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My Cancer Press Tier List

2023-05-26 · list · Hank · 5:26 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Personal life · mode: Comedy & performance · tags: heavy topic, timely hook, self promotion

Hank ranks news articles about his cancer diagnosis in a tier list, praising headlines that frame it as his reveal and the NPR, HuffPost and Today pieces while panning the Daily Gossip and the New York Post; a week after his first chemo he says he feels much better and is grateful for the support.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — Tier list of news articles about Hank's cancer diagnosis, from the Missoulian to the New York Post

  • ★★ Hank says ranking the articles about his own cancer diagnosis in a tier list is a once-in-a-lifetime chance, which he decided on when the New York Post article came out. (playful) — 00:00:00 · cancer, tier list
  • ★ Hank puts his hometown paper the Missoulian in E tier: it only ran the wire story, mentioned John in the second paragraph and used the saddest frame from his video. (playful) — 00:00:00 · John Green
  • ★★ Hank notes most headlines frame the news as him revealing something rather than something happening to him, which he likes, since it is health information he chose to share. — 00:00:29
  • ★★ Hank puts The Decider in E tier: putting 'this sucks so bad' in the headline makes the news sound bad and scary, and it adds a blurb on John. (playful) — 00:00:29
  • ★ Hank puts CBS News in B tier for a fine job, and CNN in B rather than A for calling him a YouTuber, not a YouTube star. (playful) — 00:00:58
  • ★★ Hank gives The New York Times an A: it calls him a novelist and YouTube star, says treatable cancer without scare quotes, and spends two paragraphs on his books. (playful) — 00:00:58 · The New York Times
  • ★ Hank puts The Hill in the middle: it called him a popular YouTuber and TikTok creator revealing his diagnosis. (playful) — 00:01:27
  • ★★ Hank puts NPR alone in S tier for a condensed article that got the point across and whose author suggested bummer-free media, telling him to play Animal Crossing. (playful) — 00:01:56
  • ★ Hank guesses the NPR author, Tilda Wilson, is already in the community: a They Might Be Giants lyric in the Twitter bio, and they follow him. (playful, speculative) — 00:01:56 · Nerdfighteria, Twitter
  • ★★ Hank sends the Los Angeles Times to D tier for calling him John Green's brother in the headline, including the short search-result version. (playful) — 00:02:26 · John Green, Google
  • ★★ Hank puts HuffPost in S tier: it skipped the reveal angle and explained Hodgkin's lymphoma, interviewing the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and an oncologist. (playful) — 00:02:26 · Hodgkin lymphoma
  • ★ Hank puts the Daily Gossip in F tier for listing his diagnosis among celebrity and TV news: the wrong vibe. (playful) — 00:02:55
  • ★★ Hank is going to miss VidCon, which Variety put in its headline. — 00:03:16 · VidCon
  • ★ Hank gives USA Today a D for its scary 'bad news' framing, bumped to C for a blurb about his novel. (playful) — 00:03:16
  • ★★ Hank puts the Today show with NPR in S tier for its "what he wants his fans to know" frame. (playful) — 00:03:16
  • ★★ Hank puts the New York Post in F tier: a scare-quote vibe around 'sucks so bad' and a strange picture used with the story and its tweet, despite calling him an author. (playful) — 00:04:05

00:04:31 — A week after the first chemo: feeling better, grateful for care and support; sign-off

  • ★ Hank was in the New York Post twice the same week: the other article was about invisible creatures having sex on your face while you sleep, a topic from Journey to the Microcosmos. (playful) — 00:04:31 · Journey to the Microcosmos
  • ★★★ A week after his first chemo, Hank feels much better than a few days ago; chemo has been pretty miserable, but he is getting amazing care and much support. — 00:04:31 · chemotherapy
  • ★★ Hank says the support has pushed him through hard times, and feeling not alone in such a moment is a fantastic privilege. — 00:05:01

In the description and comments

  • ★★ The description says the first day after chemo was OK but it got progressively worse until day 5 or 6; on day 7 he feels OK, and his appetite has been good. — video description · chemotherapy
  • ★★ In a reply under the video, the channel says Hank's chemotherapy regimen is ABVD. — creator comment · chemotherapy
  • ★ In a comment John jokes with a mock headline: Hank Green's brother John Green thinks every headline mentioning him is S-tier. (joke) — creator comment

Humor (dominant)

  • Hank lists things you get to do only once in a lifetime. — 00:00:00

    “one of those things is making a tier list of articles about your cancer diagnosis”

  • CNN loses a tier over one word of his job title. — 00:01:56

    “CNN's gonna get a point off for just calling me YouTuber and not YouTube star.”

  • Hank reads the LA Times search-result headline that defines him by his brother. — 00:02:26

    “Hank Green, John Green's brother, has cancer. It sucks.”

  • The Daily Gossip put his diagnosis between celebrity news and a cancelled live-action Powerpuff Girls. — 00:02:55

    “I think you got the vibe wrong.”

  • The New York Post illustrated the 'sucks so bad' story with an odd pencil picture, also in its tweet. — 00:04:05

    “They put the pencil picture in the tweet!”

  • The Post also ran an article on invisible creatures having sex on your face, a Journey to the Microcosmos topic, the same week. — 00:04:31

    “So apparently, I have some fans over there.”

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: New York Post · NPR

Also: People: Tilda Wilson

Projects: Journey to the Microcosmos · VidCon

Works: Animal Crossing · The Daily Gossip · Today (American TV program)

Organizations: CBS News · CNN · Decider · Google · HuffPost · Leukemia and Lymphoma Society · Los Angeles Times · Missoulian · The Hill · The New York Times · Twitter · USA Today · Variety

Groups: They Might Be Giants

Concepts: cancer · chemotherapy · framing effect · Hodgkin lymphoma

Also centred on NPR: John and Hank on NPR Today!

Replies to

  • continues · So, I've got cancer — “they also picked out the saddest-looking frame from my video”

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