John Green's Blog, page 14

Walking the Red Carpet: Thoughts from Los Angeles

In which John Green spends some time in the world of books and some in the world of movies, visiting the LA Times Book Festival and walking the red carpet at the MTV Movie Awards, visiting friends and contemplating change along the way.

The new book in the Nerdfighter Book Club is Katherine Boo's Behind the Beautiful Forevers: http://www.amazon.com/Behind-Beautifu... or http://www.indiebound.org/book/978140...

Authors mentioned in this episode include:
T Cooper: http://t-cooper.com/
Rainbow Rowell: http://rainbowrowell.com/blog/
Veronica Roth: http://www.harpercollins.com/authors/...
Maya's book Popular: http://www.amazon.com/Popular-Vintage...

What Boys Look For in Girls

We all want to be appreciated...but initial attraction isn't really based in reality. There's a really huge audience of very young women on YouTube, and I'm really worried about them basing their self-worth on whether they appeal to guys. That seems to be how the world is set up. I'm a dude, of course, so I'm basing this on what I've seen on YouTube and IRL, but I don't think I'm crazy.

I should have said in the video...this isn't meant to be relationship advice. There are lots of good people out there with whom to have relationships, but what they're "looking for" doesn't necessarily correspond with what they actually want or need. That "love at first sight" moment is pretty much the least interesting moment of a relationship (despite being one of the most exciting.)

The song at the end is Marilyn Hanson, which will be on my new album which is coming out...oh...less than a month from now? Exciting!

And TFiOS preparedness kits are available now at DFTBA.com! http://dftba.com/product/1799

I Don’t Even Know

Choose where Nat, Ansel, Shailene, and I go on the TFIOS movie tour: http://thefaultinourstarsmovie.com/ta...

TFIOS Preparedness Pack (conceived by our dad and totally awesome): http://dftba.com/product/1799

In which John doesn't even know what today's video is about, but subjects covered include The Fault in Our Stars, racial bias in criminal sentences, the word gyfe, nonprofits, pratfalls, and a few other things.

Prison links for those interested (you'll note these sources are not often accused of liberal bias):

Good story in The Economist: http://www.economist.com/blogs/democr...
Racial bias in sentencing: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/S...
What we mean when we talk about incarceration rates: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_S...
How drug laws affect our incarceration rate: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v08/n4...

Mass Incarceration in the US

Thanks to Visually (http://Visual.ly) for facilitating the creation of this video, to http://youtube.com/kurzgesagt for the animation, and to The Prison Policy Initiative for research help and fact checking. (http://www.prisonpolicy.org).

It wasn't easy to pick this topic, but I believe that America's 40-year policy of mass incarceration is deeply unethical, not very effective, and promotes the security of the few at the expense of the many.

It's hard for me, as a person who was born into privilege, to imagine the challenges convicted criminals face, often for crimes that are utterly non-violent.

If you're feeling like you want to do something about this, I'm mostly just making this video as an informational resource and to encourage people to think of felons not as bad, scary people but just as people.

The people at The Prison Policy Initiative were very helpful in the creation of this video and if you want to learn more about their work and how to get involved go to http://www.prisonpolicy.org

VELOCIRAPTORS

In which John allows his four-year-old son to choose a topic for today's video. And the topic is velociraptors, which turn out to be a surprisingly interesting dinosaur precisely because they were nothing like we've been led to believe. Yay dinosaurs!

Will this be the first vlogbrothers video not made by Hank that Henry watches in its entirety? Only time will tell!

New Channels, New Fabric, New Internet Thing!

The New Channels:
http://www.youtube.com/scishowspace
http://www.youtube.com/theartassignment
http://www.youtube.com/learnhowtoadult

The DFTBA Sale!
http://www.dftba.com/category/28/Sale

Sign up for Health Insurance
http://www.healthcare.gov

Review books on Reviewsday Tuesday!

That's all.

I Gotta Go: Signing Off and Thinking about Inspiration

Ian Shoales Commentaries: College: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGTDS... and more recently talking about dualism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qSoB...
Shoales also has a web site: http://www.ianshoales.com/

In which John discusses inspiration and how sometimes think you don't even remember can shape what you do and how you go about doing it. Along the way, he discusses Ian Shoales (aka Ian Schoales), a public radio commentator with whom Hank and John were obsessed. Also: John calls Hank and attempts to broadly define art. Furthermore: Husky voice.

The Art Assignment video in which we talk about the definition of art: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUdAB...

The Great Goose Migration

I'm not even joking...this video is actually about me and my wife going to the Rocky Mountain Front to observe migrating geese and I AIN'T EVEN SORRY!

The Music is a song by The Leewards that was never released to the public. They're a band that a friend of mine was in from 2001 to 2005, you can get their second album on Bandcamp for free (or pay for it, because it's great http://leewards.bandcamp.com/.) This song was on their first album, which was never released so, like, only a few dozen people have ever heard this song before.

And now, because of this video, HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of people will hear it! That's REALLY WEIRD!

I find it very strange that there is so much wonderful music in the world that no one will ever hear again....just lost...forever...like a goose in the wind. ALL WE ARE IS GEESE IN THE WIND!

Is the American Dream Real?

In which John discusses moving to New York, equality of opportunity, socioeconomic mobility in the United States in the 21st century, the American dream, and the underratedness of Slovenia.

A much better exploration of the gender pay gap in the U.S. and elsewhere: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_p...

ALSO it's interesting that I chose to make a joke about computer programming, because in fact female programmers are paid the same as male programmers in the U.S. according to this study: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-n...

(That noted, the gender pay gap overall remains real.)

Sexual Abuse, Consent, and Culture

If you haven't heard, there have been some really troubling stories about manipulative and even possibly abusive relationships between online creators and their fans.

While that situation certainly spurred me to make this video, I also think a video like this is long overdo. We're excited to be facing these problems head-on, because the only way out is through.

Thanks to our task force for helping me edit this video and make sure I wasn't too clumsy with the work, especially to Sahitya.

Here are some resources put together by the task force:

If someone is pressuring you:http://rainn.org/get-information/sexu...

Types of assault: http://rainn.org/get-information/type...

Find a local crisis center: http://centers.rainn.org/

Online hotline: http://rainn.org/get-help/national-se...

International resources: http://rainn.org/get-help/sexual-assa...

Emotional abuse: http://www.loveisrespect.org/is-this-...

"Digital" abuse: http://www.loveisrespect.org/is-this-...

Warning signs of an abusive relationship: http://www.breakthecycle.org/dating-v...