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Am I Cigarettes?

2025-06-24 · letter vlog · John · 5:06 · watch on YouTube

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

John compares his compulsive use of the social internet to his years of smoking and Nicorette: he argues the social internet, though it builds community and gave him his life, is not a net positive for humanity, admits he cannot stop, and worries that by contributing to it he is not just smoking cigarettes but is cigarettes.

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's smoking from 14 to his late 20s and his years of compulsive Nicorette chewing

  • ★★★ John started smoking at 14 and smoked compulsively until his late 20s, 30 or 40 cigarettes a day, even waking at 3 a.m. to smoke to calm himself down. — 00:00:05
  • ★★ John loved smoking: besides a dopamine boost and a brief high, it was a straightforward five-minute solution to a straightforward problem in a world of complicated problems. — 00:00:13
  • ★★ After quitting smoking John chewed Nicorette compulsively for about five years, 50 to 60 pieces a day, which his doctor said was about three packs' worth of nicotine daily. — 00:00:29

00:00:58 — The urge to check the internet as a new nicotine; downsides and upsides of the social internet; second-hand internet

  • ★★ John quit chewing Nicorette around the time he got really into the internet, about 2005. — 00:00:58
  • ★★★ Now a little voice tells John to check the internet while he reads or works; he resists, gives in to the craving, checks Reddit, Tumblr and Bluesky, and it is cigarettes all over again. — 00:01:03 · Reddit, Tumblr
  • ★ John admits he is still on Tumblr, calling himself a proper internet degenerate. (playful) — 00:01:24 · Tumblr
  • ★★★ John says the social internet's downsides, long discussed with Hank, are obvious to heavy users: radical polarization, hijacking and monetization, dehumanization of the other, denuanced discourse and misinformation. — 00:01:36 · Hank Green, social media
  • ★★ John says the upsides are numerous: it feels good, at least short term, and builds community and connection, though almost always mediated by corporations seeking to profit from it. — 00:01:54 · social media
  • ★★★ Like cigarettes, the internet harms not only heavy users but the social order at large, through second-hand smoke or second-hand internet. — 00:02:09 · the social order

00:02:23 — Where the analogy fails: cigarettes' deaths versus the internet's value for isolated people, John's own life and the community's hospital

  • ★ When John was a kid every indoor space smelled of smoke; he remembers people smoking on airplanes and at church. — 00:02:23
  • ★★ John says cigarettes have directly caused much suffering and death, including the deaths of two of his grandparents. — 00:02:35
  • ★★★ John says the internet is not merely harmful: for many people, especially those most isolated by previous social orders, it is a godsend and a way to build community. — 00:02:41 · social media, the social order
  • ★★ As a 14-year-old wearing a trench coat every day in Orlando, Florida, John needed the internet before it really existed; it gave him his life and livelihood. — 00:02:52
  • ★★ John notes their little community is building a hospital, which he calls the opposite of cigarettes. — 00:03:00 · Nerdfighteria, Maternal Center of Excellence
  • ★★ So the metaphor does not hold: cigarettes have very little societal value, while the social internet has quite a lot. — 00:03:06 · social media
  • ★★ John describes the algorithm-first, attention-monetizing, corporation-hosted social internet as extractive capitalism in which the thing extracted is consciousness itself. — 00:03:12 · recommender system, attention economy

00:03:21 — John cannot stop using the social internet, knows it is bad for him and the social order, fears he is cigarettes, and has no resolution

  • ★★★ John argues the social internet is not a net positive for humanity, even though it has greatly benefited some heavy users. — 00:03:21 · social media
  • ★★★ John cannot stop: as he chose Nicorette over cigarettes, he picks the healthier-for-him Instagram and Bluesky over Twitter and TikTok, but he cannot stop using the social internet. — 00:03:26 · Instagram, Twitter, TikTok
  • ★★ John did quit for a couple of years, a very productive time in some ways, but he missed the connection and the high. — 00:03:40
  • ★★ John objectively knows he is happier and more productive active in the world as a person than online as an avatar, yet still feels the urge to check the internet. — 00:03:52
  • ★★ Being active in Nerdfighteria is only a small part of why he stays: he could be a good member without many-to-many spaces like Bluesky and Instagram, via videos, comments and well-moderated spaces. — 00:04:06 · Nerdfighteria, Instagram
  • ★★ John chooses the unhealthy internet for hours every week, knowing it is bad for him and for the social order. — 00:04:26 · the social order

  • ★★★ John worries that by contributing to the unhealthy internet, not just ingesting it, he is not just smoking cigarettes: he is cigarettes. (hedged) — 00:04:40

    “I'm not just smoking cigarettes. I am cigarettes.”

  • ★★ John says he has no solution or resolution to offer, and suggests Hank may have one on Friday. (unsure) — 00:04:57 · Hank Green

In the description and comments

  • ★★ The description urges viewers not to smoke: it only transfers their wealth to the most pernicious companies in existence in exchange for lung disease. — video description
  • ★ In a comment John clarifies that Instagram is not healthier than TikTok, both are horrific; it is healthier for him only because he uses it less. — creator comment · Instagram, TikTok

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: internet addiction disorder · social media · tobacco smoking

Also: Organizations: Bluesky · Instagram · Maternal Center of Excellence · Reddit · TikTok · Tumblr · Twitter

Terms: the social order

Concepts: attention economy · dehumanization · dopamine · misinformation · passive smoking · political polarization · recommender system

Places: Orlando, Florida

Products: Nicorette

Also centred on internet addiction disorder: Addicted to the Internet

Also centred on tobacco smoking: BEEF DAYS · You’re Not Addicted to Content, You’re Starving for Information

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