to be there. — 00:04:56 · Vlogbrothers, YouTube

00:05:03 — The 1986 Young Author Award for It Just Isn't Fair and why it made him a writer

  • ★★★ In third grade John wrote a story about death, It Just Isn't Fair, and won the Audubon Park Young Author Award for 1986. — 00:05:03
  • ★★★ John is convinced that without the award he would never have become a writer: it was the first time he heard he was extraordinary at anything, and that affirmation helped make his writing life. (hedged) — 00:05:10

00:05:33 — His college emails: the self is a story, and he can keep growing; sign-off

  • ★★ John has every email he wrote in college, mostly to his parents but also to his college girlfriend after their breakup, desperate to reunite; he was clingier then than now. — 00:05:33
  • ★★★ John says we think of the self as continuous, but the self is a story we tell ourselves, and much that feels immutable about it is not. — 00:06:11

  • ★★★ Rereading the cringy emails gave John hope that he can keep growing: the boy who won the award is not him today, and he need not be the same in 20 years. — 00:06:40

    “the me I am today doesn't have to be the me I will be in 20 years”

Humor (significant)

  • As a middle-schooler John wore a knapsack instead of a backpack — 00:00:15

    “I fancied myself sort of a seventh grade Che Guevara, Hank.”

  • A freshman writes that Looking for Alaska made them feel neither like throwing up nor like pooping — 00:00:58

    “It made me feel a third feeling.”

  • In the 1980s children got ID kits made for when they were kidnapped; John imagines asking if he was about to be — 00:01:20

    “Probably.”

  • John gives the YouTube Partner Program four and a half stars — 00:01:49

    “Could be better, but beats Instagram any day.”

  • John lists the two things a reasonably good soccer player needs — 00:04:09

    “I had neither of those things.”

  • Rereading his desperate emails to his college girlfriend — 00:06:02

    “oh, panic, panic at the disco.”

  • John rates his old college emails — 00:07:00

    “five stars, but only because I don't write like that anymore.”

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: personal identity

Also: People: Che Guevara · Kurt Vonnegut

Works: It Just Isn't Fair · Looking for Alaska (novel) · Things Remembered, Things Forgotten

Organizations: Audubon Park Elementary School · Instagram · YouTube

Concepts: association football · global health · tuberculosis

Places: Tennessee · Washington, DC

Products: YouTube Partner Program

Also centred on personal identity: We're all Scared · The Space Time Continuum: Thoughts from Dublin · Becoming Someone Else · Who Am I?! - Some thoughts on Personal Identity · Can You Ever Really Change? · Are We The Same Person?

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