Last Wednesday I had the pleasure of going to see John and Hank Green when they came to Dublin on “The Fault In Our Stars” tour, which for those who have been living under a rock, is the multi-award winning book by John Green.
John and Hank are the Vlogbrothers on YouTube, and they run several other channels as well, such as Crash Course and SciShow. John writes books, such as Looking For Alaska and The Fault In Our Stars, and Hank makes music, about topics such as Harry Potter and Angler fish mating techniques (Don’t be put off, they’re actually really good songs).
The event was in the RDS, and due to the fact that I got there two hours before it was due to start to queue, I was only a few rows from the front, and managed to get a view unobstructed by the dreaded columns.
I find myself wondering how many people showed up to the event thinking it would be like a normal book tour, especially if they were unaware of Nerdfighteria, and even Hank for that matter.
You may be wondering what a Nerdfighter is.
A Nerdfighter is a fan of John and Hank. Contrary to popular belief, Nerdfighters don’t fight nerds, but rather fight for nerds, and for intellectualism. From personal experience, I find Nerdfighteria as a whole, quite a pleasant group of fans, or at least as pleasant as a group of fans can be, when your demographic is age 13-17.
So on to the event itself.
To start off John talked for a while about how he came up with the idea for The Fault In Our Stars (TFIOS). He talked about how he used to work in a children’s hospital, and how he was absolutely terrible at working in said children’s hospital. He explained how since then he had always wanted to write a book set in that environment, but how it never seemed to work until TFIOS. He talked about Esther Earl, and how she inspired him. For those who don’t know, Esther was a Nerdfighter who died of cancer in 2010 at age 16. She was and continues to be a large influence on Nerdfighteria, TFIOS is dedicated to her, the charity This Star Won’t Go Out, was established in her memory, and her birthday, August 3rd, has become a Nerdfighter holiday, a time to celebrate family.
He then read from the first chapter of TFIOS, and answered some questions about the book, and the writing process.
Then Hank came out and played some songs, before they both answered some questions on a timer, and John slapped Hank, for answering when the timer went off to signal the end of question time. They attempted to speak some Irish, commented on the weather and posed for Photoshop.
Then Hank sung some more songs, including Rebecca Black which was fun, and wore a horse head because why not eh?
I wasn’t lying. The horse head happened.
The entire hall (it was actually a society library, but you get the gist) sang along to a bit of the Proclaimers, and then most people queued for another hour or so (or two or three probably by the end of the night) to get things signed, which to be honest was worthwhile queueing for.
Signed with a Hanklerfish.
I think the best thing about events such as this, is the sense of companionship. You’re in a room packed full of people who love the same thing as you, and to me that’s one of the best feelings. The amount of people in Harry Potter or Doctor Who shirts, or really any other fandom was lovely to see, because it sometimes feels like these things aren’t as popular in Ireland, and it’s lovely to see that this really isn’t true.
I genuinely can’t fault this event, it was completely amazing.
So until next time, DFTBA.
Cynicalisbest 