I'm Zachary Storch. I'm a sci-fi fantasy
author, a game developer, and was on a big
TV show called King of the Nerds. My
girlfriend is the one who really got me
into Nerdfighteria when we met
about three-and-a-half years ago now. She
introduced me to some of the old school
videos on Vlogbrothers, and I really
just love the energy and personality in
the philosophy that was being put into
creating some of this and thinking about
the world as something to be explored, as
something to be enjoyed
gently and enthusiasm because when I
think about things I want to do in my
life and what I want to accomplish and
create, it's about being able to get out
there, be confident about who you are, and
love what we do and just explore it.
So Nerdfighteria in so many ways to me
is one of those things which has
crystallized that philosophy by which I
live so much of my life in the first
place. So it means a lot to me, and
it's something to get just inspired
explore more. I think it's really cool as
well that Nerdfighteria started with
this channel, just a YouTube channel, and
it's managed to grow beyond that in so
many ways. There's people that I've met
Nerdfighter gatherings and through other events
that don't even watch Vlogbrothers but
who identify as a Nerdfighter, they all are
Nerdfighters by all right, they're fighting to
decrease world suck, they care about
learning and exploring the world in all those
great ways, but they don't even watch the
videos because it's managed to become
its own autonomous community. And I think
that's so absolutely incredible.
We're incredible people, nerds, and we're
some of the most passionate people I feel
like
ever. Just... we have so much
passion energy by which we live our life, and
I feel like what being a nerd is all
about is just embracing the thing that
you like, doing it with enthusiasm, and
being happy with who you are. Embrace it!
Do the really cool thing that you want
to do because it is awesome, and the fact
that you care about that thing makes the
world a more awesome place.
I'm Katie Wurtzel, I'm from California, and I currently
live in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
I became a nerdfighter in 2009, I want to be late 2009,
and in the days of AIM, a friend was
talking to me and we were talking books
because we're nerds. And she said,
"There's this book that's coming out. I think you'd
probably like it. It's called Will Grayson, Will Grayson."
And I said, "You said that twice."
And she was like, "That's not actually
how this works." And then from there said,
"You've never heard of John Green? Okay.
Here's a link to the Vlogbrothers, here's
the names of all the books he has out, here
is all of the other things
he's done, including a store that he and his
brother run. "And from there it was kind
of a rabbit's hole I guess.
In high school I remember a friend of mine texted me at
two in the morning saying, "Did you just,
like, positive prank my house with
tootsie pop rolls in front and then leave
note on my doorstep?" And I said, "No,
but that's cool."
And from there I found more Nerdfighter
friends, and it really started to impact
my life when I moved to Boston for
school, and
all the sudden there was a huge
community of Nerdfighters there. And went to
Nerdfighter gathering right after to
TFiOS came out and met some amazing people, including Lori Earl,
who is of course in charge of This Star Won't Go Out, Esther Earl's mother.
And started volunteering for This Star Won't Go Out.
I've been volunteering with them since 2013. They're amazing,
and it's kind of all the little
ways that it's added up. I met my best
friend when - the first time anyway - when
we were in the dining hall at school,
and she was wearing a Pizza John shirt.
And I ran up to her and screamed
in her face,
"Oh my god, you're a Nerdfighter!"
She had, like, a glazed look on her face and then
we met again two months later and
became best friends and all the other people
then who I met through her, through
the Harry Potter Alliance at my school. Most of them were
Nerdfighters. And it's just become such a
part of who I am in terms of the
grounding force of what I believe in,
my social life, people who matter to me,
what matters to me.
I can't really explain even how it's impacted me.