don't forget to be awesome

I discovered the awesomeness that are the Vlogbrothers on YouTube (nutshell: Hank and John Green exchanging videoblogs since 2007) this summer, and in discovering the videos, I've discovered the community that has generated from it, of which I consider myself a part.  We call ourselves nerdfighters; by definition we are made, instead of bones and tissues, of awesome, and we fight the forces of worldsuck (this being the amount of suck in the world) with our collective awesome might.
This is one representation of Nerdfighteria which, at the very least, hints at many of the things in the Nerdfighter-Vlogbrothers canon:

http://nerdfighters.ning.com/photo/nerdfighteria-4

One of the things in this canon is the phrase "don't forget to be awesome", often shortened to "d. f. t. b. a."  I think we all need to remind ourselves not to forget to be awesome, even in little ways.  It's important to be awesome.

A little while ago I discovered that the first vlogbrothers use of d.f.t.b.a. was in John's October 2nd, 2007 video:

I thought to myself: it'd be great to have a nerdfighter observance.  There're plenty of nerdy holidays--May the 4th, Towel Day (which also falls on Geek Pride Day)--but there didn't seem to be one just for nerdfighters.

I thought: why not stick it on the anniversary of the first use of d.f.t.b.a.?

So I started to tell people about it: DFTBA Day, 2nd of October.  Observe it as a day to be particularly awesome.  One of my writing friends was particularly enthusiastic about it on her blog.

For myself, today was a pretty awesome day.  I specifically wore a shirt of mine that, by its purchase, helped to decrease worldsuck in the Sudan; I adventured a little bit with some friends this morning; we put some stuff on our heads; we watched Doctor Who; and, even though schoolwork thwarted the attendance of the event, we planned on going to a dinner supported by the Latin American Organization on campus that was raising money for charity (even though we couldn't make it we're planning on donating some money anyway).

Reflecting on today, I thought, maybe we should do this next year, see if we can't get more people to observe DFTBA Day, and see how much we can lower worldsuck.  Folks could do stuff as big as getting  a group together to pitch in on a volunteer project in their town or raising money for a national or international volunteer project, or as small as taking some time out to catch up with friends and enjoy each other's awesomeness.  Anything to be awesome and decrease worldsuck.

Consider it, and spread the word.  I think it could be good.

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(note: for the heck of it I googled "day for awesome", and as it turns out there's an International Day of Awesomeness, proposed by none other than Kevin Lawver, the guy behind ficlets (que disfrute en paz) and ficly.)

For more info on Nerdfighters, check out this video, or any of the Vlogbrothers videos on YouTube.