Stephen: We're here at the (?~0:03) to meet two people that have over 350 million views online, their own record label, a video conference in LA, and loads of New York Times bestseller books.  You might not know who they are, but you're gonna wonder why you didn't.

(Crowd gets excited, some scream 'DFTBA')

In the presence of online royalty right here: John and Hank Green, the vlogbrothers.  Why are you in Dublin, first off?  Come on, tell us. 

John: My book, The Fault in Our Stars, just came out here, and so we're here to celebrate that, but also just because we've always wanted to come to Ireland. 

Stephen: You know, I love the way you talk, like, you do it exactly in your vlogs as well.  Let's go back to the start, I mean, vlogbrothers and Brotherhood 2.0.  Why did you start it, and how was it only communicating through video blogs for an entire year?

Hank: I only started it 'cause John wanted to do it, and he's my older brother.  And how was it?  It was fun and hard, but really rewarding, and we had no idea so many people would watch us. 

Stephen: And so for people actually who are watching from kind of all around the country who don't watch YouTube and they're just, you know, sittin' at home, watching their TV, what would you describe Nerdfighteria as?

Hank: It's people who are enthusiastic about stuff like, they don't have to be, you know, they don't have to be reserved, and you can just love loving things, people who celebrate intellectualism and imagining each other complexly. 

Stephen: Yeah.  Another thing that you guys do is that you own your own record label, DFTBA Records, of course, stands for 'Don't Forget to be Awesome', which is the motto of nerdfighters.  Did you ever think you were gonna own your own record label?  Was this a plan, like, when you went into YouTube, you were like, this is gonna be a business model.  We're gonna make a million dollars.

Hank: I don't think that there was any plans going on anywhere involved in the beginning of YouTube.  No one had plans, least of all us.  We had no idea what was going on.  The people really want to support artists that they like from the internet, and so I reached out to them and I said, you know, you guys, we can do all the hard work for you and you can actually start, you know, making a living off the stuff you're doing online. 

Stephen: Project for Awesome obviously it's a day every year on YouTube where people upload videos supporting a charity of their choice, and this year, it actually raised a lot of money.  How do you feel kind of, just looking at that and seeing how much people want to help for one thing, but also how much of a difference you guys are making?

John: Well, it's great to see so many young people involved in philanthropy, and that's really exciting to us, and that's a big part of the reason we do the Project for Awesome every year, is to get people excited about volunteering and making videos for their favorite charities and also, you know, donating to charity.  But, they are tremendously excited and they really--they really believe in trying to decrease the overall worldwide level of suck, as we say.

Stephen: There's a lot of worldwide level of suck as well, and we're--

John: Yeah, yeah, and they, you know, and they really want to help, and they really, really want to make the world better. 

Stephen: Shout out someone, who are you watching on YouTube at the moment?

John: Oh, I'm going to pick an old favorite but--

Stephen: Ze Frank?

John: No, although, that's a great choice, Ze Frank.  I love WheezyWaiter, I think his videos in the last six months have been amazing, so WheezyWaiter. 

Stephen: I don't know how he keeps it up. 

Hank: Um, both Andrew Gunnadee(?~2:59) "Gunnarolla", and Andrew Huang, songstowearpantsto, are two of my new favorites. 

Stephen: The Fault in Our Stars, it's out a year now, and it's done so well, Time Magazine named it what was it, the best fiction book of 2012?  That's incredible.  Like, do you write the books for those accolades or do you write the books for, you know, the appreciation of your fans?

John: No, I mean, I definitely write the books for readers, I mean, that stuff is lovely when it happens, and it's nice to see critics acknowledge the book and be so generous toward it, but I write for my readers. 

Stephen: You focus on two characters at a very kind of mortal point of existence, you know, they're facing something that's--I mean, they're facing terminal cancer, so like, how did you get into the mind of teenagers--two teenagers kind of facing that?

John: Well, it took a long time.  I tried to write this book for ten years before I finally got through it, but it was largely inspired by a friend of mine named Esther who was a nerdfighter and also a reader of my books, and she was sick with cancer throughout our friendship and, you know, sort of getting to know her, and getting to know her family and her friends did inspire a lot of the book.

Stephen: I'm going to let you guys run off, because you got like, what, about 6,000 books or something like that probably, but I will see you in August for VidCon.

(Endscreen)