There is a silent force trying it’s best to rid the world of all of its “suck.” A secret alliance created on popular website YouTube many-a-year ago that has taken “world suck” by its neck to be overcome by the motto, “Don’t Forget to be Awesome” (DFTBA for short). A band of brothers taking a stand against the stupidity of mankind. Behind this new class of smartitude is their leaders, the VlogBrothers (AKA John and Hank Green). With the harbinger of their leaders, the Nerdfighters unite!
The VlogBrothers, John and Hank Green, began their YouTube account in 2007 when they stopped textual conversations and began to send videos to each other via video logs on YouTube as their only form of communication. Their videos began to pull many viewers with the witty topics they discuss, thus creating their own fan base – the Nerdfighters.
J. Green, a graduate of Kenyon College in Ohio, is pursuing his writing career in Indianapolis where he resides while keeping up with the YouTube channel. His award-winning and best-selling novels include “The Fault in Our Stars,” “Looking for Alaska,” “An Abundance of Katherines,” and “Paper Towns.”
In 2009, he was awarded the prestigious Edgar Award for his writings. His brother, H. Green, is an entrepreneur and musician in Montana. H. Green is also the head-honcho of EcoGeek, the web’s biggest environmental technology blog. The brothers take turns reviewing books and social issues where they put their own sarcastic humor into each video and post two videos a week.
From this, Nerdfighters around the world watch their videos and respond with their input on all of their topics. But they are much more than just internet lovers and critics: Nerdfighters have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the impoverished in the developing world and also planted thousands of trees around the world.
This massive group of devotees did originate and join together on YouTube, but since have moved to their own Nerdfighter webpage. On this page, discussions of geek-like topics and the Green brother’s weekly videos are reviewed (and sometimes altercations take place on the more controversial topics) on message boards and chat rooms to build a stronger bond with one another.
“I think the Nerdfighters are a strong part of the internet today and are just an all-around great group of people,” junior Kayli McGlynn said.
The word “nerd” or “geek” may have a negative connotation in the modern world, but in the internet world? It is something to be proud of. The Nerdfighters wear their wit (and their “Holden Caulfield Thinks You’re A Phony” T-shirts) with august.
This world-wide congregation has monthly projects to bring light on the great things fellow Nerdfighters are doing for the world. Their bonds with one another is one like no other- for they only have one goal: to find the good in the world so they can look past all of the “suck” that comes along with this life.
In a video J. Green posted to his brother, he speaks about the meaning of the Nerdfighter fandom they began. “Nerdfighters are about stupid beautiful projects and making each other laugh and think with t-shirts and pocket protectors and rants about the situation in Pakistan which sucks right now,” J. Green said.
The Nerdfighters will continue on way past an inevitable end to the VlogBrothers video logs and continue onto future generations. The aphorism DFTBA will prolong in the codings of the world-wide-web and will never be erased.
J. Green continued in a video, “In the contemporary world where things fall apart and the center can not hold, you have to imagine a community where there is no center… A lot of life is about doing things that don’t suck with people who don’t suck.”