HELLO & WELCOME

I’m Hank Green, the founder of this lovely little event (and also YouTuber, and author, and TikToker, and general internet science guy). People are sometimes surprised to find that, in addition to explaining to people where the candle wax goes (it combusts into gasses like carbon dioxide and water vapor which mix invisibly with the atmosphere), I also once founded an online video conference, but that’s because, back in 2010, I was among the first people who decided it made sense to take online video seriously.

No one wonders whether or not to take online video seriously now, but back when we were in a hotel basement in Century City, I think most people thought we were being a little silly.

But that’s the thing about media; its importance lies only within each of us. And so, on behalf of your favorite creator, I want to thank you. Thanks for caring, for liking something deeply, but also not uncritically.

There’s a lot of very important conversations about how attention works in today’s algorithmic world, but ultimately our attention is our consciousness…you might even say it is us. We build our world with our collective attention, and then the VidCon Team strives to take that world that exists only in our devices and in our heads and make it exist in the real world for a little while. It is, I think, a worthwhile endeavor. So, welcome to VidCon. Make sure you have some portable food in your pocket, chase the fun, meet cool people who love the same things as you, and I hope you have an absolutely fantastic time.

Hank Green