Vlogbrothers gave me something to look forward to three times a week; it is still something I look forward to. It also showed me how not alone I really was.

Hank and John saved my life and they don’t even know it.

It was 2009 and I was struggling.

Then, I stumbled upon Accio Deathly Hallows, my first Vlogbrothers video and my first introduction to the Wrock community. Hank and John helped me find a community who cared if I was alive or not. But it did much more than that.

Nerdfighteria gave me a purpose, to decrease world suck, to do good with my life, and so I slowly started to.

Vlogbrothers gave me something to look forward to three times a week; it is still something I look forward to. It also showed me how not alone I really was.

John struggled with mental illness and Hank suffered from an invisible disease: here were two people who understood what I was going through.

I have never met either of them and I’m not quite sure I want to.

I wouldn’t know what to say, besides thanks, and they wouldn’t understand what that single word means. Because there really isn’t a way to tell someone that they helped keep you alive in your darkest hour, that they taught you how to smile again, how to laugh; that they gave your mother her daughter back.

Hank and John changed my life, so now I change others. I coach people with special needs and spend as much of my time working with them as I can. I do good wherever I can, because that is what Hank and John taught me. That is how they affected me.

-Case (magischgal.tumblr)

I happen to be studying a subject about therapeutic development at university and I emailed our professor about the patent on bedaqualine as a relevant case study. I wish I could do more to fight for TB treatment, but until I become one of the scientists working on problems like this, I'll give my attention.

For any confused mutuals, here is a link to what I'm talking about

Alright time for my annual long post about the Project for Awesome! It is a 48 hour long charity event created by Hank and John Green in 2007 where there is a livestream, videos about charities, money raising, and general shenanigans. This year the livestream is taking place 12:00pm EST on February 17th through 11:59am EST on February 19th. The donation page will be open 12:00am EST on Wednesday, February 15th to 11:59pm EST on Tuesday, February 21st. There will be different matching donors at different times during the stream, so there's a chance that every dollar you donate will be worth two or even three dollars depending on when you donate. During the first 24 hours the money will be split between Save the Children and Partners in Health. During the second 24 hours, all donations made will be split between top charities from videos that are made by the community and voted on on the project for awesome website. Here's more information on where and how you can help <3 http://www.projectforawesome.com/about This is more about the project in general. http://www.projectforawesome.com/ This is the website where you can vote on videos for charities and find charities to share on all your social media accounts. http://www.projectforawesome.com/donate This is where you can donate to the project and get some cool perks. http://www.projectforawesome.com/live This is where the 48 hour livestream and livechat is taking place, if you wanna participate in that. https://tab.gladly.io/?r=11262693 This is a google chrome extension called Tab for a Cause. You can earn “hearts” every time you open a tab, donate them to your choice of charity, and that will give that charity money. (Foundation to Decrease Worldsuck in on there!) Happy Project for Awesome and DFTBA ♥  

Mourire en criant ton nom.

Je perd mais mots.

fuck Up agent 47 u bitch ass worldsucker worthless pigheaded queero-fag

hes game is nothing but bad

Quit being a hater

Nerdfighters!!

So once upon a time in a year that was 2007, Hank and John Green (yeah, those internet-famous dudes) started a vlogging channel called vlogbrothers. In 2007, I discovered the community and truly found a place that felt like I belonged in it.

That era of the internet was a wild, amazing time, and I miss it.

Now, in 2023, Hank Green has cancer. And for the sake of nostalgia (and not because I think Hank is gonna die, because I don’t, because he has great doctors and a really good prognosis), I’ve started to rewatch those videos from the beginning.

And MAN does it feel like coming home.

So I didn’t have a super-great childhood. I was what we used to call a “latchkey kid” and what we now call “a child of emotionally neglectful parents”. It was a little worse than that in some ways, and in some ways, a little better. But at the time, I was a kid who spent most of their free time alone.

But I had the internet! And in 2007, the internet was a wild west of a place. I’m talking geocities and websites that literally anyone could make, but a with bunch of search engine sites that were fresh babies, you could get your silly fake website to the stop of a results page and lead an unsuspecting child to some wild misinformation.

Or, in my case, youtube videos about nerds. Fighting nerds.

As I go through these videos, I remember some of the in-jokes that still exist in the lexicon of John-and-Hank videos, and get to relive the birth of those moments, like the tiny chicken, or fishing boat proceeds, and of course, the most iconic, birth of the name and hand-symbol of Nerdfighters.

(This is where I would put a gif of the nerdfighter symbol IF I HAD ONE)

(Can I imbed a gif that tumblr doesn’t have? Can I--?)

...Link in the doobleydoo, if you’re a fellow Nerdfighter who gets it, but click and you get the Nerdfighter motion, it’s fine. It’s fine. 

ANYWAY 

Part of therapy is finding who you used to be, without getting too stuck on who you used to be. The part of you that dies when trauma happens doesn’t come back, but it doesn’t mean they are completely gone. It just means you will never be whole in the same way that you were before. But you can become whole again, just differently. 

Watching these two dudes in their late 20′s (I am OLDER than they were when they started WHAT) do silly things to create joy and decrease worldsuck, is incredible. And it’s also what I wanted to do with my life in the Great Before. I can get some of that back, if I remember what I loved about it in the first place. 

I hope so, anyway. Wish me luck, Void. 

And Don’t Forget To Be Awesome. 

-Red

The Project for Awesome is going on right now! The P4A is an annual charity event started by the Nerdfighter community via YouTube back in 2007. It's grown and changed over the years, but it remains a consistent force for decreasing worldsuck every year! Watch videos promoting charities both large and small, vote for the charities you want to receive a cut of the funds raised, donate for those sweet sweet (and often delightfully absurd) perks, and hang out in the live stream (it gets especially fun late at night)! Head on over to ProjectForAwesome.com ASAP!

(the most important of the least important stuff) the fate of the universe hangs in the balance. in order to decrease the worldsuck, we must PUT STUFF ON JOHNS HEAD! (oh and also sign up for http://awesomesocks.club!) join us!

Ukraine

Let me preface this with a disclaimer: I’m not Ukrainian. I’m coming from an American worldview and American alone. If you’re tired of reading what we have to say, and need to scroll to take care of your mind right now, scroll. Ignore this. This is mostly for me anyway, and I care much more about your health and lives than my notes or views.

I really don’t think Russia was prepared for this. Is it awful? Absolutely. But we’ve seen the Ukrainian citizens rise so incredibly, beautifully, tragically, and admirably to the occasion, as well as global allies come to their aid. These are just a few examples of the things I’ve read amidst the chaos:

They have assistance from France, who is seizing Russian assets.

American Liquor stores aren’t importing Russia made Vodka (a bigger deal than it sounds on paper).

Switzerland has broken a 500yr global neutrality to freeze Russian assets.

Ukrainian citizens tore apart a tank piece by piece while it was halted due to fuel shortages.

A chemistry professor told her Ukrainian students their homework was to make Molotov cocktails.

Able bodied young men are fleeing both countries to avoid being drafted, as they don’t wish to fight.

And this last point has been especially weighing heavily on my heart. No one - on either side - wants this. Russian citizens are ashamed at their government, but of course, can’t express this under risk of treason. The troops have been sent to starve and abandon their convoys on the Ukrainian streets, as Russia’s assets are inaccessible. Ukrainian citizens are facing horrific violence at the hands of men who, I do not believe, ever signed up for this. To that end, shame on the ones who did.

Personally, I really don’t want to hear any Anti-Russian rhetoric that isn’t Putin centered, especially from Americans. I stand with Ukraine, but be aware the family cooking Russian food for their restaurant or painting nesting dolls aren’t hurting anyone, and are likely as horrified as the rest of us. Miss me with the xenophobia, please.

Now, at risk of jinxing it by saying such things aloud, I see the potential of a small blessing in disguise. The silver lining of an ugly, ugly grey cloud.

I sincerely hope in 2024, Trump’s involvement with Putin specifically keeps him from reelection. I hope at election day, America can be protected from like violence, and senselessness. I hope we make the connection that having Trump back in office when he runs again is a terrifyingly dangerous possibility. As far as I am concerned this is Putin’s war (again, I have an admittedly narrowed POV here), and I hope he fails miserably. Trump’s proximity to him scares me as much as any of the rest of this. I can only hope when the time comes we put two and two together.

The bottom tagline of my Blog has been “Fight the Power, Sunflower.” Since I built this site. Now, more than ever, it seems applicable to what I wish to communicate here. 

Most of the time, my answer to the question “what’s your political opinion on XYZ?” is “I don’t know, I’d never heard of XYZ until just now.”

If I think about it for a second, I can come up with an opinion that is consistent with my core beliefs, but I feel like there’s too much pressure and too many things for me to juggle right now.  I can’t give 110% to every issue at all times, I’m overloaded, I can’t care about everything!

I just want people to suffer less, is that too much to ask?  I’m not a politician, I don’t have to have answers ready for every conceivable scenario.  I don’t not care, I care immensely, I’m just burned out!

Ignorance is bliss, but I don’t want to be ignorant to be blissful.

much more than just make me laugh

Hank and John do so much more than just make me laugh.

They teach me. They open my eyes to the world around me. They encourage my nerdiness and remind me that it’s best to be myself. They inspire me to decrease World Suck, and increase Awesome. They show me that, while life can be really hard sometimes, that the world is really a beautiful and amazing place.

And yeah, they make me laugh.

-Max

MY PROFESSOR SAID HE'LL WORK THE CASE STUDY INTO OUR UNIT TAKE THAT WORKDSUCK

40$+ship choker en plastique recycler unique et fais à la main #goth #punk #streetart #fashionpunk #fashion #emo #emofashion #gothfashion #spike #choker #homemade #diy #worldsuck #rave #ravekid #dirtykids #spygoth (à Sherbrooke, Quebec) https://www.instagram.com/p/CJWZcn7nBNg/?igshid=7sxh1xrcnf51

Freerice

Hi!

I want to talk about an amazing website called Freerice. (It's been around for a while so some of you might know it, but it has upgraded a bit)

It's a website that helps people. You help people. By learning.

You play quizzes on the website, the categories include: English (grammar and vocab), Geography, Humanities (famous quotes, paintings and literature), Math (multiplication, algebra), Science (Human anatomy, chemical symbols), but most importantly, LANGUAGES!

You can practice Spanish, Latin, French, German, Italian and CZECH! It's basically just a vocabulary training, but you can choose different difficulties.

Now why is it so great? I'll quote the website now: “As you play Freerice and answer questions right, advertisements appear on your screen. When you see one of these advertisements, you trigger a financial payment to the World Food Programme (WFP) to support its work saving and changing lives around the world.”

The website is a great way to practice your target language (or any other subject) for a couple of minutes and help people in the process. I really really love it and I think it's a great way to make the world at least a little better.

https://freerice.com/

How To Live Life?

Tell me how you still go on to feel after all the things that made you lose touch with the world? how can you be so strong and stick around this filthy world that raped you of your innocence and made them misunderstand your ways of being?

Tell me the secrets on how to be someone better than who I am now?

How to leave that old hurt wreck and become a grateful human being after being tossed around like nothing more than a pebble in the sidewalk?

Explain to me why the world is unfair to those that walk alone for so long?

Why sometimes some of us lose our last breath and get to leave such a world, yet some of us stay regardless of the pain?  

This is why I still love the Vlogbrothers. They are giving away quite a sum of their estimated net worth (though by no means all of it.) They acknowledge and want to directly address the very real, deadly and horrible difficulties in the world, but they aren’t starting their own charity to do it. Don’t get me wrong; some celebrity or philanthropist started charities are fantastic, but they’re putting money into existing charities with existing people and foundations in Sierra Leonne to help decrease preventable deaths.

The best part about this? They’re very clearly acknowledging that though their sum of money is far more, they are still giving less in terms of percentage and effort and heart than people like Ruth, the health care worker that Partners in Health is working with. She gave $2 so a family could eat that day, far more out of her paycheck than the millions out of Hank and Johns. They are still giving quite a lot and will save hopefully thousands of people and hundreds of thousands affected by it, but they are still giving less than Ruth giving those $2.

THESE are the kind of rich people I want. They fully acknowledge their privilege and use it and their influence to help try to make the world a better place in so many ways.

If you can donate, please consider doing so. Here’s the link https://donate.pih.org/page/contribute/maternal-health-sierra-leone?source=20191009_ws_sl_matn_MCOESocial_fnd_0_0_grbrstrf_AVA0427

It’s not going through Hank and John, only going into their specific partnership with Partners in Health. Even if you can’t give much, consider it. Those with so little themselves are often the ones that seem to give them most.

That being said, please watch your own finances too! If you can’t donate, please spread the word! Even if you don’t end up going through this link, donating to Partners in Health itself would be amazing. They’re a fantastic