Good morning John. It's Esther Day. I lo-luh. I luuuh. I lalalalalalalala *Melodiously* lalalalalala. I'll get there eventually. I promise.
People who don't know who Esther was, she was an awesome nerdfighter who did a lot of amazing things with her friends and we really loved her and she would have turned seventeen today if she had not died because of the cancer inside of her. Esther is the reason why John and I are always wearing these bracelets, which you can buy at DFTBA.com. They're five dollars and all of the proceeds, of course, go to the This Star Won't Go Out Foundation which helps children with cancer and their family. So last year when Esther was really sick, John said to her, "Esther, we will do whatever you want us to do on your birthday, in perpetuity. Whatever you want, we will do that." And she could have been like, "I want you to shave your head. I want you to wax your chin. I want you to eat a hamburger made out of compact discs." But no. Esther was like, "I want you guys, every year on my birthday, to talk about family and love." Now this is very sweet, but she also... how'd she know what she was doing here 'cause John and I have had a long-standing agreement to not use the "L"-word when talking about one another. And up to that point there had been much discussion in Nerdfighteria like (*funny voice*) "Why don't you guys ever talk about how you love each other in your video blogs?" What is this voice? But despite the fact that people were always asking us to do it, John and I do not use the "L"-word. This is a long-standing agreement, like from birth! But Esther told us to, and when someone that you respect is about to die, you do what they tell you to do, you know? But here's the thing about Esther Day: it's something that she asked us to do a little bit for her, and a little bit for Nerdfighteria, but mostly I think it's something she asked us to do for ourselves. And that's pretty special. From the perspective of being kinda both at the beginning of her life and very much at the end of her life, she had a special kind of wisdom that we shouldn't ignore. She knew that loving each other is pretty much the most important thing that we do. It's not just the reason that each of us as individuals exist; it's the reason why, like, our species is- it's the reason why our civilization exists. It's the only reason why we can do these marvelous, magnificent human things. John knows that I love him, even if I don't say it, but like Dumbledore said, words have power! And we have to use the magic of our words on each other so that we can feel it and experience it and the people that we love know viscerally and without a doubt how we feel. So we have to use the power of our words. It's Esther Day; that's what this is about! Tell the people that you love that you love them so that they know. Dad, I love you for being a excellent father and helping us out when we need it, never complaining about how weird your sons are. Mom, I love you for being proud of your sons even when they were doing weird, weird things that didn't make any sense to anybody. And John, I... will get to you later. In the comments of this video, let us know who you love and how you're gonna tell them that you love them. And also in the comments of this video, yeah, I, uh... I missed a video. And that, uh... was all my fault, so you get to punish me. So punishment ideas as well. I'm sorry, your pants is still down. It has been hacked. And that is annoying but the YouTube comments still work. Or if you wanna leave 'em on twitter, #punishhank. John, ah, missed a video but that's because he was having his abdomen cut open and his gallbladder removed. So you don't get to punish him, just to be clear; that's a medical exception. And yes, VidCon was totally awesome. That *points* is a poster with all of the signatures from all of the speakers at VidCon, which is extremely cool that I get to have it in my house. We're going to auction it off at Project for Awesome, but until then, IT'S MINE!!! John, I'm looking forward to seeing your video on VidCon on Friday. I just assume that's what you're gonna be doing. ... I love you.