Is outrage useful?
Hank said in 2015 that he once saw outrage as the most powerful tool for change and now sees manufactured outrage as an addiction; by 2026 he calls provocation a terrible way to build a better world. John holds from 2015 that anger helps when joined to sustained effort; we should be angry about injustice (2022), yet his own angry online debates in 2022 helped no one.
Axis: outrage drives change ... outrage is corrosive / addictive
Positions by date: 49 records in 48 videos. shift and revise mean the position moved; tension — disagreement with the other speaker.
John
| date | how | position | video |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2014-02-11 | first on record | John says relentless public chastising of celebrities doesn't much help anyone, since it hasn't made such behaviour rarer. | A Middle Aged Man 00:03:18 |
| 2015-11-24 | restate | John holds that anger combined with sustained effort can bring real change, but hopping casually from one outrage to the next changes nothing and makes us more afraid and pessimistic. | Crime and Outrage 00:02:59 |
| 2016-07-19 | refine | John says controversial comments get replies but don't change minds: screaming at each other is a bad way of listening and of getting heard. | Pretty Bad Ways to Start a Conversation 00:02:43 |
| 2018-01-23 | restate | John hopes these outrages, and all outrages, spark empathy and commitment instead of fear and resignation. | On Emergencies 00:03:33 |
| 2018-06-26 | restate | John doesn't know whether outrage eventually leads to better human lives. | How's the Water? 00:02:01 |
| 2022-03-22 | restate | John says resentment and anger as fuel burn bright but burn dirty. | Motivation in Hard Times 00:01:27 |
| 2022-03-29 | restate | John does not minimize the role of anger and disgust in bringing about change: we should be angry about injustice, and the world's apathy to the poorest should bother us. | An H of G 00:02:26 |
| 2022-10-25 | restate | John doesn't delegitimize fun with instantly debatable questions; even politically charged ones can usefully make us angry, because we should be pissed off about injustice. | Instantly Debateable 00:02:55 |
| 2023-01-03 | restate | Last year (2022) John several times got into angry internet debates with strangers, such as whether access to life-saving medication is a human right, making him late to dinner without helping anyone. | TAKE IT DOWN A NOTCH 00:01:27 |
| 2023-03-14 | restate | John says despair is simple whereas consciousness is multitudinous: mere despair won't suffice in response to life, nor will mere optimism or mere outrage. | The Seduction of Despair 00:01:47 |
| 2023-07-11 | restate | John says he is angry, but thinks change is possible here. | Barely Contained Rage: An Open Letter to Johnson & Johnson 00:03:53 |
| 2023-09-12 | restate | John apologizes for sounding angry but says he is angry: he has known many people who went undiagnosed for months or years, and some died for lack of a timely accurate test. | Barely Contained Rage: An Open Letter to Danaher and Cepheid 00:04:27 |
| 2023-09-19 | restate | John says name-calling and threats are unacceptable, a total violation of the community's guidelines for activism, and make everything worse. | So, um.... GOOD NEWS?!?!?! 00:03:29 |
| 2025-10-01 | restate | John says neither cause for hope should negate the many reasons for outrage: in many ways the world is getting worse, especially for the most vulnerable. | Real Reasons for Hope 00:04:23 |
| 2026-08-18 | restate | By making the snarky video he was incentivized to make, John made his own life worse and Indiana's already poor political discourse a little worse. | My Nemeses 00:03:56 |
Hank
| date | how | position | video |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2012-04-13 (said on 2012-04-14, implied) | first on record | Hank says scorning the few people who didn't know the Titanic was real serves no purpose beyond feeling superior, hurting them and losing faith in humanity. | This is How You Load a Dishwasher - A Song 00:03:35 |
| 2013-05-03 | restate | Hank says research shows venting makes you angrier, so his rant video was a bad idea. | 17 Rants in 4 Minutes 00:03:40 |
| 2015-09-04 | shift | Hank says he used to think outrage was the most powerful tool for positive change; now he sees manufactured outrage as an addiction that blinds people, breeds bias and drives an electoral arms race. | Addicted to Outrage 00:01:09 |
| 2015-09-25 | refine | Hank invites viewers to discover the joy of being pissed off for a good reason: not against another group of people, but in agreement with everybody on Earth. | Pissed Off for a Better World 00:01:19 |
| 2015-10-23 | restate | Hank says content that isn't about outrage and the other side's evil gets few views, so few people make context-giving explainers. | Benghazi: Explained 00:07:55 |
| 2015-10-30 | restate | Hank says outrage at the other side would have won his Benghazi video more views, but content that removes fear of the other half of Americans is what is valuable. | Feeling Thankful in Portland 00:02:04 |
| 2016-06-17 | refine | Hank says confining our shouting to the internet and to people who agree with us may make us feel better and righteous, but is not the path that creates the most change. | Hey, Let's Change Some Things 00:02:53 |
| 2016-07-22 | restate | Hank says whether something angers us matters to whether we share it, while whether it is true or productive is not really a factor. | Ending the Age of Outrage (at least in ourselves, if not in the world) 00:01:11 |
| 2017-04-28 | restate | 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. | Can You Trust Mainstream Media? 00:01:17 |
| 2019-09-06 | restate | Hank says some people find the theatrics exciting: a line on a map makes everyone explode, fitting a narrative of the press and liberals being ultra-critical of Trump. | Trump is Abnormal, It's His Superpower 00:02:04 |
| 2019-11-06 | restate | The description says tearing things down for fun delegitimizes real problems and lets people who see things simply dismiss it as liberals hating everything. | Can You Be a Good Person in 2019? video description |
| 2021-03-05 | refine | The description says Hank wants not rage and powerlessness but to stay unsatisfied with our response to injustice; 'hunger', which drives action and includes enjoying the meal, is a better word. | How Much Hope is OK? video description |
| 2021-03-05 | restate | Learn from it, yes, but not whine: Hank doesn't know whom he serves by being mad at people who don't care or know he is mad, so he is trying to let that go. | How Much Hope is OK? 00:02:17 |
| 2021-04-30 | restate | Hank calls the original point legitimate but not the only one: it is oversimplified to make the point and to make people angrier than they would otherwise be. | Are We the Baddies?? A Quick Look at a Discourse 00:02:26 |
| 2021-06-04 | restate | Hank doesn't know that heightened emotions are helping right now; maybe they are, it's not clear. | Is Twitter Redeemable? 00:00:45 |
| 2021-06-11 | restate | Hank says mocking is even worse than arguing, his worst instinct: it only deepens and widens the division and makes it hard for people to come back. | My Greatest Tool Against Vaccine Misinformation 00:01:22 |
| 2021-07-16 | restate | Hank deleted his tweet because this is exactly what Twitter is worst at: attention to such a controversy only lends power to divisive politicians who chip humanity apart to create engaged anger. | Should You Abandon Social Media? 00:02:14 |
| 2021-08-06 | restate | Hank is often tempted to make a video about whatever frustrates him most at the moment, and calls that a bad impulse. | Remembering What's Special 00:00:00 |
| 2021-10-07 | refine | Hank wants to stop talking about outrage, since he doesn't know what it is, and talk instead about fear and righteous superiority. | We're Thinking About Facebook Wrong 00:08:30 |
| 2022-01-21 | restate | Getting stuck in disempowerment is the worst place for challenging institutions and solving hard problems, and rage without an outlet only ever makes things worse. | How to Be Hopeful About Doomsday 00:02:24 |
| 2022-04-15 | restate | In the sad gap evil seems to create the problem and block its solution; it mixes outrage and hopelessness and is always filled with anxiety, depression and panic. | Are You Stuck in The Sad Gap 00:01:28 |
| 2022-05-20 | restate | Hank's third lesson: it is almost always easier to get mad about something than to do something about it, even something very small, and he must fight that instinct in himself. | It's My Fault Too 00:02:26 |
| 2023-07-14 | restate | Hank says people at J&J have worked far harder on multidrug-resistant TB than he has, and infectious-disease researchers could probably earn more on baldness cures or cancer research, so he doesn't want to be mad at the whole company: writing it off is wrong. | The Good News Video 00:01:53 |
| 2023-09-15 | restate | Hank says campaigners and the companies are not enemies but allies: the enemy is tuberculosis. | The Worst Disease in Human History 00:05:21 |
| 2023-10-27 | restate | In his summit presentation Hank said there are basically two kinds of internet content, hater and fan, and hater content works well and is easy because making people mad is easy. | I Keep Thinking About Taylor Swift 00:00:29 |
| 2024-05-31 | restate | Hank is pretty sure there is zero chance that being mad on the internet could be better for the world than spending time helping Crash Course exist. | The People I Hate Most in the World 00:02:26 |
| 2024-09-20 | restate | Hank says many of the best tools for getting attention under extreme competition are bad: fear, controversy, moral outrage, drama and feelings of superiority. | Do I Regret TikTok? 00:03:24 |
| 2025-02-28 | restate | Hank says he does not think his anger does very much. | We Will Eradicate Measles 00:06:56 |
| 2025-04-18 | restate | Hank says he doesn't care about the discourse over Blue Origin's all-female crew of paying space tourists: nothing important happened, there are real problems, and dwelling on it only makes you irritable. | This one's for your mom 00:51:31 |
| 2025-04-25 | restate | Hank says fear of outsiders runs deep, so racism should be strongly taboo and invoking it extremely immoral, with taboos too against inflammatory rhetoric that closes minds and stalls progress. | How We Form Opinions 00:08:43 |
| 2025-06-13 | restate | Hank says focusing on interpersonal conflict and destruction is human but is just shoving on a wall; he could as easily focus on people who need care, community and what we love and build. | Moving to Hope from Hopelessness (3 ways) 00:05:22 |
| 2025-06-27 | restate | Empty-calorie content is mostly fine, but some is actively harmful, the trans fats of information: outrage bait and conspiracy theories that alienate you from your communities. | You’re Not Addicted to Content, You’re Starving for Information 00:08:36 |
| 2026-08-21 | restate | Hank says being a professional provocateur is a good way to get views and a loyal audience, but a terrible way to build a better world or be a happy person. | Not (Just) Dunking on Jeff Bezos 00:00:00 |
| 2026-10-30 | restate | Hank's second reason: people experience the world as worse because intense competition for attention rewards moral outrage and fear, so content that unsettles travels through the internet more easily. | The Last Normal Year 00:04:54 |
Background
| date | how | position | video |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2009-12-16 | background | In his P4A song Hank says there is nothing like hate of the world's problems to motivate people to make the world better. (playful) | Project for Awesome: The Nature Conservancy 00:02:28 |
| 2022-03-18 | background | Hank says that if your response to bipartisan legislation that will improve your life is to find a way to be angry, the problem may be you, not Congress. (playful) | How to Fix Daylight Saving Time 00:01:22 |
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).