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How do We Get Anything Done At All?

2021-11-19 · letter vlog · Hank · 3:53 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Everyday life (also: Internet & YouTube) · mode: Personal essay · tags: fundraising ask

Seeing TikTok relitigate how to pronounce GIF, Hank argues that trivial differences (light-mode Twitter, noseless smileys, dubbed Cowboy Bebop) jar us only because they are unfamiliar, showing how hard society is, yet since no two people ever agreed on everything and we still get things done, he is hopeful.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — On TikTok, younger people have conversations Hank finished long ago, like how to say GIF

  • ★★ On TikTok, where the crowd is different and often younger, Hank sometimes sees conversations being had that he and everyone he knows finished long ago. — 00:00:00 · TikTok
  • ★★ Seeing a TikTok argue how to pronounce GIF, Hank says he is five years into hearing every argument and has settled on both pronunciations being correct. — 00:00:00 · GIF pronunciation, TikTok

00:00:29 — Trivial differences that jar us (GIF, light mode, smiley noses, dubs, toilet paper) and how hard that makes society

  • ★★ Hank is irked by the argument that GIF stands for graphics, not giraffics: that is not how acronyms work; he doesn't care how you say GIF, but cares if your argument is garbage. (playful) — 00:00:29 · GIF pronunciation
  • ★★★ Hank's point: some things definitely don't matter, and we know it, yet they jar us when others do them differently, like light-mode Twitter, noseless smileys or dubbed Cowboy Bebop. — 00:00:29 · Twitter
  • ★★ Hank grants there are legitimate differences: subtitled and dubbed Cowboy Bebop are different experiences, each GIF pronunciation has a rationale, and each way of hanging toilet paper has an advantage. — 00:00:58 · GIF pronunciation
  • ★★★ We think our way is how everyone should do it and invent reasons; people prefer whichever Cowboy Bebop they watched first, and what bugs us is not the rationalizations but just the difference. — 00:01:27 · Twitter
  • ★★ Hank is not saying we are bad for being irrational, just that we are irrational. — 00:01:27
  • ★★★ That things which don't matter cause mini-protests in our brains shows, Hank thinks, how hard it is to do society and to get anything done as a species. — 00:01:56
  • ★★ Hank can't watch English-dubbed Cowboy Bebop, though he knows it is very good and many call it objectively better; it is like fingernails on a chalkboard, and he knows it is irrational, not hipsterism. (playful) — 00:01:56
  • ★★★ Things that matter are hard enough, Hank says, and we also carry irrational biases we can't get rid of: we are deeply controlled by wanting things as we expect, from the economy to a smiley's nose. — 00:02:21

00:03:02 — The world should be weird; no two people agree yet we get things done; P.S. on John's video and the Awesome Socks Club

  • ★★ Expectations will never be universal because the world is complicated and weird, and Hank says it should be weird; he likes it because it is weird. — 00:03:02
  • ★★★ No two people have ever agreed on everything, yet we have gotten a lot done, which gives Hank hope that we will continue to get stuff done. — 00:03:02
  • ★★ Having time left the next day, Hank tells viewers to watch John's video from last week (week of 8 November 2021), which was lovely, thoughtful and beautiful and touched him. — 00:03:02 · John Green
  • ★★ Hank thanks everyone for joining the Awesome Socks Club: current members get froggy socks, and new members' first socks will come in January. — 00:03:02 · Awesome Socks Club

Humor (significant)

  • Hank mocks the hard-G argument that GIF stands for graphics, not giraffics — 00:00:29

    “That's not how acronyms work.”

  • Hank mimes a cat pawing at toilet paper hung over the front — 00:00:58

    “Having it on the back makes it so that your cat can't like do this and just have it all come off.”

  • Having argued the preference is irrational, Hank admits he will not change — 00:02:21

    “And I will never say gif. I will never say gif. I just won't.”

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: cognitive bias · GIF pronunciation

Also: Awesome Socks Club · Cowboy Bebop · emoticon · TikTok · Toilet paper · Twitter

Also centred on cognitive bias: John Green is an IDIOT! And so are you. · A Lie I Heard this Week

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