Monday 21 November 2011

Explaining DFTBA


All day I have had a stream of people asking me the meaning of DFTBA

I want to make it clear from the start that I am not the original creator of this phrase in any shape or form. The letters stand for Don't Forget To Be Awesome and originates from an American writer, John Green and a musician Hank Green.

These brothers, along with their normal careers, are popular Vloggers (a Vlog being a video Blog) on the self broadcasting website Youtube.

They begun their Vlogging as a more personal way of keeping in touch as they live a fair distance away from each other. This developed into the popular Vlogs that thousands of Youtube fans enjoy to this day.

The Vlog brothers developed their own online community which is affectionately known as 'Nerdfighteria'. Nerdfighter basically meaning a nerd who fights to 'increase world awesome' and 'decrease world suck'.

We currently seem to be living in an age where (particularly young people of around 16-30) are standing up and declaring themselves 'Nerds' with a sense of pride for the label rather than the negative connotations that originally developed with the phrase.

A Nerd by Nerdfighteria standard is anyone who chooses to be, not really having any set criteria although generally people who enjoy stereotypically nerdy things would be the prime candidates for this community. John Green once said in response to an enquiry about magazines and E-Book reading, "I don't care what you read, I just care whether you read".

The Vlog Brothers started using the terms of increasing awesome and decreasing suck as a way of life. In 2007 the Vlog Brothers created a Youtube and online charity event known as 'Project for Awesome' where all of the big names of Youtube would ask their viewers to donate money to that Youtubers' chosen charity. Project for awesome has grown in popularity over the past four years and has helped to raise thousands of dollars for charity.

The Vlog brothers have helped develop several online memes such as Nerdfighteria and the term DFTBA which is an encouraging catchphrase that they have printed on t-shirts and other merchandise. The Vlog Brothers recently increased their online presence even more by setting up a forum joking called 'Your Pants'. This has lead to much humour in their videos as they will often say things such as "More can be found in a thread in Your Pants" or "Look out for each other in Your Pants". The website was recently hacked so whilst repairs were being made to the website showed the error message "Oops Your Pants is down!"

As a fan and follower of the Vlog Brothers I consider myself a Nerdfighter so have chosen to pass on the community message of choosing to feel awesome. Hence why I have been finishing my posts with DFTBA.

http://www.youtube.com/user/vlogbrothers
http://www.dftba.com
http://www.nerdfighteria.info 

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