Interview with Hank Green (vlogbrothers)

Hank Green.

Figure 15-2. Hank Green.

YouTube: http://youtube.com/vlogbrothers (URL 15.4)

Website: www.ecogeek.org (URL 15.5)

Hank and John Green (vlogbrothers), brothers for over 27 years, decided not to write, email, instant message, or text message each other for all of 2007 and instead make daily video blogs. Though the Brotherhood 2.0 project has ended, they update the YouTube channel at least once a week. The community of nerdfighters they helped create is now stronger than ever; it lives at www.nerdfighters.com (URL 15.6). The vlogbrothers' YouTube channel has been featured on NPR and in the Wall Street Journal.

Alan Lastufka: When and why did you start making videos for YouTube?

Hank Green: New Year's Day 2007. It was my first video I'd ever edited. And I had just signed on to do a full year of them…every other day. Man, that was dumb.

Alan: How did you come to have your YouTube celebrity?

Hank: I wrote a song about the last Harry Potter book the day before it came out. It got featured on the front page of YouTube. A tiny fraction of the million people who have watched that video became loyal viewers. And they told their friends, and we felt pressure to make better videos, and then more people responded to the better videos…and on and on.

Alan: If you had one sentence to describe your YouTube channel, what would it be?

Hank: We're just two dorky brothers ...

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