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Dear Hank and John Livestream!

2024-08-07 · Q&A · John, Hank · 35:36 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Internet & YouTube (also: Personal life, Projects, Books & writing, Everyday life) · mode: Q&A & conversation · tags: self promotion, guest or collab, heavy topic

In a public Dear Hank and John Patreon livestream, John (back at work after his breakdown) and Hank discuss business stress, cycles of fame and hate, the fracturing internet and addictive platforms, and how being an influencer ties self-worth to an internet commodity; they then answer patrons on reading and where to live.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — John alone with Potato: the Olympics, being back at work after his breakdown, the patron livestream

  • ★ John opens the stream watching the Olympics, with his puppy Potato running around. — 00:00:00
  • ★★★ John says he never stopped working full time during his mid-level nervous breakdown but worked less; this week (week of 5 August 2024) he feels fully back in the rhythm, a relief, though tiring. — 00:00:54
  • ★★ John says he is trying to work out how to make his work life and the rest of his life more sustainable, so he can keep his sanity. — 00:01:24
  • ★★ John explains that every few weeks they do a livestream like this for their Dear Hank and John patrons, and this one promotes the Patreon. — 00:01:24 · Dear Hank and John

00:02:29 — Hank arrives: his VidCon 'fart fart fart' email prank, long meetings, John's call from Sarah

  • ★★ John says the patron livestream is the only time he and Hank talk casually and openly with the community, because the group is small and the space safe-ish. — 00:02:29 · Dear Hank and John
  • ★★ Hank recalls that while running VidCon, in a boring multi-day meeting where a presenter's email alerts showed on screen, he emailed him with the subject 'fart fart fart' in all caps and everyone laughed. (playful) — 00:04:01 · VidCon
  • ★ Hank says there is always a lot to do and meetings are important, but they are not how he envisioned his life going. — 00:04:57

00:06:09 — How Hank feels: business stress and the need to keep growing

  • ★★ Hank says business success and sustainability are never simply kept: costs keep rising, so the business must keep growing, which is stressful when it is unclear how. — 00:06:59
  • ★★ Hank says he and John as internet people seem to be on a down cycle, because many others make good things and because of their own lack of interest. — 00:07:47

00:08:09 — Fame cycles, Taylor Swift, hate and discourse, dated details in their novels

  • ★★ Hank says his TikTok star shone brightly, then he got cancer and Vlogbrothers had its biggest subscriber day in ten years. (playful) — 00:08:09 · TikTok, Vlogbrothers
  • ★ Hank recalls telling William Osman he had cancer and couldn't come to Open Sauce; Osman replied it was an easy video, YouTuber morbid humor. (playful) — 00:08:32 · YouTube
  • ★★ Hank says fame comes in waves, most visibly for big celebrities: Taylor Swift is on top of the world, then collectively hated, then back stronger; now is a hate moment. — 00:08:59 · celebrity
  • ★★ Hank posted on Threads that The Tortured Poets Department was deliberately an album for fans, not a hit factory, leaving room for other pop music, and got a lot of hate. — 00:08:59
  • ★★★ 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. — 00:10:08 · celebrity
  • ★★ John tweeted, then deleted within minutes, that it is terrible to write a book read by 35 million people because then 70 million people have opinions about it. (playful) — 00:10:34
  • ★★ John says opinions on his other books mostly come from readers, though Paper Towns had a little discourse, so some people judge it without reading it. — 00:10:57 · Paper Towns
  • ★★ John says Hank has never been the subject of major discourse, a credit to his ability to have a large audience and fly under the discourse radar. — 00:11:23
  • ★★ Hank says John is more sensitive to hate and has been more famous; more people know John's name without knowing who he is. — 00:11:49
  • ★★★ John says he is more sensitive to hate because he has always believed he is worthless, so hate confirms what he thinks he knows: that he is not a person of value. — 00:12:10
  • ★★ Hank says his novel had a small discourse about its line on boobs getting slammed in doors, which he is happy to have as his discourse. — 00:12:33 · An Absolutely Remarkable Thing
  • ★★ Hank says he would not include that line if he did it over: it was not mission critical, and other things could have done its job. — 00:13:03 · An Absolutely Remarkable Thing
  • ★★ John says the Looking for Alaska plot hinges on a payphone, which will read like historical fiction and may limit future readers, but he cannot fix it. — 00:13:44 · Looking for Alaska (novel)
  • ★★ John says Hank's book feels as relevant now as when it was published, if not more. — 00:14:10 · An Absolutely Remarkable Thing
  • ★★ Hank recalls early feedback asking whether April should use a fictional platform instead of YouTube; he answered that if YouTube stopped mattering, none of the book would. — 00:14:38 · YouTube, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing

00:15:05 — YouTube's future, crumbling platforms, Tumblr, the fracturing internet

  • ★★★ Hank, citing his video last week (week of 29 July 2024), says he is convinced YouTube is not past its prime. — 00:15:05 · YouTube
  • ★★ John agrees YouTube is probably the only social platform with that solidity; he feels Facebook, Twitter and especially TikTok crumbling, Instagram maybe more solid. (hedged) — 00:15:05 · YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Instagram
  • ★★ John finds Tumblr a ghost town of 15-year users and people fleeing other platforms for its less sophisticated algorithms, which come from lack of expertise, not choice. — 00:16:41 · Tumblr
  • ★★ Hank says the internet is at a fracturing moment: Twitter's X-ification, a possible TikTok ban, and sites shutting the open web to stop AI companies scraping content. — 00:17:30 · Twitter, TikTok

00:18:07 — Addictive platforms, John's next video and thumbnails, media's need to seem new

  • ★★ Hank says platforms are in an arms race to be more addictive, and TikTok got popular because it held attention better than any other. — 00:18:07 · TikTok
  • ★★ John says his video next week (week of 12 August 2024) is, for now, titled Catchy Title, Compelling Thumbnail. — 00:18:54
  • ★★ John says he hates thumbnails and finds them almost beneath him; Nerdfighteria rejects thumbnails that look obviously made. — 00:19:19 · Nerdfighteria
  • ★★★ John says away from algorithms for a month he saw real life also has randomized rewards; the internet hijacks that biology to turn his attention into its capital. — 00:20:17 · attention economy
  • ★★★ Hank says media must make people feel they need it, so news makes the world seem constantly reshaped: if the world were the same as yesterday, you wouldn't need the news. — 00:20:48 · sensationalism
  • ★★ John says Vlogbrothers faces the same pressure: making viewers who have seen Tuesday and Friday videos for 18 years feel this one is new. (playful) — 00:21:14 · Vlogbrothers

00:21:49 — Their real job is Nerdfighteria; being an influencer, self-worth and hate

  • ★★ John says although they don't run them, the two companies he and Hank own employ over 150 people, an intense stress for them. — 00:21:49
  • ★★★ John says their real job is Nerdfighteria, making cool stuff with the community; during his break he saw it is the job he wants, unlike his other jobs. — 00:22:40 · Nerdfighteria
  • ★★ Hank says he cannot figure out a job description for himself at Complexly right now. — 00:23:05 · Complexly
  • ★★ Hank: Retelling a story of Elton John saying he is 'just Elton John' for a living, Hank says that is what people imagine influencing is: being yourself and getting paid. — 00:23:41
  • ★★★ John finds it distressing to turn his self into a capitalized resource, the purest capitalism, where the influencer economy measures a person's value by how well they monetize themselves. — 00:24:05 · capitalism
  • ★★★ John says he craves a score, an A in being himself, but buying into that is dangerous for him because it conflates his worth as a person with his worth as an internet commodity. — 00:25:44
  • ★★ Hank says one man who disliked his comedy special keeps saying so publicly; Hank knows who he is and weighs him more than those who liked it. — 00:25:44
  • ★★ John says his therapist counts five positive comments per negative one, but for him it is more like 500 to one. (playful) — 00:26:29
  • ★★★ John says he used to answer 'your book changed my life' with 'you changed your own life', but denying his own value dismisses what loved ones and readers feel; he wants to take them seriously. — 00:27:25

00:28:39 — Patron question: what they are reading

  • ★★ Answering a patron, John says he still reads mostly about tuberculosis because he is in the last edit of his book. — 00:28:39 · Everything Is Tuberculosis, tuberculosis
  • ★★ John recommends John le Carré's The Constant Gardener, a spy novel about tuberculosis: very good. — 00:28:39 · tuberculosis
  • ★★ Hank is reading Renée DiResta's Invisible Rulers, on how people online define reality for others (anti-vax conspiracies, Stop the Steal); its takeaway term is 'bespoke realities'. — 00:29:16
  • ★★ Hank is reading the third Stormlight Archive book by Brandon Sanderson; four months in, he is about a third through. (hedged) — 00:29:46
  • ★★ Hank is beta-reading John's tuberculosis book: it goes deeper into TB and into John's relationship with it and people in Sierra Leone; being an early reader feels special. — 00:30:10 · Everything Is Tuberculosis, Sierra Leone

00:30:35 — Patron question: how to decide where to live

  • ★★ Asked how to decide where to live, John says he was the trailing spouse, moving where his wife got a job. — 00:30:35 · Sarah Urist Green
  • ★★ John stayed in Indianapolis for the people, affordability and its being a regular place with regular jobs; friends outside his profession help him. — 00:31:17 · Indianapolis
  • ★★ Hank says he never decided to move anywhere, being a coaster, but has decided many times not to leave Missoula, despite its terrible weather. — 00:31:17 · Missoula, Montana
  • ★★ John loves his friends, the White River and writing about Indianapolis, where he and Sarah can contribute to the culture as they never could in New York. — 00:32:44 · Indianapolis, New York City, Sarah Urist Green
  • ★★ Hank says being a small part of Missoula's comedy scene is cool: people who come to see him discover other comedians, which is good for the town. — 00:32:44 · Missoula, Montana
  • ★★ Hank: Their dad chose where to move from Florida with a spreadsheet scoring places, including Obama vote share; he picked Asheville, North Carolina, but now lives in Indianapolis. — 00:33:12 · Mike Green, Florida, Barack Obama, Indianapolis
  • ★★ Hank says price is an underrated criterion, for places to live and for schools (less debt), since owning a house is out of reach in many places. — 00:33:43

00:34:27 — Patreon plug and sign-off

  • ★★ John asks viewers who enjoyed the conversation to become patrons of the podcast; Hank adds patron streams are even more open. — 00:34:27 · Dear Hank and John
  • ★★ At the sign-off John learns the stream has been public the whole time; thinking it was a quiet conversation within Nerdfighteria, he says he went deep. — 00:34:52 · Nerdfighteria

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

People: Barack Obama · Elton John · Kamala Harris · Katherine Green · Mike Green · MrBeast · Sarah Urist Green · Taylor Swift · William Osman

Projects: Complexly · Dear Hank and John · SciShow · VidCon

Works: An Absolutely Remarkable Thing · Everything Is Tuberculosis · Hank Green's stand-up comedy special on Dropout · Invisible Rulers · Looking for Alaska (novel) · Paper Towns · The Constant Gardener · The Stormlight Archive · The Tortured Poets Department

Organizations: Facebook · Instagram · Patreon · Threads · TikTok · Tumblr · Twitter · YouTube

Concepts: arms race · artificial intelligence · attention economy · Beta reader · capitalism · celebrity · commodification · conspiracy theory · economic growth · influencer · operant conditioning · self-esteem · sensationalism · Student loan · trailing spouse · tuberculosis

Places: Asheville, North Carolina · Florida · Indianapolis · Italy · Missoula, Montana · New York City · Sierra Leone · White River (Indiana)

Events: Olympic Games · Open Sauce

animal: Potato (animal)

Only in the description or credits: Brandon Sanderson · John le Carré · Renée DiResta

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