Today in The Rabbit Hole Hank Green, AKA ‘A VlogBrother’
With his joint status of ‘King of Nerdfightaria’, a highly successful DFTBA artist with his guitar that ‘Pwns n00bs’ and regularly connecting to thousands of people around the world with his brother on Youtube, Hank Green has kindly given up time to be Stuck Down The Rabbit Hole.
[Interview within connection with YTMONLINE]
M.W.: Now the relationship you and John have shine through clearly in your VlogBrother videos, you two look like great friends, but I was just wondering did you and your brother always get along or did you head in different directions most of the time?
H.G.: We did not get along. John went away to boarding school when I was like 12, so we never really were teenagers together. But for the most part I could only take him in small doses. To an extent, this is still true, which is why four minutes is a good length for a Vlogbrothers video (I kid.)
M.W.: And how would describe your years as a teenager?
H.G.: That’s a long time, all of those teen-aged years, and I changed a lot during them. I guess I spent a lot of time in my head. And I thought a lot about what other people thought of me and carefully crafted an exterior that I thought would make people wonder about me. Trying to seem weird, trying to seem interesting. It actually worked, some of the nerdier girls at school actually rather liked me…but it was a lot of effort.
M.W.: What kind of things interested you back then, did you enjoy sports? Music? What were your hobbies?
H.G.: I loved listening to music and dancing. I’ve always been a music freak, establishing deep relationships with albums, whether it was Nine Inch Nails or They Might Be Giants (different ages…same approach to the music.) I played hockey, which was a very uncool sport in Florida. I was in band, but I wasn’t really interested in it. Mostly what interested me was trying to figure out how to be liked and not be a total outcast and then, later, just loving the fact that I had good friends.
M.W.: Now I’ve often wondered how the change occurs from ‘normal’ people to ‘Made-Of-Awesome-Professional-Bloggers’ so did you go straight from your college to a successful career on the Internet or not?
H.G.: Hah…no. I was a lab tech for a while working on cancer medications, which was rewarding, but that internship ended and the only job I could find was at a fungicide company and, of course, I hated it. I did have a very brief internet career while working on that. I made a social website called “IHateI4,” I-4 being the road that you have to drive on if you go anywhere in Orlando. Of course…EVERYONE hates I-4 in orlando, so it was fairly successful. I advertised it with hand-painted road signs and I got on the local news and a story in the Orlando Sentinel. Of course, I made a total of $0 and the site completely fell into disrepair when I moved to Montana. Good thing, I don’t think running a community of angry commuters would have been much fun.
Then I went back to school at UM and after I graduated from that, had several years of freelance design / EcoGeek being my job before I even started making videos.
M.W.: Woah, that’s really interesting, I had no idea about any of those things… You worked on cancer medications? That’s amazing.
So, how did your romantic / family life help / interfere with achieving success or was there no interference?
H.G: I’ve never thought about having my life be any other way, so I can’t really imagine those things helping or hurting. Obviously having “family” involved has been hugely successful. Katherine works for EcoGeek, my dad is our accountant, and of course John is John. But, yeah, I can’t imagine any aspect of my life without my romantic / family life, so I don’t know how to answer the question.
M.W.: I myself am a teenager, and thanks to yours and Johns videos I’ve learnt it’s OK to be different and to be happy with who you are, so what would be your advice to other teenagers who do not fit the ‘social norm’ in high school?
H.G.: It’s hard for everyone. It always seems like it’s hardest for you, but your success and your happiness has much more to do with understanding other people around you than it does with understanding yourself. And, guess what, the homecoming queen probably has crippling phobias too. It sounds cliche, but you have to think about everyone like they’re people, and suddenly you realize that 90% of teenagers have moments where they want to cut themselves, pull out their hair, punch their best friend and sit crying in the shower. And EVERYONE was once a teenager…that goes for your teachers, parents, rock idols, and grand parents…and those people all made it through.
M.W.: And when did you know you were successful in life, love and business?
H.G.: I still don’t know any of that. That’s the thing about success, it isn’t something you acquire and keep forever on your shelf. You get to succeed over and over again, but “success” doesn’t just settle on you permanently. Even worse, if you worship success, you will never be happy because you will always need to succeed again. I’ve realized that the smartest people in the world are the ones you never hear about, because they’ve realized that chasing success and fame and wealth and power isn’t going to make them happy. The smartest people are the ones that love their families and smile and take care of their friends and cry and joke and kiss each other until they die, because that’s what life is about.
Thanks for your time Hank; I know you won’t but DFTBA
Hank makes videos @
http://youtube.com/vlogbrothers and http://youtube.com/hankgames
Hank tweets @ http://twitter.com/#!/HANKGREEN
Hanks music is @ http://dftba.com/artist/15/Hank-Green
[Huge thanks to Mark from YTM Online regarding this article - This wouldn’t have been possible without his help. This same interview+ more questions will be seen over there shortly]
