Good morning John!

So I have a head cold, which I would complain about, except that you just got home from the hospital 'cause you have viral meningitis. Which is maybe a little bit worse than a cold, uhh, so I feel like I should suck it up and just do my best to entertain you and make you feel better while your head is trying to fall off of your body, so here's a monkey selfie! Isn't that a cute monkey?

This picture was taken when photographer David Slater's camera was stolen by a Rare Crested Black Macaque. That macaque then proceeded to take lots and lots of pictures of itself, of other macaques, of just... leaves. Most of them were terrible - like anybody with a DSLR.

But this one was very good, and not only because the macaque has the beautiful smile on its face and he's in focus and there's a nice depth of field thing going on and it's good composition, but also because the idea of selfies has sort of permutated culture and is now a thing.

And the idea of a monkey taking a selfie is kind of silly and funny and people want to put that on their blogs. All of this has combined into this become David Slater's most famous photograph ever - most successful photograph ever. At least, by some measures.

The problem is that David Slater makes his living by selling photographs, but this picture has been declared by the Wikimedia Foundation as being in the public domain, meaning it's free for everyone to use.

Why? This is David Slater's photograph - he should have the ability to sell it.

Well... he didn't take it. It was taken by a monkey, and monkeys, at least so far, are not legally able to own things, anything, including intellectual property.

This is unfortunate for David Slater who carried lots of very heavy and expensive equipment a very long way to get this photograph, but it seems to me like the Wikimedia Foundation's argument makes sense. It's everybody's photo, which is why I can use it in this video, because macaques can't own stuff.

Anyhow, viral meningitis! Woah... huh!?

If you're confused, John, who is the other half of this video blog --if you're very confused -- is my brother and he got viral meningitis last week. He's home from the hospital now, he's fine, although he's still in a significant amount of pain.

This has resulted in a first-ever-of-all-time thing on Vlogbrothers: I have three videos in a row on this channel... because Esther Day happened as well, and John missed a video, and so now... Wow... it's like the Hank Show... I don't like it.

Please, John, come back, because I don't know what to talk about without riffing off of you.

John has now missed three videos because of hospitalizations...

Once for his orbital cellulitis - when his, the back of his eyeball got infected. Once for his gallbladder being removed, and now for viral meningitis. Stop, John, stop.

That first time John missed his video, when he had the orbital cellulitis, the eye infection, we banded together and we made a nice video to help him feel better -- ] people put stuff on their heads for him. Because putting stuff on your head is funny and it makes people feel better. It's a well-known scientific fact... uh there's journal articles all about it. Oooh!

So I'm gonna do it again and, in the spirit of questionable copyright, I'm gonna do it with the help of my friend Calvin Harris.

[singing]
Meningitis is a bummer,
When your head starts to pound,
The stiffness in the neck and
the sensitivity to sound,

Rising pressure in your cranium,
and your blood pressure down,
Your brain gets starved of oxygen now,
but you will rebound,

Meningitis is a bummer

John, I really, really, really, really, really hope that I'll see you on Tuesday,  uh, 'cause I don't wanna do this by myself anymore.

It's not Vlogbrother!!