GET HANNAH HART ON ELLEN PROJECT!
Here is the letter that will be sent to The Ellen DeGeneres Show. By reblogging this letter and sharing it, you will have your name added to the letter. You can also email me ([email protected]) or message me here to have your name added.
LET’S GET THIS TO HAPPEN!
For many years you have brought inspirational people on to your show to share their stories and recognize how they have affected and changed the lives of the people around them and I have a person that I would like to tell you about.
As you know, there is a whole world of internet personalities that have been catching the attention of the entertainment world the past few years for various reasons, be it through crossing over to mainstream platforms, such as television and movies, through their social medias like Vine and Instagram, and most importantly, through the content they are creating on their YouTube channels. There is one such YouTuber that I personally believe stands out as an inspirational figure and should have her name more well-known for the work that she does.
The person I speak of is Hannah Hart, a young woman who came to her fame by chance, after posting a video of herself drunkenly attempting to make a grilled cheese sandwich in her sister’s kitchen, all the while filming the event for a friend back home. As you can imagine things did not necessarily turn out as planned. Not only did the sandwich become just toast because there was no cheese in the house but also in how this simple video was shared across social medias to friends and then to the internet to become a viral hit. From there, more videos were encouraged and requested by the public and this eventually led to an unplanned career change for the Berkley graduate.
But Hannah’s intoxicated culinary entertainment is not why I am writing to you. It is the community that has come together because of this 27yr old San Franciscan. After finding increased success on her Youtube channel, “My Drunk Kitchen”, Hannah’s growing fanbase began to feel a more personal connection to her as she branched out into other ways to communicate with her audience and share more meaningful, personal content with them. It is this connection that lead to a major undertaking for Hannah in 2013. Hannah created a tour entitled, “”Hello, Harto”, funded by her community through an Indiegogo campaign that raised over $223,000. This after only asking for $50,000. The tour that Hannah created was not just an opportunity for fans to meet the YouTuber but also a chance to give back to their local communities, as that is something personal for Hannah. Instead of doing meet-up events at bars or recreation centres, fans signed up to volunteer at local food banks and worked alongside Hart to sort, package or serve food to those in need. After a 20-city tour across the US and Canada, the Hello, Harto tour collected over 100,000lbs of food for various organizations. The tour continued on to the Southern Hemisphere in 2014 and parts of Europe may still in the cards for the future.
Even though the tour across North America has ended, the volunteering has not. A new program called “Have A Hart Day” has taken over and there are crews of volunteers that have continued in some of the cities that were visited as well as spread to other North American communities and now, even more internationally. There are food banks and local charities in the UK, Canada, USA, Australia and New Zealand hosting teams of people, all there in the name of Hannah Hart. Most of those working together to help their communities never have met prior to their volunteering. Every month there seems to be a new group popping up to volunteer in their city. I myself have volunteered in Vancouver, BC and flew to Los Angeles earlier this year to have the opportunity to participate once again. It is through this promotion of helping one another and Hannah’s encouragement that has facilitated fans to become friends and thus has created an online community that grows in numbers everyday.
Hannah is also a significant role model within the YouTube LGBTQ community as well and her honest, heartfelt advice that she gives to the people that reach out to her, has changed people’s lives as well as saved a few. Encouraging words such as “No judging” or “Nobody is wired wrong, because there’s no wrong and right in the way we are” and “Practice Reckless Optimism” speak louder to the many youth that look up to her than the pamphlets they get in schools or the PSAs on television. Hannah recently took her advice to the next level and accomplished a life-long dream by publishing a book that was part cookbook, part life advice, which is now a NY Times Best-Seller.
Hannah currently sits with 1.7million subscribers between her two channels on YouTube, uploads 2 videos per week, recently co-stared in the movie “Camp Takota”, which was one of the first movies distributed exclusively online, tours throughout the year in a comedy show that is written and performed by herself and two other YouTubers, Grace Helbig & Mamrie Hart (both of which you will undoubtedly be hearing more from as they are both amazing comediennes), and even was invited to meet with President Obama earlier this year to speak on how to reach American youth regarding health care, all the while continuing to be an inspiration to the numerous fans that follow her.
One of the hardest things people seem to face in the world now is the feeling of being alone or having no one to turn to, and through her actions, encouragement, positivity and honest words of advice, Hannah Hart has helped bring together a world of strangers to help and support one another. She has created a community that reaches out to each other, and even to her, in times of need. It doesn’t matter if someone is 16 years old living in Finland or is 45 and resides in Chicago; we have all come together because of her.
I strongly believe that Hannah’s message of embracing one’s self and her ability to bring people together needs to be shared beyond the screens of the internet and that you too, Ellen, will see the amazing, caring heart that this young woman is able to fit into her small frame.
Thank you for taking the time to read this letter and I hope that our community will see Hannah fulfill one of her aspirations to be a guest on your show. Below I have included a list of people within her community that love and support her.
yousharknotpass
jacobvanloon
tangentwithtanner
