#i know scishow and crash course would be good and like

[yonpote]

me to my kid relatives im watching after: you should be watching different stuff on youtube i dont think that videos appropriate

my own youtube history: ritualistic blood sacrifice to summon baphomet and become one with both him and your lover

[road2nf]

showed me what acceptance feels like in all of its various forms

John and Hank, as well as the Nerdfighter community, have affected my life in many positive ways. They’ve taught me about things that I never even knew existed nor did I ever think I would be interested in.

Crash Course, SciShow, the Vlogbrothers channel itself, and the many wonderful Nerdfighters that exist on YouTube have taught me more than I could have ever dreamed to know. They’ve also showed me what acceptance feels like in all of its various forms. As someone who is a trans*man, their attempts to make everyone feel included and important has meant so much to me. The Nerdfighter community is also one of the most pleasant and helpful communities I’ve ever come across, and there is genuine good work being done by Nerdfighters all over the planet. This is a truly marvelous community headed by two truly marvelous men, and as much as they have positively influenced my life, I know that they have also spread that worldwide.

(toweringovermyhead.tumblr)

[scientificphilosopher]

Any recommendations to become wiser? Books,essays,podcasts,actions that I should take etc.. Thank you :D

That’s a big question! I’ve made some posts before that have recommended some accessible introductory books for philosophy and some of my general favorites (like books/novels/movies/podcasts/etc.). 

I think YouTube is a particularly great educational resource. It’s honestly been invaluable for me throughout my education, including grad school. I am a much wiser person because of the compassionate and good-humored teachings of the vlogbrothers, as well as their companion channels (especially since they partnered up with PBS!). I absolutely love Crash Course, SciShow, SciShow Psych, Eons, PhysicsGirl, Deep Look, It’s Okay to be Smart, and Mental_Floss. My brain would feel poopy and impoverished without the nuanced and incisive social criticism of Contrapoints, Philosophy Tube, and Pop Culture Detective. My consumption of media has been profoundly enriched by the insights from Lessons from the Screenplay, ScreenPrism, Will Schoder, Kat Blaque, and Wisecrack. My appreciation for art has been deepened from Nerdwriter, Fandor, and Now You See It. My mind is blown on the regular due to asapSCIENCE, MinutePhysics, Veritasium, and Vsauce. My philosophy thirst is quenched by Wireless Philosophy, Philosophical Overdose, and the School of Life. I also get some political engagement through VICE, Vox, and AJ+. I know there are still plenty of channels I’m missing, but these are some of my favorites. Massive reservoir of wisdom. Drink in the wonders, my friend.

I would list some of my favorite books and blogs as well, but then this post would get far too bloated. I go into some of those in the links I mentioned earlier. 

Ultimately, though, if you want to be wiser I think a good place to start is by exposing yourself to a range of diverse ideas and experiences. Widespread access to the internet has ushered in an unprecedented era in human history. Perhaps the most revolutionary consequence of this is that we can glean wisdom from those who think and feel and look and experience things differently from what we are personally used to. We can reach out and engage and read and learn from a wide range of folks. Historically speaking, this is a rare and precious privilege, to be able to break out of one’s provincial worldview. Though admittedly, this is not easy and it requires deliberate and thoughtful effort. It’s no great surprise that people get stuck in echo chambers, but it’s not so easy to recognize when we are the ones in an echo chamber, let alone what to do about it. I think our best hope is to be open and deliberate in our efforts to understand those who seem different from ourselves. Purposely seek out people who talk about new and challenging things. Even seek out ideas from those with whom we disagree! Work to charitably interpret where they’re coming from, why they believe what they believe, and do so with a big dose of humility and compassion. Easy as that, yeah? 

[sweeneysays]

I made a Twitter thread a while ago about applying for jobs and I also got an ask about some of the specifics about how I wound up here, so in spite of the fact that this video makes me C R I N G E, I’m gonna share it and we’re gonna do some STORY TIME. Mostly this is me sharing the specifics of my own, personal story but maybe there’s some broadly useful stuff in here, idk.

Also, a fair warning that my ~*story time*~ got away from me, so I’m putting it under a cut. The tl;dr version that’s more broadly useful is:

job applications are learning opportunities and you should make sure you’re learning things as you go about it

your application should be a tailored narrative of your career trajectory

don’t sell yourself short or forget that you hold cards in the process as well

the goal is a good fit for everybody, and that includes you; not every job is going to be that good fit for you

but then, I’m not a hiring manager so, really, wtf do I know

(seriously, take everything I say for the anecdotal nonsense that it is)

I found the listing for my job here on Tumblr. At the time I was freelancing and mostly pretty happy with it, but since I wrote my MA thesis on Nerdfighteria and had always kind of wanted to get into video, this looked like a really cool opportunity to work on great stuff & learn a lot.

The application asked for a reel, which I did not have, since I was mostly doing Virtual Assistant work at that time.

A huge part of why I applied was because I thought the application process itself would be a great learning opportunity.

I really didn’t expect to get the job. I can’t stress this part enough. Like, really didn’t even think I’d get an interview.

The whole thing, to me, was just a good exercise. It had been a while since I had applied for anything (I was freelancing on referrals from the get-go) and mostly I was eager to see what, exactly, I could put together in lieu of a reel.

I spent a week working my way through some Lynda lessons on After Effects (this wasn’t my first time using it, but I had only used it for suuuuper basic stuff). Much of what is happening in this video is stuff I figured out how to do while I was making it. That was, again, the point.

I bought a shit ton of green fabric. I rounded up all the lamps I could find. I had a vague knowledge of the fact that shadows = bad for keying, but really knew fuck all about lights. (tbh, lighting is still kind of a mysterious magic trick to me.) I spent probably an hour moving the lamps around, standing in front of them, recording it, and then looking at it until I could find what looked the least shadow-y.

I also watched a SciShow video on the slowest speed setting so that I could try to reverse engineer the basics of what was happening. I was literally just looking at it to see, “ok, but can I do that?” (Answer: not really, but A for effort.)

I wrote a very silly script that was a very carefully selected understanding of how I had been spending my time. This part is super important and broadly applicable whenever you are applying for a job: a huge part of applying for a job is creating a narrative. 

(Important note: this does not mean lying.)

Obviously your life has (probably) not actually been a series of carefully chosen moments leading you to this ONE. JOB. But it’s important to find ways to talk about the things you’ve done that highlight how/why they are relevant. In my experience, humans have a pretty natural tendency to do this narrative reframing of their past as having led them clearly to their future. Use that. What is the version of your trajectory that most sounds like you’ve been gearing up for this job all along, acquiring skills both obvious and unexpected that would be useful here.

That’s the guiding principle of everything I’m saying in this video.

It’s also worth noting, though, that I laid my cards on the table. That is, I wasn’t trying to lie about anything and I was up front about where I was at. It wouldn’t have served anybody to try to be misleading about that fact.

So that was the application process, for me. It’s a tricky balance of being honest but also a carefully selected kind of honest. And keeping in mind that this is as much about deciding whether a company is actually good fit for you as whether you’re a good fit for them. I remember during my college admissions process, one school that I thought I really wanted to go to had a weird religious essay on the form that caught me off guard and made me reevaluate whether that was a good fit. Likewise, I honestly wasn’t sure if I wanted to do the 9-5 thing. Freelancing had lots of great perks that offset some of the overwhelming stress.

Something else that I did, that I recommend with a very cautious asterisk, was googling the people interviewing me. Again, partially this was, “OK, I know these shows they make, and I know vlogbrothers videos, but who are all of the other people who I would spend my days with.”

I had no idea who Nick was before I started, because I never paid much attention to the credits. But he was the one who called me to arrange the interview, so I googled him and found a great interview he did about why Crash Course matters, and there were a few specific things he said that stood out to me as, “yes, this is also why I think this matters and why I want this job.”

The asterisk here is: don’t be creepy. It’s a hard line to walk, but, ya know, don’t talk about your interviewer’s swarm check-ins or whatever.

In my case, I knew that in addition to concentrating on that narrative of how and why I should end up here, I had these other points to hit on in the interview. Again, don’t lie. This isn’t about saying shit solely because you think someone wants to hear it; this was about leveraging a piece of common ground I knew we had.

Lastly, I’d add that it’s good to be careful about how you walk the line between being excited about a company’s work and being a little overzealous. It is, at the end of the day, still a job, and you don’t want to come across as so enthusiastic that maybe you’re missing that point. That’s a really nuanced thing for which I have no easy answers.

A lot of this stuff is just luck. I gave a lot of advice where I could, but, at the same time, there’s also this weird combination of personalities that make a thing work or not. There’s a thing in hiring called the “airport test” which is: “could I be stuck in an airport with this person?” and that is a whole other weird, wholly qualitative element of hiring that ends up making a huge difference.

There’s the official bits and pieces that make up a job application, but then there’s the trickier interpersonal stuff about how that job fits into a team. Something not explicitly stated in my application, but which I’ve since learned mattered is that what I lacked in technical know-how, I made up for in cultural knowledge about YouTube. My manager is a former film school teacher who learned the YouTube stuff on the job; he knew he could teach me anything technical I didn’t know much more easily than he could teach someone the culture in which we create.

IDK. I could legitimately talk about this forever.

[faithisaverb]

What to do in the Quarantine: An internet guide for your mind, body, and soul

As we move into what seems to be a longer-term period of social distancing and quarantine, I thought it would be helpful to share a few things to help you stay mentally active during this season.

First, a reminder of why we are doing this:  We are social distancing not as a protection for us as individuals, but more as a protection for the larger community as a whole.   The goal of Christians is not self-preservation, but for the well-being of all people.  With that in mind, we can see that social distancing, which helps to flatten the curve, is the most Christ-like thing that we can do in this time.

I want to remind you, though, that distancing physically does not mean distancing emotionally and relationally.  We still can care for one another, and we are perhaps given even more time in this situation to do so.

There is a point in the book of Jeremiah in the bible where God is talking to the people who are in exile.  They had been pulled out of their homes in Jerusalem and taken to live in Babylon.  They prayed to God to be set free, and God responded in one of the most famous verses in the bible:  “I know the plans I have for you.  Plans to prosper you and not to harm you - to give you a hope and a future.”  You have likely heard that one before.  It’s really encouraging.  But God then goes on in the next verse to say part of that plan is that the people are going to be stuck in exile for another 70 years.  So settle in.  Build houses and get married, work to the blessing of those around you, because the plan involves this time of exile.

What was seen as a curse to the people of God had been reframed by God as a blessing - take this time and bear fruit.  Things will go back to normal, but not for a while.

I’m not trying to say that this “exile” is going to last 70 years, but some reasonable predictions are saying we are 18 months away from a vaccine (at least) and without a vaccine, we are sill susceptible to this virus.  So life is going to be different for a while.  For some, it really is a major hardship and it is one the church and our society as a whole to care for the most vulnerable among us in this season).  For many of us, though, this is an opportunity for time and presence that we don’t usually have.  We can see that as a curse or a gift.  We can lament the loss of what we had, or we can find new opportunities in what we have been given.

But know that throughout all of this - God is still there, empowering the helpers, working in each of us to do whatever we can to bring life to the world.

Now onto the resources:

Here is a list of several simple things that you can do for self-care:

Get dressed - it may be nice to stay in your “house pajamas” for a bit, but it’ll be more draining on you over time

Go outside - Self Distancing is not house arrest.  Go for hikes, play in your yard, garden.  Enjoy the weather (when it’s worth enjoying).  We shouldn’t get within 6 feet of others, and should avoid places where there is a lot of contact like playgrounds, but hikes, bike rides, and other outdoor activities with out family.

Have a Plan - We are going to be settled into this for a while, so plan out your day and your week in a way that feels productive.  This isn’t vacation, and treating it like vacation isn’t going to be helpful in the long run.  We will appreciate the extra time more when we have a plan for getting the things done that need done first.

Be intentional - find things you’ve wanted to do, but perhaps didn’t have time to before now, and select certain things to do.  This isn’t an opportunity to do everything you’ve been putting off, but it’s a good time to take on one or two things.  Also be intentional about how much of everything that you do - especially things like social media.  It can feel like you are staying informed, but it can quickly overwhelm you in ways that aren’t always helpful.

Connect with friends and family - We have time to be together.  Even if you don’t live with family, we have time now to connect.  Especially if you live alone, make sure that you are reaching out to friends and family, both to get some help and to receive help.  Reach out to neighbors and friends who may be alone to be sure that they have what they need.

This video below tells us a bit about best ways to protect ourselves against the virus - namely, washing your hands:

Next, a very thorough Q&A about what we know about the virus so far as of 3/18/2020.  This video is incredibly helpful as a doctor answers questions about the virus and the situation we are dealing with.  It’s over 30 minutes long, so maybe come back to this one later (but you really should watch it to get a better sense of what we are actually dealing with:

Tons of ways to keep your mind, spirit, and soul active!

Now that we are rounding out our first week of social distancing/quarantining, I thought it might be helpful to share with you some resources on that I’ve found helpful to keep young minds (and even older minds) active.

Learning Stuff

CrashCourse – this is a tremendous site for probably middle school on up (it’s content appropriate for all, just academically probably for 12 & up).  It provides super engaging rapid fire lessons on History, Science, Math, and dozens of other topics, with each video about ten minutes long.  A great way to keep your mind engaged and excited while indoors. https://www.youtube.com/crashcourse   CrashCourse Kids – remember how I said that Crash Course is academically for probably 12 and up? Well they made a version that’s on par for probably ages 7-12. https://www.youtube.com/crashcoursekids   PBS Kids – If you have kids between ages 3 and 12 and you haven’t gone to PBSKids.org yet, you’re in for a treat.  Great programming, and a really great website with lots of good games and printable activities.  And all the shows are educational, so it’s a pretty guilt free parenting spot.  I highly recommend the show Odd Squad, which is a hilarious show that’s secretly about math. https://pbskids.org/   ABC Mouse – ABCmouse.com is a great site for preschoolers that teaches them lessons like they are in a classroom, but does so with a really engaging interface that is super fun.  It started as a program that helped prepare kids for school, but they have expanded it for grades up 5th grade, which each grade getting a specific track that is grade appropriate.  They have a month free right now, or if the code below still works, they were offering free access during the duration of this self-distancing time. https://dealsea.com/view-deal/1567224   How to Dad – These videos are just funny.  An New Zealander dad makes funny videos about how to take care of his baby daughter.  Not really educational, but very funny and creative (two things that a valuable commodities right now). https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_txf_nR4fNOHJoWAVpHSqpDvkuecwpxw   Vihart maths – fun with math & doodles.  And math. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOGeU-1Fig3rrDjhm9Zs_wg   Mister Chris – This is a show for younger kids from Vermont public television that is essentially Mister Rogers set in Vermont.  It’s really delightful and moves at a Mister Rogers-like pace even though it was made in the last few years (which is incredibly refreshing). https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpKdaJ7UgatnRUG6JHTS-fA   Soul Pancake – SoulPancake is described as a channel that “tackles the universality of the human experience. We are the dreamers, misfits, artists, activists, and innovators who have the power to positively change the world. Our content opens minds and hearts by joyfully exploring and celebrating the many ways in which we seek connection, love, hope, truth and purpose. We believe all questions are worth asking, and all human lives are worth exploring. Simply put, we create stuff that matters - because you matter.”  It was co-founded by Rainn Wilson (Dwight from “The Office”) and it’s really great.  It offers several series of videos (one, “Kid President,” is great for kids of all ages) and just general videos that are engaging and thought provoking https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaDVcGDMkvcRb4qGARkWlyg

Science

Health Care Triage – a very helpful and creative channel that helps to explain the often difficult to understand world of Health Care.  It’s particularly helpful right now in the midst of trying to understand COVID-19.  From the makers of CrashCourse!  The big Q&A video above is from here. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCabaQPYxxKepWUsEVQMT4Kw   SciShow – the makers of CrashCourse made a show that’s just about science! https://www.youtube.com/user/scishow   SciShow Kids – the makers of SciShow made a show that’s just about science – for kids! https://www.youtube.com/user/scishowkids   Mr. Wizard – This channel is made up of clips of the fantastic kids’ science show from the 1980s, Mr. Wizard’s World.  Think Bill Nye the Science Guy, but hosted by a slightly grumpy Canadian septigenarian.  The experiments are still really cool, and it’s surprisingly engaging watching these Canadian kids do science with this grumpy teacher helping them. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCx_J_aSKyWaNcEjK-eS4Jxg   Smarter Every Day – Destin Sandlin is an engineer from Alabama who is also a dad, and is just curious about how the world works.  So he uses science to figure it out, and makes really engaging videos that take us along for the ride. https://www.youtube.com/user/destinws2   NASA – The official NASA YouTube.  NASA puts up really awesome videos which are a wonderful thing to get lost in.  They do a great job of education, and this channel shows that. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLA_DiR1FfKNvjuUpBHmylQ   Videos From Space – Another fantastic site with videos from space, largely from the International Space Station.  I particularly recommend the videos from Commander Chris Hatfield, which was in the Space Station for over a year and made some great videos that show simple science experiments in space (like how you sleep in zero gravity, weather you can cry in space, and more fun stuff). https://www.youtube.com/user/VideoFromSpace   Pittsburgh Zoo – many zoos are doing lots of live streaming and educational videos to get to see the animals and learn more about the life of caring for animals.  Our local zoo is pretty good, but there are loads of other great ones out there, too. https://www.pittsburghzoo.org/bringing-the-zoo-to-you/

Bible Stuff

Bible Project – Probably the most helpful bible resource that I’ve found online.  Really great, well presented and scholarly videos that are super accessible and engaging.  Loads of videos that walk you through each book of the bible, helping you to know the larger story of the bible.  If you have long wanted to read through the bible and see this time as a great time to get started, this is the resource I would say you should use. https://www.youtube.com/user/jointhebibleproject   BioLogos – a great site that talks about the beautiful connections between faith and science, and how wonderfully those two things are symbiotic.  Good for a deep dive. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxQpFosrTUk   Bible for Normal People – Resources for reading and understanding the bible while breaking down some of the misconceptions and problematic interpretations of the bible that we have inherited over the generations. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrLeEfeGaJakbVMj8e6NKWQ   What’s in the Bible? – From the makers of Veggie Tales, this is a pretty great series that uses puppets to walk kids through the stories of the bible, and actually takes it pretty seriously (even though it’s still really goofy and funny).  A great resource for teaching kids about the story of the bible. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiFIuW5SWY2HwVi878DVdug   Bible App for Kids – This is hands down the best bible app for young kids that I have seen.  It’s probably best for ages 3-6, and it presents bible stories in an interactive storybook way, helping kids to know the larger story of the bible.  Free app for phones and tablets. https://bibleappforkids.com/   Guardians of Ancora – I just got this one, so I haven’t played through it all the way, but it seems like a pretty fun app that would be good for upper elementary ages to walk through the story of the bible.  Free app for phones and tablets. https://guardiansofancora.com/   LifeKids – This is the children’s ministry from LifeChurch (which is not really a church that I’d recommend fully), but their kids’ stuff is pretty great, and really fun.  If you were looking for at home “Sunday school” this is a good place to go. https://www.youtube.com/user/LCLifeKids

Staying active

Go Noodle – this is a site that is just filled with short videos to get kids moving.  A lot of elementary schools use them, so your kids may already be aware of them.  Great for getting little ones to move around and burn some energy (and for adults to get up and move, too). https://www.gonoodle.com/   Cosmic Kids Yoga – This is a channel where a yoga instructor from Australia walks kids (and adults) through yoga exercises while telling a story.  A great way to “trick” kids into doing yoga, and a great way to calm down at the end of the day. https://www.youtube.com/user/CosmicKidsYoga   Yoga with Adriene – This is a great yoga channel that is more targeted toward adults (though kids could do it, too).  Like taking a free yoga class.  She’s really engaging and a great instructor.  And she has a dog, which makes regular cameos. https://yogawithadriene.com/

Creativity

Flippy Cat – This is a fantastic channel that is just incredible dominoes displays being set up and then knocked down.  A beautiful example of creativity, and it could (as it did in our house) get kids on a domino kick, which is a great creative outlet when stuck indoors. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuO06egvl5yE__rR_02WUZw   Hevesh 5 – Another great dominoes channel, this one with Hevesh5 who is an awesome host.  Her builds are inventive and really inspiring. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxJsQFhb8PFjtuN5gdOV6-w   PBS Ideas Channel – This is an all around engaging channel about ideas, with random topics on the history of pizza, why cocktail glasses are different, and the similarities between Santa Claus and pro wrestling.  Put on by PBS, so it has some rigor to it, but largely a collection of random thoughts considered seriously.  It’s a fun rabbit hole that will make you think and perhaps learn a thing or two. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3LqW4ijMoENQ2Wv17ZrFJA   Lunch Doodles with Mo – This is one of the best things to come out of this whole situation.  Children’s author Mo Willems has started regular live streams where he teaches you how to make doodles of his characters from his books (Piggy & Elephant, Pigeon, and more).  Even if you aren’t familiar with the books, it’s a fun engaging way to watch someone create something in real time, and it’s even fun to join in and draw along. https://www.kennedy-center.org/education/mo-willems/      

Hopefully those are relatively helpful.  

Let me know other ways to stay engaged with the world, and to keep our minds and spirits active during this season.

See the change in this season to be a source of love and joy.

Help one another.  Learn, live, grow.

And wash your hands.

[lovesaee]

I made a Twitter thread a while ago about applying for jobs and I also got an ask about some of the specifics about how I wound up here, so in spite of the fact that this video makes me C R I N G E, I’m gonna share it and we’re gonna do some STORY TIME. Mostly this is me sharing the specifics of my own, personal story but maybe there’s some broadly useful stuff in here, idk. Also, a fair warning that my ~*story time*~ got away from me, so I’m putting it under a cut. The tl;dr version that’s more broadly useful is: job applications are learning opportunities and you should make sure you’re learning things as you go about it your application should be a tailored narrative of your career trajectory don’t sell yourself short or forget that you hold cards in the process as well the goal is a good fit for everybody, and that includes you; not every job is going to be that good fit for you but then, I’m not a hiring manager so, really, wtf do I know (seriously, take everything I say for the anecdotal nonsense that it is) I found the listing for my job here on Tumblr. At the time I was freelancing and mostly pretty happy with it, but since I wrote my MA thesis on Nerdfighteria and had always kind of wanted to get into video, this looked like a really cool opportunity to work on great stuff & learn a lot. The application asked for a reel, which I did not have, since I was mostly doing Virtual Assistant work at that time. A huge part of why I applied was because I thought the application process itself would be a great learning opportunity. I really didn’t expect to get the job. I can’t stress this part enough. Like, really didn’t even think I’d get an interview. The whole thing, to me, was just a good exercise. It had been a while since I had applied for anything (I was freelancing on referrals from the get-go) and mostly I was eager to see what, exactly, I could put together in lieu of a reel. I spent a week working my way through some Lynda lessons on After Effects (this wasn’t my first time using it, but I had only used it for suuuuper basic stuff). Much of what is happening in this video is stuff I figured out how to do while I was making it. That was, again, the point. I bought a shit ton of green fabric. I rounded up all the lamps I could find. I had a vague knowledge of the fact that shadows = bad for keying, but really knew fuck all about lights. (tbh, lighting is still kind of a mysterious magic trick to me.) I spent probably an hour moving the lamps around, standing in front of them, recording it, and then looking at it until I could find what looked the least shadow-y. I also watched a SciShow video on the slowest speed setting so that I could try to reverse engineer the basics of what was happening. I was literally just looking at it to see, “ok, but can I do that?” (Answer: not really, but A for effort.) I wrote a very silly script that was a very carefully selected understanding of how I had been spending my time. This part is super important and broadly applicable whenever you are applying for a job: a huge part of applying for a job is creating a narrative. (Important note: this does not mean lying.) Obviously your life has (probably) not actually been a series of carefully chosen moments leading you to this ONE. JOB. But it’s important to find ways to talk about the things you’ve done that highlight how/why they are relevant. In my experience, humans have a pretty natural tendency to do this narrative reframing of their past as having led them clearly to their future. Use that. What is the version of your trajectory that most sounds like you’ve been gearing up for this job all along, acquiring skills both obvious and unexpected that would be useful here. That’s the guiding principle of everything I’m saying in this video. It’s also worth noting, though, that I laid my cards on the table. That is, I wasn’t trying to lie about anything and I was up front about where I was at. It wouldn’t have served anybody to try to be misleading about that fact. So that was the application process, for me. It’s a tricky balance of being honest but also a carefully selected kind of honest. And keeping in mind that this is as much about deciding whether a company is actually good fit for you as whether you’re a good fit for them. I remember during my college admissions process, one school that I thought I really wanted to go to had a weird religious essay on the form that caught me off guard and made me reevaluate whether that was a good fit. Likewise, I honestly wasn’t sure if I wanted to do the 9-5 thing. Freelancing had lots of great perks that offset some of the overwhelming stress. Something else that I did, that I recommend with a very cautious asterisk, was googling the people interviewing me. Again, partially this was, “OK, I know these shows they make, and I know vlogbrothers videos, but who are all of the other people who I would spend my days with.” I had no idea who Nick was before I started, because I never paid much attention to the credits. But he was the one who called me to arrange the interview, so I googled him and found a great interview he did about why Crash Course matters, and there were a few specific things he said that stood out to me as, “yes, this is also why I think this matters and why I want this job.” The asterisk here is: don’t be creepy. It’s a hard line to walk, but, ya know, don’t talk about your interviewer’s swarm check-ins or whatever. In my case, I knew that in addition to concentrating on that narrative of how and why I should end up here, I had these other points to hit on in the interview. Again, don’t lie. This isn’t about saying shit solely because you think someone wants to hear it; this was about leveraging a piece of common ground I knew we had. Lastly, I’d add that it’s good to be careful about how you walk the line between being excited about a company’s work and being a little overzealous. It is, at the end of the day, still a job, and you don’t want to come across as so enthusiastic that maybe you’re missing that point. That’s a really nuanced thing for which I have no easy answers. A lot of this stuff is just luck. I gave a lot of advice where I could, but, at the same time, there’s also this weird combination of personalities that make a thing work or not. There’s a thing in hiring called the “airport test” which is: “could I be stuck in an airport with this person?” and that is a whole other weird, wholly qualitative element of hiring that ends up making a huge difference. There’s the official bits and pieces that make up a job application, but then there’s the trickier interpersonal stuff about how that job fits into a team. Something not explicitly stated in my application, but which I’ve since learned mattered is that what I lacked in technical know-how, I made up for in cultural knowledge about YouTube. My manager is a former film school teacher who learned the YouTube stuff on the job; he knew he could teach me anything technical I didn’t know much more easily than he could teach someone the culture in which we create. IDK. I could legitimately talk about this forever.