Skip to content

attention economy

concept · in 163 videos (2008–2026)

Human attention treated as a valuable commodity, which companies compete for because, as John said in 2018, that is how they make money. John came to feel the feed fractures his attention and rewards clickability over accuracy.

Videos by year: 2008: 2 · 2009: 1 · 2010: 2 · 2011: 1 · 2012: 5 · 2013: 2 · 2014: 1 · 2015: 4 · 2016: 6 · 2017: 9 · 2018: 15 · 2019: 12 · 2020: 9 · 2021: 16 · 2022: 11 · 2023: 4 · 2024: 22 · 2025: 17 · 2026: 24

Also known as: they want our attention, that is how they make money, your attention is the product, engagement, competing for eyeballs

Threads

Also named in the threads: Crash Course: launch of the brothers' educational channel (2011) · A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor: Hank's sequel to An Absolutely Remarkable Thing (2018) · Crash Course coin: collectible coins sold to fund Crash Course (2021) · The doctor who said 'sneezing is not normal, I never sneeze', nicknamed Dr. NeverSneezer Scrooge by Hank (2021)

Questions

Often together

What comes up in the same parts of the videos; the number is how many parts.

recommender system (25) · Instagram (9) · TikTok (11) · Facebook (9) · social media (7) · YouTube (19) · Twitter (12) · sensationalism (3) · Dear Hank and John (5) · online advertising (4)

What the videos say

The most important statements of each year; all statements.

2008

  • 2008-03-21 (said on 2008-03-22, implied) · Twitter After School Time — Hank argues Twitter is not for telling anyone how you are but for defining yourself through the self the internet lets you create across many platforms. (hedged) — 00:01:39
    • Hank admits he cannot complain, since this is largely what Brotherhood 2.0 and Nerdfighting are about, but finds it confusing and asks whether this is how we define ourselves now. — 00:02:12
    • Hank says Twitter followers are a new, undefined kind of relationship, probably like his with Nerdfighters: not fans, not friends, but in between; some Nerdfighters are now his friends. (hedged) — 00:02:12
    • Hank says this serves twitterers, vloggers and bloggers: interaction with people who value their humour and ideas, and nothing matters more in this society than having your ideas valued. — 00:02:41
    • Hank says Twitter, like vlogging, is about getting 'currency that's not money', hard to come by; he hopes he provides it for others and thanks viewers for giving it to him. — 00:03:10
  • 2008-04-30 (said on 2008-05-01, implied) · BLOOD! I'm a KILLER! — Hank says he doesn't feel bad: viewers watching the videos are not wasting time. — 00:02:09
    • Hank argues we can choose to spend our time communicating, participating and creating instead of passively consuming what media companies give us. — 00:02:49
    • Hank says YouTube and the internet provide ways to participate, and hopes the Vlogbrothers are something viewers and the brothers do together, not a waste of time. (hedged) — 00:03:18

2009

  • 2009-09-15 · Internetless in Maine — Hank concludes he cannot understand people complexly unless he occasionally spends days away from the technology that is his home, work, fun, play and soapbox. — 00:03:05

2010

  • 2010-04-07 · Shmancy Hotel Room Is Shmancy — John has long thought Google is technically making individuals stupider: the memory in our heads is less needed when Google indexes massive external hard drives. (hedged) — 00:01:29
    • John worries that as we spend more time online we will lose interest in, and think we no longer need, long-form narratives, long central to being a person. (hedged) — 00:02:20
    • John says he sometimes does: although he loves books, he puts down even books he enjoys to look at the flashy lights of the internet. — 00:02:48
  • 2010-07-20 (said on 2010-07-19, implied) · I Like Balls — John says the prevailing belief on the internet, in television and in movies is that all views are good views. — 00:01:14

2011

2012

  • 2012-01-31 · How It Felt — John: Like the internet, the tour went by very fast, like pressing the down key on Tumblr; John says a problem with the internet is that things pass too fast to really experience them. — 00:00:30
  • 2012-05-25 · The Subway Where I Used To Go (Somebody That I Used To Know / Gotye Parody) — Hank argues the affluent eyeball (anyone with internet fast enough for YouTube counts as affluent) is one of Earth's most valuable commodities, so valuable that services are given free for it. — 00:02:02
  • 2012-07-10 · Feeling More Alive: Fahrenheit 451's The Hearth and the Salamander — John asks whether we have replaced intellectual engagement with superficial browsing, and whether sustained attention is possible amid distractions, where a CSI episode can be rewatched unrecognized. (unsure) — 00:03:39
  • 2012-07-27 · Tumblr: The Musical — recommendation: Hank calls Tumblr a weird but very fun place and urges viewers not to spend their whole lives there but to go do other, even outside, things. (playful) — 00:03:34
  • 2012-09-18 (said on 2012-09-16, implied) · Existential Airport Anxiety — John agrees with Montag that nobody feels listened to, because we don't listen to the voices on social media; we just use them for distraction. — 00:01:01
    • John says that nearly every time he checks his phone it is from fear of feeling that deeper pain, and that to be engaged one must first overcome the fear of engagement. — 00:02:58

2013

  • 2013-01-08 (said on 2013-01-05, implied) · Addicted to the Internet — John: More generally, John says he is a little worried that he has become addicted to the internet. (hedged) — 00:00:41
    • John says he loves the internet and that the community and connection he feels through it have made his life richer and better. (hedged) — 00:01:16
  • 2013-05-24 · What's Up with Start Ups — Hank's theory: a social media platform's valuation has nothing to do with the money it can make; buyers are purchasing users' lives, i.e. us. — 00:00:00
    • Hank says buyers are not paying for revenue or even potential revenue: what is valued is the user who spends time on the site; he spends time, not money, on Facebook, Instagram and Tumblr. — 00:00:42
    • Hank finds big tech's bidding war for his time weird and worrying, not because people shouldn't spend time online, but because savvy companies see value in being 'the lens' on his world. — 00:01:03

2014

  • 2014-06-24 · In Pursuit of Quiet — John says quiet is interesting to talk about on YouTube because attention has become so fractured online that YouTube videos have no room left for any silence. — 00:00:28
    • John says that on the internet, and maybe outside it, quiet can feel discomforting: getting through even a few seconds requires a focus we are not used to summoning. (hedged) — 00:01:17

2015

2016

  • 2016-02-05 · Honest YouTube Talk Time — Hank: When they started there was lots of attention and little content, so getting noticed was easy; now it is crowded, and the number one thing you need to get attention is attention. — 00:01:15
  • 2016-05-20 · I AM A GOLDEN GOD — Hank worries that, as school focuses on what is easily quantifiable, life may too; beyond dollars, new metrics might make us forget less quantifiable but more valuable things. (hedged) — 00:02:40
  • 2016-07-22 · Ending the Age of Outrage (at least in ourselves, if not in the world) — Hank says the internet has become a less kind place; unpleasant as it is for an internet lover to admit, we seem to have entered an age of outrage. (hedged) — 00:00:06
    • Hank says we are in the first age of the social internet, whose job is to suck us in and keep our eyeballs close to revenue-generating ads. (hedged) — 00:00:50
  • 2016-11-09 · My Post-Election Thoughts — John says we must get better at listening to and challenging each other constructively and generously, but worries the very architecture of the social internet might make that impossible. (hedged) — 00:01:29
  • 2016-11-17 · Decathlons, Pretension, and the Weirdest Animal I've Met: It's Question Thursday — John says that about a year ago he began reading The Economist, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Indianapolis Star, and grew suspicious of his social media feed as the best way to stay informed. — 00:02:29
    • John likens social media to an intense, fun romantic relationship burning the candle at both ends that will not last; maybe he should end it, but it isn't serious. (playful, hedged) — 00:02:44
  • 2016-12-30 · The Most Interesting Thing I've Ever Done — Hank says the internet will have an unknowable effect on human culture, which he thinks will be huge and both positive and negative. (hedged) — 00:00:43

2017

  • 2017-03-21 · My Information Diet — John thinks Twitter and Facebook are useful, important and in pockets beautiful, and he has benefited a lot, but most of the time his feeling on the social internet is 'ahhh'. (hedged) — 00:00:35
    • John feels that inside the feed he becomes a person he dislikes: skimming instead of engaging, valuing cleverness over compassion, and clicking clickbait, which creates a world with more clickbait. (hedged) — 00:02:04
  • 2017-04-28 · Can You Trust Mainstream Media? — Hank says online we see our feed rather than a front page, and feeds are controlled not by experts but often by our worst instincts: the hive mind turns the front page into drama, controversy and demonization. — 00:01:17
  • 2017-05-10 · Seeing Myself Through a Cat's Eyes — Hank says he and John love documentaries but thinks they have a problem: we are busy with work and with the distractions of the computer. (hedged) — 00:00:05
  • 2017-05-12 · Things That You Just Might Love — Hank is frustrated that the more attention and money you have, the more you can get, so attention and money consolidate and things become less equal. — 00:00:00
    • Hank loves that a newly connected, more global society lets us see more cool creations and lets more people create professionally, and thinks we should take advantage of it. (hedged) — 00:03:35
  • 2017-07-21 · On Condom Failure — Hank hopes the internet and scientists' continuing work will let people get better information and make better decisions, even as some keep fighting to hide it. (hedged) — 00:03:41
  • 2017-09-12 · How Will the World End? Why Even Get Out of Bed? It's Question Tuesday. — John thinks some pockets of the internet make us feel better, but the wiring of the human brain and the architecture of the social internet make it hard, for him at least, to stay in them. (hedged) — 00:01:07
  • 2017-12-19 · History Is Happening — John says participants reminded him the social internet is not only passive scrolling but hearing stories, becoming better informed and making deeper connections. — 00:01:53
  • 2017-12-26 · LEAVE IT IN 2017 — John says the social internet is not inherently good or bad, but right now it is bad for him. — 00:00:58
    • Social media feeds don't make you happier or better informed because they aren't trying to: algorithms are designed to maximize time on site and ad impressions, and do it very well. — 00:01:13
    • John swings between seeing the social internet as the solution to all humanity's problems and as burnt garbage; both extremes are invalid, so he will embrace nuance. — 00:01:29
  • …and 1 statement more in 2017 — all statements of 2017

2018

  • 2018-01-09 · Your Attention — John says all these companies want as much of our attention as they can get because that is how they make money, which is what they exist to do. — 00:02:40
  • 2018-01-26 · I Wrote a Book. I WROTE A BOOK. How did I do that? — Hank: One of those things is how the internet radicalizes us. — 00:02:39
  • 2018-04-13 · Who is in Control? — Hank: Two things are clear: what is in your feed and how it is served can lastingly affect who you are and how you feel, and social media's business model relies on selling that power for profit. — 00:01:08
    • Facebook is worth half a trillion dollars because it can capture your attention and because of what it knows about you. — 00:02:16
  • 2018-05-08 · Old Man Yells at Cloud — John: From age 14 until a few years ago the social internet gave John deep, meaningful relationships he struggled to find IRL; now it mostly makes him anxious and spirally without deepening connection. — 00:01:52
  • 2018-06-26 · How's the Water? — John: Especially about 21st-century life, John has no idea what we are swimming in: he doesn't know if the social internet is good or bad. (unsure) — 00:01:59
  • 2018-07-31 · On Prepositions — John says that now, with so much more to do and so many more people there, being in his phone feels thrilling, terrifying, overwhelming and, most of all, weird. — 00:02:57
  • 2018-10-23 · Why Are Humans Suddenly Getting Better at Tetris? — John: It is fashionable to call the internet a festering cesspool of toxicity, and it is, but it is also many other things, including a main driver of Tetris performance. — 00:03:11
  • 2018-11-06 · Taking a Year Off — John believes his attention is all he has and is very uncomfortable that social internet companies have hacked his brain to capture and monetize it. — 00:00:29
    • John's second problem: the companies running the social internet are incentivized not to give him accurate or helpful information but information that holds his attention on their platform while he ingests advertising. — 00:01:27
  • 2018-11-07 · A New Thing? — Hank feels the pendulum may have swung too far, and he is now much more interested in innovating in physical experiences. (hedged) — 00:00:29
  • 2018-12-11 · When the Internet Came Home — John: After drinking from the internet's fire hose for more than 25 years, John has begun to feel more of its negative side effects. — 00:02:34
  • …and 9 statements more in 2018 — all statements of 2018

2019

  • 2019-01-08 · I Quit Social Media. Here's How It's Going — John needs the internet on his computer, but the internet is not the problem; his internet is, and for it to change, he needs to change. — 00:02:45
  • 2019-01-18 · Should You Burn Dirty Fuel? — Hank: The tweet spawned a great deal of surprisingly healthy conversation on Twitter; Hank is proud he used Twitter for good, then jokes he undid it with a later tweet. — 00:00:29
  • 2019-01-22 · Maureen Johnson and Lauren Myracle's Let It Snow — John calls it a small deal but a personal experience of a broader phenomenon that concerns him: clickability is more important than accuracy. — 00:02:10
    • John says people making things online want algorithms to pick their work, so they are incentivized to tell whatever truth will capture attention. — 00:02:20
  • 2019-03-08 · Does "The Press" Hate YouTube? — Hank loves YouTube but it makes him uneasy too: being a platform without gatekeepers makes it interesting but also creates real problems. — 00:02:39
  • 2019-09-27 · Crisis — Hank: Grabbing every tweet the moment it comes out is like stuffing peanut M&Ms in your mouth: four is not better than two, and 17 is unhealthy, messy and not enjoyable. (playful) — 00:02:05
  • 2019-11-07 · I took a year off social media. Here's what happened. — announcement: John is not going back to Twitter, Reddit, Instagram or Facebook, not because they are evil but because right now they don't work for him; he is happier and more productive without them. — 00:02:15
  • 2019-11-19 · Kylie Jenner Shows Me What's Wrong with Reddit — John says nuance is less likely than outrage to get 129,000 upvotes, and until that changes we will be swimming in misinformation. — 00:03:48
  • 2019-11-29 · My Most Controversial Opinion — Hank: Voicing Twitter, Hank says you're just supposed to say something dumb that everybody will be mad about, to make people mad, because it's engaging. (satire) — 00:00:30
    • Voicing Twitter, Hank says the formula is a dumb opinion most people despise while a minority backs you, which keeps the conversation going. (satire) — 00:00:53
  • 2019-12-10 · On Loneliness — John: Quitting the social internet helped his loneliness, since he used those platforms unhealthily, in superficial connection that left him feeling deeply alone. — 00:03:09
  • 2019-12-27 · Why I'm Worried about 2020 — Hank worries that tension, partly manufactured by leaders, the architecture of the social internet or Russian bot farms, will keep pulling at the bonds of community, as it did over the decade. — 00:01:22
  • …and 4 statements more in 2019 — all statements of 2019

2020

  • 2020-01-07 · Endings · Beginnings — John also wants to continue not losing large swaths of his life scrolling through Twitter as dread washes over him. — 00:03:09 · also in: Looking Back at My 2020 Goals
  • 2020-03-13 · The Anxious Scroll — Hank: During the anxious scroll Hank feels he is doing something useful, seeing the same three to five stories so often they seem like 300 to 500, wanting to know what tomorrow and three weeks will bring; it uncovers nothing. — 00:01:08
  • 2020-05-12 · We Could All Use a Little Change — John and Alice spotted a great horned owl in the backyard, researched its yellow eyes and watched videos; he wrote gratitude for the owl-enthusiast internet, the owl and the backyard. — 00:01:27
  • 2020-06-30 · i like it — John: From how platforms use our attention to how online experience both humanizes and dehumanizes others, John says the book captures what now feels like for him. — 00:01:02
  • 2020-07-07 · You're a Rock Star — John: Reading it, John saw how online experience had fractured his attention, made him seek things he didn't want, and let corporations monetizing his attention shape his daily life. — 00:02:10
  • 2020-07-17 · So Much to See — Hank: Abundance fractures society, leaving fewer shared touchstones, but gives people who had no access to such careers or to any influence some access. — 00:03:27
  • 2020-08-25 · Somebody once told me… — John: After Noah's claim that Trump will be re-elected, John says many social media algorithms value engagement over accuracy, so engaging predictions beat well-informed ones; sports talk radio shows it offline too. — 00:01:27
  • 2020-10-09 · The Rax Guy — John: So John must be careful what he pays attention to, because the loudest and most outrageous stuff is, for him at least, often the stuff of nightmares. — 00:03:18
  • 2020-10-13 (said on 2020-10-05, implied) · Me from the Past: A Pizzamas Miracle — John: On 5 October 2020, John predicts the platforms will keep recognizing that usage rises with uncertainty and fear, so the feeds they show us will increase that uncertainty and fear. — 00:02:26
    • John says we'll be left wondering whether algorithms wanting us scared, to capture and monetize our attention, came before or after our political, social and economic instability. (unsure) — 00:02:55

2021

  • 2021-01-12 · My 2021 Vision Board — John: Under 'read books, not tweets', John says reading Annie Dillard, Terry Tempest Williams or even Paul Farmer's upsetting book on Sierra Leone and Ebola leaves him informed and engaged, without Twitter's panicky dopamine rush. — 00:02:45
  • 2021-01-15 · Influencers and Insurrectionists — Hank: They are both creators and audience: ideas get more radical because that engages, and they consume more such content, a feedback loop that can only radicalize. — 00:02:26
  • 2021-03-02 · What's Not in the Frame — John calls it the central trick of the social internet: creators choose what is inside the frame, but viewers can't help believing it, because it is all they can see. — 00:01:27
  • 2021-03-26 · Why I'm Worried about 2021 — Hank worries we have spent a year cooped up on social media, where the average stranger you hear about sucks because strangers who don't suck don't become memes. — 00:02:55
  • 2021-04-30 · Are We the Baddies?? A Quick Look at a Discourse — Hank says Twitter is dystopic: a room without walls where everyone must perform for everyone, with no space for careful, thoughtful, de-escalating conversation. — 00:00:00
  • 2021-05-25 · The Anthropocene Reviewed, Animated — John's attention had become fractured and his world loud, but putting himself into the reviews, as Sarah suggested, he was for the first time in years trying to pay attention to what he pays attention to. — 00:11:45
  • 2021-06-04 · Is Twitter Redeemable? — Hank: A majority of Hank believes that is possible for the internet, but no piece of him understands how we'll get there, which is uncomfortable. — 00:03:45
  • 2021-06-29 · Sneezing is not normal. — John: In our attention economy, where capturing attention is itself valuable, John says 'I never sneeze' captures more attention than being a good doctor. — 00:02:02
  • 2021-07-16 · Should You Abandon Social Media? — Hank loves the internet and still believes in its promise, though it is more delayed than he assumed, and thinks we should keep thinking about and fighting for it. — 00:03:13
  • 2021-10-05 · Why the Heck am I on TikTok??? — Hank is interested in how communities behave and grow when given great tools; TikTok is a great tool, terrifying too, but still fascinating and fun. — 00:01:18
  • 2021-10-12 · Fine, I'll take the bait. — John loves the internet and is grateful for it, but confesses he felt relieved that evening to be free from the deluge. — 00:03:24
  • 2021-10-22 · A Tool with No Blood on It — Hank says the internet is an amazing solution that has created many problems; he wanted it to be a tool with no blood on it, and it is not. — 00:02:55
  • …and 7 statements more in 2021 — all statements of 2021

2022

  • 2022-04-15 · Are You Stuck in The Sad Gap — Hank says all of us who make and share content are pushed by our minds and an internet built to keep us on it to only add worries and never go deeper, so we are in the sad gap on many topics at once. — 00:02:27
  • 2022-05-13 · What Elon Musk Got Wrong About Twitter — Hank suggests the problem is not Twitter's free-speech dedication but that we invited a private company into the role of de facto town square, which Musk buying Twitter won't solve. (hedged) — 00:03:26
  • 2022-06-10 · My Embarrassing Dermatology Story — Hank says starting Crash Course as YouTubers mattered: on YouTube you compete by grabbing and holding attention, and by doing it inexpensively. — 00:00:58
  • 2022-06-17 · Are You Eating a Credit Card Every Week? — Hank says people want their sense of the world to rest on reality, but despite the systems we have built, normal biases and the fight for attention make sense-making a monster of a challenge. — 00:03:24
  • 2022-10-06 · The Pizzamas Magic Is Almost Over… — John: Asked whether social media's creation outweighs its harm, John says it doesn't matter because we can't get rid of it; he doesn't know, and would need to only if an off button existed. (unsure) — 00:02:19
  • 2022-10-14 · The Surprise Revelation of NerdfArters — Hank wishes Twitter's hashtags weren't constantly full of things that make him angry and sad, though sometimes they bring things that make him happy. — 00:03:20
  • 2022-10-18 · Terraverse Over Everything: Thoughts from London — John loves the internet, where he made wonderful friends and had deep, real experiences, but says it is a complement to the Terraverse, not a replacement for it. — 00:02:47
  • 2022-10-21 · This 'Math Test' Changed How I See Humanity — Hank says that, due to the nature of humanity and its algorithms, such questions are the ones we are most likely to see. — 00:02:55
  • 2022-10-25 · Instantly Debateable — John: A nuanced take (foods on a spectrum, with fuzzy edges) is boring and demands no engagement, while 'is butt legs' does, and engagement is the fuel of the social internet. — 00:00:29
    • The real lesson: the way to get simple engagement (likes, views, comments) is not necessarily the way to get actual engagement, the volunteering, fundraising and lobbying that bring real change. — 00:02:55
  • 2022-12-09 · Things are Changing Very Fast — Hank's big concern: we have not yet got through the last revolutionary shift in human communication and are still figuring out how to live with disruptive tools given to us 10 or 20 years ago. — 00:01:56
  • 2022-12-23 · You Cannot Trust Yourself (Hank's End of the Year Worries) — Hank asks whether to just follow what interests him, as in the channel's first ten years, or keep wondering if algorithms hack his pro-social biology toward misinformation and loneliness; he needs both. — 00:02:16
  • …and 1 statement more in 2022 — all statements of 2022

2023

  • 2023-01-24 · Behind the Scenes of my TUMBLR MEME LORD ERA — John: Asked how this will end, John jokes it will end brilliantly, then admits it will end in catastrophe, but he can never resist the social internet. (playful) — 00:03:28
  • 2023-03-03 · The Law That Made the Internet — Hank says Section 230 is roughly what made the many-to-many internet possible, which is good and bad: it is both what we love and what we hate about the internet. — 00:01:20
  • 2023-04-21 · On TikTok Bans — Hank says we all watched these platforms being used to rend societies in different ways over the last few years. — 00:01:33
  • 2023-08-18 · The #1 Tip for People Who Use the Internet — Hank says people reply to shocking takes, which modern algorithms read as engagement and time on platform, so the less common, worse opinions are often intentionally promoted. — 00:01:40

2024

2025

  • 2025-04-15 · Chatting with ... a U.S. Senator? — John says social media and the fracturing of the news landscape are big forces pushing people away from civility, and he does not know how to combat that. — 00:11:42
  • 2025-06-06 · The Secret Inside my MIT Commencement Speech — Hank says social content platforms are great at steering curiosity, but sometimes toward fear, the most impossible problems or the hottest rifts in society. — 00:15:04
  • 2025-06-24 · Am I Cigarettes? — John argues the social internet is not a net positive for humanity, even though it has greatly benefited some heavy users. — 00:03:21
  • 2025-06-27 · You’re Not Addicted to Content, You’re Starving for Information — Hank: Information sellers compete to make it hyperpalatable, which often makes it worse for you: easy to consume only what you like, lacking what the brain needs for a useful model of the world. — 00:08:07
    • Hank tells John the social internet isn't cigarettes but food: much is junk food or worse and making us sick, but much is nutritious, and we must learn to tell which. — 00:12:19
  • 2025-09-26 · I've Not Been Doing Well — Hank says the internet, the place where he lives, appears on balance to have been a bad idea, though there are obviously good parts. (hedged) — 00:06:16
  • 2025-10-06 · The Web is Going to Die — Hank questions what it means that these online places are built not on a city's land with a council and a mayor, but in a place that can be bought by a billionaire and used for his own goals. — 00:03:24
  • 2025-10-09 · I Like Being Alive — John thinks Hank's song is basically right that we need a slow internet movement or a change in online discourse: use the useful parts of the internet and reject the nuance-free, bad-faith parts. — 00:00:29
  • 2025-10-10 · Maybe This is My Problem — Hank says he and John both understand the internet as it exists to be doing more harm than good; he is not arguing it now, only saying he carries that belief around. — 00:01:46
    • Hank says the internet isn't going away and is an important place with important people, but it is being set up to rob us of our agency and attention, so we have to act in opposition. — 00:04:46
  • 2025-10-17 · We Never Know What Anything Means — Hank says the recommendation algorithms of YouTube, TikTok, Threads and Twitter already erode trust without wanting to: told to keep people on websites, they made us hate each other more, fraying society. — 00:03:50
  • 2025-11-21 · I Wasn't Always Like This!! — Hank says the best way to help Complexly and the world is to indulge curiosity and not let algorithms, which serve fear, anxiety and outrage to keep us engaged, shape our choices. — 00:05:43
  • …and 10 statements more in 2025 — all statements of 2025

2026

  • 2026-01-02 · I Got a New Disease and I Kinda Liked It. — Hank: Science found a way to push back against messy food pathways, but Hank does not think we will find one for content platforms that optimized the world for hyperpalatable information. — 00:05:19
  • 2026-01-23 · Two Unrelated Destroyers of Trust — Hank says much online content is about capturing attention rather than representing reality, so it is easy to carry mechanistic, probabilistic accidents of history as if they reflected reality. — 00:03:27
  • 2026-01-30 · Has Anyone Ever Accidentally Seen me Naked (Question Tuesday on a Friday) — Hank says content platforms are bad, and we understand more and more why, and their negative effects on the world. — 00:03:54
  • 2026-02-04 · We Just Sold Our Company for $0 — Hank says finding information has never been easy but knowing what to trust has never been harder: everything is louder, algorithms sort us into bubbles, guardrails are thin. — 00:02:52
  • 2026-02-13 · Project for Awesome 2026 Kickoff! — Hank says content platforms select for the quality of being hard to look away from, and some of the properties that give it are good: they indulge curiosity, are cute or hopeful. — 05:31:31
  • 2026-02-15 · Project for Awesome 2026 part 5! — John says YouTube is now larger and more complex, with an algorithm better at capturing and holding human attention as long as possible, the only thing it is trained to do, so the P4A now fights on a different front. — 03:03:00
  • 2026-05-01 · Despair is Not Wisdom — Hank says it is a weakness of our minds that threats are easier to attend to than successes, especially dangerous in an information landscape that gives us whatever is easiest to attend to. — 00:04:13
  • 2026-06-05 · The Things We Don't Discuss — Hank says the internet wants you to see the view as a metric, not a person; but views and creators are people, even if it feels like technology. — 00:04:28
  • 2026-08-18 · My Nemeses — John says the landscape seems tailor-made for turning bad leaders into powerful ones: we have incentivized professional provocateurs while disincentivizing nuance and complexity. — 00:03:56
  • 2026-10-02 · the most powerful attention-consuming tools in the history of the world — John says that since attention is so valuable, being intentional and thoughtful about who gets to claim it is incredibly powerful. — 00:01:57
  • 2026-10-08 · The Test of a First Rate Intelligence — John: Meeting so many nerdfighters on tour reminded John the internet is not merely bad; thinking it is fails to hold opposed truths, since the truth resists simplicity. — 00:04:23
  • 2026-10-30 · The Last Normal Year — Hank says one of the best ways to gather and hold attention is to make people scared and show them the bad news. — 00:03:27
  • …and 31 statements more in 2026 — all statements of 2026