Monday, July 9, 2012

The World of Online Video

I've been spending a lot of time on YouTube lately, and this is why: vlogbrothers, hankgames, charlieissocoollike, and lizziebennett.
Now if you don't know much about the online video world, those four words won't mean anything to you. Hopefully, after you read this, you will go check them out, and will see how awesome they are.
You probably know by now that I am a HUGE fan of John Green. His books Looking for Alaska, Paper Towns, The Fault in our Stars, and An Abundance of Katherines are absolutely amazing. I would recommend them for anyone in high school and older. After I finished reading Paper Towns, I discovered that John Green had a video blog that he ran with his brother, Hank. In 2007, the brothers decided to stop textual communication for one year, and only communicate through video blogs. It became extremely popular, and they still are vlogging today. Hence the name vlogbrothers. They do really awesome things and teach you a bunch of stuff, like how to name your baby properly, and how not to embarrass yourself with words and pronunciations. When they visit places, they talk about the places that they visited, and they are extremely funny.
Hankgames is when John, Hank, and their wives play video games and talk about things. I especially enjoy when John plays FIFA soccer and talks about writing, and his life before he was an author. These are the videos that I don't really watch, but I listen to when I'm doing things like unloading the dishwasher.
After the vlogbrothers, I discovered charlieissocoollike, a sort of british version of the vlogbrothers, except that there is only one person, Charlie, talking to the camera. Fans usually challenge him to do things(visit 10 English landmarks in 2 hours, make himself a superhero costume, etc), and he does his best to do these things. He also records himself doing various science experiments, which are cool to watch, and you learn things from him.
Then, there is lizziebennett. Hank mentioned it in a vlogbrothers episode.  He wanted to try something where you tell a story in video blog format. So what he did, is, he took a classic story, Pride and Prejudice, and adapted it into a modern day scenario. Lizzie Bennet is 24, and is currently enrolled in grad school. Her mother is intent on marrying all three of her daughters off to nice, rich men, and the story goes from there. Lizzie records these events in her life as if it was a diary. I think this is really cool, especially because I have to read Pride and Prejudice for summer reading this year. This has only been going on for about three months now, but it's really good and fun to watch.
I hope that you will check these videos out, you really might enjoy them. In the meantime, keep calm and DFTBA(something you will understand if you watch the vlogbrothers)!!

3 comments:

  1. Wow, I never thought that you would become an avid youtube user. That's weird. Anyway, online video is fantastic! There is so much stuff on the internet, most bad, some really good. If you read my entry before the current one on my blog, you would see what I've recently discovered on the internet that made me so happy. Surprisingly, I've seen videos from every one of those people, except lizzebennett. I actually discovered charlieissocoollike through an astronomy blog, which featured his video about stars.

    ReplyDelete
  2. You should watch lizziebennet if you're going to read Pride and Prejudice for school

    ReplyDelete
  3. Okay. I will then. Though right now I'm watching Dr. Who, and I can't really stop because it's so epic. (YOU SHOULD WATCH IT!!!!)


    P.S. Why were you posting comments at 5:33 A.M.? That's so early!!!

    ReplyDelete