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Should I Salinger…

2026-10-27 · letter vlog · John · 4:28 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Internet & YouTube (also: Books & writing, Personal life) · mode: Personal essay · tags: self promotion

John explains 'to Salinger', his family's verb for retiring from public life after J. D. Salinger, and says that although his tense relationship with the attention economy sometimes tempts him, he will not: he enjoys his public work, the Maternal Center of Excellence is worth its cost, and having Hank in the same boat makes it possible.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — To Salinger: the family verb and J. D. Salinger's retreat from public life

  • ★★ John explains that 'to Salinger' is a verb in the Green family for retiring from public life, and says this video exists in case he ever decides to Salinger. — 00:00:00

    “To Salinger is a verb in our family used to describe the act of retiring from public life.”

  • ★★ John says J. D. Salinger published The Catcher in the Rye in 1951 while living in New York City, then in 1953, aged 34, retired to New Hampshire, stopped speaking to the media and eventually stopped publishing. — 00:00:12 · New York City

  • ★★ John deeply admires J. D. Salinger's writing about teenagers and was very conscious of writing in his immense shadow in his early books, but does not particularly admire Salinger as a person. — 00:00:29
  • ★★ John says J. D. Salinger did not reject fame at first: he was an actor and wanted to play Holden Caulfield in an adaptation of The Catcher in the Rye, although he was in his 30s when it came out. — 00:00:42 · celebrity
  • ★★ John says J. D. Salinger worked hard early on to sell his stories, submitting to many magazines and seeking Hollywood adaptations, and kept publishing stories and books of stories through the 1950s and early 1960s after moving to New Hampshire. — 00:01:04
  • ★★ John says J. D. Salinger stopped publishing after his last story, published in 1965, got very bad reviews; from 1965 until his death in 2010 he published nothing, though by all accounts he kept writing. — 00:01:27
  • ★★ John says J. D. Salinger did not become a hermit (he married three times and had children) but would not willingly speak to the media and jealously guarded his privacy, filing many lawsuits to keep people from him and his work. — 00:01:41

00:02:04 — Tempted to Salinger: the attention economy, Hollywood, Ending and the commodification of it all; why he will not

  • ★★★ John says he is occasionally tempted to Salinger, and that readers of Hollywood, Ending will probably see he has a somewhat tense relationship with the attention economy. — 00:02:04 · Hollywood, Ending, attention economy
  • ★★★ John says making vlogbrothers videos every Tuesday and publishing books bring him joy and fulfillment, but public work opens him to a level of scrutiny and attention he finds uncomfortable. — 00:02:12 · celebrity
  • ★★★ John says one thing Hollywood, Ending is about is whether art can survive its own commodification, and confesses he does not love the commodification of it all. — 00:02:20 · Hollywood, Ending
  • ★★ John says the commodification he dislikes includes interviews in which he trades little pieces of his private life for good publicity, and Instagram videos designed to hook viewers from the very first frame. — 00:02:33 · Instagram
  • ★★★ John does not think he will ever Salinger: he enjoys making Dear Hank and John and vlogbrothers videos and does not really see the obligations of his professional life as bad things. — 00:02:40 · Dear Hank and John
  • ★★ John says Good Store, where holiday shopping sends all the profit to charity, needs him to promote it. — 00:02:52 · Good Store

00:03:02 — If he ever does Salinger: the forest near his house, pepper plants, becoming a plant person

  • ★★★ Looking at the Maternal Center of Excellence in Sierra Leone, John is sure it is worth whatever the minor cost of a public life is. — 00:03:02 · Maternal Center of Excellence, Sierra Leone
  • ★★ John says imagining Salingering is sometimes a useful daydream that releases a pressure valve. — 00:03:09
  • ★★ If he ever Salingers, John tells Hank he is okay: he would probably be tending the forest near his house, working with other forest nerds to keep invasive ground cover out of its understory. (hypothetical, hedged) — 00:03:14 · Indianapolis
  • ★ John says the forest near his house has been a forest for 12,000 years, since the last glacier receded from what is now Indianapolis. — 00:03:20 · Indianapolis
  • ★★ John and his mom grow pepper plants to make their family hot sauce; tending them is another thing he might be doing if he ever Salingered. — 00:03:32 · Sydney Green
  • ★ John tells Hank his theory that as people grow old they become either bird people or plant people, and that as he ages he is becoming a plant person. (playful) — 00:03:36

00:03:46 — An introvert who wants a public life, and a brother in the same boat

  • ★★ John says that if he ever does Salinger, it will literally be to spend more time with plants and less time on airplanes, which he could certainly use. — 00:03:46
  • ★★★ John says he is an introvert with a complicated relationship with fame who easily retreats into himself, yet he also wants to live a public life, tell stories for people and make a video every Tuesday. — 00:03:53 · celebrity
  • ★★★ John says holding these in tension is not always easy, but over the 21 years since his first novel came out it has been possible partly because his brother Hank is in the same boat and always there to talk to; he thanks Hank. — 00:04:08 · Hank Green

Threads in this video

Mentioned

Central: attention economy · Hollywood, Ending · J. D. Salinger

Also: People: Sydney Green

Projects: Dear Hank and John · Good Store

Works: Looking for Alaska (novel) · The Catcher in the Rye

Organizations: Instagram · Maternal Center of Excellence

Concepts: celebrity · commodification · Extraversion and introversion · invasive species · privacy

Places: Hollywood · Indianapolis · New Hampshire · New York City · Sierra Leone

Characters: Holden Caulfield

Also centred on J. D. Salinger: RIP JD Salinger

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