Karen Eisenhauer MS112 Final Paper

The Day the Took Over YouTube: The Counterpublic of and the

Introduction

On December 17, 2007, Vlogger unveiled a ‘secret project’ to his 10,000 viewers (called “Nerdfighters”) YouTube1. Hank and his brother John create the YouTube channel called the , who are now one of the most subscribed channels on the web2. However, the Nerdfighters did not number so highly when the brothers unveiled their secret plans for the 2007 Nerdfighter Power Project for Awesome. The project took place on the very day of the unveiling. Hank, his brother John, and allied YouTubers made videos about their favorite charities3. Teams of Nerdfighters then flooded video after video with likes, comments, and favorites, until the front pages of YouTube were covered with Project for

Awesome videos4.The project was so successful that it has reoccurred annually, each year growing more and more powerful. On the day this paper is published, in fact, the Project for

Awesome 2012 is launching, with a high-budget live show, extension projects on several major

1 Project for Awesome: Explanation and Humane Societies, Hank Green. Dec. 17 2007. 2 They currently have approx. 851,000 subscribers! 3 “YouTuber” is a term for an entrepeuneruial vlogger (Burgess and Green, 2009) who has some level of notoriety. An entrepreneurial vlogger is a video blogger who makes at least a part of their living of content production on YouTube. The term was coined to create a third category beyond the commonly held ‘YouTube dichotomy’ between amateur users and mass media corporations. John and Hank Green are YouTubers. In this context, they recruited several others (incl. SexePhil, Dan Brown, and WhattheBuck) as well as many amateur Nerdfighter users to create content for the Project for Awesome. 4 Specifically, the ‘most favorited’ and ‘most discussed’ statistics pages of YouTube. social networking sites, and over $75,000 in pledges, making it the “largest community-based event on YouTube, ever”5.

The key to understanding the Project for Awesome’s success is to understand its symbolic power representing Nerdfighteria as a counterpublic (Warner 2002: 83-89).

Nerdfighters are certainly a public - according to all members, you may not participate unless you watch the Vlogbrothers channel as content is uploads (Warner 2002: 60)6. But more importantly, Nerdfighteria considers itself a counterpublic, in that it defines itself in opposition to larger, dominant publics (Warner 2002: 86). I say ‘publics’ because Nerdfighteria actually acts as a counterpublic to two different dominant domains. First, they are a counterpublic to popular internet culture, which they believe to be careless, shallow and mean. But

Nerdfighteria also acts as an affinity group calling together those who identify as ‘nerds’ in real life. Consequently, the community acts as a counterpublic against mainstream American culture, the content of which is constantly in opposition to their perception of that culture.

Both these negative spaces are necessary for the Nerdfighter identity and morality to form.

Michael Warner’s work on counterpublics was only possible with the help of Nancy

Fraser’s concept of the subaltern public sphere (Warner 2002: 85). According to Fraser, a subaltern counterpublic has two functions: to internally discuss issues specific to the group, and to export public opinion to the general or dominant sphere (Fraser 1992). Nerdfighteria does

5 Thoughts on the Project for Awesome, Hank Green. Dec. 20 2010. 6 All interviewed Nerdfighters said that the basic definition of a Nerdfighter was one who paid attention to the Vlogbrothers. Some examples: “A Nerdfighter is someone who actively pays attention to the Vlogbrothers Channel.” (Colin, 2012) “A person who is made of Awesome instead of flesh and bones. But More specifically, someone who gives a crap about Hank and John.” (Lily, 2012) “I’d say the most basic definition of a NF would be someone who watches Vlogbrothers videos on a regular basis.” (Stephanie, 2012) the first of these tasks every day through forums, comments, and other social networking sites7. The Vlogbrothers are also responsible for forming these opinions on identities and transmitting them to the internal public8. However, the Project for Awesome is one of the few times in the year that Nerdfighteria has a chance to export its values to a larger sphere.

Consequentially, the P4A has become a figurehead event in the community, representing all the aspects of identity that Nerdfighters value as well as a symbolic battle against the dominant spheres they fight against. It is because of this unique role in the community that the P4A has such strong and active participation from Nerdfighters.

Nerdfighteria: the Fighting Nerds

In , 2007, authored the “Nerdfighter’s Theme Song”. One of the central lyrics went as follows:

“Nerdfighters, we’re fighting nerds! We’re no longer just using our words! (Though we are, as a whole, quite articulate).”9

In this song, John conflates the words “Nerdfighter”, an identity that does not exist without the internet10, and “”, a social identity that has its primary basis in offline culture. The conflation of these two terms is common, appearing in Vlogbrothers videos about once every two weeks. This practice proves something about Nerdfighteria: that although its home is on

7 Besides YouTube, Nerdighters have interactive communities on Facebook, , , and Reddit, and Minecraft. There are also several forum and social networking sites designed specifically by Nerdfighters and for Nerdfighters. These are: www.nerdfighters.ning.com, www.youpants.org, www.nerdfighteria.org 8 Although Nerdfighteria is in some ways shaped by the interactive community, the Vlogbrothers videos are by far the most powerful medium for ideology formation. Much in the way that the newspaper shaped the idea of a nation (Anderson 1991: 17-48), the ritual consumption of Vlogbrothers videos is the central force behind the unified value system of Nerdfighteria (which could easily be viewed as an imagined community). 9 Brotherhood 2.0: February 17, 2007, John Green. Feb 17, 2007. 10 Although interestingly, Nerdfighters have the practice of gathering in small groups (5-30 members) in their respective regions to hang out offline. This is fascinating because Nerdfighters have taken native to online space (and in fact impossible without it) and brought it into the real world. This practice is worth further study. the internet, its formation is based on affinities of its members in their offline lives (Barlow

2008: 6-10). In this case, that connection is nerdiness. This identity is partially formed by the

Vlogbrothers themselves, who, when addressing their public, are imagining a socially constructed ‘nerd’ in their minds (Warner 2002: 50-55). But it is also performed in many

Nerdfighter community spaces. For example, on the introductions thread in the Nerdfighter public forum, the format of introduction is to state one’s name and then state the reasons why one should be considered a nerd11.

Nerdiness is not an objective definition. In holding this identity so central to their own,

Nerdfighters created their own perceptions of what it means to be a nerd. These perceptions are by no means monolithic – there are actually five primary features of nerdiness which are practiced in Nerdfighteria, some of which contradict themselves. However, it becomes apparent that the common feature in all of them is they all stand in contrast to ideas of

‘mainstream American culture’, fulfilling the counterpublic status of nerdiness12.

Two nerdy qualities can be seen in a definition of ‘nerd’ put forth by John Green in a

2007 video titled ‘how Nerdfighters drop insults’:

11 Thread mentioned is “New to Nerdfighters.com? Introduce yourself here!” on www.nerdfighters.ning.com. Many members list interests and end the list with “and other nerdy things”, or begin the list with a phrase such as “What makes me a nerd? Well…..” (both quotes verbatim from the thread). 12 Of course, ‘mainstream American culture’ is also a very ambiguous term, and is no more a monolithic culture than Nerdfighteria. Vaguely, it seems that Nerdfighters are referencing mainstream media forms outside the fantasy and scifi realms, such as pop music, sitcoms and reality television. At times it also refers to ‘hipster culture’ with a focus on its perceived pretension. Nerdfighters take different portion of ‘mainstream’ or ‘popular’ culture in different scenarios, accessing the proper negative space in which they can construct their own multifaceted identity. “Saying 'I notice you're a nerd' is like saying, 'Hey, I notice that you'd rather be intelligent than be stupid, that you'd rather be thoughtful than be vapid, that you believe that there are things that matter more than the arrest record of Lindsay Lohan. Why is that?”13

This quote illustrates that first and foremost, nerdiness requires thoughtfulness and intelligence. Nerdfighters pride themselves on being more thoughtful and polite than society as a whole. One who I talked to even believed that Nerdfighteria was in active battle against a mainstream culture which fights to make women stupider (Lea 2007).The second half of the quote shows the second aspect of nerdiness, which is that nerds care about the ‘big questions’ in the world14. The wording of this sentiment is especially revealing of the counterpublic thought processes behind the definition of nerd: the statement ‘rather thoughtful than vapid’ not only casts the Nerdfighters in the role of intelligence, but also demonizes all others as interested in vapid things (including, apparently, the arrest record of Lindsay Lohan).

On the subject of Lindsay Lohan, one aspect of nerdiness implied but not mentioned in this quote is that there is a specific range of interests that are ‘nerdy’ and another range that is decidedly not. Acceptable interests involve anything intelligent or deep as mentioned above, but also include particular types of media and styles media consumption15. Accompanying these is a set of media and practices that are otherized and even mocked in Nerdfighteria – this

13 July 27: How Nerdfighters Drop Insults, John Green. Jul 27, 2007. 14 ‘Deep’ or ‘big’ subjects are the focus of much of the conversation in Nerdfighteria. Subjects included in this description are science, history, and other academic subjects (understanding how the world works); philosophy, both classical and informal (understanding why the world exists, and how we should function within it); and “Decreasing worldsuck”, which is the Nerdfighter term for philanthropic work (how to make the world better) 15 Most scifi, fantasy, and period television shows and books are widely discussed in Nerdfighteria (particularly large discussions surround works with pre-existing online fandoms: Dr. Who, , BBC Sherlock, etc). Media remixing, blogging about recent episodes, and creating fanart is encouraged. All video and computer games are acceptable interests. Additionally, anything obscure enough to go unnoticed by mainstream society can carry social capital (i.e. crocheting, playing cricket, civil war re-enactments, cosplaying, etc) includes most mainstream celebrities, as well as certain TV shows and books16. Nerdfighters accordingly accentuate their interests which carry cultural capital, and tend to hide or significantly downplay those which carry negative stereotypes. This ‘aesthetic of nerdiness’ is practiced heavily in Nerdfighteria, but is never mentioned explicitly.

The last practiced aspects of nerdiness appear in this second quote by John Green:

“Because nerds like us are allowed to be unironically enthusiastic about stuff. We don't have to be like, "oh yeah, that purse is ok," or like, "yeah, I like that band's early stuff." Nerds are allowed to love stuff, like jump-up-and-down-in-the-chair-can't-control-yourself, love it. Hank, when people call people nerds mostly what they're saying is "you like stuff" which is just not a good insult at all, like, "you are too enthusiastic about the miracle of human consciousness.”17

This quote paints a different picture of nerdiness than the first quote, primarily by targeting a different part of popular culture to otherize. Instead of highlighting the shallowness of mainstream media, John paints ‘popular people’ as too concerned about their image to be excited about anything. Interestingly, the implied corollary of this statement is that anyone who likes anything can claim nerd (and therefore Nerdfighter) status. And again, this inclusiveness is often defined against the dominant public, this time imagined as a cruel and exclusive force18.

Many interviewees put these two definitions – inclusivity and enthusiasm – as the two key features of nerdiness when asked19. Those who did claimed that nerdiness was a state of mind

16 As previously mentioned, popular television outside the fantasy and scifi genres are frowned upon. Reality TV is especially scorned. Certain romance fandoms (especially those of Twilight and 50 Shades of Grey) are heavily mocked. Celebrity worship is frowned upon. Team sports are not mocked, but they are not given particular social capital. 17 Harry Potter Nerds Win at Life, John Green. Jul 19 2009. 18 “They don’t do a whole lot of mainstream things although some might. So a lot of them know what it feels like to be austresized so one of the core things about NFs, particularly what Hank and John Green want to emphasize is like, be nice to other people…” (Stephanie 2007) 19 Quotes from interviewees when asked what qualities all Nerdfighters have in common: “A Nerdfighter is anyone who knows that Nerdfighters exist and wants to be a part of it.” (Maria 2012) “I love that the community is centered around being nice to people.” (Colin 2012) more than a set of interests or practices. However, the performance of nerd online (both from the Vlogbrothers and from the Nerdfighters on forums) involved highlighting specific acceptable interests than a general enthusiasm.

Nerdfighteria: The Island Nation

Although the internet is in many ways an extension of offline sociality, it still has practices and values which make it unique from spaces offline. Most of these practices stem from participation structures that were impossible before the internet, including anonymity, massed media creation and consumption, and a new fast-paced temporality for discourse and circulation20. These structures have led to the formation a mainstream internet culture with roles, practices, and in-group knowledge and vocabulary that exist only in this digital space21.

This culture is the second dominant sphere against which Nerdfighteria defines itself. This is done so apparently that one participant even called Nerdfighteria an ‘island nation’ within the world of the internet (Maria 2007)

One way in which the island nation of Nerdfighteria defines itself is by rejecting some of the roles perceived to be prominent in internet culture. These roles primarily include agents such as ‘trolls’, who purposely incite conflict online, and ‘flames’, who verbally attack people.

“Nerdfighters are unironically enthusiastic about whatever they’re into.” (Claudia 2012) “most or all NFs are more liable to be really really excited about small things.” (Stephanie 2012) 20 Massed media is the structure online wherein everyone shares equal roles as media consumers and media producers. Barlow (2008) uses the term in contrast to ‘mass media’, wherein there is a relatively strict divide between a small number of producers and a large number of consumers. 21 Fast circulation and massed media production lead to a large set of widely-known references, in-jokes, and special grammatical constructions pulled from viral videos and memes. Other participation structures and cultural practices are too broad to speak of in this paper. The Vlogbrothers try to explicitly discourage this behavior online22. Nerdfighters also reject these roles by disagreeing with each other in formal or apologetic styles. Those who troll in

Nerdfighteria are eradicated by prompt systematic removal23. Nerdfighters also otherize spaces online where this behavior is perceived to be common24.

Nerdfighteria also rejects the devaluating of written grammar and orthography that has emerged in popular online culture25. Nerdfighters take extra care to spell ‘properly’ and to use full sentences with standard grammar whenever possible. They exalt linguistic ideologies that state spelling and grammar are indicative of intelligence, and through this, define themselves both against the ‘stupidity’ of mainstream American culture and the ‘careless language’ of internet culture.

Finally and most saliently, Nerdfighteria makes itself an island through the use of jargon, in-jokes, topics of content, and other symbols inaccessible to those outside the community26.

Similar to mainstream American culture, popular internet culture is perceived by Nerdfighteria

22 Hank, for example, has a video specifically addressing (and mocking) the flames in the comments of a previous video: Fighting the Flame War!, Hank Green. Jun 23 2009. 23 Trolls on forums are flagged or completely banned from participation by the moderators of the forum. Trolls, flames and spammers are removed from public sight in YouTube comments by being flagged as ‘spam’ by other users. 24 4Chan, for example, is a website infamous in internet culture for having particularly bad trolls, flames, hackers, and inappropriate anonymous comments. It also spawns a good deal of the memes and viral jokes that circulate the internet. Nerdfighteria does not have any interaction on this website. Additionally, people on forums will occasionally shut down unacceptable behavior by saying “come on guys, this isn’t 4Chan”. (Nerdfighters.ning.com) 25 Rapid writing and the availability of immediate publication have, over time, led to the internet devaluing visual grammar. Digital culture is beginning to treat the written word as a representation of spoken interaction, rather than a separate and more formal means of communication. 26 For a brief introduction to this jargon: How To Be a Nerdfighter: A Vlogbrothers FAQ, John & Hank Green. Dec 27 2009. to have a lowbrow sense of humor and an interest in shallow, crude subject matter27. The community has replaced this subject matter with an array of more ‘acceptable’ subject matter, as well as an array of jargon mirroring the form of online humor but inaccessible to the general public28.

This is where the two counterpublic definitions come into conflict. Part of nerdiness in real life was defined by several members as an interest in or ‘addiction to’ the internet (Lily

2012; Stephanie 2012; Maria 2012). Nerdfighters also must embrace the participatory structure of the internet, because their community exists solely online. Consequentially, the performance of the ‘nerd’ part of Nerdfighter often includes references to popular internet culture.

However, a Nerdfighter must take care to not demonstrate too much internet literacy; to be a

Nerdfighter, one must be in the internet, but not of it.

The Power of the P4A

The 2007 Project for Awesome perfectly embodied Nerdfighters’ status as a counterpublic to popular cultures both online and off. It worked in every aspect of its performance – style, content, rhetoric, and poesis. First of all, John and Hank managed to choose a topic of focus – charities – that exemplified the Nerdfighter values of thoughtfulness and caring about ‘important topics’. The discourse surrounding the P4A formed daily YouTube content as a representation of the ‘shallowness’ of both dominant public spheres, although in

27 “Nerdfighteria is so much better than the internet as a whole. They’re just more intelligent, and they like doing intelligent things. Like, rage comics [common form of internet humor] just don’t take a lot of effort…. I shy away from internet culture as a whole. It’s tired, you know. Not funny.” (Colin, 2012) 28 For example, a common practice in popular internet culture is to create acronyms and initialisms for unusual phrases (GPOY = “Gratuitous Picture Of Yourself”, OTP = “One True Pairing”, etc.). Nerdfighteria’s slogan is an intitialism in the same manner (DFTBA = “Don’t Forget To Be Awesome”). everyday Vlogbrothers discourse the two types of content are separated29. The call for action also explicitly highlighted the nerd identity of participants. Every year, the Project for Awesome is done ‘in the name of Nerdfighteria’. This rhetoric highlights Nerdfighters as a group defined by opposition with its dominant spheres.

The use of YouTube as a platform for exporting these beliefs is also very important to the P4A’s status as a counterpublic event. Even though YouTube is the primary technology through which Nerdfighteria is created, it is transformed during the Project into the mainstream form for the dominant publics Nerdfighteria fights against. Nerdfighteria then uses that form, including a hyper-use of its practices and values30, to promote their subaltern message. The success of the project is measured according to YouTube’s social rules, not

Nerdfighteria’s. Michael Warner proposes that the use of a dominant form for a subversive purpose is the method in which counterpublics gain agency; the Nerdfighters did exactly that with the first P4A. They acquired agency in the larger YouTube community, exported their values which they perceive to be oppositional to both this larger public, and did so using the

29 This conflation of the two spheres can be seen in various P4A descriptions, where a common statement is that “for one day, the front page of YouTube will be about deacreasing worlsuck instead of ____”. That blank will be filled with either internet popular culture topics, such as “kittens on roombas” (John Green, 2007) or “nutshots” (Lily, 2012) or with offline popular culture topics, such as “thumbnails of celebrity boobs” (Hank Green, 2008). 30 The things which YouTubers value more than anything is views, likes, and favorites. John and Hank normally claim these forms of social currency to be inferior to the quality of discourse in Nerdfighteria. However, during P4As, Nerdfighters use these currencies much more than the average YouTube user (commenting up to 100 times on a single video, liking and favoriting every P4A video they can find) in order to promote them in the style that YouTube culture deems valuable. dominant form available to them. It was, as Hank said two days after the first P4A, “The day the nerds took over YouTube”31.

Conclusion

Most of this paper has been dedicated to the analysis of the success of the 2007 project for awesome and its symbolic power in Nerdfighteria. However, that P4A is now a thing of the past. Instead of ‘hacking’ YouTube, the Vlogbrothers now have the full support of their platform site32. In fact, most of the activity takes place on a separate website designed specifically for the

Project. But even without the dominant space to ‘fight against’, the P4A manages to keep its subversive symbolism. To replace YouTube, the Vlogbrothers have expanded the counterpublic

‘hacking’ action to other social networking sites to keep the original activity in place33. But more importantly, the Vlogbrothers have codified the rhetoric around the P4A to carry a constant symbolism of subversion of (and victory against) the shallow, unthinking dominant publics.

Despite the changing nature of the event, Nerdfighters have created a timeless cultural imaginary of the P4A that carries an unchanging structure and symbolism34. This is why, six years later, the Project for Awesome is stronger than it ever was.

31 “It was the day that the nerds took over YouTube//They got together to prove//That believe it or not//Their center screenshot//Was actually more powerful than two boobs” December 19: The Day that the Nerds Took Over YouTube, Hank and Sarah Green. Dec 19 2007. 32 Since 2009, YouTube has given Hank and John curating powers over the front page, allowing them to put up P4A videos with no effort. Additionally, the Vlogbrothers are given a budget and a small team of YouTube staff to put on a live show featuring other YouTube celebrities. 33 Nerdfighters now attach the hashtag “#P4A” on twitter and tumblr posts with the intention of featuring them on the “Trending” pages of both sites. 34 When asked what the Project for Awesome was in the current year, five out of seven interviewees responded with a description of the original participation structure of the 2007 P4A.

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