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Hank's very messy post-cancer year of mistakes, meaning…

2024-11-03 · letter vlog · Hank · 19:47 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Projects (also: Personal life, Internet & YouTube) · mode: Personal essay · tags: heavy topic, self promotion

Talking without a script, Hank reviews his post-cancer year (a cancer biology book, a stand-up special, stepping back as CEO) and traces his anxiety to balancing Complexly, DFTBA and Good Store against what he can ask of Nerdfighteria; he argues creators keep going because of identity and tools, and that his companies should run without him.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — Vlogs as diaries; Hank says he drove himself insane this year and is uneasy talking about his companies as former CEO

  • ★★ Hank recalls when vlogs were just people talking to the camera like a diary entry, and does that now, with no script. — 00:00:00
  • ★★ Hank wants to be honest that over the last year he has worked really hard to drive himself insane. (playful) — 00:00:00
  • ★★ Hank is uneasy discussing his companies: their founder and former CEO freaking out online is not what CEOs do; they project being perfect and in control. — 00:00:29

00:00:58 — After cancer treatment: finitude, a cancer biology book, a stand-up special, not returning as CEO

  • ★★ Hank says he has nothing under control; the thing he controls most is himself, and he is very bad at controlling it. — 00:00:58
  • ★★★ After cancer treatment Hank felt bad but much better by comparison, with lots of energy, and more aware that his life is finite than before cancer. — 00:00:58
  • ★★★ In the last year Hank worked on a book about cancer biology and treatment, and wrote, toured, recorded and released a stand-up special, learning to be a comedian. — 00:01:35
  • ★★★ Hank had stepped down as CEO of DFTBA and Complexly; DFTBA was already hiring his replacement, and he decided not to return to his leadership role at Complexly. — 00:02:04 · DFTBA Records, Complexly

00:02:36 — Why creators launch products: attention, money, then what to do with the attention

  • ★★ Hank suggests he may not be that different from Logan Paul: many creators, like MrBeast, KSI, Marques Brownlee and Holo Taco's founder, launch products for a reason. (hedged) — 00:02:36
  • ★★★ Hank describes a common creator path: attention thrills and wears off, then money does too, and then the creator has to figure out what to do with the attention. — 00:02:58
  • ★★ Hank says money is really good: it doesn't make you happy, but it solves a lot of problems, and fewer problems raise the potential for happiness. — 00:03:27
  • ★★ Some creators with enough money scale back or stop because of the stress, which Hank calls amazing; he doubts that will ever be him, though maybe someday. (hedged) — 00:03:57
  • ★★★ Hank thinks it is easier to keep going because creators' self-worth is invested in their creator identity, and their tools (money, an audience) bring ideas they never would have had. — 00:03:57
  • ★★ Hank admires Christine, a nail art YouTuber whose nail polish brand Holo Taco is very good, a logical extension of her channel. — 00:04:30 · YouTube
  • ★★ Some creators focus more on money: Hank says MrBeast clearly wants to be the first YouTube billionaire, which makes sense to his audience. — 00:04:59 · YouTube

00:05:46 — Hank's increased anxiety since cancer

  • ★★★ Hank wants to feel less anxious; cancer didn't help: he has more anxiety now, as if the muscle grew stronger during diagnosis and treatment. — 00:05:46
  • ★★ Even with no reason to be scared, Hank's anxiety searches for things to fear; he doesn't know whether they are irrational or real. (unsure) — 00:06:08
  • ★ Anxiety makes Hank's tummy hurt; when he finished treatment his doctor told him to avoid undue stress, and he jokes they should pretend that wasn't said. (playful) — 00:06:34

00:07:00 — His buckets: Vlogbrothers, Complexly, DFTBA and Good Store; how hard to lean on the audience

  • ★★ Hank sorts his work into buckets; the first is Hank Green stuff: making things fast, doing weird things, understanding platforms, living online professionally, mostly through Vlogbrothers. — 00:07:00 · Vlogbrothers
  • ★★ Complexly (SciShow, Crash Course and more) is the most impactful thing Hank has helped start; it could always use him, from promoting Study Hall and the Crash Course coin to SciShow thumbnails. — 00:07:34 · Complexly, SciShow, Crash Course, Study Hall, Crash Course coin
  • ★ Hank says that work is great when it is working with no problems, but harder when there are problems, like fewer SciShow views or too few Study Hall sign-ups. — 00:07:56 · SciShow, Study Hall
  • ★★ DFTBA.com makes and sells products for creators; it has problems like losing a client or fearing port shutdowns, and COVID made running it much harder. — 00:08:25 · DFTBA Records, COVID-19 pandemic
  • ★★ Hank sees Good Store as no different from Logan Paul's Prime except in values; he doesn't know what Prime is about beyond energy-drink vibes. — 00:08:25 · Good Store
  • ★★★ Rather than just a great product, Hank wants a different model: whether an e-commerce company can give all its profit away fascinates him, and he can't not do it. — 00:09:21 · Good Store
  • ★★★ Hank says Good Store is now a fairly big company doing well, donated millions of dollars to charity last year (2023) and will this year (2024), but its growth has slowed. — 00:09:21 · Good Store
  • ★★★ Hank asks how hard he can lean on his credibility and relationship with the audience to grow Good Store without it feeling bad to people who can't spend money. — 00:09:52 · Good Store
  • ★★ Hank says it is fine for these projects to stay the same size or grow, but shrinking is very hard and unpleasant. — 00:10:21
  • ★★ Hank wants to balance not leaning too hard on Nerdfighteria to promote things with helping the companies work well and keep everyone employed. — 00:10:21 · Nerdfighteria
  • ★★★ Hank believes in all of it: Good Store would do tremendous good even at its current size, Complexly, Study Hall lowering barriers to education, and SciShow's science communication. — 00:10:57 · Good Store, Complexly, Study Hall, SciShow
  • ★★★ As Prime became a brand beyond Logan Paul and KSI, Hank wants the community to feel on a quest together, supportive of Good Store even when not buying. — 00:11:59 · Nerdfighteria, Good Store
  • ★★ Good Store's artisan coffee is more expensive, so not everybody should buy it; buy coffee that suits your finances, and nobody should feel excluded for not spending. — 00:12:26 · Good Store
  • ★★★ Hank says publicly that he can't run everything: much at Complexly and DFTBA happens without him, by people he trusts, and he accepts their different decisions. — 00:12:51 · Complexly, DFTBA Records

00:13:34 — Stepping back: teams decide without him, his new jobs, the kid goes to college

  • ★★ Hank hasn't been involved in Crash Course day to day for a long time; its team runs it, and needing his approval would stop everything, since he is extremely disorganized. — 00:13:34 · Crash Course
  • ★★ People will see decisions by companies Hank started as his own, though being hands-on would make teams miserable and limit the projects' good. — 00:13:59
  • ★★ Hank stepped down as CEO for a reason: he prioritizes screwing around online, a new book or a stand-up special, and lacks the self-control not to. — 00:14:29
  • ★★ No longer CEO of Complexly or DFTBA, Hank has different jobs: strategic audience development, feedback on new projects, and SciShow's weekly Slack thread on thumbnails and titles. — 00:14:51 · Complexly, DFTBA Records, YouTube, SciShow

  • ★★★ Hank started these things, but feels that someday the kid goes to college, and he prefers that. — 00:15:21

    “someday the kid goes to college”

  • ★★ Unlike many founders, Hank doesn't want to stay in control: the more he has tried to stay in charge, the less happy he has been. — 00:15:45

00:16:14 — His sources of stress, money from shared projects versus his book, the census and more vlogging

  • ★★★ Hank concludes he is hungry, like many creators, to do cool things with his tools while he is alive, and can't constrain himself to one thing. — 00:16:14
  • ★★★ One stress is how much he can ask the audience to join building Good Store into a big charity giver without feeling forced, since it is built together. — 00:16:38 · Good Store
  • ★★★ Hank feels fine making money from his cancer book, which he made himself from his cancer and science communication experience, unlike shared projects like Good Store. — 00:16:38 · Good Store
  • ★★ Hank would feel weird if Complexly made him a lot of money, which it does not. — 00:17:19 · Complexly

  • ★★ Other stresses: keeping the companies healthy, and people misunderstanding his found-build-give-away strategy and crediting him instead of the teams. — 00:17:51

    “my strategy is found, build, give away”

  • ★★ Teams making their own decisions is better, just as his son will go to college and make decisions Hank won't want him to make. — 00:18:21

  • ★★★ Having said it aloud, Hank thinks the competing interests of everything that needs him are causing much of his anxiety. — 00:18:21
  • ★★ Feeling he lacks a grip on how the community feels, Hank suggests doing the census again. — 00:18:57 · Nerdfighteria
  • ★★ Maybe Hank hasn't vlogged enough: too many of their videos are produced video, as YouTube now is, and too few just him talking for 40 minutes. (hedged) — 00:18:57 · Vlogbrothers, YouTube

00:19:20 — Sign-off and thanks to Milo for editing

  • ★★ Hank thanks Milo for editing this long video; he dislikes uploading unedited-by-him videos but trusts Milo, his longtime collaborator on Hank's channel. — 00:19:20 · hankschannel

In the description and comments

  • ★★ The description says Hank recorded this before his Friday video with John, meant it as his Friday video, and released it despite overlap. — video description

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: anxiety disorder · Complexly · creator economy · DFTBA Records · Good Store

Also: People: Cristine Rotenberg · KSI · Logan Paul · Marques Brownlee · MrBeast

Projects: Crash Course · hankschannel · Nerdfighteria Census · SciShow · Study Hall

Works: Crash Course coin · Hank Green's stand-up comedy special on Dropout · Hank's book about cancer and cancer biology (untitled here)

Organizations: Holo Taco · Slack · YouTube

Concepts: death anxiety · self-esteem · stand-up comedy

Events: COVID-19 pandemic

Products: Prime (drink)

Only in the description or credits: Milo

Also centred on anxiety disorder: Brotherhood 2.0: March 7, 2007: Stress · My Hairy Ball of Anxious Anxiety · I'm Having a Lot of Feelings · Working Through a Crisis with My Brother · The ANXIETY IS PALPABLE · I Still Don't Have Cancer (and I'm Still Scared)

Also centred on creator economy: Get Paid · Still Riding a Big Wave that I Do not and Cannot Know

Later videos replying to this one