I started following the Vlogbrothers back in August of last year. How did I discover them? I don’t remember, but robably through Wil Wheaton’s Twitter when he retweeted something from Hank Green, who ended up becoming my favourite Green brother. He’s cuter, more openly pro-science than John, and also an atheist where John is Christian. Though I realise that’s totally not fair, because John hardly ever brings up his beliefs on video, and really, he’s about as far from Bible-thumping dogmatism as you can get.
And then I went back and watched their videos from the beginning. All nearly 1000 videos at that point, though most of them were 3 minutes long or shorter. I got to watch their lives unfold, and I saw Nerdfighteria grow around them, the connections with all sorts of awesome people, vloggers and non-vloggers. Who would have dreamed that would happen? I watched Hank sing a goofy song about Harry Potter, which led to more songs about Harry Potter, as well as angler fish, Helen Hunt, Tetris and subatomic particles, and now he’s got actual albums out. Who would have thought? And who would have thought it all would lead to more amazing collaborations like VidCon, Crash Course, The Brain Scoop, not to mention all the nerdfighter charities to decrease world-suck.
And Carnegie Hall? The Green brothers, plus The Mountain Goats, Neil Gaiman (!!!), Kymia Dawson and other amazing people, together on stage, this is surely their crowning moment of awesome. I’d never heard Kymia Dawson’s music before; I know she was on tour with Hank once and briefly appeared in one of Hank’s videos, but I didn’t know anything else about her. Boy was I missing out! Her songs are heartfelt and honest, full of gorgeous imagery and uplifting messages.
It just goes to show: you never know what something will lead to. The seeds you plant today could bloom into awesome trees years down the line.