Wednesday, January 11, 2012

WorldSuck: Decreased. Awesome: Increased.

John Green's The Fault in Our Stars launched yesterday. There was a gathering.

It was Nerdfightastic.

John and brother Hank provided the tremendous, "WOOOOOOO-ing," Wave-doing, Harry Potter/Star Wars/DFTBA shirt-clad crowd with an amplified version of their vlog. John read from and talked about the book, and the audience had good questions. Hank sang his songs (like this one and this one), and the audience knew all the words. Also, there was a sock puppet, a timer, and a tutu.

It might be difficult to reconcile last night's goofy atmosphere with the book, which is about several teens' battle with cancer, but I do think they can exist in the same headspace. John says he's been working on TFIOS for twelve years; I'm sure that when he started it, he couldn't have imagined that one day he'd discuss it at an event featuring costume changes. I was reminded a bit of the RENT phenomenon: both stories unite people in the notion that lives with sadness, even serious sadness, are allowed to also have joy and love, and yes, it's acceptable to get really, really excited about that.

As important as John's books are (good realistic YA novels are nothing to sneeze at this decade), the Nerdfighter phenomenon has gone far beyond the books. In one of the moments that defined what the evening was, Hank played "Shake-a-Booty," and an audience member got up and danced. And then another member joined her, and then another, and soon most of the room was shaking its booty with be-yourself abandon.

We've been telling teens who don't fit one mold or another that it gets better. For many, it looks like it's getting better now.

3 comments:

  1. Oh man it sounds like everyone had a blast! I def. want to see one of these Nerdfighter gatherings for his next book. Sounds a lot different than what I imagined--just an author talking about his book, or the process of writing his book, or the industry in general. Does everyone do this kind of stuff, or just Green?

    What did he do with the Tutu? He mentioned that on FB/Twitter, but I didn't see the show and didn't read any comments about it.

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  2. @Insomniac #4, it definitely wasn't a typical book signing. The majority of the ones I've been to are much more like what you imagine; Green's are so different because the whole Nerdfighter thing has taken off.

    [Spoiler for those attending future stops on the tour]
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    John went into a serious-sounding speech about how his wife rarely appears in public and said she was about to but she was really nervous, and once he had everyone convinced she was really about to appear, Hank came onstage in a blond wig and a tutu.

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    Replies
    1. Lol..thats so cool! I've been checking the vlogbrothers page b/c he keeps saying they're going to livestream the shows, but for some reason it didn't appear on the page. Next one, maybe.

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