John Green

Some Lesser Known Facts About John Green

• Does John Green smoke? Yes ^[10]The New Yorker

• Does John Green drink alcohol? Yes ^[11]The New Yorker

• John Green is an American author and a YouTube content creator. He became famous after his young adult fiction debut book “The Fault in Our Stars” which got published in 2012. The book was listed on The New York Times Best Seller list for 130 weeks and was also proclaimed as one of the top fiction books of 2012 by TIME Magazine. It was also one of the top ten books in the US Today in 2012 and was translated into 46 languages. In 2014, the book was adapted into a Hollywood movie of the same title. The movie became very popular and won many awards. Later, the book was also adapted into a Bollywood movie titled “Dil Bechara;” starring late Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput.

• He is originally from Indianapolis, Indiana, the U.S., but his family moved to Orlando, Florida when John was 3 weeks old. According to John, while growing up in Indianapolis, he worked for a local non-profit organisation, Healthy Community Initiative, along with his brother, Hank, and mother, Sydney. He attended three different schools; Glenridge Middle School, Lake Highland Preparatory School in Orlando, and a private school Indian Springs School Alabama, Pelham, AL, USA (1995 Batch). He was bullied during his school days by his classmates. ^[12]Orlando Sentinel

  

• He did his graduation at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, where he studied a double major in English and Religious Studies in Islam, and during this time, he extensively studied Mark Twain. After he completed his college studies, for the next five months, he worked as a chaplain at a children’s hospital and was enrolled in the University of Chicago’s Divinity School, which he never attended. He was inspired by the ill children in the hospital, which gave him the idea to write his book “The Fault in Our Stars.” ^[13]Book Series in Order

• Although John has become an established author, earlier, he wanted to become an Episcopalian minister.

• John Green’s literary influences during his college days were Gary Paulsen’s novel Hatchet, Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, and Ann Martin’s Babysitters Club books, which are based on young girls.

• He initially worked for Booklist (a publication of the American Library Association) in Chicago as a production editor for many years. During this job, he worked on his book “Looking For Alaska (2005),” which was later adapted into a mini-series with 8 episodes of the same title. This book also won the prestigious Michael L Printz Award in 2006. In 2005, it also won the Teen Book of the year at the Children’s Choice Book Awards and Indiana National Author Award. ^[14]Book Series in Order
  

  I spent a long time with my mentor and editor at Booklist, Ilene Cooper, writing and re-writing drafts of Looking for Alaska. It was three years of that. Just writing and re-writing and re-writing. And she did know someone at Dutton that she thought would be interested in the book. But she really wanted the manuscript to be something that she felt like she could say “I like this,” but also that she thought that the publisher would. Sent it to the publisher. It sat for a long time. It sat for six months. I guess there were a lot of conversations internally about the various strengths and weaknesses of it. And then one day I got a call, and yeah”.

• During his job at Booklist Magazine, he also wrote for National Public Radio’s show “All Things Considered” and for Chicago Public Radio Station’s show WBEZ 91.5 FM.

• He has reviewed many books during his job; at Booklist Magazine, his special interests were literary fiction and books about Islam and conjoined twins. His book reviews and criticisms have also been published in The New York Times Books Review.

• He shifted back to his hometown Indianapolis, Indiana after he resigned from his job at Booklist magazine. He lives with his wife Sarah Urist Green, two kids Henery (son) and Alice (daughter), along with his pet dog (a West Highland Terrier) who is named Fireball Wilson Roberts, nicknamed Willy. During his wife’s second pregnancy, they had a google hangout meeting with former U.S president, Barak Obama, John and his wife Sarah asked him to choose the name, either ‘Eleanor’ or ‘Alice,’ for their unborn child, to which Barak Obama replied,
  

  The main thing is, tell either Eleanor or Alice not to forget to be awesome.”

• In 2014, Time magazine listed John Green in its  100 Most Influential People in the world list. The TIME magazine also referred to John Green as “Teen Whisperer.” ^[15]TIME

• Greg Ballard, the mayor of Indianapolis, proclaimed the day July 14, 2015 (Tuesday), to be the “John Green day.” Later, in the same month, Teresa Jacobs, the chairwoman of the Orange County Public School Board, also announced the day July 17, 2015 (Friday) to be the “John Green Day.”

  

• He started a YouTube channel, “Vlogbrothers,” with his brother Hank Green in 2007. They started this channel as a virtual substitute for writing letters to each other; they start the video by referring to each other by their names i.e. “Dear Hank” and “Dear John.” The channel has 3.33M subscribers with 1886 videos (as of 2020).

• Their YouTube channel “Vlogbrothers,” also known as “Brothers 2.0,” was approached by YouTube to start with online series. Later, they started a project named Crash Course, which is a YouTube initiative channel, where they give students short educational lectures with animation accompaniments. In their channel, his brother Hank talks about the topics related to the field of humanities whereas John talks about the topics related to the field of sciences. The channel has over 11.7M subscribers, where many teachers come together at one platform to teach different topics. ^[16]GIGAOM

• In 2007, he along with his brother Hank started the Nerdfighter campaign, which is a community well established for contributing monetary or any other support to various charities, forums, spinoff blogs, meetups, and events. John and his brother also started the “Project for Awesome”, in 2007, which is a project of the parent organization of the Foundation to Decrease World Suck (a Montana-based 501(c)3 charitable organization), who aims to raise funds for various charities. In 2018, this project raised 1.5M $ (approx.). ^[17]Project for Awesome
  

• John Green with his brother Hank Green started VidCon in 2010, which is an annual conference for the online video community, it welcomes online creators from various regions worldwide such as Abu Dabi, London, Asia, Australia, Mexico, São Paulo, and the U.S. They have been organising the event in Southern California every year since 2010; reportedly,  the event witnesses approximately 25,000 attendees every year. It is considered one of the largest conferences held for online video creators.

  

• He was a writer for the Mental Floss magazine during the 2000s and later, he was a frontman in collaboration with Mental Floss magazine’s YouTube series “The List Show” from 2013 to 2018, which was focused on showcasing interesting facts about different things.

• He is a big fan of Liverpool Football Club, particularly of the premier league. ^[18]AFC Wimbledon
  

• John Green considers himself a feminist, which became evident in an interview with Cosmopolitan magazine when he was asked if he identified himself as a feminist to which he replied, ^[19]Cosmopolitan
  

  Yes, I do. My hardcore badass feminist mom told both my brother and me that we were feminists from the time we were like two years old, so if she ever heard me saying I wasn’t a feminist she’d fly to my house and smack me upside the head.”

• He is diagnosed with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Anxiety. He has deeply discussed his mental illness on his YouTube videos. His trademark personality trait is to speak very fast. ^[20]The New York Times