This, is Evan Puschak
Now if you’ve seen him before, you might
know him better as, the Nerdwriter.
In 2011, he started a Vlog channel on YouTube
inspired John and Hank Green’s vlogbrothers,
who’s fans are referred to as Nerdfighters.
Like John Green, Evan Puschak was a writer.
He’d just written a novel in Paris, and
thought a vlog might be a good way to find
an audience to read it.
In his third video, published Oct 2, 2011,
he transitioned away from autobiography and
discussed art on camera for the first time.
In his fourth video, he debuted his signature
catchphrase.
In his 13th video, just a few months after
he’d started the channel, we see the first
version of his intro.
And by 2014, the Nerdwriter starts getting
better and better at using FinalCut Pro to
illustrate the points he’s making.
The word vlog disappears from his titles;
his face is no longer the featured element
of every video.
And with all this we see the birth of the
Nerdwriter.
Since 2011, Nerdwriter has produced 235 videos,
totaling 143 million views, amassing about
2.3 million subscribers.
Now I watched all 235 of those videos in preparation
for this one, and I could probably make a
235 different video essays on my feelings
about the Nerdwriter, each covering an entirely
different subject matter.
But in this essay I’d like hone in on what
I find most compelling about his work, and
that’s his commitment to sincerity.
But before I can talk about the nerdwriter’s
relationship to sincerity, we’ll have to
take a deeper look at sincerity’s cultural
counterpoint: Irony.
Over the past century or so, these two massively
important social forces have battled it out
in the American Cultural Landscape.
Now if you’d like even more background on
this subject, I highly recommend Will Schoder’s
video on David Foster Wallace, but I’ll
summarize the main points here.
Essentially, in academic terms, irony as we
know it today has its roots in the cultural
movement of Postmodernism.
And though this term is fairly loose, so nebulous
that at times it doesn’t seem to mean anything
at all, what’s important to us are the ways
in which our culture still carries the ironic
and irreverent spirit of postmodernism to
this very day.
Basically, Postmodern thought was deeply skeptical
of any universal notions about morality or
human nature or social progress or really
anything.
The Postmodernist views everything we see,
think, and discuss as a “social construct”,
all knowledge and value systems based on social
conditioning and societal institutions rather
than some objective reality.
Postmodernists wanted to break down all structures,
institutions, and commonly accepted truths
through the process of “deconstruction,”
a way of exposing the true nature of something
by picking apart its elements.
What resulted, though, from all this picking
apart and knocking down, was a broader attitude
of cynicism, irony, and irreverence toward
just about everything, an attitude that we
can still recognize all over the place today.
Here’s a particularly irreverent post modern
Bo Burnham song deconstructing pop songs about
love.
In typical postmodern fashion, Burnham uses
his popular song to step outside the culture
of popular music, picking it apart, even mocking
it.
David Foster Wallace, coming up in the literary
scene decades after Post Modernism had already
made its mark and even filtered into mainstream
culture, claimed that the irony of post-modernism
had run its course.
Check out this commercial highlighted in Will
Schoder’s video that deconstructs the concept
of a commercial.
Sure, it’s pretty funny the first time someone
does it, and maybe one more time, but after
a while, you get the joke.
And you might start wishing someone would
just accept that, yes, those are the elements
of a commercial, and instead of just exposing
those elements, to actually use them to make
something genuinely entertaining or even beautiful.
And the same goes for Bo Burnham’s song.
Sure, I do think it’s funny, but after I
listen to it once, I get the message, and
then would rather just listen to actual pop
stars trying genuinely to make songs about
love.
Postmodern irony, by itself, can only look
backward, reflecting on culture rather than
advancing it, not leading to anything new
or interesting on its own.
Now, where things get really interesting to
me is how this postmodern mode filtered down
from the work of artists and intellectuals
into the social landscape itself.
Into our everyday lives.
Wallace claimed that people, socially, had
come fear sincerity, since our predominantly
ironic culture had made it so un-cool by constant
mocking it.
Sincerity, then, came off as almost naïve.
And this is how postmodern irony was able
to make the leap from avant-garde literature
and social theory into regular, day-to-day
interactions and behaviors.
Imagine, for example, that you’re hanging
out with a friend who showed you that Bo Burnham
song, and you’d been planning on showing
them your favorite new song, Katy Perry’s
Teenage Dream.
You might feel a bit naïve and stupid sharing
it, since that type of song was essentially
the butt of the joke in Bo Burnham’s video.
By expressing sincere affection for something
that’s been made fun of, you then become
the butt of that joke, too.
So maybe you decide to hold back from sharing
it, and from sincerely expressing your love
for Katy Perry to anyone going forward.
Or maybe, and this is where ironic culture
is truly strange and insidious, maybe instead
of sharing with friends the things that you
genuinely love and care about, you share things
that you think are stupid, or naïve, or just
generally laughable.
Instead of engaging with culture you love,
you take a more removed perspective, and look
at culture that you think is funny.
Wallace claimed that people started hiding
behind a hip funny ironic veneer so as not
to seem naïve.
They adopted an ironic mode of being rather
than genuine sincere engagement with things
so they’d never risk becoming the butt of
the joke.
And this leads us to the 21st century’s
ambassador of irony: the one and only Brandon
Wardell.
For those unfamiliar, Wardell is an LA-based
comedian with an extremely ironic online presence.
Wardell is essentially the apotheosis of the
phenomenon I’m trying to describe.
By evoking this ironic tone, he both hides
behind the irony and mocks people who do sincerely
enjoy these things.
Much of his comedy, and seemingly, his life,
has revolved more around an ironic distance
from culture than a genuine engagement with
it.
And even he himself, though with a slightly
sarcastic tone, admits this.
This is how postmodern irony manifests itself
socially in the 21st century.
Wardell watches culture from the outside,
laughs at it, not with it, always maintaining
an ironic distance.
In the essay, E Unibus Pluram, Wallace writes
that “The next real…“rebels” in this
country might well emerge as some weird bunch
of anti-rebels…who dare somehow to back
away from ironic watching…”
In other words, who shed this ironic mode
and dare to be completely unironically sincere.
People who are cool for being too cool.
The New Sincerity, many have called it.
A reactive movement back towards sentiment,
toward emotion, toward unfiltered, genuine
self-expression; an acceptance of and affection
for naiveté, even in oneself.
In his video essay, Will Schoder maps this
progression from irony toward a new sincerity
onto popular US television at the turn of
the millennium.
He compares shows like Seinfeld and Family
Guy with The Office, Community, and Parks
and Rec, the latter group actually willing
to find moments of genuine human connection
between the humor.
Moments of real emotion, of sentimental, melodramatic,
soft and squishy sincerity.
What I’d like to add to this conversation
is what was developing on the internet during
the rise of these new shows.
And that, of course, was YouTube.
And with YouTube came the rise of individual
content creation.
Though it seems normal now, it’s important
to reflect on the shocking newness of watching
visual media created by a single person.
The entire history of cinema and television
is littered with a hundred times as many unseen
heroes working the lights, cutting the film,
pulling focus, as there were stars.
But the rise of content creation has collapsed
the roles of laborer and star into one.
And I know I’m biased, but I’d argue that
a single person putting a sincere video up
on YouTube makes someone feel a million times
more vulnerable than even creating a sincere
show like The Office, because it’s all on
one person.
YouTubers haven’t been greenlighted by major
networks or studios, YouTubers haven’t been
collaborating with established directors and
writers to make sure their work is up to par,
and most certainly don’t have the justification
that they just did it for the money.
Individual content creation, is, in and of
itself, is an act of vulnerability.
To this day, though I have fans and subscribers
and all that good stuff, I’m still nervous
every time I release a video.
But what gets me through these insecurities
is the culture surrounding the video essay
community.
In my opinion, a culture of sincerity.
I’d even argue that because YouTube is such
a vulnerable medium in the first place, such
a personal medium, sincerity is an essential
element of the various genres that exploded
within it.
And this, finally, brings us back to the nerdwriter.
Now it’s always dangerous to attribute a
massive cultural trend to one person.
But I believe what the Nerdwriter did, was
take the prevailing spirit already brewing
on YouTube at the time, a new hyper-personal
sincerity, and apply it to a genre that has
historically held a more distant, removed
tone.
He took the intimate, human elements of the
vlog format and injected them into the colder,
more academic world of critical analysis.
The Nerdwriter isn’t looking at what he
analyzes from a distance, but instead relates
his personal, sincere relationship to the
work.
He isn’t trying to pick it apart for the
sake of tearing it down, but instead to build
it up.
And he certainly doesn’t hide his genuine
unmitigated love for the subject matter he’s
exploring.
My relationship with the Nerdwriter isn’t
solely an educational exchange but also a
type of vicarious enjoyment.
And this is something that I think is often
absent in public education and academia these
days.
In school growing up, I was taught plenty
of things, but I was never taught that learning
itself could feel invigorating or exciting.
But the Nerdwriter, on the other hand, isn’t
shy about his enthusiasm for and sincere belief
in the learning process itself.
What is worth knowing 
is worth weaving into a complex and comprehensive
web.
That could be the mission statement not just
for the Nerdwriter but the very idea of education
itself.
In a culture dominated by irony and postmodern
cynicism, there simply isn’t room for such
a genuine belief in the meaning and power
of learning new things.
But with the Nerdwriter, that type of culture
is completely absent.
There’s an ever-present assumption in his
work that analyzing art and culture, seeking
insight, making connections, is in fact a
worthy and fulfilling mission.
The subtext of all his truth-seeking and attempts,
at least, at truth-telling, is that the whole
process is really meaningful, even in a world
when many of these “truths” have become
banal, naïve, clichéd even.
So if you’re looking an anti-rebel willing
to step away from that ironic watching and
risk seeming sentimental or naïve, look no
further than the Nerdwriter.
And for context, compare that to the tone
someone like Brandon Wardell might use to
discuss similar simple but strong messages.
For Wardell, someone discovering and sharing
simple truths is something to make fun of,
to satire.
Now I should clarify, I don’t think that
the Nerdwriter is consciously trying to wage
war against this type of Irony with his sincere
video essays.
But I do think, in the same way that postmodern
self-awareness ended up here9, that the Nerdwriter’s
sincerity can also filter down into the social
landscape.
And I should admit, too, that I do personally
think Brandon Wardell is hilarious.
I’m not against his brand of comedy or anything
like that, but I do think it’s important
to put these two side by side because they’re
essentially on opposite ends of the spectrum
between sincerity and irony.
And, looking at these two cultural forces,
I’m honestly not surprised that we’re
collectively starting to shift back toward
sincerity.
When everything becomes a target for ironic
deconstruction, for poking holes, or for making
fun, it leaves us with a sort of vacant, emotionless
engagement with the world.
Nothing can be enjoyed too intensely or for
too long before one must establish an ironic
distance from it.
Sincerity strives for positivity, honesty,
genuine interest and open expression of love
and care.
Irony, on the other hand, makes you laugh,
or at least smile for a moment.
And it sort of provides this feeling of superiority
or a sense of seeing “through” things,
of being above things, or in Wallace’s words,
of being in on the joke.
But at the end of the video, that’s really
all it is.
With an ironic lens, culture is on display
to looked at and mocked, while in a Nerdwriter
video, culture is on display to be engaged
with and to help cultivate a broader philosophy
on life.
And though I do love both kinds of content,
irony alone without the counter balance of
genuine emotion and engagement would probably
drive me completely insane.
In an early vlog about Hipsters, The Nerdwriter
makes some of his most direct statements about
the cultural struggle between irony and sincerity,
and youtube’s place as a new arena for this
struggle.
Essentially he critiques an article written
about “hipsters” who’s ironic mode was
supposedly taking over the culture.
He counters the article’s thesis by pointing
to the rising popularity of sincerity on YouTube
at the time, citing the then-recent Charlie
McDonnell video, I’m scared, which features
a massively successful creator as bare and
open and naked and honest as a person can
be.
So 
whether or not he started the trend or simply
continued the status quo on YouTube, I think
the Nerdwriter’s most important contribution
to my life personally is the unflinching sincerity
he brings to every single video.
It’s that, beyond his insight, beyond his
video editing skills, beyond that cute jim
halpert face, that keeps me coming back.
I’m here in this community not just because
I want to learn or to create but because I
want to do so in an environment makes space
for both, that allows me to be naïve and
emotional and hopelessly genuinely committed
to the very idea of truth-seeking in the first
place.
A community that, first and foremost, encourages
an open and honest discussion, a place where
essayists and commenters alike have the opportunity
to genuinely reflect on things, whether on
tv shows, movies, music, politics, or literally
anything else that touches them personally.
And on that note, I think it’s best that
the Nerdwriter himself, the person who’s
helped cultivate this space as much as any
other person on the planet, get the last word
on what it’s all about:
I’m proud to be part of an archive of passionate
people saying sincere things, and I’m convinced
that what we do is contagious.
I’m proud to be part of an archive of passionate
people saying sincere things, and I’m convinced
that what we do is contagious.
