“What a treacherous thing to believe that a person is more than a person.” John Green is no more than a person but certainly no less. The teenage demographic sees his videos and reads his stories, placing him on the highest influential pedestal. Which begs the question. . . why? Many think that he simply makes fun yet educational videos and emotional yet compelling novels; obviously, his millions of YouTube views and first place spot on the best seller list would validate these points. However, tons of people have written books and made videos without being one of Time’s top 100 most influential people. What makes Green different is one facile feature. He tells the truth.
Teenagers are at a pivotal time in life; questioning the meaning of it, and whether or not the universe has already chosen their fate. They are smart enough to know a vampire won’t whisk them off their feet, yet naive enough to trust that the adults in their life have the answers to everything. Green will be the first to tell you that he makes mistakes, a lot, “admittedly I’m (John Green) a bit of a grapefruit for getting into situations like these." One thing Green never does, though, is hide reality. In his books, the most beloved characters die and his most viewed videos describe the “world sucks.” Nothing is off limits. Green doesn’t wish to hide the harsh realities of life or pass teenagers off with the infamous “you wouldn’t understand.”
John Green is a voice. A voice to the hopeless dreamers. A voice to the wanderlust. A voice to the nerds. John Green is a voice to this young adult generation. He hears the voice of the teenage underdog and shows the world that teenagers are more intellectual than people put them out to be. Teenagers don’t sugar-coat the facts of life, and Green doesn’t either. The intelligence and vulnerability that stem from the teenage years inspire Green, as Shailene Woodley put perfectly, to “treat every human as their own planet rather than one of his moons." Teenagers are young and reckless but ingenious nonetheless.
Teenagers' ideals are not as cynical as they may sound. The only way to be prepared for life is to know what happens in life. Green tells them what really happens. Because of his books, teenagers know that happy endings don’t always come on the first try and, because of his videos, teenagers know that the world has issues bigger than “what should I wear to school”. Basically, the complaints of inappropriateness and negativity of Green are mere factors of life. He listens. He understands. He speaks.
John Green understands the catch-22 of being a teenager. “The rules of capitalization are so unfair to words in the middle of a sentence.” Being a teenager is being the middle of a sentence. You are not at the beginning and not at the end, but right in the middle. john green is Writing the Sentence of this Generation And Is Finally Capitalizing The middle.
