This past ten days, the humans and I have been in the US, and the reason we went was to attend NerdCon: Nerdfighteria in Boston on 25-26 February. This was a convention organised by Hank and John Green in their guise as The Vlogbrothers from YouTube, to celebrate the community (called Nerdfighteria) that has sprung up around their videos. The opening ceremony started with a retrospective video, charting the history of their collaboration and achievements, and it made my primary human cry.
The back of the programme featured the community’s catchphrase, which are definitely words to live by:
The first panel we went to was Healthcare Triage Live, hosted by Aaron Carrol, who does videos about the US healthcare system and answers general health-related questions from viewers – it was both fun and interesting:
Nerdfighteria is an inclusive community, and we were impressed by the alteration of the standard bathroom arrangements:
My primary human and I went to NerdWrito, as session where we were given three prompt cards and then had 40 minutes to compose a story based on them – she managed a complete story which she then entered into that week’s Hour of Writes competition:
There were lots of Nerdfighters in awesome t-shirts, but we particularly liked this one, especially when combined with a knitted Hanklerfish hat:
We saw Hank and John themselves from quite some distance away, during the live recording of their Dear Hank and John podcast, which features news from AFC Wimbledon and Mars, dubious advice, and frequent discussion of death:
We also went to what turned out to be a really great presentation about the music that has come out of the Nerdfighter community, or is associated with it. The only reason we went was so as to get a good seat for the panel that came after it, but we really enjoyed this:
The main reason my primary human wanted to go to the con was to meet her favourite YouTubers, Jonathan and Ben Carlin, who do videos about Disney films, Harry Potter, and Marvel. They did an entertaining presentation about How To Not Suck At Vlogging, and were kind enough to pose for a picture afterwards:
We were also pleased to get the opportunity to meet Rosianna Halse Rojas, who makes very good videos about mental health, literary books, cooking and general life skills. She seemed a bit bemused by my request for a photo, but was very gracious about it:
Rosianna led the NerdFighter Book Club session on the Sunday afternoon, and there was a really excellent discussion of Your Heart Is A Muscle The Size Of A Fist, by Sunil Yappa. This is just one page of the many notes my primary human made about the book:
In the main merchandise space, there was a wall with various questions posted on it, where attendees could share their experiences of Nerdfighteria, and it certainly got a lot of use over the course of the weekend:
Overall, we had a great time. There was a huge range of different sessions to choose from, everyone we met was really lovely, and it was well worth the trip to the other side of the pond.
We extended our visit to Boston for a few days after the con, but that’s for another post later in the week…