Thx Spoons, This is the first time I have heard of Hank Green and the vlog/vidcon world. I like him. There's a bunch of wonderful things about this video. 1. My favourite spot 16'20". I would love to come to a point in a speech where that would be a good thing to do. 2. The crowd in Oregon look like a bunch of fun people. 3. He says "Fuck Your Dreams" but he is actually pro-dream-analysis... "Dreams should fuel you, not define you" is his real message. He is saying to look at the underlying motive for the dream...there are many ways to get there. It is essentially "interest-based negotiation" for personal ambitions. 4. I teach public speaking and tell my students that everything he is doing: wandering about and flailing about -- is distracting and crazy-making. But I will have them watch this video as an illustration of when you can make it work. If you have the stage, and the microphone, and a message that you are passionate about, you can kick your shoes off if you want. A lot of the usual things don't matter. 5. And yes, you are not obligated to your former self. You are smarter than your former self. I'd be interested in hearing other opinions and people who disagree with me about the speech.
I'm glad that, as someone not "in the community", you find this valuable and useful. I have to be careful of my own bias: I like Hank Green and he plays to me and my generation. As a result, I watch this and I gain a lot from it, and gain interesting perspective on my own actions (regarding the "debt to your former self"). Others, however, may see a quick-speaking, know-it-all whom they have no connection with and see no value in the video at all. Bias is hard. Edit: In regards to #4, i think many of the reasons that the flailing etc work are because of the situation - the size of the stage, the informal aspect, the crowd. You wouldn't even get away with most of this stuff in a TED talk (maybe TEDx, but most of those are bad).
By "in the community," I guess you mean the community of people under 30 as you refer to "me and my generation." Indeed, I am not in that community in some sense, but they are still my community. I just had breakfast with a 26-year-old whose Toronto start-up was bought by Apple. Apple took her entire company and gave them jobs in California. She now lives near One Infinite Loop. She's part of my community. If you mean the community of strivers and dreamers -- maybe I am still in that community. If you mean the community of people who struggle with the fears, limitations, and obligations of former selves ... maybe that community too. (and even I wonder whether to go back to school and finish a phd.) (but yeah, I am way old.)Others, however, may see a quick-speaking, know-it-all whom they have no connection with and see no value in the video at all.
Let them speak up. As soon as he kicked his shoes off, I was sold. :-)
I doubt coffeesp00ns meant anything like that. Hank Green and John Green often refer to what they do on youtube as a community, the "nerdfighter" community. They are really big on the whole community building aspect and have many very different project that partly owe their success to the fact there is indeed a very strong community of people willing to give anything they start a more than fair chance and support it all the way. It has nothing to do with you personally the same way I would not consider myself in the Lord of the Rings community because I don't read/watch anything and am not interested in that universe. Nothing to do with age or interests or aspirations. Just the fact that i'm not into that stuff. The fact you never heard of them, just means you're not in the community (yet) simply because you were not aware there is one :) And there are plenty of different people that consider themselves nerdfighters but their main followers are in the younger crowd. Not sure if it's because of the type of content they produce or simply the result of the fact that YouTube is their main medium.
Now that I've read up on nerdfighters, I see they have a happy dance: Now I hope everyone knows to define terms when they can be possibly misinterpreted.Nerdfighters are known to perform their Happy dances when they are joyful, and each Happy dance is unique to its respective Nerdfighter.
No doubt the spot on the video that I tagged (16'20") was part of Hank's happy dance.
I meant more specifically The Youtube community and the Nerdfighter Community in general. I'd never try to shut you out because you're not under 30, lil. That's a dumb thing to do to any person at any age, young or old.By "in the community," I guess you mean the community of people under 30 as you refer to "me and my generation."
Here's an old video all about nerdfighters. At the end of the day, most of it is just a group of people who get together to try to be a positive force in the world, and to be unashamedly enthousiastic about the things they love.