Ear Biscuits with Rhett & Link - Ep. 40 John Green- Ear Biscuits

Episode Date: July 4, 2014

John Green, New York Times Bestselling author and half of vlogging duo the Vlogbrothers, joins Rhett & Link this week to discuss the recent success of his novelThe Fault in Our Stars, the effect fame has had on his personal and professional life, how his upbringing, formal education, and early career aspirations shaped his current view of religion and spirituality, and the significance of forming an online community to support endeavors like the charitable Project For Awesome foundation and YouTube convention, VidCon. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This, this, this, this is Mythical. Welcome to Ear Biscuits, I'm Rhett. And I'm Link. Thanks for joining us in another biscuit from the road today, not from the round table of dim lighting, Rhett. We are at VidCon, and we're actually talking with one of the founders of VidCon, also New York Times best-selling author and half of the Vlogbrothers, John Green.

Now, I was so excited to have this conversation with John, as excited as I've been to talk to anybody on Ear Biscuits. Not just because he was recently named one of the 100 most influential people in the world, in the world, Link, by Time Magazine. Really? Not just by you? No. He's influential in my life, but top 100 in the world. And this is on Ear Biscuits, Link. This is happening on Ear Biscuits.

Not just because of that. Not just because he's been a friend for a long time, and we've always looked up to the Vlogbrothers and what he and Hank do on the internet. Not just because he's got a book, The Fault in Our Stars, that has been on the New York Times Best Sellers list for over two years. It's been at number one for over two years. And then he's got a movie that,

as of the time we're recording this, it's made over $100 million. The movie based on his novel that was adapted, The Fault in Our Stars. Well then why are you excited? I'm just super excited. You know, I was because we've had the conversation. We know what we talked about.

We want you to be excited about it. I'm excited for him and I was excited to talk about all of these things that are happening, all the success that he's experiencing and the way that YouTube is such an integral part in him getting there. Just to get back to The Fault in Our Stars, if you don't know much about it, the plot follows two teenagers who fall deeply in love after meeting at a cancer support group.

Here's a clip. What's your name? Hazel. And what's your full name? Hazel Grace Lancaster. Why are you looking at me like that? Because you're beautiful. Oh my God.

Let's go watch a movie. What? Hmm? Huh? I'm free later this week. I mean now. You could be an axe murderer. There's always that possibility.

And you might know before the success of The Fault in Our Stars And probably Even a bigger part Of what John is all about Is what he does with his brother Hank The Vlogbrothers I mean these guys have been an inspiration to us They essentially started back in January of 2007

With something they called Brotherhood 2.0 Which consisted of daily back and forth vlogs They communicated with each other through vlogs. They said, we're not going to have any texting, but we're going to communicate with each other every single day for a year back and forth. Right, and then if they didn't meet the requirement of making their video for that day,

they had to undergo a physical punishment that they agreed upon earlier. And they did it for the whole year. After the year was up, they continued, and they changed the frequency of them, and they still do them to this day. When you watch the videos, they're addressing each other as well as their fan base, the Nerdfighters. Good morning, Hank. It's Sunday. It's Newsday. And the news around here is that my house is a construction zone,

and most of the electricity is turned off, and we don't have any place to sleep. And unrelated to the incredibly expensive home renovation, my basement flooded on Friday, is that my house is a construction zone and most of the electricity is turned off and we don't have any place to sleep. And unrelated to the incredibly expensive home renovation, my basement flooded on Friday, so now I have to take out all the carpet and fixing it is going to cost a billion dollars and I'm cranky. And when I get cranky, I put Willie in his tiny elephant costume.

And of course, they've gone on to just a crazy amount of success on the internet. They call their fans the nerd fighters, and there's a lot of them out there. They have an amazing community. They started a project for Awesome. They started the foundation to decrease world suck. They started VidCon.

You know, the Green Brothers have done all kinds of things, and then we find, in this conversation, we're finding John in a really interesting time where he's experiencing, he's in the midst of experiencing this amazing success with The Fault in Our Stars, but he's also still doing every other thing that he's always done. And so we talked to him about what it's like to be in the midst of this. Right. I love the quote here. I think this is in association with Time Magazine's list of 100 most influential people.

this is in association with Time Magazine's list of 100 most influential people. Actress Shailene Woodley from The Fault in Our Stars is quoted as saying, some say that through his books, John gives a voice to teenagers. I humbly disagree. I think John hears the voices of teenagers. He acknowledges the intelligence and vulnerability that stem from those beautiful years when we were for the first time discovering the world and ourselves outside of our familial stories. But he doesn't just listen to young adults. He treats every human he meets as their own planet rather than simply one of his moons.

He sees people with curiosity, compassion, grace, and excitement. And he's encouraging a huge community of followers to do the same. What a gift to be alive at the same time as this admirable leader. And what a gift to have this conversation with our friend John. Whoa, that was eloquent.

Yeah, so here it is, Our Ear Biscuit with John Green. You were just telling me that you're coming coming off a marathon And I don't know You're not at a finish line But VidCon is usually a crazy time of year But putting in perspective of everything that's been happening to you And your family Yeah, VidCon feels All great, but

Yeah, it feels downright relaxing Really? No, I'm happy to be here But I'm very excited for Sunday My wife and kids and I are going on vacation And that'll be really nice Oh, nice Yeah, no, I'm happy to be here, but I'm very excited for Sunday. We're going on, my wife and kids and I are going on vacation, and that'll be really nice. Oh, nice. Yeah, we're just going to really just have some downtime as much as we can.

How old are the kids now? Four and one. That's not a vacation. No, well, you're right, it's not vacation. But it's just a different kind of stress. Yeah, okay. But a really welcome kind of stress. Yeah. But you're right, it's not vacation. But it's just a different kind of stress. Yeah, okay. But a really welcome kind of stress. But you're right, it's not properly relaxing. I mean, mine are 10 and five now,

and that's just now getting to the point where it could be considered a vacation. Yeah, yeah. You got some time to go. I just, I'm excited for when they're both potty trained. That's gonna be amazing. Well, hopefully one is now. Oh, yeah, yeah. He's great, he's great. Well, hopefully one is now. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

He's great. He's great. Well, let me ask you, how's your shoulder? It's better. I got a cortisone shot. I injured my shoulder playing FIFA, which is very embarrassing. What was the diagnosis when you went to the doctor? I went to the doctor.

I initially lied to the doctor, and i told the doctor that i'd been throwing my kid up in the air because i couldn't bring myself to tell him the truth that i had been playing fifa but he was playing a video game he was like so there was he was like through your fist in the air in celebration and i and i i i badly injured my right shoulder and he was like so you had some resistance when you when you injured it and i was like not really and it was like but you were pushing air resistance like you injured it. And I was like, not really. And it was like, but you were pushing. Air resistance. You're pushing up your kid. And I was like, well, all right, fine. I was playing a video game and I raised my arms in triumph and I felt my right arm pop and it really hurt. And the doctor was like, oh, well, that's a completely, now I,

you need to be honest with me. These details are important. Yeah, it turns out. So anyway, I got a cortisone shot. It worked really well, and we'll have to kind of wait and see on the long-term effects of me throwing my hands in the air while playing FIFA. I mean, because you're going to think of it every time you score a goal on FIFA now. Oh, yeah, no. Like, subconsciously, you're going to tense up. I don't celebrate anymore, and I think it's made me a worse player. So you just kind of just, you just sort of just sit in the afterglow of a goal.

Yeah, I just try to enjoy it quietly now. He's a very pensive FIFA player. Yeah, yeah. Forgive me for reaching for a connection here, but is there some analogy? I'm wondering if there's an analogy between all the success of the book and the movie and just, it's phenomenal what's happening and I'm so excited and it's, it's

amazing. But is there an associated injury with this celebration? Was this self-inflicted? That's a good analogy. I mean, I definitely, I definitely think that, um, any, any kind of dramatic change in your life, uh, even if it's a really positive change, uh, is stressful. Um, like, you know, moving is, is stressful. Getting married, getting married is stressful. Having a kid is stressful. These are all wonderful, wonderful things. Like it's some of the best stuff that, that can happen to you, but it's also kind of overwhelming. And this experience has been totally overwhelming and at times really, really stressful, even though it's been also joyful. And, you know, it's about the best book to movie experience you could possibly have,

to be proud of the movie, to have the movie do well, to have been included in the process. All of that stuff just really doesn't happen to authors very often. And you kind of built that in because you weren't jumping at the chance for it to be adapted into a movie if it wasn't going to be with certain stipulations, right? Right. You weren't just hungry, please make this into a movie. Yeah. And I've been in a position where I had to be hungry before. And that does make you a lot less discerning. And this time I wasn't hungry. I didn't really want to see a movie made of this

book initially because it's so personal to me. And I just didn't think anyone could really do a good job. I thought that it would be sort of schlocky. And I think they really succeeded in staying true to the tone of the book. Now, most of that was luck, but some of it was kind of waiting for the right people to come around. Because you didn't direct the film. You're going to say it's luck. Yeah. Well, it's not my movie. It's Josh's movie. So like, and, um, you know, ultimately I didn't pick Josh. I wish I could take credit for that, but the producers of the movie picked Josh. I mean, I, you know, saw his movie and talked to him before he was hired, but, um, yeah, everyone else did a great job. I, I did very little. Now, are you, are you having a good time? Are you enjoying the process? Yeah, I enjoyed,

um, I enjoyed like going to the premiere so much. And, um, I, we had a, we had a showing in Indianapolis that was just with family and friends and people who've kind of helped us along the way of writing the book and then making the movie, you know, just whether like by babysitting for our kids or whatever. And that was really special to have, you know, 200 people in a room, all of whom you care about, all of whom helped make this possible. And to be able to watch the movie with them was really, really special. But isn't it kind of a challenge when, I mean, so many people in their lives, they dream of one thing. And I mean, you tell me, but I would assume that there's just been

a number of dreams come true for you at this point. Like, whoa, everything has fallen into place. But with that experience experience is there this well it's not as good as i thought it would now that i've got these dreams and they've kind of lined up in a row right um is it not all that's cracked up to be is it still a grass is greener is it i think that's the question behind are you are you enjoying it? Or is it actually very difficult to enjoy it because of all the other pressures that are coming on as well? Yeah, I think, well, I think you guys have, you're probably sensitive to that because you guys have

had some dreams come true. And it's always a fun, it's a bit of a weird experience because you're like, this is what I always dreamt of, which is not quite the same thing as I'm so happy. It's similar, but it's not quite the same thing. A lot of this isn't what I dreamt of for the record. From a long, long time ago, starting in maybe like 2008, I would say to Hank, I really do not want to become widely known because I think that would be, I think it wouldn't be fun. I started, you know, you get a glimpse of proper celebrity and you see how it can be destructive and how it can be so disruptive in people's lives, especially their family lives. And so I was very wary of that. That's why we've never done a TV, made a TV deal

or anything like that. Because you guys can attest to how famous TV will make you. Oh yeah, especially when you're on that IFC. Oh man, yeah, no, no, no. That's in like 20,000 homes now. Oh yeah, buddy. Like the population of Fugue Varina. I mean, I wouldn't categorize it as a setback. It was a great experience, but yeah, it was,

I mean, sometimes I feel like it was in terms of what i was what we want to do and what we want to accomplish and where we are it's the kind of thing that you enjoy it's like when you go on an incredible trip somewhere that's kind of challenging but exciting and got all there's all these new experiences i think it's very difficult for people to enjoy it in the moment but you enjoy it in the pictures and the in the memories right and so have you have you thought about that actively throughout this process? Like, I want to stop and enjoy this. Yeah, yeah.

I've tried to stop and enjoy it a lot. And I've been lucky that things have been so enjoyable, you know, that it hasn't been stressful or needlessly stressful, at least. Like, you know, that I haven't had to go around and pitch a movie I don't like, which is what most authors have to do. And that's not nearly as fun.

But yeah, I've really, I have taken time to enjoy it, but I think that I will enjoy the pictures more, you know, like, I think inevitably looking back on something, you can look back on it with such unambiguous fondness because you're not tired anymore. You're not stressed out anymore. You're not thinking about when you have to get up in the morning or the fact that your stomach hurts anymore. You're just really enjoying it. So I'm okay with that. I've always been like, I don't know, there's something about being a novelist that makes my whole life oriented toward the past a little bit. Like I like having written a lot more than I like writing, you know, like I like looking back on a writing experience a lot

more than I like being in it. So I don't mind enjoying things in retrospect. Right now. And you know, there is this romanticized version of the life of an author, right? Uh, I, I picture you in a cabin somewhere with no, and there's no electricity. You're writing like a Gandalf on a typewriter by the, like a lamp oil, you're smoking a pipe. Yeah. You know, I think everybody has this picture. It's like, okay, well now you've reached that level, right? Okay. You've got this smashing success. Now we're all going to read the next thing that you write. But we all know that there's a lot of other facets, right? So there's so many other things that you're involved in and you haven't slowed down any of that stuff. So is there this temptation now that's just like,

oh yeah, I could do that. I could go spend a week with a crazy woman somewhere and she might hold me hostage for a while. Right, I feel like a lot of your understanding of being a novelist comes from misery. I was just thinking that even before you said that. I was like, wow, somebody saw a movie about being a writer. Yeah, right.

Yeah, I do worry about the Kathy Bates coming to my cabin. That's why I don't have a cabin. Yeah, right. It's not worth it, right. I am. Yeah, I do worry about, I do worry about the Kathy Bates coming to my cabin. That's why I don't have a cabin. It's not worth it, man. It's not worth the risk of Kathy Bates showing up. No, like I write in a Starbucks. I've been in the same Starbucks for a long time. Yeah, I don't know. I want to keep doing all the stuff that we do. I mean, I do want to write another novel at some point. I like writing books. I like being inside of a story, but, um, I really love Crash Course and Vlog Brothers and, um, I love The Art Assignment. Like that stuff, I'm really passionate about that stuff. And, um, and it's right in front of you. There's a fulfillment. Y'all know this, like there's

a fulfillment to doing something that goes up in a week or in a few days, as opposed to doing something that takes, you know, six months of work and then it's out. And then, you know, then there's always sort of that like postpartum depression of it's out and oh God. And I think we experienced the fear sometimes of never creating that big thing. So, I mean, we look to you as an inspiration to, okay, in the midst of all the things that you're creating and you and Hank are working on, that you've written and you will continue to write and create that thing that requires the investment. And then it's going to take a year or years to put it together. Right. I mean, that is a challenge, though. Not procrastinating.

Right. Yeah. Like, how do you stay disciplined even when you have other work, you know? And when your other work is quite fulfilling. Yeah. Right. I mean, that is, that is a challenge. Not procrastinating. Right. Yeah. Like how do you stay disciplined even when you have other work, you know, and when your other work is quite fulfilling. Successful. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's doing well. And like, um, there is that, there is that challenge for me though. They're so separate. Like the passion that I feel for writing is so different than the, than my, my like interest in online video. Um, cause it's one, one part of me that wants to like be in my basement, you know, 12 or 14 hours a day. Um, and then there is another part of me that's really started to like collaboration as Crash Course and the other things have grown to

involve teams. Um, I really like that. You know, I like working with smart, interesting people who kind of keep me a little bit young and help me to think, think more broadly about stuff than I otherwise would if I was stuck inside my own head. So I'm hopeful that I can find a way to kind of chart the middle path, even if it means that there's a little bit less crash course and a little bit, and a little bit longer between novels, that I can still stay involved in both. Now, I would say that you're probably, you and Hank, some of the least materialistic people that I know. But we all know that, I mean, there's been some financial success with what's happened with the Fault in Our Stars. Have you splurged on anything? Yeah. Yeah. I bought my dream car a year after the F of the North Stars came out on the one-year anniversary.

A brand new cyber metallic gray Chevy Volt. I'm not kidding. I know you're not. I'm not laughing. Am I laughing? I'm sorry. I thought that was in my mind. It's five years of desperately wanting a Chevy Volt and got rid of our station wagon and got this Chevy Volt.

And it's so zero to 20. It's just the fastest car in the world. It's all torque. It's like driving a super fast golf cart. Yeah. It's like the fastest golf cart in the world. It's great. But it goes 80. It's like a golf cart that goes 80. It's so fun to drive, man. It's all, it handles so great. So yeah, I got a Volt. And then... Well, there's a lot of rednecks where we're from that have golf carts and lawnmowers that'll go faster than that. Well, definitely gas powered. I was going to say, not electric.

Definitely louder than a Volt. You can hear them coming from three counties away. Yeah, so we did that. And then, you know, we did, I don't know, we go on nice vacations and stuff. But no, we don't, I mean, you know, Sarah and I don't know we go we go on nice vacations and stuff but no we don't i mean you know sarah and i don't have any particularly uh i mean we like we like art and we like books but we don't have any particularly um ambitious uh non-philanthropic plans right has the success of uh the book and the movie uh created an imbalance in the Vlogbrothers?

I think a little bit. That's a great question. You guys, man, it's always good. That's why I like this podcast. I mean, that's an interesting question. It hasn't because Hank doesn't care about material success at all. But it has in the sense that there are all these people watching our videos who maybe don't identify as closely with Nerdfighteria as we're used to. Um, and so they

don't identify as people who are interested in Nerdfighter projects, um, and who are, you know, kind of equally interested in both of our work. That's always been the hallmark of the Vlog Brothers channel is that like there was never any competition. Hank and I never fought. That's pretty rare for, um, a two person collaborative. I mean,

you guys have been very lucky and, and Hank and I have been very lucky, but I think a lot of times it gets, it gets weird at some point. Um, but we were very conscious of that going into the movie. And so I feel like now that the movie is, you were conscious of it. Was there a conversation?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We had several conversations where we talked about what we were going to do about kind of the influx of fans who maybe aren't nerd fighters. And I think we both felt like some of them will become nerd fighters, which is amazing. And some of them will go on and like other stuff,

which is good too. Um, and we've just been trying to stay true to that and to make, you know, in this whole process as far as possible to make videos that are for Nerdfighters. And hopefully we've been doing a pretty good job of that so that the people who are really interested in the community and the project-based stuff will stay into it. It's interesting.

based stuff um will stay into it well it's interesting you seem to be the answer seems to be very much focused on the audience and well but there's a the psychology of it in within your mind within hank's mind you know i know for for me and well i'll just speak for myself i won't speak for rep but there's a thing in a partnership where, at least for me, there's a question in my mind of, am I contributing enough? You know, it's not, am I the favorite in enough people's minds? You know, are half the tweets who say, so-and-so is my favorite, are just, are me? You know, as long as it's, because people will tweet that stuff, right? Because you count it up. You count it up up every day at the end of every day no but that okay am i an i want to be an equal contributor here right and that's something that goes through my mind there's a psychology to that

that well this is probably a good time for me to tell you that i'm working on a book about two teenagers that have cancer so good luck with that if that well, that sounds like a terrible commercial idea. That'll never work. Um, yeah, no, I guess, I guess for us, we don't really feel that, or I don't feel that way because I'm conscious of what I'm contributing. I'm also extremely conscious of what Hank is contributing. Um, I mean, Hank works tirelessly more than any other person I know. And so I never worry if Hank is, um, I mean, he may worry if I'm pulling my weight. I'm sure he does sometimes, but I certainly never worry if he's pulling his because he just, um, he is absolutely indefatigable when it comes to finding new stuff to do, finding new stuff to share, finding new ways to make educational

material. Like he just, he has no quit in him. And so, no, I feel like we contribute very different things. And that's been a lot of the strength of it is me knowing what's mine and him knowing what's his. I think that's definitely a part of the maturation process of a duo. We're a lot more like brothers than we are friends in a lot of ways, having known each other for so long

but yeah I think a big part even though the past decade is like specialization between the two of us and you're kind of like oh yeah you know when Link takes this it's better

when I take this element of it the final product ends up being better I think that's been a big thing for us yeah you gotta learn to trust each other

yeah even when you don't necessarily agree if it's someone else's. But I'm like, well, that's Hank's thing. So he's probably right. Leave room for their strength. Yeah. His strength. Right, exactly. Got it. Yeah. Now, were you guys, I've read that you guys weren't close as kids. No, we really weren't. I mean, well, in the sense that we were the, you know, it was just the two of us. So we were kind of close just because we lived in the same house all the time.

Two years, three years apart? Three years apart. But I went to boarding school when he was 11. I was 14 and he was 11. So I didn't know him past childhood, you know? And then we didn't really, we liked each other a lot. I think we had great admiration for each other. And I had a lot of admiration for the work that Hank was doing back after he graduated from school. But I didn't know him well until Vlogbrothers. And now,

of course, I know him arguably too well. Right. Okay. So I'll get back to Brotherhood 2.0. But just to kind of, you know, when you went off to boarding school and then from there, what was life like for you there? I mean, that's... It was great. I mean, I went to this weird, very progressive boarding school in Alabama that was responsibility oriented. So, unless you did something to get your privileges revoked, you had a lot of freedom. And it was co-ed and it was very open and liberal and everything that you don't picture when you picture rural Alabama. Um, and why did you go there? Uh, well, I was a kind of

a terrible student. That was reason one. And then also I had a lot of social problems. Um, and my cousins had gone there, a couple of my cousins had gone there. And so I really wanted to, because I thought my cousins were cool. And I also just wanted to start over. I wanted a place where people hadn't known me as this like massive nerd, you know, for my whole life. And so this was a chance to start over. Of course, it turns out that you take your nerdiness with you. So you picked up right where you left off? Yeah.

It wasn't much better? I mean, it was better in the sense that nerdiness was celebrated at Indian Springs. So I quickly found a group of friends and I became, you know, in the sense that nerdiness was celebrated at Indian Springs. So I quickly found a group of friends and, um, and I became, you know, by the end of school, there were only 52 people in our graduating class. There wasn't a ton of room for clicks. Um, and I really, I was lucky to, to, that was the place where I made my first real deep school friendships. You know, I'd had two best friends growing up, but they hadn't been in the same grade as me. So that connection of like school to life was just complete because we were

never off campus unless we were together. So there was an intimacy to it that I think most people associate with college that I kind of had in high school. And so that was perfect fodder for a book. Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of looking for Alaska comes from, my first novel comes from that time, you know, living with a bunch of young people together with sort of minimal adult supervision. Now, were you writing at that time? Yeah. Yeah. I like to write a lot. I wasn't very good, but I wrote for fun as well as for school. So I did, writing was really the only, I guess like productive extracurricular activity I had. The only thing that I did that wasn't bad for me.

And I was lucky to be surrounded by really good writers in high school. I had good teachers, but I also had classmates who were in retrospect, really, really great writers. Some of whom went on to be published like Daniel Alricon, but some of whom didn't. But it was a great environment to think about writing because there were so many people reading so much and writing so much and having lots of conversations about it. And why were you guys in Alabama? What were your parents doing there?

Well, my parents were still living in Florida at the time. My dad is the state director of the Nature Conservancy down there for a long, long time. And I was, yeah, so we just moved to, basically moved to, I moved to Alabama and they stayed in Florida. Okay. And then when you went to college, you studied early Islamic history? Yeah, yeah. So that, was that the name of the major? No, I was a religion major, but my area of academic interest, I guess, was early Islamic history. So that's what I wrote all my papers about.

So what, what goes into that? I mean, in terms of the choice, what was the motivation? Well, I took one class in, I took an intro to religion class and I took kind of an intro to Islam class. And it was just really interesting to me that there was this, um, you know, there was this worldview that a billion people shared that I knew basically nothing about. I mean, this was in the late 1990s. So Islam wasn't really part of the cultural conversation in the United States. And, um, so I, I just, I just became really interested in it. Um, and I wanted to learn a lot about it. I wanted to learn especially a lot about kind of the emergence of Islam and how it spread. I've always been interested in how ideas spread. And we like to imagine really simplistic ways of ideas spreading, but it's really, really complicated. So we always think

that Islam spread by the sword, for instance, with the growth of the Arab empire. But in fact, like it's much more complicated than that. And a lot of times the conversion, um, the conversion happened without any kind of, uh, war or battle or anything. Um, but the reasons why it happened were, were equally complicated. So I just found that really interesting. Um, in my thinking about, you know, how do I have an idea that gets inside of someone else's head? And then how do we have ideas that get inside of millions of people's heads? Um, that was a very early, but kind of modern example of it because it happened in, you know, like 622 CE. So, this is what Ear Biscuits listeners come for. A little bit of Islamic history. Oh, yeah.

But the, so, it sounds like you came at a religion major from an academic perspective. Yeah, very much so. Was there also a personal faith perspective? Because you wanted to be a priest too, right? Yeah, there was. I mean, I'm not a Muslim, but I'm Episcopalian. But I was really interested in religion. And my interest in becoming an Episcopal priest was not primarily looking back like about my personal faith. It was about my like interest in theological questions and in questions of meaning and suffering and thinking that that would be was a place to have those conversations about suffering and

about hope and whether there was any meaning in human life. And that was Episcopalian, your... Yeah, I'm still Episcopalian, yeah. Like growing up with your parents or... No, they were Methodists. It's all the same, though, when it's that sort of, you know, lefty Protestant stuff. Got it, got it. It's pretty interchangeable. I shouldn't say that as an Episcopalian, no. The only, the benefit of being Episcopalian is you get to kneel more. I'm a big fan of kneeling and crossing myself.

You can get to do that hardly at all as a Methodist. So that was the number one draw for me. Well, that sounds like a joke, but there may be some truth to it. No, I'm completely serious. No, I like, I like, I like the sort of, I like ritual and I like rituals that, um, that pull me back through history, you know, that, that, that connect me to people who lived 1800 years ago or whatever.

And I know that, I mean, you've, you've said this a number of times in other interviews, um, how that wanting to become a priest, you ended up becoming a student chaplain in a children's hospital. And that was kind of the beginning of the story of Fault in Our Stars. Yeah, that's where I started trying to write it right after I worked at the hospital. I worked there for about six months. You know, it was a weird job because I was a student chaplain, but when I was on call, there were no other chaplains in the hospital. So I was the only person that if someone died, um, if a baby was going to die and needed to be baptized, I was the only person there to baptize the baby. And, um, or if, uh, someone died, I was there with the family when, um, as they went through that process. Um, but

also, you know, if there was any kind of trauma, part of the, a chaplain is always part of the trauma team. So the, the chaplain and the social worker usually are stay with the family, um, you know, through the emergency department and the process of, um, getting, um, admitted to the hospital. So what is the experience of being that close to dying children? What kind of impact does that have on your faith? A pretty severe one. Not necessarily positive, I would. think ideas about why good, you know, good people have horrible things happen to them about why suffering exists and why it's unjustly distributed and all that stuff. The problem that Christians, uh, call theodicy, the problem of evil, uh, in a, in a world where God is, is good and powerful.

Um, but all of my ideas about it proved kind of useless, you know, I mean, I could, I could, I could say that those things were intellectually true. I just didn't care because, you know, I was face-to-face with the randomness, arbitrariness of human existence. And the idea that this stuff was happening for a reason seemed very problematic to me. Now that didn't destroy my faith and I still go to church and it's still an important part of my life. It did make me think that I shouldn't be working from inside the church. Like I shouldn't be doing this work from inside the church because I just didn't have the right kind of DNA for it, you know? Also, I couldn't do it.

A good chaplain or social worker, anyone who works in a children's hospital really has the ability to do this incredibly difficult work, this emotionally wrenching work to be fully present, to be fully there for the people who need you, and then to go home and be fully there for your family and for the people in your non-professional life. And I did not have that ability at all. So, you know, I kind of learned that about myself. And that's a good thing to know. And I still really, I have great affection for chaplains. Whenever I'm in the hospital, I'm always like, bring me the chaplain. I want to hang out with whoever's on call tonight. Well, Carson Daly couldn't do it either.

You shouldn't feel too bad. He wanted to be a priest. Wow. You should connect with him. So did you, and do you find satisfactory answers to those questions that you're kind of faced with when you, when you see children going through that kind of suffering? Do you find that in your faith? Um, I do. Um, I do to an extent. Um, I don't, I don't as completely and without reservation as many of the people I know and many of the people I admire, both intellectually and in the way they go about their lives. I'm, I'm okay. I guess, I guess for me, like I'm okay living in a world that's arbitrary and random and unfair. Um, I need to know the kind of world I'm living in, in order to be happy. Um, and I need to, uh, I need to try to orient as much of my work toward, uh, injustice or, and inequality, uh, as possible because otherwise, because that's what, that's what makes me feel

meaning, you know, and that's true. That's true in, in the church, like the stuff, the stuff that gets me most excited about being a member of my church is about service and, uh, connection more than it's about, um, any kind of evangelism or direct evangelism or whatever. Um, and the stuff that, the stuff that gets me going in, in my professional life is about, you know, the project for awesome or building a school in Bangladesh or whatever. Like that stuff is a lot more interesting to me than, uh, how many subscribers we have. Right. Well, and that, and that, you know, brings up another thing, which is obviously Hank is involved in all those things and seems very much equally motivated. But as far as I understand, he doesn't share your faith.

No, yeah, not at all. He's an atheist, right? Well, I don't know if he'd identify as an atheist, but he wouldn't identify. He'd identify as close. I don't know. We don't talk about that stuff that much. Mostly because our worldviews are turned in the same direction. Yeah.

So like what we want to do on a daily basis is turned in the same direction. And there's kind of two ways of imagining meaning to life. One way is that like we as human beings construct it, we make it up as we go along. And another is that we derive it, we derive it from some organizing principle to the universe or some source, scripture, whatever it is. And in the end, I don't know if I care if meaning is constructed or derived, as long as like, um, the people I'm working closest with are turned in the same direction. Like the meaning that they find is similar. Um, so it orients us similarly. And with Hank, I mean, we're pretty much a hundred percent on the same page all the time. Like we never,

one thing we never argue about is like purpose. So that's good because that's a pretty core argument if you end up having it, you know? Right. That's so fascinating. I guess I'd like to go to the Brotherhood 2.0 because that kind of, it sounds like that defines your friendship, you know? What you just said is like a real testimony to the fact that even though you guys may become you have beliefs that are rooted in different places that you're so aligned when it comes to what you guys are accomplishing together as a team it's

it's it's amazing having not been close as kids was the whole brotherhood thing was that brotherhood 2.0 was that his idea it was my idea it was your idea yeah i was a big fan well we were both big friends of zay frank um and the show with zay frank and it's i'm i i didn't think that because the first video was his by hank yeah but then the second video your first one the first thing out of your mouth is, I'm not going to be good at this. To me, it seemed like you were saying, I don't know if this is a great idea, Hank, but I'll do it. It was my idea. My wife's not going to show her face, but so it was your idea. It was my idea, but I have to say that if Hank hadn't gotten enthusiastic

about it, it never would have happened. So I was like, we should do a collaborative video blog that's like the show, but you only have half as much work because you're talking to each other. And plus, then we could stop textually communicating and start like talking to each other every day, which we hadn't done really because we only talked over text. Was Zay's show done at that point? No, it was. It was going strong. It had three months to go. It had three months to go, but everyone knew it was going to end.

So we were kind of thinking about the future and how sad we would be. And yeah, I mean, if Hank, I had the idea, but then if Hank hadn't been like, yes, let's do that.

Let's, here's how, here's where you go get a camera. Here's the camera that you get. Here's how you edit video. Like, I mean, you know, he, I'd never made

a video before. I'd never owned a camcorder before. So it was a... And you didn't believe you could do it. That's the first words out of your mouth. Yeah, no, I thought I'd be terrible. video before. I'd never owned a camcorder before. So it was a... And you didn't believe you could do it. That's the first words out of your mouth. Yeah, no, I thought I'd be terrible. And to be fair, I was.

I was terrible for many months. I was... When you go back and you watch those old videos and I find them just crushing, crushingly slow. Well, you caught... In that first video, you referred to the Endeavor as a documentary. Yeah, I know.

That's what I thought it was going to be too. That's how I was imagining it. Right. Yeah, But it is not. I mean, maybe it is. It's kind of a, it's, it's kind of, it's a document of our, of our lives over many, many years, which is something I'm going to be so grateful to have. And I think, I think that our, you know, my kids will be so grateful. I hope, um, you know, to have, but, um, but, you know, almost from the beginning, we saw it as a project with an audience and an audience that we had to engage with and that doing stuff, even if it was only a couple hundred people doing stuff with those 200 people was going to be a lot cooler than anything that we could do just with each other. Like just talking to each other was not going to be as interesting as actively engaging the people watching it.

So you, I mean, I'm assuming you got some of that, the idea of an audience or just almost creating a movement with the way that Zay kind of dealt with everyone who was involved and all the ideas that he had. Absolutely. So when you started, you had that in mind,

like this is community building. Well, I think maybe for the first two weeks, we didn't think of it that way, but we started to think of it as community building very quickly. Um, I think the first time that we really understood that there was a community around the videos, we only had maybe 300 regular viewers and I had to be hospitalized cause I had this very rare, weird infection behind my eye. I wasn't serious, but like you had to get IV antibiotics and to cheer me up, Hank asked people to put something on their heads because that had become an inside joke somehow. And we

had like 300 viewers and we got like 240 pictures. And I was like, oh my gosh. That's a pretty good percentage, right? Can you imagine a conversion rate like that today? I mean, it's just unimaginable. So it was a different time, a different world. But yeah, that's when we realized, oh my gosh, we should probably do something other than just have people put stuff on their heads. And because of that, your eye got fixed. Yeah, it did work. Look at me now.

Still two eyes. Pretty awesome. Well, I mean, I can definitely say that when we decided that, oh, we need to name our community, we need to do this, it was definitely looking at you guys and thinking, oh, look what they've done here. They've created, they're not creating content only. They're building a movement and they're accomplishing so many things. And they see the potential in that community. I mean, what was that process like? Obviously, you just kind of revealed that first initial realization of how they could be motivated to do something. But when did you start thinking about this is

a strategic community? I mean, here we are at VidCon. Right. It's kind of seeing the culmination of that. But, you know, what's that process like? I think we never wanted to think of the community just as like a launching pad for other ideas. We wanted it to live, to have its own life and to have its own meaning. But, you know, I think VidCon was really the first thing that emerged out of Nerdfighteria that became much different from Nerdfighteria and much larger. And, you know, it really, it came of Hank's feeling that we needed a conference and that he knew a lot of people who made YouTube videos. And so he should just do the conference. And I thought that was a terrible idea. I thought it would make people who made YouTube videos hate us. And that if the conference was bad, it would be the end of our careers. Also, it was very expensive. So we essentially like had our houses against the

conference. I just I thought it was a bad idea. But I did know by then that I have to trust Hank when he has an idea. If he sticks with it for more than like six hours, it's usually something that he's going to do whether I like it or not. So I better I better get behind him. And then, of course, you know, VidCon turned out to be amazing. And then from there, we did start to launch channels that are kind of outgrowths of Nerdfighteria, but are separate from it, like Crash Course or SciShow or The Art Assignment.

And we've done that. I still think of that as an extension, a way of kind of like building small groups within a big group because it's really problematic when a community becomes so large I still think of that as an extension, a way of kind of like building small groups within a big group. Because it's really problematic when a community becomes so large that it's unwieldy. It's hard for people to think of themselves as, you know, as nerd fighters. What's a nerd fighter if everyone's a nerd fighter? Yeah.

And so we want there to be communities within the community, whether it's the Minecraft server or the people who like to watch me play FIFA or the people, um, who are passionate about the art assignment, whatever it is like, that's really important. I think to the future to like making it, it work, making it sustainable so that people are still, still feel involved enough to want to be, want to do stuff with us. Well, I think about the fact that it goes back to the question that we asked earlier was, does the success of the book and the movie, is it upsetting the balance of the Vlogbrothers? But it also potentially creates this sense that your community is built on so many different things that you guys have done over time. And then to have something that is this landmark achievement in a real traditional sense almost have you thought about how that might threaten the community yeah i mean it's been a big concern for us is how do we sort of like you know kind of build a seawall against the rising tide of the fault in our stars um so that it doesn't become uh a moment that we all look back on and say like oh it was all magical until then. Um, and you know, my, our main strategy for that, like the first video I made after, um, after the fault in our stars came

out was devoted almost entirely to the book that we're reading this summer for the nerd fighter book club about, um, living in a slum in Mumbai. Um, and I just was basic. I, I, I did that partly as a way of saying like, okay, well now back to normal, like a way of saying like okay well now back to normal like you know like now back to talking about stuff that we care about with people we care about and and you know like being a fan

of the Vlogbrothers means a lot of this you know for better or worse I hope you like this but this is what it is instead of trying to orient ourselves to the most possible viewers. I think that in that respect, we've taken inspiration from you guys because you were very conscious about choosing community over virality at some point and using virality as a way to build community instead of using community as a way to build virality. Um, and that's, I thought that was really smart. And it also like, it also made me like more of a fan,

if that makes sense. Like it made me more interested in your work. Um, instead of it just being like, Oh, I know I can go there to see a funny video. It was like, Oh, I like those people. They can hang out. Yeah. I mean, we didn't know with Good Mythical Morning that it would become what it has, but we're very glad because it's based on our friendship and it's based on what we want to talk about and letting people in in that conversation. You know, the us that is not just the two of you guys,

but is your entire community is something that we constantly kind of check against to kind of say, okay, what is our us? Is it just the two of us, or is it also our fans, the Mythical Beast kind of a thing? Yeah. What was a milestone early on that kind of bumped up Vlogbrothers from,

I mean, you knew pretty early on you had an audience. Yeah, but it was tiny. It was tiny, but tiny but you weren't very early you were talking to you you would always talk to each other you still do yeah but you're not really you're talking to everybody yeah you just have this uh like innate way to address each other in the right moments of your vlogs, but then you're talking to everyone. It's an interesting talent. Yeah, it's a weird balance. It's a weird thing that no one else really has to do. I know, no one else has to say,

good morning, Hank, it's Tuesday. Yeah, I've said good morning, Hank, it's Tuesday on something like 250 consecutive Tuesdays. And when you say Hank, are you still thinking Hank? Are you thinking everybody, but I just say Hank? I just call them Hank. You know, I really, I do still think Hank. And I still think that Hank is the first and most important member of my audience.

But I'm very conscious that it's not just Hank. And there are lots of times that Hank knows something that I have to tell everyone. So in that case, I try not to say Hank. In that case, I try to come out of that idea that it's just an open letter to Hank and be like, hey, Nerdfighters, Hank knows this, but Hank has a concert on Wednesday or whatever. What was the Philip DeFranco milestone? What was the Philip DeFranco milestone? You know, we had a few milestones. The first one and the first big bump was back in the days of featured YouTube videos.

Okay, yeah. Hank had a video that was featured about the last Harry Potter book coming out. He sang a song about it. And that suddenly went from 200 subscribers to 7,000 almost overnight. And then along the way, there were a lot of other bumps. Uh, there was a huge series of bumps really from Phil, um, where Phil would talk about the vlog brothers, how much you liked the vlog brothers. One time, I think the first time in a video intro, he referenced us, you know, he, he had that old video intro where he would be, yeah. And he, he was, was very, very Zay Frank sounding back in 2007, as were we.

And he mentioned the Vlogbrothers and we got another several thousand subscribers then. But it was, you know, YouTube still, I think, but especially then for us, was really about YouTubers helping YouTubers. There was very little, at least in my memory, there was very little of anybody trying to take anyone else's audience and a lot of trying to expand the overall size of the pie, which was really, it was a good, yeah, it was a good era in YouTube history. It felt like we were Hollywood before the studios, the studio system came in, you know,

like Hollywood in the teens, where we were kind of making up the rules as we went along and what we were doing was accidentally important to the future. It shaped the future. We just didn't know it at the time. And of course, I think more than anyone, Zay did that. Zay, by inventing the idea that online video projects could be community oriented, and then also by inventing the idea that online video projects could be community-oriented and then also by inventing most of the conventions of the vlogging genre, which he had no idea he was doing at the time, of course.

Right, it's amazing. It's amazing how, like you said, how much Phil sounded like him. So did we. Almost everyone in 2007 sounded like Phil, if they were vlogging. Right, and he said that. Now he also promoted

the book. Was that Paper Towns? Yeah, it was Paper Towns. He promoted Paper Towns when it came out. Did you know he was going to do that and what happened? I didn't know he was going to do it and it was responsible for it being on the bestseller list the second week. I think the first week that it was on, it was Nerdfighters. And then he kind of got it on for a second week just by

talking about it and saying he liked it. And then it held on for a third week and then it fell off. And I thought that was about as good as book sales would ever be or could ever be. I mean, that was amazing to me. The idea that my book could make the New York Times bestseller list was just- For any bearded time. Yeah, it was crazy. I mean, I could never have imagined that. I certainly never thought about that when I was writing it. I mean, never occurred to me that it would be a book with that kind of audience.

Well, and you pointed out in a Tumblr post that a lot of people have assumed, oh, well, this book was popular at the Fault in Our Stars because of your YouTube career, but you've explained, hey, I had three, four books already out there. Right. And they would make it to the bestsellers list because of Nerdfighteria, and then they would fall off in this one.

How many weeks was it at number one? It's still there, yeah. And how many weeks are we talking now? 130. I mean, it's insanity. Yeah, no, it's so weird. Absolute insanity, right? So weird.

But you say, you kind of outlined the reasons why, and it's insanity yeah no it's so weird insanity right so weird but you say you kind of outlined the reasons why and it's you know it's it's it's things beyond well it's actually kind of simple I'll let you yeah it is things beyond nerdfighteria that said it never would have happened without nerdfighteria right if I hadn't had this audience it never would have happened because the the the initial activation energy never would have been there i mean we sold 80,000 books in the first week and that was entirely because or at least primarily because of nerdfighter i mean i'd like to think that i had some people who just like my books but let's face it not that many um and you you committed to signing every pre-sold copy which turned out to be 150,000. 150,000 that you signed. I did.

I did. Did Hank also sign the books? Hank put little Hankler fishes in 5% of them, which was still a huge undertaking. I mean, that's still a lot of books. It was. It was. And Sarah did the same thing.

She did a Yeti too, right? Sarah did it on a few hundred. Yeah, a little Yeti. But you went all 150k i did i did and so so obviously a that's that's nuts i don't know how that's possible that you actually did that i don't believe that you did but it's okay there's a stamp involved there's a machine with a stamp no stamps i did it it took two months it was really enjoyable i might do it again just because i found it so relaxing like i i'm sure you guys know this like our work can be very

stressful and like on some on some level you're never not working. But when I was, during those two months, I was signing, like people would call and I would be like, I'm sorry, I have to sign 150,000 sheets of paper. So I can't, we'll have to talk about this later. It's a different kind of writing, you know, it's just, it's just your name. Just like one thing. Like Jack Nicholson and the Shanghai. It comes really easy. But I mean, the point is, yes, without Nerdfighteria, it wouldn't have had this huge bump before anybody could even read it. Right, right, right. It had that initial energy. But the reason that the book has hung around is, I mean, it's partly that people like it. It has very good Goodreads ratings, much better than any of my other books. So I think people have responded to it generously.

And then I think it's also partly that, uh, you know, this is underappreciated, uh, by us on the internet, but the, the IRL people worked IRL hard to sell a lot of IRL books. Um, so I think, you know, I had an amazing, amazing and still do amazing sales team around that book and penguin just believed that they could force it down people's throats and if they force it on enough people's throats that it would catch on by word of mouth and that's what they did i mean it was it it was a great book it is a great book and it's just a confluence of everything working correctly i think that's what you said at the beginning about the movie is. And then, so now you've cursed

who knows how many different industries with the expectation. You know, people in suits in all types of industries are now expecting. They're throwing you around in so many rooms. If you've got, oh, if you've got a website or a YouTube channel, plus you've got, get that DeFranco guy to mention you three years earlier, and then, okay, and what else? Right.

Well, in Hollywood, they all think it was because of my Twitter. They don't really know about YouTube in Hollywood, so they're just like, man, he has a lot of Twitter followers. He must have told them to go to the movie, and they must have gone. Right. And I'm like, yeah. They want to boil it down. You're right. It was Twitter.

But the inescapable truth is none of it works if it's not good. It has to be good. It also has to be authentic. Like, you know, you have to really genuinely want to talk about something and want to connect, you know? It can't just be about a desire to, oh, like, this is a way to get rich. Like want to connect, you know, it can't just be about a

desire to, oh, like this is a way to get rich. Like it's, it's a, first off, it's a terrible, terrible way to get rich. Um, and it's just not, if you want to get rich, like go move the big pile of money around and try to make it bigger. Like that's the way to get rich. Like this, this has to be about a desire to to to genuinely connect with people and to have real conversations that matter to you um and if it's not then i think it never works and it's interesting because at this point you know if i zoned out for a second which i didn't and came back to your statement i wouldn't know if you were talking about which you know the fault in our stars or the vlog brothers or any other any other project, because that is the cornerstone of all of it is the authenticity. And, you know, you're not just

looking to move a big pile of money around. No, no, no. You have to want to do something. But I think most people do deep down. I think most people, I don't think people really, I think most people want to do work that matters. And there's lots and lots of ways of doing that. I mean, and it doesn't, for many people, for most people, it doesn't get to be their profession. You know, so, but I'm always, you know, I'm always amazed by people who aren't defined by their profession in the way that I am, you know,

who just go out and do volunteer work. And it's just something that they're very passionate about and they find a lot of fulfillment there. But you have to, if you're not guided by that, that, you know, that desire to make a difference in people's lives and to try, then I think you get off path really, really quickly. It's really hard to stay focused on that.

But if you get off that path, it goes to all bad places. Well, let me ask then, I think we've pinpointed your passion. What makes you angriest? Oh man. Um, I guess like lack of nuance, lack of nuance in conversations. Um, that, that sort of, um, that I, that idea that things simply are simply aren't, um, or, or that, you know, whether it's about history or, or religion or all of the things that, um know, whether it's about history or religion or all of the things that the internet fights about,

if we're not seeing it nuanced, if we're not trying to understand another person's narrative. Do you mean the gray? The gray areas of life? All the gray spaces are really fascinating to me. Are you talking about that Liam Neeson movie? It was a good one. Boy, that's good.

Yeah, it's a little dark. In the plane? You want to talk about being angry. He's very angry. Yeah, he's always after somebody. Yeah, Liam Neeson, he needs to get revenge. So, yeah, I do think that, yeah, I think for me at least, that's the

thing that makes me mad is when people don't acknowledge the gray. Where do you encounter this? I mean, you see it a lot on the internet, I think, when people make sort of bold statements that are easily rebloggable or that are sort of the internet version of a bumper sticker. I don't think you can get to the capital T truth via the internet version of a bumper sticker. Um, you can't, I don't think you can get to the, I don't think you can get to the capital T truth, but via the internet version of a bumper sticker, I think you have to have nuanced conversations and complex conversations about complex ideas that, that, that are open to the idea that you might be wrong or that you, you want to have your thinking

further clarified instead of coming into it, you know, wanting to shout the unassailable truth that you know to be true. And that's a frustration for me on the internet because I want us to have a really high quality of discourse. So like, I see that a lot in YouTube comments. Nerdfighteria is incredibly blessed in this respect. The comments on our videos are amazing, but even on Crash Course comments, it often quickly descends into fighting about the gold standard or whatever. Right. Well, it's interesting because there is a large level of irony in the fact that you're a very eloquent guy. You speak eloquently. You write eloquently. Your characters speak in ways that most teenagers that I know don't speak.

Yeah. And they don't speak in any way that is reflective of YouTube comments. No, they don't sound like YouTube comments. It'd be great to write a novel. Okay, here's an idea for you guys. Maybe we could work together on this. Write a novel that's just YouTube comments, where you try to construct a narrative, you know?

But, like, it's one person is really mad the whole time. We've got an idea based on YouTube comments. We're not going to share it with you. We'll share it when the audio is up. Oh, that's a teaser. But, you know, I thought about that, and that was one of the observations that my wife made as she was reading the book,

was that she's like, the way they speak to each other, it's almost like you're calling people to a higher level of discourse. Is that intentional, or is that just how you want your characters to come across? I mean, I do. I want them to, I'm more interested in them sounding like we feel like we sound. discourse. Is that intentional or is that just how you want your characters to come across or? I mean, I do, I want them to, I'm more interested in them sounding like we feel like we sound. Um, we always feel like we sound pretty smart, you know? Um, but then when you actually diagram the things that we say, it's completely undiagrammable. Like this sentence, I'm sure

is not a sentence in any way. Um, yeah, I hate reading my interviews, you know? Oh God. When people just, they just write down what you said and I'm like, make it into a sentence. You know what I meant. I'm a sixth grader in every single interview that we've ever done. They have to use ellipses all the time to cut I'm interested. I like, I like writing about, um, people who are really, uh, openly, enthusiastically engaged and not, not terribly embarrassed about it. Um, and I think those people in their best moments, like do have, uh, do have conversations at least that feel that way. But particularly with the Fault in Our Stars, I was also conscious that I was writing in this

genre of the star-crossed lover. And that genre is defined by its sort of purple prose, you know, like the fact that Romeo and Juliet's first 12 lines back and forth to each other form a sonnet, like people don't talk like that, but it's, it's always been part of the way that we think about, um, uh, kind of cursed romance. So I wanted to, I wanted to use it, but hopefully also undercut it at times, particularly in the second half of the book. Right. Well, I wanted to ask, just to get back to you and Hank.

So are you guys best friends? I mean, the whole process over the years since Brotherhood 2.0, and it sounds like beginning your friendship. Yeah. Really. Was that the beginning of your friendship and characterize it now? It was the beginning of our friendship as adults on equal footing, for sure. Or at least it was a dramatic change, you know, where we became really, really close. Yeah. I definitely think

that, I mean, I have a, I have a best friend in Indianapolis who I see every day and who like, you know, like essentially they, they co-parent our kids and we co-parent theirs. And so my friend, Chris, um, you don't know him, but he might come to VidCon someday. What does he, what does he do? He works, he owns an interpreting company. He does medical and legal interpreting. It's really cool, actually. He works with a huge Burmese community in Indianapolis. A lot of Burmese people have settled in Indianapolis in the last 20 years. And he works with that community to make sure that people, you know, when they're in the hospital or whatever, can have high quality conversations with their doctors by providing good interpreters. That's difficult anyways.

I know, right? Yeah, even if you can't speak the language, I struggle with it. Look, I lied to my doctor about how I hurt my shoulder. But yeah, so, but Hank and I, I mean, Hank and I are best friends and we are... Well, no, you can only have one. Oh, you can only have one? Is it Chris or is it Hank? I mean, Hank is my brother.

We are super tight brothers. Okay. We could not be closer as brothers also i think my wife is probably my best friend oh okay yeah i could have really thrown you under the bus i'm glad you yeah thanks for doing that so um but you crawled out but yeah i you listed her third but okay i have i have seven best friends now that i I think of it. Yeah, no, Hank and I are just so close that it doesn't seem, I mean, I can't imagine working without him. I can't imagine I wouldn't be interested in doing things

if it weren't for collaborating with Hank. Is the nature of your conversations, do they, are they ever like friends? Or is it because you're business partners too? Yeah, I mean, we do. With Rhett and I, so much of our conversations are they ever like friends or is it because you're business partners too? Yeah. I mean, we do. So much of our conversations are just about our collaborative business endeavors.

And that defines our friendship. I don't even know if that's a, I mean that there's pitfalls associated with that, but it's not necessarily a bad thing. I don't think it's bad. I, you know, I need shared projects to talk to Hank about because otherwise I don't know what to talk about.

And not just to him, but to anyone. I don't like I'm not I don't know. I don't know how to have like a conversation about nothing. And Hank and I, I think Hank doesn't doesn't either. And so this gives us something to talk about. It gives us something to do together. It's like, you know, if I always think it could it could have been model planes. You know, it could have been that I build the model planes and Hank paints them.

What? Well, it could have been anything. It could have been. But you just, but you said model planes. I love, I'm really into the, I'm, I'm fascinated by people who like devote their lives to model planes or model cars or whatever. Like people who really are really passionate and like they come home from work. Yeah, because they could be as big as this couch.

Yeah, I know. And people come. The people or the planes? Both. Well, yeah. They come home from work. Yeah, because they could be as big as this couch. Yeah, I know. And people come- The people or the planes? Both. Well, yeah. They come home from- There's a linear relationship. They come home from work or whatever, and they've had a long, hard day at work. And they think, you know what I would like to do to calm down? I would like to build a model plane now. And I think that's really cool. And yeah, so Hank and I could collaborate on model planes or whatever, but we need to collaborate on something in order to stay close.

Oh, yeah. Well, there's that. We talked about it a lot. There's when you have a shared goal, it's that you're willing to work through things that if, if the, if the only goal was just to maintain the friendship at some point, you'd be like, okay, well this is good. This has gotten frustrating after 30 years. Right. Right. You know? Uh, I mean, it's almost like a marriage. Absolutely. In one sense, you know? It absolutely is. I think mean it's almost like a marriage absolutely in one sense yeah you know it absolutely is i think you need shared projects in a marriage too like you need you need things that orient you yeah that's why so many people get divorced after the kids leave because it's like you know that's interesting you know we've got this project which is to get this

kid prepared for life and then they they leave and and it's like, okay, we need model planes now. Right. Right. You know, you have to have something there. Yeah. Yeah. You got to take care of the, the relationship as well as the relationship with your kids, which can be challenging because kids, it's easy for kids to kind of take over a marriage. Right. True. So what's the next model plane, if you'll forgive me. I'm glad that I introduced that to our conversation. Well, the next thing is that we are working with the Gates Foundation to expand our Crash Course channel to include this thing, Big History, where we zoom out. It's really interdisciplinary approach to studying the universe. So you begin at the beginning of the universe and you go through the lives of people, but, but by taking a sort of zoomed out, look, it's a very different world of history. It includes a lot of science and a lot of astronomy and lots of, um, you know, lots of,

lots of time before people. And then even trying to imagine a time after people, what that's going to look like, what, what the future looks like. And that's really cool and then we're also i'm going um uh i don't think i can say where i'm going and who i'm going with i'm going on a trip uh far away with someone i really admire um and i'm really looking forward to that as an extension of our work on uh global health and and. And will we expect, like, what on the backside of this? Yeah, so on the backside of that, videos, and then also a discussion of what works when it comes to making life, making it so that kids have healthier lives

in the developing world. Okay, so it's Oprah. A campaign as well. Yeah, Oprah. It is Oprah. I'll be going, Okay, so it's Oprah. A campaign as well. Yeah, Oprah. It is Oprah. I'll be going, I'll be traveling with Oprah on Oprah's plane. I'm so excited. It's going to be awesome.

It's not Oprah. We now know that. It's Stedman. It's Gail. It's Gail. I'm going with Gail. I mean, you've already, I'm going to continue to engage you you've already mentioned gates so maybe it's bill gates himself oh i it's it's it's not anyone as cool as bill gates but it's someone really cool oh and that person is listening and their feelings are hurt right now

i'm sorry person but i think we both know you're not as cool as Bill Gates. For a second, I thought you said, I'm sorry, Percy. And I was like, ah, it's Percy. I now know who it is. The guy that sang Stand By Me? Percy Jackson from the Rick Riordan books? Percy Sledge, I think. Percy Sledge. Percy Sledge. It's Percy Sledge.

He's a big philanthropist. That's why there needs to be two of you. One to remember half of the joke and the other to remember the other half. There's a lot of that that happens. Well, you know, unfortunately, because we're at VidCon, we can't have you sign the round table of dim lighting, but you could write on this table in the presidential suite. In silver sharpie? Yeah. I'm signing it with my mind though. I just signed it in my mind. And then next time you're in the Burbank area, you've got to come in and sign it. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. this has been a great conversation.

Thanks, man. Thank you guys so much. And I have to say, also, thanks for making stuff that I can be a fan of, Lo, these many years. It's been great to watch you guys make so much fascinating stuff. And I really think you're just at the beginning. So here's to many more years. Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you. We're honored by that, sir. All right. Take care, sir. All right, take care guys. And there you have it, our Ear Biscuit with the one and only John Green. You know, it's just confirmation talking to him in the midst of all this, it's just confirmation talking to him in the midst of all this,

it's just confirmation of how great a guy he is and how down to earth he is and how- Well, he's obviously smart too. He's very smart. I think me and you together, we're about as smart as John Green. Like if you combine us- And that's why we didn't-

It was an evil conversation. No, that's why we didn't let Hank be there. Oh, exactly. It was like, we're gonna interview Hank. We're not doing- Separately at a later date. Not the was like, we're going to interview Hank. We're not doing- Separately at a later date. Not the Vlogbrothers at the same time, definitely. We're not that stupid.

Or we don't want to look that stupid. But it's just, it's amazing. I hope, one of the things that we want Ear Biscuits to be, and hope that it is, is a place where you hear a conversation that has a different tone. We talk about slightly different things, and I hope that we just, is a place where you hear a conversation that has a different tone. We talk about slightly different things, and I hope that we just haven't regurgitated and done another typical interview that a lot of people are going to do with John. But I hope that,

you know, I know that what I got was just some insight into the fact that, yes, the media may see this guy as the author of The Fault in Our Stars, and he is very much that. But hopefully what we've kind of revealed is that he's so much more than that, not just as a person, but as an artist, as a creator, as a person who is just such a voice in so many ways to our generation, really. And he sees himself in that way, and it's refreshing. He hasn't just checked out because he's had a huge success well the fact that it was i mean yeah we're friends like acquaintances slash friends but we sent an email about being on ear biscuits and he was like he replied and

he was like yes you know it's like i appreciated the fact that we were still able to get through to the guy and he graciously accepted our invitation. It was no different. Sitting down with him at this VidCon was no different than sitting down with him at last year's VidCon in spite of what he's experienced. And I just, I personally appreciate that. And I know you probably do, listening.

It's great when great things happen to great people. Let John know what you think of this Ear Biscuit. Tweet at him. It's at Real John Green. His first name is actually Real. We didn't talk about that. Yeah, that's weird. But his middle name is John and his last name is Green. Real John Green on Twitter. Hashtag Ear Biscuits. Let him know what you thought. Also, rate us on iTunes. You know, that's always helpful. Comment on SoundCloud. We appreciate it.

Yeah, and keep a lookout for my new book, as I already mentioned, about two people with cancer. You know what? Three people with cancer. Screw it. I'm going with three people, three teenagers. Still teenagers.

It's a love triangle, but they all have cancer. And I'm really hoping that it's really gonna do well. You are shameless. All right, guys, we do this every week, as you know, except next week we're taking a one-week break from Ear Biscuits. But rest assured, the following week we will be back with another biscuit for your ears. Thanks for listening.