| YouTube: | https://youtube.com/watch?v=jQ9RMW9kULk |
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| Duration: | 03:54 |
| Uploaded: | 2011-01-25 |
| Last sync: | 2024-11-20 22:30 |
Getting all Barbara Walters on Hank.
We talked about the history of the VLog Brothers and Project for Awesome.
Check out his channel here: http://www.youtube.com/vlogbrothers
And project for awesome here: http://www.youtube.com/project4awesome
Thanks guys!
We talked about the history of the VLog Brothers and Project for Awesome.
Check out his channel here: http://www.youtube.com/vlogbrothers
And project for awesome here: http://www.youtube.com/project4awesome
Thanks guys!
Interviewer: Hank Green, what's going on, man?
Hank Green: Not much, how are you doing?
Interviewer: I'm pretty good, y'know, just workin' on the next Key of Awesome. I just wanna talk to you a little bit about all of your accomplishments, all the things you're involved in, which is a lot of stuff, uhh...
Hank: Well, thank you.
Interviewer: First of all, Vlogbrothers, how did you guys get started?
Hank: Well, in uh, late 1996, oh my God, uh, John was really into online video, and he was sort of like obsessed with lonelygirl, and he was obsessed with--
Interviewer: Who wasn't?
Hank: --Ze Frank, and he wanted to do it, too, uh, because that's what happens when you get obsessed with stuff, so we like, literally got cameras for Christmas from our dad, and that's how it started. We started on January 1st and that video is the first video I had ever edited.
Interviewer: I wanna talk to you a little about Project for Awesome. Talk a little bit about what that's all about for people who may or may not know.
Hank: It was the end of 2007, so we'd had a year of doing video blogs and our audience had grown a lot, and we knew that we had this sort of like, growing power with our audience, and, and, and we wanted to sort of harness it for good, and it was that time of year, you know, you start feeling like we should all be working together to do good things, 'cause that's what wintertime is about, apparently, and um, and we just--and I think that it was my idea originally, and--and we sort of like, looped in a bunch of people, a bunch of people that you would call YouTube celebrities, I guess, now, bunch of YouTube people that were our friends, and we were like, okay, let's do this, here's the idea, everybody is going to encour--we're gonna all make videos about charity, we're gonna encourage our viewers to make videos about charities, and by the end of it, there will be a huge number of--of like, like, high quality videos promoting charity, and uh, we'll feature them, and--and sort of, um, you know, promote them using all of our dirty little underhanded YouTube hacks. Um, and it worked really well, and now this is in the 4th year, and it's sort of evolved pretty far beyond that.
Interviewer: The reason why I initially started Key of Awesome was because I am--I can be kind of lazy and I, you know, songwriting was one of the things that I did, and I realized that I wasn't doing enough songwriting because I have to like, kinda force myself to do it, so once I said, alright, I'm gonna start a music show, then I kinda had to, like, do you kind of work that way, too, or do you have to get yourself into a jam to do it?
Hank: For the second half of 2007, I wrote a song every two weeks kinda based on Jonathan Coulton's project, except way worse, and I got a ton of great content out of that, and some of the songs, I wrote, you know, the night before in a panic, you know, where it was just like, oh my God, I have to have a song ready for tomorrow and it was like, I don't, and like, and they're not, like, musically wonderful, but um, I'm a pretty good lyricist and I can crank it out if I get inspired. Um, so, that's what--I say that to people who wanna start doing YouTube videos all the time, that like, you need a deadline and you need some kind of external pressure to be good. If you're just making videos and you're like, well, I have to make a video, so I'm like, ohhh, I'll sit here in front of my iSight camera and talk for a minute, um, or seven, the--that isn't as good as--as, from the beginning, John and I had an audience that we felt like we needed to impress, and at the very beginning, that was each other. We haven't had a really close relationship in our lives, and at that point, like, I wanted to impress him still--I--I mean, I still wanna impress him, but I really wanted to impress him the way that a younger brother wants to impress an older brother.
Interviewer: So that's cool, this whole thing kinda brought you guys closer together than you had been before?
Hank: Yeah! A lot! John went away to boarding school when I was in middle school, so since then, we've never lived together, whereas now, you know, I can't imagine not having him be a really big part of my life.
Interviewer: Cool! I didn't upset you there, did I?
Hank: No, I'm crying.
Interviewer: Alright, well, on that note, uh, you know, I got all Barbara Walters on you.
Hank Green: Not much, how are you doing?
Interviewer: I'm pretty good, y'know, just workin' on the next Key of Awesome. I just wanna talk to you a little bit about all of your accomplishments, all the things you're involved in, which is a lot of stuff, uhh...
Hank: Well, thank you.
Interviewer: First of all, Vlogbrothers, how did you guys get started?
Hank: Well, in uh, late 1996, oh my God, uh, John was really into online video, and he was sort of like obsessed with lonelygirl, and he was obsessed with--
Interviewer: Who wasn't?
Hank: --Ze Frank, and he wanted to do it, too, uh, because that's what happens when you get obsessed with stuff, so we like, literally got cameras for Christmas from our dad, and that's how it started. We started on January 1st and that video is the first video I had ever edited.
Interviewer: I wanna talk to you a little about Project for Awesome. Talk a little bit about what that's all about for people who may or may not know.
Hank: It was the end of 2007, so we'd had a year of doing video blogs and our audience had grown a lot, and we knew that we had this sort of like, growing power with our audience, and, and, and we wanted to sort of harness it for good, and it was that time of year, you know, you start feeling like we should all be working together to do good things, 'cause that's what wintertime is about, apparently, and um, and we just--and I think that it was my idea originally, and--and we sort of like, looped in a bunch of people, a bunch of people that you would call YouTube celebrities, I guess, now, bunch of YouTube people that were our friends, and we were like, okay, let's do this, here's the idea, everybody is going to encour--we're gonna all make videos about charity, we're gonna encourage our viewers to make videos about charities, and by the end of it, there will be a huge number of--of like, like, high quality videos promoting charity, and uh, we'll feature them, and--and sort of, um, you know, promote them using all of our dirty little underhanded YouTube hacks. Um, and it worked really well, and now this is in the 4th year, and it's sort of evolved pretty far beyond that.
Interviewer: The reason why I initially started Key of Awesome was because I am--I can be kind of lazy and I, you know, songwriting was one of the things that I did, and I realized that I wasn't doing enough songwriting because I have to like, kinda force myself to do it, so once I said, alright, I'm gonna start a music show, then I kinda had to, like, do you kind of work that way, too, or do you have to get yourself into a jam to do it?
Hank: For the second half of 2007, I wrote a song every two weeks kinda based on Jonathan Coulton's project, except way worse, and I got a ton of great content out of that, and some of the songs, I wrote, you know, the night before in a panic, you know, where it was just like, oh my God, I have to have a song ready for tomorrow and it was like, I don't, and like, and they're not, like, musically wonderful, but um, I'm a pretty good lyricist and I can crank it out if I get inspired. Um, so, that's what--I say that to people who wanna start doing YouTube videos all the time, that like, you need a deadline and you need some kind of external pressure to be good. If you're just making videos and you're like, well, I have to make a video, so I'm like, ohhh, I'll sit here in front of my iSight camera and talk for a minute, um, or seven, the--that isn't as good as--as, from the beginning, John and I had an audience that we felt like we needed to impress, and at the very beginning, that was each other. We haven't had a really close relationship in our lives, and at that point, like, I wanted to impress him still--I--I mean, I still wanna impress him, but I really wanted to impress him the way that a younger brother wants to impress an older brother.
Interviewer: So that's cool, this whole thing kinda brought you guys closer together than you had been before?
Hank: Yeah! A lot! John went away to boarding school when I was in middle school, so since then, we've never lived together, whereas now, you know, I can't imagine not having him be a really big part of my life.
Interviewer: Cool! I didn't upset you there, did I?
Hank: No, I'm crying.
Interviewer: Alright, well, on that note, uh, you know, I got all Barbara Walters on you.