Good morning, Hank, it's Tuesday.

So, full disclosure, I'm a little bit flustered right now because TIME magazine just released its list of the top ten novels of the year and The Fault in Our Stars is first, like, first above all the other books released in 2012. Like, I'm ahead of Hilary Mantel and J.D. Smith and Juno Diaz and J. K. freaking Rowling. So right now, I'm just a bit overwhelmed and excited and like rwagahhblah. By the way, [pointing to painting on the wall] Henry's painting, isn't he a genius?

Right, a couple weeks ago, I visited my alma mater, Hogwarts, I mean Kenyon College, a small liberal arts school in Ohio where I learned so much about how to read and write from brilliant professors in small classrooms. I mean, this is where I became a writer and an adult and I made a proper thoughts from places video, which you can find at Kenyon's channel in the dooblydoo, but while I was there, I couldn't stop thinking about how privileged I am. Like, for one thing, my race and gender and sex and orientation are all privileged by the social order in which I live, but I was also outrageously privileged to be able to attend a college like Kenyon, where I had small classes and amazing professors who carefully read my papers and responded to them thoughtfully. I'm also privileged because I had access to high-speed internet in 2007, Hank, and you and I could afford cheap, horrible video cameras to begin Brotherhood 2.0.

I mean, Hank, Vlogbrothers, Crash Course, SciShow, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, VidCon, all of these things wouldn't exist if we hadn't had $249 to spend on video cameras at the end of 2006. And that's a big part of the reason I feel so strongly about trying to extend access to opportunities to more people. There are a lot of people who can bring awesome things into this world but are lacking the opportunities to do so. Which brings me to the 6th annual Project for Awesome!

So every year on December 17th, the Nerdfighter and YouTube communities come together to decrease world suck. And there are two parts to the Project for Awesome: the video part and the other part. Some times in between jump cuts I think about the fact that Time Magazine just named my book the best book of the year and I feel like (makes explosion/mind blown noises).
Right so the video part: at noon Eastern, five pm GMT, on December seventeenth, upload a video about a nonprofit organization or cause you believe in. Try to be creative an remember it's great if you can show the organization doing its work.

Then you can embed your video at projectforawesome.com and people will vote for it and there will also be a 48 hour Project for Awesome livestream where we work together to find and promote Project for Awesome videos by commenting, liking, favoriting, tweeting, Tumblring- I'm tired of gerunds. And the other part is that we'll be raising money for the Foundation to Decrease Worldsuck which money will be distributed to organizations featured in the videos that get the five most votes at projectforawesome.com.

Although, wait a second, it's important to note that's done at the discretion of the Project for Awesome Board of Directors, which is all nerdfighters. 'Cause, like, if 4chan comes in and rigs the vote for, like,the National Association of People Who Hate Nerds then yeah, no. How much money will it be? That is largely up to you, but we do already have more than $15,000 thanks to Nerdcrafteria donations and also because the people who made the Evil Baby Orphanage card game quietly donated a portion of the proceeds to the Foundation. Also, as in previous years, Hank and I will donate one penny per Project for Awesome comment, up to 1,000,000 comments. And most excitingly, thanks to four awesome donors who wish to remain anonymous, every dollar that is donated to the Foundation to Decrease Worldsuck will be matched up to $50,000. So yay anonymous people! There will be an Indiegogo page up around December 16th and while your donations are not tax deductible, all of the proceeds will go directly to the Project for Awesome charities.

Last thing: projectforawesome.com is not quite live yet, but you should go there right now and sign up for the mailing list. Even if you signed up for the mailing list last year, that's no good because we trashed the mailing list every year because we hate spam! So go sign up, you will only receive e-mail about this year's Project for Awesome- nothing else ever I promise!

Okay, Hank, that's it, I think I have to go call the Yeti and tell her the good news. DFTBA, I will see you on Friday.

It looked like I was pointing to my pants when I said I was going to call the Yeti- I was pointing at my phone!