Okay this is crazy. This story resembles Looking for Alaska like nothing else. I mean it, it's insane. In true John Green fashion, I will put all of these into a list, because if you read his books, you will find that he includes numerous lists throughout the stories. They often look something like this:
1) The first striking resemblance between the book and this video is that the main character, Miles "Pudge" Halter's is a junior in high school and attends a boarding school in Alabama-just like Green had
2) Green says that his uncles senior prank was streaking across school grounds with solely an American flag wrapped around himself, while Pudge's dad's prank in the novel was- wait for it- streaking across school grounds also!
3)Green and his senior class had decided to host a fake senior prank in order to divert the administration from the true prank. This occurs in the story as well, and conveniently it's the exact same "pre-prank".
4) Green's "pre-prank" was setting off a series of fireworks throughout the campus in hopes of making the staff believe the senior prank is over and done with. Pudge's "pre-prank", performed alongside his friends Alaska, Chip "The Colonel", Takumi, and Lara, is to set off numerous fireworks next to the deans house to lure him outside, so that they can sneak in and change the grades of the "Weekend Warriors," who have been pranking the group of friends all year.
5) The "pre-prank" in both the video and the novel involve synchronizing their watches, painting their faces black, dressing up in all black, and running around campus in the wee hours of the morning.
6) The punishment for these pranks in both Greens story and in Looking for Alaska is work hours, where one has to work in the cafeteria or clean the dinning hall, etc., etc.
7) Once a year at Green's school and at Pudge's school, the junior and senior classes pick speakers to come in and speak to the student body. Now this is where it gets weird. Both John Green and Pudge along with his friends, select an "expert on adolescent sexuality." The slight difference is that in Green's case it is a women, and in Pudge's case it's a man. While Pudge is only a junior, he and his friends perform this prank in honor of their deceased friend Alaska Young, not as a senior prank. But anyway, both "experts" end up being strippers! They strip in front of the entire student body! And in both cases it's always the student no one would expect that provokes them to take off their clothes.
The similarity between John Green's story and the story told in his novel is striking. It makes me wonder however, how similar is Green's life to Pudge's? Is there underlying similarity he is not letting on? Was Green just as rebellious as Pudge? Did he drink? Smoke? Almost drunkenly hook up with a girl who had a boyfriend? And most importantly, did he lose the girl he was so madly in love with, never to see her again? I'm not sure when readers will get the answers to these questions, if they ever do, but I believe it's safe to say that the novel Looking for Alaska is, to some degree, is indeed based on John Green's life and experiences he encountered while growing up.
1) The first striking resemblance between the book and this video is that the main character, Miles "Pudge" Halter's is a junior in high school and attends a boarding school in Alabama-just like Green had
2) Green says that his uncles senior prank was streaking across school grounds with solely an American flag wrapped around himself, while Pudge's dad's prank in the novel was- wait for it- streaking across school grounds also!
3)Green and his senior class had decided to host a fake senior prank in order to divert the administration from the true prank. This occurs in the story as well, and conveniently it's the exact same "pre-prank".
4) Green's "pre-prank" was setting off a series of fireworks throughout the campus in hopes of making the staff believe the senior prank is over and done with. Pudge's "pre-prank", performed alongside his friends Alaska, Chip "The Colonel", Takumi, and Lara, is to set off numerous fireworks next to the deans house to lure him outside, so that they can sneak in and change the grades of the "Weekend Warriors," who have been pranking the group of friends all year.
5) The "pre-prank" in both the video and the novel involve synchronizing their watches, painting their faces black, dressing up in all black, and running around campus in the wee hours of the morning.
6) The punishment for these pranks in both Greens story and in Looking for Alaska is work hours, where one has to work in the cafeteria or clean the dinning hall, etc., etc.
7) Once a year at Green's school and at Pudge's school, the junior and senior classes pick speakers to come in and speak to the student body. Now this is where it gets weird. Both John Green and Pudge along with his friends, select an "expert on adolescent sexuality." The slight difference is that in Green's case it is a women, and in Pudge's case it's a man. While Pudge is only a junior, he and his friends perform this prank in honor of their deceased friend Alaska Young, not as a senior prank. But anyway, both "experts" end up being strippers! They strip in front of the entire student body! And in both cases it's always the student no one would expect that provokes them to take off their clothes.
The similarity between John Green's story and the story told in his novel is striking. It makes me wonder however, how similar is Green's life to Pudge's? Is there underlying similarity he is not letting on? Was Green just as rebellious as Pudge? Did he drink? Smoke? Almost drunkenly hook up with a girl who had a boyfriend? And most importantly, did he lose the girl he was so madly in love with, never to see her again? I'm not sure when readers will get the answers to these questions, if they ever do, but I believe it's safe to say that the novel Looking for Alaska is, to some degree, is indeed based on John Green's life and experiences he encountered while growing up.