You know you are an addict when it's 4am, you started work at 8:30 am the previous day, just finished working 2 hours ago, you were working so hard you totally forgot about Grey's Anatomy (seriously!) and you really should get some sleep because your train leaves in 7 hours but before you can think of going to bed you have to go to the vlog. Yep, I'm a certified Brotherhood 2.0 addict.

Despite the fact that the vlog started in January and I found out about it pretty much right away I resisted. It was just two weekends ago that I caved. And when I cave, I really cave. There was no, "Well, I'll just watch the latest one to see if I'll like it." You see I knew I would like it. I went back to January 1 and watched it right up until April 14. As my IM notices and Facebook status proclaimed that I was immersed in the Brotherhood my friends started to worry. I think they thought it was a cult. I'm not sure that my assurances that it wasn't quite worked. I am pretty sure as soon as I said "nerd fighters" they thought it was making it up.

So what is Brotherhood 2.0? It's genius. Hank and John Green are two brothers who decided they relied too much on text-based means of communication. In order to change things they took drastic measures. For 1 full year they have cut out all textual communication - no emails, no letters, no IMs. They communicate by phone and by vlog (and well, presumably in person if they ever end up in the same location). Monday through Friday every week they take turns posting vlog entries. They issue challenges to each other, they create punishments for each other (like the time John had to wax his chin) and we are all invited to watch.

But what does any of this have to do with books? Well, for starters I found it through an author blog. YA author Maureen Johnson blogged about the Brotherhood many times and occasionally gave behind the scene information. She is friends with John Green of the Brotherhood who is also a YA author. He's actually a very popular and award-winning author. His first novel, Looking for Alaska, won the Printz award in 2006 and his second novel, An Abundance of Katherines, was a Printz honor award winner in 2007. In fact, you can see video of John receiving that news in the January 22 post. Hank is one of the minds behind Eco Geek and his writing has appeared in other places including Mental Floss.

I've gotten one friend addicted so far. I suspect I may be able to bring another into the fold this coming week. What about you? Can you resist the temptation?

Please note that some Brotherhood 2.0 content is PG-13.

Contributing Editor Sassymonkey lacks the qualifications to be a Nerd Fighter but also blogs at Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads where she mentally adds "in your pants" to the end of every book title.