Is fame good for the people who have it?
Hank was content with modest fame in 2007, called fame destructive and dehumanizing in 2018, and in 2025 says he doesn't mind being famous but isn't very good at it.
Axis: fame is good / enabling ... fame is harmful / distorting
Concept: celebrity
Positions by date: 38 records in 36 videos. The position was refined (2007, 2019, 2024), never reversed, in these records.
John
| date | how | position | video |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2008-01-08 | first on record | John says the world would be better if the word 'celebrity' and the idea behind it ceased to exist. | The Return of Question Tuesdays 00:01:06 |
| 2009-10-18 | restate | John says fame leads to divorce, personality disorders and general ass-hattery, and asks why people still want it; he admits he struggles with it too. | The Balloon Boy Hoax 00:03:02 |
| 2009-10-25 | restate | John restates that there is ample evidence being famous is kind of sucky and destructive. | Fame: The Road Trip 00:00:39 |
| 2013-10-15 | restate | John restates that fame is not very fulfilling, unlike making stuff you like with people you like. | Thoughts for Nerdfighteria 00:02:09 |
| 2014-04-15 | restate | John says he does not particularly want to be a real celebrity, which is why they have always turned down TV, though he supports the TFIOS film. | Walking the Red Carpet: Thoughts from Los Angeles 00:02:03 |
| 2015-04-14 | restate | John says the red carpet is overwhelmingly strange, photographers treat you as an object to acquire, and the screaming machine of celebrity is unsustainable and unnatural. | A Long Good Day 00:01:27 |
| 2015-05-12 | restate | John says he is much more self-conscious: being recognized makes him anxious, and though grateful, he finds people photographing him from a distance weirdest. | Becoming Someone Else 00:01:28 |
| 2019-05-14 | restate | Fifth lesson: you are a person; fans will see you as more than a person, which is intoxicating, while others will call you less than human, literal trash. | An Open Letter to Professional YouTubers 00:02:26 |
| 2019-05-21 | restate | John wanted fame when younger so people would like him, but when his work became known he felt people liked Mickey Mouse, not him. | Keanu Reeves: A Love Letter 00:02:55 |
| 2019-05-21 | refine | John says fame's real problem (being photographed on a park bench) comes with real opportunities: lending your voice to causes and brightening days with selfies or photobombing weddings. | Keanu Reeves: A Love Letter 00:02:55 |
| 2019-06-11 | restate | John says making something people like, or dislike so much they define themselves against it, can be pretty destabilizing. | Why I Haven't Written a New Book 00:01:36 |
| 2019-07-16 | restate | Being recognized is inherently weird: the fan saw John Green, but John was experiencing himself as a middle-aged Indianapolis dad seeking the least sugary cereal his kids would eat. | star struck 00:01:27 |
| 2020-07-21 | restate | Having a TikTok-famous brother feels mostly good to John, but a little worrying. | Somebody Once Asked . . . 00:03:21 |
| 2020-09-15 | restate | John's example: when younger he thought being famous was the most glitteringly magnificent thing, but seeing it up close he found it more complicated. | All That Glitters Is Gold 00:00:29 |
| 2020-10-27 | restate | John says he had become used to people saying kind things they didn't mean, because even modest fame works as a filter distorting how people look at you. | The time I met Joe Biden 00:00:29 |
| 2022-04-05 | restate | John says being famous is really weird and far less pleasant than it is made out to be. | Celebrities I've Met and Whether I'd Vote for Them??? 00:02:26 |
| 2023-10-17 | restate | When John was close to the center of US pop culture he was not happy: he craved fame and attention, but it made him really anxious, and he doesn't want that again. | My Next Book 00:02:26 |
| 2024-01-02 | restate | John says they have been very successful for an astonishingly long time with wonderful people, but never that successful or near the center of YouTube or culture, and that is where he is happiest. | Being Old on YouTube 00:01:12 |
| 2024-04-30 | restate | John says that although our whole social order worships fame, there is a reason so many people don't survive celebrity. | Not Doing That Great 00:02:26 |
| 2024-08-07 | restate | John says nobody flies too close to the sun for long (as with MrBeast); it happened to him and was so unpleasant he would do almost anything not to become famous again. | Dear Hank and John Livestream! 00:10:08 |
| 2024-10-01 | restate | John says proper fame is far from the worst thing he has experienced, but it is the worst purportedly good thing he has experienced. | On Fame and Chappell Roan 00:01:19 |
| 2024-10-01 | refine | John has come to understand that how he feels about fame is mostly a function of how he uses it; when the photo was taken he only knew to make more of it. | On Fame and Chappell Roan 00:04:15 |
| 2024-11-05 | restate | John craved fame when younger and is grateful for parts of it, but at 47 he does not want to be famous, especially not more famous: near the top there is not much oxygen. | Why Do I Still Make YouTube Videos? 00:02:55 |
| 2025-10-03 | restate | John says the desire for public attention was beaten out of him a long time ago. | Is It Time to Retire? 00:02:51 |
| 2026-06-02 | restate | What fascinates John most is how Warhol's work dealt with celebrity: fame renders you both larger than life and two-dimensional. | The Instagramification of Human Experience 00:01:27 |
| 2026-07-28 | restate | John feels so conflicted about celebrity that he wrote a book about it, and did not particularly enjoy his time near the center of US pop culture, when Kim Kardashian was tweeting about him. | 'Are You John Green?' 00:03:27 |
| 2026-10-27 | restate | John says making vlogbrothers videos every Tuesday and publishing books bring him joy and fulfillment, but public work opens him to a level of scrutiny and attention he finds uncomfortable. | Should I Salinger… 00:02:12 |
Hank
| date | how | position | video |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2007-08-15 | refine | Hank says being famous to cool people is better than being famous with everybody, so the brothers should be happy with their current fame. | August 15: Getting Featured on YouTube 00:03:23 |
| 2015-07-17 | restate | Hank says online success used to come with a community and a real creator-audience relationship, but as the culture grows that relationship feels less real, so online success looks more like traditional fame. | Is YouTube Good for Humanity? 00:02:13 |
| 2018-01-26 | restate | Another is how destructive and dehumanizing fame is. | I Wrote a Book. I WROTE A BOOK. How did I do that? 00:02:41 |
| 2018-08-10 | restate | Hank says you can't have the good parts without the bad: influence, power and money come from the same suit that makes harm easy and makes you look impervious to harm. | My Giant Robot Suit 00:01:56 |
| 2020-01-03 (said on 2020-01-02, implied) | restate | Hank says the channel is personality-based, and having too many people hold opinions about your personality turns out not to be great. | Re-Thinking our YouTube Channel 00:02:45 |
| 2022-05-06 | restate | One form of the weight: a responsibility Hank may not live up to, being everyone's 'unproblematic king', what everyone imagines him to be, which is impossible. | Why I Didn't Quit YouTube (yet) 00:00:58 |
| 2024-05-24 | restate | Hank says that at some point in the last few years he did become famous, and being famous is weird, especially when people ask how he is because they last saw a video a year ago. | An Ancient Apocalypse 00:00:29 |
| 2024-09-20 | restate | Hank does not regret his experiences on TikTok, but regrets a little that it made him substantially more famous, though fame has benefits too. | Do I Regret TikTok? 00:05:21 |
| 2025-08-05 | restate | Hank says Isaac Asimov didn't like being famous, while Hank doesn't mind being famous but is not very good at it. | ONE TAKE JOHNNY 00:14:05 |
| 2026-02-14 | restate | Hank says the worst part of being a public figure is being a target, probably worse than being bothered in public. | Project for Awesome 2026 part 4! 06:02:07 |
| 2026-07-10 | restate | Hank says they have seen the distortions this status creates in systems, individuals and themselves, ranging from kind of fine to really bad, with not many good. | How Status Destroys Us 00:04:15 |
Background
| date | how | position | video |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2007-07-26 | background | Hank says the price of YouTube fame is a flood of comments with mean and over-nice extremes, which becomes stressful, though he tempers it by seeing most people are supportive. (playful, hedged) | July 26: The Price of Fame 00:02:22 |
Dates are upload dates, which set the order. Where the speaker gives a different recording date in the video, it is added as "said on YYYY-MM-DD, implied" (derived from the date said in the video).
Timeline notes
- Hank: first recorded event is refine (earlier stance may be outside 2007–2026 or unrecorded)