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Q: I just read an article on Buzzfeed; in it, Shira Lazar suggests that Vlogbrothers could logically become a paid subscription channel because of the devotion of Nerdfighters. What are your thoughts on this?
asked by bramtic

(Rebloggable by request.)

A. That’s nice of Shira to say, but why would we do that?

Let’s say that you’re a nerdfighter and you’re living in poverty. (Lots of nerdfighters are.) Why would I exclude you from the community just because you don’t have access to the same resources as someone who is wealthy? That would go against the inclusionism that’s the core of nerdfighteria.

(I’m not just saying this in a feel-good, altruistic way: It would also be a terrible business decision, because at some point in the future you will probably not be poor, and you will be able to support our work by contributing directly or buying a poster or a book or an album or whatever. But you will never know that you like the stuff I make if you were denied the opportunity to watch it in the first place.) 

What makes a lot more sense to me is going to the community and saying: Hey, some of you can pay for this and some of you can’t. That’s cool. If you can pay for it, please do, and in exchange we’ll be able to turn off ads for everyone, which is nice, because ads are gross and annoying and I hate them. If you can’t pay, that’s okay, too.

YouTube’s apparent forthcoming paid subscription model isn’t built like that at all: It’s built to be exclusive and paywalled, which I don’t think works for creators who want to build the awesomest possible audience.

    • #business
    • #youtube
    • #I'm not a businessman I'm a BUSINESS man
    • #online video
    • #paid subscriptions
    • #ask
  • 2 weeks ago
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Interview #1 - YouTube and Community

edwardspoonhands:

Josh Kolm, a who is getting his Master’s in jounalism at Ryerson University asked 10 very very good questions. Though as a former journalism student myself, I will give him (and all of the rest of you) a tip my professor once gave me…try to only ask one question per question.

1. In terms of building a community of fans, how much of it is talent and how much of it is luck? Is luck all that separates someone with 1 million subscribes and someone with 10,000?

I think it’s more than talent and luck. I think there’s also ambition and cleverness and sometimes downright underhandedness. There’s no one on YouTube (including John and me) who has made it without “playing the game” a little bit, whether it’s giraffe sex thumbnails (in our case) or outright spamming (in cases that I will not discuss.)

But to your question, a lot of it is luck. A lot of it for us was starting when we did, when it was a lot easier to get noticed…and when it felt huge and important to have 10,000 subscribers, so we worked our asses off for them even though, today, we can get that many subs in a week. 

Luck is certainly not the only thing though, people who make great, innovative content get noticed. It’s just really hard (and getting harder every day) to make really great, innovative content. What is absolutely guaranteed…you will not succeed if you start the way someone else started, or do the same thing someone else is doing.

2. How much is it up to a YouTuber to build, and then foster, that community? Can someone really promote themselves if no one knows who they are? Is it just a matter of making good stuff and hoping someone finds it? On the other side, do they have to keep that quality up to keep an audience? Will an audience accept anything from a YouTuber they already adore? Like, could Charlie McDonnell read the ingredients on a Mini Wheats box and not get un-subed?

All of the most interesting online projects are more about community than content, but that certainly does not mean that content doesn’t matter. If you don’t innovate, if you stagnate, if you stop caring…your channel will stop growing and people will move on. 

As for how to promote yourself if no one is watching…make funny videos referencing YouTubers you love…maybe they’ll reblog you :-). 

Seriously though, we tapped into existing communities, and that’s a very important path to success. We happened to, also, tap into the best community of all time…Harry Potter fans, which was very lucky for us. So we were able to build upon a part of that community that came over to us. Fostering a community is something that comes very naturally to some creators, and feels very foreign to others.

3. Are subscriber and view counts an accurate measurement of how strong/dedicated/sustainable/whatever a community is?

Not at all. This might sound crass but I swear it’s not. The best analytical measure of how dedicated a community (that I have found) is merch sales. We’ve sold shirts for a lot of people at DFTBA, and I’m always shocked how some channels with 50,000 subs can sell more shirts than channels with 2 million.

View counts are a terrible measure of engagement, subscribers is even worse (since channels that have been around a long time have /tons/ of subs that don’t watch anymore. Not necessarily because the content started to suck, just because people move on and get interested in other stuff.)

4. In terms of your own projects, do you think some of the other stuff you’ve produced (SciShow, Crash Course, Lizzie Bennett, Brain Scoop) has found an independent audience, i.e. one with members that found those channels for reasons OTHER than that they were Nerdfighters first?

Totally. I went to PAX, a gaming convention (lots of nerdy guys in their 20s and 30s), this year and I was recognized almost exclusively as “The SciShow guy” not “Hank Green of the Vlogbrothers.” SciShow’s audience is 80% male and 60% over 20. Lizzie Bennet’s audience is 80% female and 60% under 20.

Part of the reason I like to create those things is that a strong community can only be so big before it doesn’t feel like a community anymore. By giving our community those different focal points, it encourages a more smaller, stronger, independent communities, rather than on big wibbly blob that can’t support its own weight.

5. What do you think has a better chance of building a community: an interesting show concept (Crash Course, My Drunk Kitchen, Epic Meal Time, etc.) or more straight ahead vloggers? Why do you think that is? If it’s the latter, how can it be possible to stand out from everyone else that’s doing the same thing?

Format vs personality? It used to be that you really could create a channel based purely on your personality and it would take off. That’s /much/ harder to do now. In fact, it’s probably impossible unless you either have some kind of insanely powerful and charismatic personality (Olan Rogers) or are already famous (like if Jennifer Lawrence wanted to start a vlog, people would watch.)

Nowadays, the path seems to be to start with the format, but let the real you shine through, not a character, just you being you and being likeable and cool and enthusiastic about the thing you’re doing. People get into the format first, and the personality second…but the relationship with the personality ends up being much more valuable for both sides of the interaction. It’s just a lot harder to get to now that YouTube feels (to many people) less like a community platform and more like an entertainment platform.

6. How much do inter-community relationships matter? In other words, how much do you think a YouTuber benefits from having another YouTube mention them in one of their videos and sending members of their community over there? When there’s more and more people on YouTube every day, do you think that could ever be/already is the only way someone could establish themselves as a YouTuber, by having an already-established YouTuber endorse them?

Almost all top YouTube channels were part of a group of YouTubers that came up together and helped each other along the way, not via established YouTubers promoting them. It’s happening right now with the cute boy British YouTubers. It happened in 2007 with us and Charlie and Michael and Alex. It happened in 2009 with Tessa, Mitchell, Cat, and Shawna. Hannah, Andrew, Mamrie and Grace in 2011. There are exceptions to this, but it’s much easier (and more fun) if you’re doing it with friends whose work you’re excited about, and who are excited about your work.

Of course, getting noticed and promoted by established YouTubers is also great, but usually, if you’re consistently getting noticed by big YouTubers, it isn’t long before you’re on the same level as them anyway.

7. Are communities different in the U.S. compared to other countries in terms of the kinds of stuff they get behind?

I don’t really think of any of this geographically, so it’s hard for me to say.

8. What about in terms of demographics? I know in the latest Becoming YouTube video it’s mentioned how many of the community members are girls under the age of 18, and in videos you’ve mentioned that to be true for vlogbrothers as well, but is that true for other YouTubers you know? Why do you think that is?

First, yes, it’s certainly true. The core audience of YouTube…the people who come back for community-focused, personality-based content tend to be young women. As for the “why” I think that’s a really complicated and interesting question. I could venture some guesses, BUT IT MUST BE CLEAR THAT THEY ARE GUESSES!

So here’s my guess…I think young awkward teenagers are on YouTube in equal numbers, but I think the females tend toward wanting to be a part of something and to understand where things are coming from while young males tend to be more interested in the creations and the enjoyment they provide than the creators that do the things. BUT THIS IS JUST A GUESS AND THESE ARE ONLY TENDENCIES!

9. How realistic is it for someone to make a career out of a YouTube community in 2013? Is it too competitive? Is it going to get harder or easier in the years going ahead? Both for those that are already established and those just getting started?

I think it may actually start being easier soon, not because it will be easier to get a million people watching, but because it will be easier to make a living off of a smaller number of community members. I want it to be easier to make a living, and harder to get filthy rich. That’s basically my goal for 2013.

10. Aside from all the amazing charity-based and worldsuck-reducing stuff Nerdfighters have done, what about your community are you the most proud of?

Discerning enthusiasm….and that we create great things together.

This is great. My brother is smart.

    • #youtube
    • #online communities
    • #nerdfighters
  • 2 months ago > edwardspoonhands
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The Project for Awesome has already raised more than $260,000, and we’re just getting started. (The p4a runs through noon on Wednesday.) And there have already been more than 300,000 comments on thousands of p4a videos.
There are many great rewards if you donate through indiegogo, and 100% of proceeds go to support the p4a charities that YOU choose based on your votes at projectforawesome.com.
We’ve been doing this for six years, and this is by far the most successful p4a ever. Thank you to everyone who has commented, made videos, shared videos, voted, and donated.
Sometimes it feels like the YouTube community has changed, or gone away. But today I’m reminded that we are strong, and we aren’t going anywhere.
Pop-upView Separately

The Project for Awesome has already raised more than $260,000, and we’re just getting started. (The p4a runs through noon on Wednesday.) And there have already been more than 300,000 comments on thousands of p4a videos.

There are many great rewards if you donate through indiegogo, and 100% of proceeds go to support the p4a charities that YOU choose based on your votes at projectforawesome.com.

We’ve been doing this for six years, and this is by far the most successful p4a ever. Thank you to everyone who has commented, made videos, shared videos, voted, and donated.

Sometimes it feels like the YouTube community has changed, or gone away. But today I’m reminded that we are strong, and we aren’t going anywhere.

    • #p4a
    • #project for awesome
    • #youtube
    • #nerdfighters
  • 5 months ago
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thecrashcourse:

A lot of people have been asking what other YouTube channels we recommend that have educational content, like Crash Course. While you’re waiting for today’s Crash Course Word History episode, check out Open Letter to the Universe by Minute Physics. -Meredith the Intern

Reblogging to second Meredith’s recommendation. (Also to tell you that this morning, I told her that if she didn’t start capitalizing the I in Intern, I’d fire her. And lo and behold, she did! That’s how you manage employees, people.)

Minute Physics is doing great educational work on YouTube. So are CGPGrey, Vi Hart, Veritasium, Vsauce, numberphile, and many others.

    • #education
    • #youtube
    • #not an oxymoron
  • 11 months ago > thecrashcourse
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Why Aren’t You on TV?

I’m asked every day why Hank and I haven’t tried to create a TV show.

We’ve been approached many times to do TV shows, but while we’re happy to listen and discuss ideas with people, we’ve so far turned down these opportunities, even the very tempting and lucrative ones. Here’s why:

1. When you work with a cable channel or production company, you don’t own the show you make or control the manner in which it is distributed.

2. It’s easy—and only getting easier—to watch shows like CrashCourse and SciShow on your TV.

3. We really believe that what is strong and beautiful about nerdfighteria is that we create it—every day—together. All of us. And if we were on TV, I worry we’d lose that sense of connection, which Hank and I have enjoyed so much the last five and a half years. Like, the Sherlock fandom and the Doctor Who fandom are great communities, but they are about Sherlock and Doctor Who. Nerdfighteria isn’t, and never has been, primarily about Hank or me. It’s about celebrating nerdiness and decreasing worldsuck. We really value that and don’t want it to change.

4. On YouTube, we can make exactly the stuff we want for exactly the people we want. Sometimes that means getting lower ratings (for instance, Thoughts from Places videos are consistently our least viewed videos, but we still really like making them and we know that nerdfighteria really enjoys them, too). Television is driven by viewership, and all viewers are treated equally. So you can’t say to a TV network, “I know we get fewer viewers when we make this stuff, but we get BETTER viewers.” They do not understand that idea. That idea, however, is at the very core of our relationship with our community. As Hank has told me, “I don’t care how many views we get. I care how many made-of-awesome views we get.” 

If all we wanted to do was make stuff that lots of people watch, all our videos would be about animal sex. And on some level, if we had a TV show, the emphasis would be on maximizing the number of viewers, not the quality of the community, which is the exact opposite of what we want.

In one conversation with an anonymous cable network, an exec said to us, “Crash Course would be PERFECT if you were a little less nuanced and stuck to topics that interest people. Like, you know, Hitler and sex.” (Direct quote.)

I’ve read tens of thousands of Crash Course comments. No one—NO ONE—has ever asked us to be less nuanced, or to stick to Hitler and sex. That’s what I love about nerdfighteria. Our community is deeply intellectually engaged, even when that means grappling with complexity and ambiguity. 

The great joy of my life is that I get to talk with you on a near-daily basis about a huge variety of things that matter to me, and listen to you discuss what matters to you. Right now, that’s not possible on TV, which is (for better and worse) still a medium where people talk to you, not with you.

    • #television
    • #youtube
    • #nerdfighteria
    • #community
    • #nerdfighters
    • #vlogbrothers
    • #hank green
    • #john green
  • 11 months ago
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Hello there, Crash Course, and welcome to tumblr!
The Crash Course tumblr was founded minutes ago by our made-of-awesome nerdfighter intern Meredith, and she is obviously doing tumblr right, as she immediately located and reblogged a picture of a cat.
So go follow Crash Course to further your eduction in the arts, the sciences, and the cats.
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Hello there, Crash Course, and welcome to tumblr!

The Crash Course tumblr was founded minutes ago by our made-of-awesome nerdfighter intern Meredith, and she is obviously doing tumblr right, as she immediately located and reblogged a picture of a cat.

So go follow Crash Course to further your eduction in the arts, the sciences, and the cats.

(via thecrashcourse)

Source: nooks-cranny

    • #nerdfighters
    • #john green
    • #hank green
    • #crash course
    • #crashcourse
    • #youtube
    • #education
    • #world history
    • #biology
    • #learning through tumblr
  • 11 months ago > nooks-cranny
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Hank Green's Tumblr: On Ad Block


edwardspoonhands
:

On my most recent video I saw a whole ton of comments from people saying “I never see pre-rolls on Vlogbrothers videos because I have AD BLOCK installed.” Well, two problems here.

  1. No one sees pre-rolls on vlogbrothers videos because we don’t run them
  2. I am not sure how I feel about Ad Blockers and I wish you would consider your decision more carefully, especially your apparent desire to share the world. 

    If everyone was like you and used ad blockers, there would be no Freddie Wong videos to watch. There would be no YouTube. There would be no Google or GMail or Facebook or any of it. If everyone used ad block, the internet would be made of things that suck and things that cost money.

    And so when you say to the world “HEY PONCES! WTF AREN’T YOU USING AD BLOCK! SUCKERS!” What you’re saying is “Let’s all work together to destroy the internet.”

    The only reason Ad Block works for you is that most people don’t use it. It is in your best interest to keep Ad Block quiet and not let anyone know about it. Spend like 13 seconds thinking through a world where Ad Block gets installed on a substantial number of browsers in the world:

    Advertisers call up platforms (Google, YouTube, Facebook, etc) and say “We aren’t going to pay you for advertisements if no one sees them.”

    The platforms freak out and spend a huge amount of time and money creating Ad Block Blockers. Maybe they partner with Mozilla. Maybe with the US Government. Maybe they create another technological solution. In any case, afterward the internet is clunkier and maybe even less free than beforehand.

    Ad Blockers counter by working around the work-arounds. 

    Advertisers still pull back funds, the internet gets worse. Less money is spent on making the internet cool and interesting, more money is spend on trying to defeat Ad Blockers. 

    At the end of the day, your attempts to remove some pixels that were off in the corner of the screen where you probably would never have seen them anyway have made the whole world a less awesome place. 

    I understand the desire to work-around a system that annoys you. But I do not understand the apparent inability of some people to think their decisions through to their logical conclusion.

    ***FOOTNOTE ON TUMBLR***

    You may notice that Tumblr neither costs money nor sucks. However, before Tumblr got it’s most recent round of venture capital funding, you may also remember how it was crashing 20 or 30 times per day. The funding that made it possible for Tumblr to stay online consistently would not have come in if the people with that money did not believe that someday Tumblr would have some kind of path to profitability…and the clearest of those paths is through advertising.

I’m reblogging this again because 90% of the comments in my new video seem to brag about AdBlock as if it’s some easy solution to the complicated role that corporations play in facilitating and problematizing the relationship between people who make stuff on the Internet and people who enjoy that stuff.

In fact, AdBlock does no such thing. It mostly only hurts the creators of the stuff you like, because it doesn’t prevent YouTube from collecting valuable information about you that they then use to grow and improve their company. If everyone—or even 20% of people—used AdBlock, we could not afford to ignore our other jobs to make regular vlogbrothers videos, let alone create expensive educational content like crashcourse.

I don’t know what the solution to this complicated problem is, but it sure as hell isn’t AdBlock.

(via futuredudeman)

Source:

    • #adblock
    • #advertising
    • #youtube
    • #things that make me kinda sad
  • 1 year ago >
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wilwheaton:

Oh, go fuck yourself, Google. This is just as bad as companies forcing me to “like” something on Facebook before I can view whatever it is they want me to “like.”
Just let me thumbs up something, without forcing me to “upgrade” to G+, you dickheads.
The worst part of this? For a producer like me, I’m going to lose a crapton of potential upvotes for Tabletop, because the core of my audience is tech-savvy and may not want to “upgrade” to yet another fucking social network they don’t want or need.

I strongly agree with this. Making it so that only google plus users can decide whether a YouTube video is worth watching benefits no one except for Google Plus: It is bad for viewers, bad for video creators, and bad for YouTube’s ability to curate and tailor videos to potential viewers.
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wilwheaton:

Oh, go fuck yourself, Google. This is just as bad as companies forcing me to “like” something on Facebook before I can view whatever it is they want me to “like.”

Just let me thumbs up something, without forcing me to “upgrade” to G+, you dickheads.

The worst part of this? For a producer like me, I’m going to lose a crapton of potential upvotes for Tabletop, because the core of my audience is tech-savvy and may not want to “upgrade” to yet another fucking social network they don’t want or need.

I strongly agree with this. Making it so that only google plus users can decide whether a YouTube video is worth watching benefits no one except for Google Plus: It is bad for viewers, bad for video creators, and bad for YouTube’s ability to curate and tailor videos to potential viewers.

    • #google plus
    • #youtube
  • 1 year ago > wilwheaton
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Is Advertising the Future—Or the Past?

Hank and I have always felt varying degrees of discomfort supporting our YouTube videos with advertisements. We don’t control the content of the ads or who sponsors our shows, and many times we disagree with the advertisers.

I do not, for instance, think gold is a good investment, or that Obama is a terrible President, or that sexy geeks are just a click away. I also don’t particularly enjoy being supported by for-profit universities, oil companies, and Super PACs.

Recently, some nerdfighters have been upset about ads they’ve seen on vlogbrothers videos, and we share their concern. But these videos are a big part of our jobs—we spend a lot of time making them and trying to be good leaders of this community—and while there are other ways we make money (t-shirts, books, music, etc.), the ad revenue is a vital part of how I buy diapers.

But it’s not really that much money relative to the size of nerdfighteria, because online advertising rates are so low. Even so, I still think that most nerdfighters would rather glimpse an ad than use kickstarter or something to create a delightfully ad-free world of vlogbrothers. But with ad rates pretty stagnant and the success of kickstarter projects like Ze Frank’s, I’m beginning to wonder A. if I’m wrong, and B. if creators of online video might find themselves turning to new models of supporting their work rather than continuing to seek corporate patronage. Also, C. these days, I find myself personally more inclined to support online video projects and their creators directly.

EDIT: To be clear, I am not suggesting some awful subscription model in which you have to pay to watch videos. That would be gross. I’m suggesting a model like the one you find here in the US with National Public Radio: some people pay to support the station, but the listening experience is available to all, regardless of whether they pay. (There are bonuses for members, of course: tote bags or This American Life CDs or whatever.)

Mostly, I’m curious what you think. Do you want to watch stuff supported by ads, or supported directly by viewers? Are there youtube channels (not just vlogbrothers or crashcourse or scishow but any YouTube channels) you’d give $5 or $10 or more per year? Or do you like the current system and believe that advertising should continue to play the central role in visual media funding it has since the earliest days of television?

    • #youtube
    • #online video
    • #advertising
    • #vlogbrothers
    • #nerdfighters
    • #john green
    • #hank green
  • 1 year ago
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Kind of Important News

If you scroll past all the Hollywood names in this YouTube blog post, you’ll see down the vlogbrothers down there at the bottom. But we’re above the Wall Street Journal! Take that, Murdoch! Oh. It’s…yeah, it’s alphabetical. I see.

So Hank and I are finally realizing our dreams of being able to produce the kind of educational videos (think the French Revolution videos, or Gatsby, but better) we hope can offer learning opportunities to students of all ages around the world. This channel, to be called Crash Course, will begin with me teaching World History and Hank teaching Biology 101. With the help of educators, designers, and animators (almost all of them nerdfighters), we’ll be launching Crash Course at the end of January 2012.

Hank will be spearheading a second channel, called SciShow, where he will get to make the kind of science videos he is so good at: videos that are fun and engaging and accessible, even to people like me who suck at science. (Think Hank’s video about nuclear power, but better.) SciShow will launch early in January.

Hank and I have always loved making educational videos, but they’re tremendously complicated and time-consuming, and we’ve never had the opportunity to make them as consistently or as thoughtfully as we wanted to, because deadlines are always pressing and the budget for vlogbrothers videos has generally been 0 dollars. Now we get to try.

In short, you’ll be seeing more (and much nerdier) videos from us that will hopefully help make both you and us more thoughtful and informed creatures.

The pressing question: What will happen to vlogbrothers? Nothing. Same schedule. Same relationship with the community. Same everything. Nerdfighteria is the most important thing in our lives, and that won’t change. These new channels will have their own lives, and while we certainly intend to make them awesome, it won’t be at the expense of vlogbrothers. We’re hoping it will be a kind of return to 2007: Once again, one of us will be uploading something almost every weekday next year.Feel free to leave questions in the ask box; I’ll try to answer them over the weekend in another blog post. Thanks, and DFTBA.

tl;dr: More & better educational and sciencey videos in 2012. Less of nothing.

    • #vlogbrothers
    • #nerdfighters
    • #youtube
  • 1 year ago
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So in AP English…

jagblogs:

My teacher keeps talking about the argument prompts on the AP test, and she keeps saying that they never use anything controversial, an she keeps using the prompt from last year as an example. The prompt was whether or not we should get rid of pennies, and my teacher keeps saying that no one has a strong opinion on that.

John Green does.

I have a strong opinion about penny-destruction precisely because it’s the kind of thing that no one has a strong opinion about. The elimination of the penny is so obvious, and so inarguably sensible, that you will be hard-pressed to find an economist in the world who argues against it. And yet…there’s no political will to make it happen. (You can sign this petition, though.)

Anyway, there is no reasonable argument in favor of keeping the penny. I assume anyone who argued for the existence of pennies was automatically given a 1 on the AP exam in question.

(via fuckyeahsouthernbelles)

    • #nerdfighteria
    • #nerdfighters
    • #John Green
    • #vlogbrothers
    • #YouTube
    • #pennies
  • 1 year ago > fuckyeahsouthernbelles
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hermondayeyes:

I was catching up on some a lot of Toby Turner YouTube vlogs when I spotted a wild Pizza John Shirt. Hehehe….

I saw a Pizza John shirt in the wild once in Amsterdam, and I ran for about six blocks trying to catch up with the person, but I never caught them. I don’t know what I’d’ve said if I had caught up with them. “HEY! HEY! ON YOUR TORSO! THAT”S ME! WITH A MUSTACHE! Yeah. Right. Okay. Good talk.”
In a related story, Pizza John shirts are back in stock at DFTBA. Get yours before they sell out and we get disorganized and forget to order more again.
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hermondayeyes:

I was catching up on some a lot of Toby Turner YouTube vlogs when I spotted a wild Pizza John Shirt. Hehehe….

I saw a Pizza John shirt in the wild once in Amsterdam, and I ran for about six blocks trying to catch up with the person, but I never caught them. I don’t know what I’d’ve said if I had caught up with them. “HEY! HEY! ON YOUR TORSO! THAT”S ME! WITH A MUSTACHE! Yeah. Right. Okay. Good talk.”

In a related story, Pizza John shirts are back in stock at DFTBA. Get yours before they sell out and we get disorganized and forget to order more again.

    • #John Green
    • #Nerdfighters
    • #Nerdfighters in the wild
    • #Pizza John
    • #Toby Turner
    • #YouTube
    • #tobuscus
  • 1 year ago > hermondayeyes
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Vidcon Summary

Quickly, because I have to go downstairs:

YouTube introduced the aggressive panda.

Nerf gun wars.

Lonelygirl15 reunited.

Mitchell and Kyle of livelavalive lip synced. lip sank?

Shay Carl is so nice.

Meghan Tonjes and Kina Granis both sing like angels.

YouTube has this amazing play room that looks better than the whole rest of the conference.

My stomach hurts.

I’ve worn three different t-shirts.

OH AND THERE WAS AN ASTRONAUT.

    • #vidcon
    • #youtube
    • #epic
  • 1 year ago
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briannashea247:

That awkward moment when the youtube add contradicts, yet proves everything that John is saying…

Right, this is one of my worries about our ads: The ads that appear next to the videos often explicitly disagree with what I’m saying. (For instance, in my video about putting money into an IRA, there were ads about how you should put all your money in gold, which is of course a terrible idea.) But Hank and I have resisted preroll ads, because we think they’re annoying, even though they tend to advertise brands that I find less annoying. (Like, I don’t care if you use All State or Geico, but I’m not actively opposed to our viewers having car insurance in the way I’m actively opposed to Lawn Sprinkler Systems.) 
All that said, I do think of making videos as part of my job (albeit a really fun part of my job), and advertising revenue seems like the best way to use online video to buy diapers. (The alternative is to, like, charge people to watch our videos, which would be ridiculous.) So should we switch to prerolls because they tend to advertise less annoying brands? Or should we continue like this? I don’t know.
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briannashea247:

That awkward moment when the youtube add contradicts, yet proves everything that John is saying…

Right, this is one of my worries about our ads: The ads that appear next to the videos often explicitly disagree with what I’m saying. (For instance, in my video about putting money into an IRA, there were ads about how you should put all your money in gold, which is of course a terrible idea.) But Hank and I have resisted preroll ads, because we think they’re annoying, even though they tend to advertise brands that I find less annoying. (Like, I don’t care if you use All State or Geico, but I’m not actively opposed to our viewers having car insurance in the way I’m actively opposed to Lawn Sprinkler Systems.) 

All that said, I do think of making videos as part of my job (albeit a really fun part of my job), and advertising revenue seems like the best way to use online video to buy diapers. (The alternative is to, like, charge people to watch our videos, which would be ridiculous.) So should we switch to prerolls because they tend to advertise less annoying brands? Or should we continue like this? I don’t know.

    • #advertising
    • #youtube
  • 1 year ago > bri-awesome
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About

This is the tumblr of John Green, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Fault in Our Stars, Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines, Paper Towns, and half of Will Grayson, Will Grayson. I am also the co-creator of the vlogbrothers youtube channel.

I am best known on tumblr for a drizzle/hurricane metaphor.

You can ask me questions only if you agree not to get mad if I don't answer.

FAQ:
1. Why is your tumblr name fishingboatproceeds?
2. What does DFTBA stand for?
3. Do you and Hank consider yourself nerdfighters?
4. So, does the actual John Green run this tumblr, or is it run by an assistant?
5. Would you release a book that isn't YA?
6. Would you ever write a YA book with an adult in a key role?
7. How do I become a nerdfighter?
8. What's the story behind Pizza John?
9. How do you pronounce bufriedo?
10. How do you feel about the TFiOS movie rights being optioned?
11. Do you get a thrill from killing your characters?
12. "You can love someone so much...But you can never love people as much as you can miss them." 
Can you talk about this?
13. What's this drizzle/hurricane metaphor that you're best known for on tumblr?

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