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social media

concept · in 46 videos (2016–2026)

Online platforms where everyone now creates and shares content; Hank names its rise as a former unknown unknown.

Videos by year: 2016: 1 · 2018: 1 · 2020: 2 · 2021: 8 · 2022: 6 · 2023: 6 · 2024: 5 · 2025: 10 · 2026: 7

Threads

Also named in the threads: Hank: Elon Musk will likely back out of his deal to buy Twitter (2022) · Hank: people will someday move on from Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, which will not simply evolve (2024) · John: books will not go away (2025)

Often together

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

Facebook (12) · TikTok (13) · Twitter (21) · attention economy (7) · COVID-19 pandemic (7) · Donald Trump (7) · recommender system (4) · Focus Friend (2) · Instagram (4) · United States Congress (4)

What the videos say

The most important statements of each year; all statements.

2016

2018

  • 2018-08-03 · How Do Adults Make Friends? — Hank writes that seeing so many seemingly exceptional people on social media makes us forget that people are big deals simply because they are people; remembering that would make adult friendships easier to make and keep. (hedged) — video description

2020

2021

  • 2021-01-15 · Influencers and Insurrectionists — The description says social media is just media now: we are all influencers, with a responsibility to use our creation and attention in ways that aren't destructive. — video description
    • Hank's insight: the words social media influencer turn out to represent something much bigger and scarier than we thought. — 00:03:25
  • 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
  • 2021-06-04 · 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
  • 2021-07-16 · Should You Abandon Social Media? — The description says the moments when Hank feels he can't control himself on social media are when he most shouldn't use it; right now he feels relatively in control. — video description
    • Hank says massive-scale many-to-many communication is brand new and did not exist when he was born; we are bad at it because we are new to it, and it causes disruption, division and suffering, but problems aren't fixed by ignoring them. — 00:03:13
    • 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
  • 2021-10-07 · We're Thinking About Facebook Wrong — Hank says the time something is happening is the worst time to learn about it but when we most want to, the root of one destructive mechanism of social media on any platform. — 00:00:29
    • Hank says politicians' incentive is to get elected, so they play the attention game; the social internet keeps would-be good public servants away and makes life miserable for every politician who is not a garbage human. — 00:03:12
    • Hank says what we often call outrage is righteous superiority: feeling good by being better than others, seductive because you need not do anything to be good. — 00:08:55
    • To respected people who say regulating social media means regulating society, Hank replies that Facebook already regulates society, with a narrow, short-term focus on ad money. — 00:19:04
  • …and 13 statements more in 2021 — all statements of 2021

2022

  • 2022-04-15 · Are You Stuck in The Sad Gap — Hank says he could have blamed social media platforms much more, but that oversimplification would make it seem caused by evil rather than a problem to be solved. — 00:02:56
  • 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
    • Hank compares the printing press and newspapers, for which we created norms and laws; by learning from the past we can hopefully do it faster, as change is faster now. (hedged) — 00:02:48
  • 2022-10-21 · This 'Math Test' Changed How I See Humanity — Hank shows a very low-stakes math problem that changed the way he sees the social internet. — 00:00:00
  • 2022-11-11 · Elon Was Right — Hank recalls arguing months ago that Musk misunderstood content moderation, which, as Nilay Patel says, is a social platform's main product; he thinks he was right about that. — 00:00:00
    • Hank names the worry: internet platforms hugely influence society, and people there whom we don't know and can't trust decide what is allowed, promoted and demoted, which is real and worrying. — 00:00:58
  • 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
    • Hank says we are just realizing we live much of our lives in places that are not democracies, where we get no vote and leadership can change with whoever has the money to buy them. — 00:01:56

Also named in: It's My Fault Too

2023

  • 2023-03-10 · Is it Good or Bad that we Haven't Met Aliens? — Hank says the great filter could be AI, global warming, nuclear weapons or social media, maybe TikTok; we don't know. (unsure) — 00:01:59
  • 2023-04-07 · Getting One Million LinkedIn Followers — Hank says growing on a platform depends not on its age but on whether it is underused by current users, creatively fulfilling for him, and whether he adds value. — 00:00:29
    • Hank says that, from his long time online, platforms stop being fun once popularity on them brings significant social status. — 00:02:19
  • 2023-04-21 · On TikTok Bans — The description says destroying a platform's cultures is a dramatic step, and hopes lawmakers are motivated by more than distaste for social media and looking tough on China. (hedged) — video description
    • Hank says we all watched these platforms being used to rend societies in different ways over the last few years. — 00:01:33
    • Hank says platforms have already created such rifts on their own for purely economic reasons, and he sees no reason they could not do it for political reasons if a government asked. — 00:02:14
  • 2023-07-14 · The Good News Video — Hank says that after John's video Nerdfighters went nuts on Reddit, Twitter and other social media, with letters and phone calls; he hopes everyone was polite. — 00:00:58
  • 2023-10-04 · A Messy and Unhinged Introduction to Geoengineering — Hank's most hopeful takeaway: climate scientists mostly think we don't need geoengineering yet; despite dire talk on social media, the problem still looks solvable without this possible last resort. — 00:12:14
  • 2023-12-08 · Did Natural Cancer Treatments Save My Life? — Hank says others moved his words into their social media feeds and, less politely, made content saying his decisions were bad and people with cancer should do otherwise. — 00:03:00

2024

  • 2024-01-05 · I'm Scared of 2024...So Here's 3 Optimistic Thoughts — Hank's first optimistic thought: unlike content platforms, which met much optimism and little pushback, generative AI is not being allowed to have its way with us. — 00:02:02
    • Hank's third and biggest thought: since 2016 we have lived through two massive shocks, first the mass adoption of many-to-many content platforms, when many newcomers to the internet maybe lacked long-time users' defenses. — 00:03:29
    • Hank believes the future will see the advent of content platforms as significant a shift as the printing press, though he might be wrong. (hedged) — 00:03:58
    • Hank's optimistic take: considering those huge twin shocks, most people have actually handled them fairly well, and there are signs we may be healing a bit. — 00:04:42
    • Hank says for a while social isolation and fear of others, plus social media's outrage bait, led a fair number of people to think it was their job to suck. — 00:05:11
    • Hank says he often catches himself thinking he cannot believe humans, mammals evolved for small groups where status loss could mean death, are so bad at platforms under ten years old optimized for some 12 weird guys in California; he tells his brain to cut us some slack, since we invented agriculture five minutes ago. (playful) — 00:06:09
  • 2024-02-27 · I Was Wrong about the Average American — John: Jessica drank alcohol in the last year but not the last month, reads one to five books a year, and spends about 2 hours 25 minutes a day on social media. — 00:01:56
  • 2024-09-13 · My Governor is Weirder than Yours — Ryan Busse: Busse says most gun owners, like most conservatives, are responsible and decent; loud 'jackwagons' and social media warriors don't speak for them. — 00:23:37
  • 2024-10-18 · My Ballot Made Me Angry — The description says the three parts feed each other: complexity breeds distrust, distrust makes people misattribute the random to malice, and news media, social media and bad actors magnify it. — video description
  • 2024-11-22 · Populism, Media Revolutions, and Our Terrible Moment — Hank says Luther seems to have found that more inflammatory writing sold more pamphlets; he calls him a social media influencer who was not chill. (hedged) — 00:10:05
    • Hank says print let the less powerful reach many and radio let one reach millions, but the social internet lets everyone reach everyone, unprecedented and without tools to cope. — 00:16:28
    • Hank says that as we learn to resist the new media's spells, as we always eventually do, those with better information tend to win out eventually; the question is how long. — 00:32:19
  • …and 4 statements more in 2024 — all statements of 2024

2025

  • 2025-04-15 · Chatting with ... a U.S. Senator? — Adam Schiff: Schiff says the check broke down because the president punishes party members who step out of line, using social media to rally online supporters and primary challenges, cowing them. — 00:05:18
    • 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
  • 2025-06-24 · Am I Cigarettes? — John says the social internet's downsides, long discussed with Hank, are obvious to heavy users: radical polarization, hijacking and monetization, dehumanization of the other, denuanced discourse and misinformation. — 00:01:36
    • John says the internet is not merely harmful: for many people, especially those most isolated by previous social orders, it is a godsend and a way to build community. — 00:02:41
    • 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 says the core of the social internet is not an addictive chemical but information, content, which he loves: books, music, art, cat videos, video essays, podcasts. — 00:02:06
    • Hank thinks people will eventually see such content not just as junk food but as manipulative and cringe, treating us as tools, though it will take a long time. — 00:12:19
    • 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
  • 2025-10-06 · The Web is Going to Die — Hank: Recalling John's video last week (week of 29 September 2025) on the channel as a placeless place and the short lives of social media platforms, Hank thought of the ghost towns of Vine, Myspace, Neopets, Diaryland, GeoCities, Google+, Digg and Friendster, and how common ghost towns now are. — 00:02:22
    • Hank says online infrastructure is easy to duplicate, but the pull of a place with a critical mass of people can be enough: as with towns, social media live and die by network effects. — 00:03:24
    • 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
  • 2025-10-24 · What Will Books Become? — Hank does not think books are going anywhere: he thinks books will outlive every social media platform. — 00:05:47
  • …and 9 statements more in 2025 — all statements of 2025

2026

  • 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
    • Hank predicts a reversal of fortune for content platforms: in a thousand years Facebook will at most be mentioned in a history book, a relic like gasoline cars. — 00:03:54
    • Recalling the science-fiction trope of an ultra-powerful child he discussed with Brennan, Hank says platforms are run by 'children' with too much power, who don't know what they're doing. — 00:04:24
  • 2026-02-03 · Does the truth still matter? — John says he doesn't know the right strategy and doubts anyone does: among many precedents for this moment, none had a social internet as big, and past information distribution was slower and less fractured. — 00:02:55
  • 2026-02-13 · Project for Awesome 2026 Kickoff! — Hank: In the 2027 bit, Hank contrasts 2026 social media with a 'resonant social media' that is much better because it is about utility rather than capturing attention. (playful) — 03:57:54
  • 2026-03-31 · I've Been Keeping a Secret… — John: Trading one's frailties for public attention used to concern mainly movie stars; now everyone on the social internet trades experiences, traumas and personal lives, part of what the book is about. — 00:01:27
  • 2026-06-02 · The Instagramification of Human Experience — John: Huge corporations mediate the exchange of private experience for public consumption; once a problem for people like Jackie Kennedy and Grace Jones, it is now an economy everyone joins with each post. — 00:04:52
  • 2026-07-24 · One Must Imagine Sisyphus Important — Hank: When Hank asked the question, a frequent answer on social media and from Eons host Kallie Moore was the Chicxulub asteroid impact. — 00:00:29
  • 2026-10-08 · The Test of a First Rate Intelligence — John: Online, John struggles to hold opposed ideas at once because the social internet does not reward nuance, but he says that work remains essential. — 00:03:25