Nerdfighteria

Before I get into things, I want to touch on something that I've noticed *after* I've posted the past few entries. Namely, according to this blog, 2013 will be my bloggiest (blogest? most-blog-entries-est?) year ever and it's only April! Some people may think that I'm just blogging way too often, but I have enjoyed making this activity a daily habit. As I've said before, I hate when little moments are lost because they occurred during a six-month span when I wasn't blogging. Granted, I don't plan to blog *everything that I will ever do*, but again, it's about the little things. I also hope that I'm becoming a better writer - we'll just have to see on that one.

Gratitude goes out to you, the citizens of the Internet for reading my blog. Hopefully you have enjoyed at least some of my entries without getting bored by too many. If you want to do any collaboration projects, just let me know!

TC

Heh, I remembered about the topic change thing.

TC

I'm not sure why some holidays occur on the days that they do, but there are some interesting pairings. Monday's holidays got me to chuckle because it was That Sucks Day and Take a Wild Guess Day... as well as McDonald's Day. *insert mystery meat joke here*

The most recent holiday pairing that caught my eye was two holidays on two consecutive days: yesterday being Haiku Day and today being Poem in Your Pocket Day. Granted, a poem isn't automatically a haiku, but to cross the divide, the poem I kept in my pocket was indeed a haiku. The poem I wrote was on the back of a card similar to "Buy 9, get the 10th Free!" cards and goes as follows:

Haiku poems are good
For paper this small in size
Happy High Five Day!

Oh, and it was High Five Day today as well. I ended up giving out about 10-15 high fives today, which I admit is low given the building I live in. For reasons I don't want to go into, giving out awesome high fives wasn't on the forefront of my mind today. Maybe next year...

TC

So, I enjoy one of the current keystones of the Internet that is referred to as YouTube, and my current focus has been on a channel called Vlogbrothers. The channel all started when two brothers, John and Hank Green, decided to forgo all text-based communication and instead communicate through video blogging every weekday. This all started back in 2007 and since then... well, they continue to video blog, have more than one million subscribers, and have started a country named Nerdfighteria. Okay, they didn't start an actual country, but their followers, who are dubbed nerdfighters, have banded together many times in the past 6 years to raise millions of dollars (I'm pretty sure) for charities across the world. To put this into the Nerdfighter lingo, Nerdfighteria is devoted to reducing worldsuck.

Why would this channel be so appealing? Well for one, their videos are quite interesting and entertaining. John is a author of several young adult books and Hank is a science buff working for a company focused on the environment and they are both quite well-versed in their fields. They also discuss world news, their personal endeavors, and off-the-wall things like nerd jokes. From an outside perspective, this could certainly be appealing for me - particularly as I am in a personal initiative to blog daily and keep the blog interesting with stories about my life and big topics and whatnot.

However, I think there is a bigger reason at play that has kept me interested in these two brothers I only known via the Internet - they are genuine people. They are not afraid to share personal stories and they have blogged through thick and thin, which has included hospital stays, hangovers, and many layovers in airports. They also portray a true sense of themselves. One video that stuck with me involved John getting over his fear of heights in order to stand on a table and use bet winnings to benefit a charity. The video does not seem staged or exaggerated, but it is a man who is willing to conquer a fear, albeit briefly, to help others.

That's another that impresses me about these Green brothers - they use their following for good. For whatever reason, many people have joined Nerdfighteria and rather than have that fan base solely flock around them, John and Hank encourage the community to be better than their individual selves by helping others. I'm sure we can contrast this with people who would want to swim in praise and leave their followers without much in return.

Putting it all together, I admire the vlogbrothers and I think they are a good pair to follow - they are uplifting, funny, and willing to examine things critically. Much better than rants about how the world sucks or how particular video games suck (although that can also be an itch that needs to be scratched, I will admit).

I will end today's post in a similar fashion to the vlogbrothers:

Don't forget to be awesome (DFTBA for short), and I'll see you tomorrow.