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Maybe This is My Problem

2025-10-10 · letter vlog · Hank · 6:23 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Internet & YouTube (also: Personal life, Philosophy & meaning) · mode: Personal essay · tags: calendar ritual, self promotion, on location, community lore

In an unscripted airport vlog closing Pizzamas 2025, Hank describes 'moral stress' (stress from believing a way of life is harmful while feeling locked into it), admits feeling it about the internet, and argues the thought itself may be the problem: the brothers have long acted against the internet's harms, working inside a broken system is not itself bad, and since the internet is not going away we must build systems that take our agency and attention back.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — Pizzamas recap, a traditional airport vlog at the Missoula airport's new white wing, praise for John's video

  • ★ Hank says this Pizzamas has had Thoughts from Places, walks in the woods and Song Wednesdays, and now a traditional unscripted airport vlog. — 00:00:00 · Pizzamas, Thoughts from Places, Song Wednesday
  • ★ Hank notes that Vlogbrothers airport aesthetics have changed: the new wing of the Missoula airport has plain white walls, not gray speckled ones, which he fears will soon look dirty. (playful) — 00:00:00 · Vlogbrothers
  • ★★ Hank tells John he loved his video yesterday, calling it thoughtful, kind and open. — 00:00:00 · John Green

00:00:29 — Beanie Sanfurbs gets through airport security; the idea of moral stress

  • ★★ Hank went through airport security with Beanie Sanfurbs in his bag; the dense, almost gel-like object flagged security, but a young TSA agent decided Beanie was not a threat. (playful) — 00:00:29 · Beanie Sanfurbs
  • ★★★ Hank describes what he tentatively calls moral stress: a way of living feels fine if you think it okay but very stressful if you think it harmful or immoral; the stress comes from the belief, not the behavior. — 00:00:29

00:01:16 — The Cheetos example; this Pizzamas' theme of the internet's harm; Hank's moral stress, feeling locked in, agency and purpose; maybe the frame, not the reality

  • ★★ Hank says moral stress is worst when society or biology makes you feel unable to stop: nothing is wrong with Cheetos, but believing them evil while unable to stop eating them becomes a big source of stress. — 00:01:16
  • ★★ Hank says that, unlike some Pizzamases, this one has had a theme: broadly, the open realization and discussion of what to do about the internet. — 00:01:16 · Pizzamas
  • ★★★ Hank says he and John both understand the internet as it exists to be doing more harm than good; he is not arguing it now, only saying he carries that belief around. — 00:01:46 · John Green
  • ★★★ Hank says that at times in recent years he has felt moral stress about the internet, fearing he participates out of a pathological addiction to its structure or because he is locked in by work, infrastructure and people relying on him. — 00:01:46
  • ★★★ Hank thinks that thought process, the worry that he only participates because he is addicted or locked in with no agency, is itself the pathological thought harming him, since he doesn't think they are actually doing bad. — 00:02:19
  • ★★ Hank feels that the feeling of being disempowered is tied to a feeling of purposelessness; they don't seem related, but he thinks they are. (hedged) — 00:02:49
  • ★ Hank apologizes that this is an unscripted vlog: he doesn't have it all straight in his head and hasn't settled on these thoughts. — 00:02:49

  • ★★★ Hank says he over-focuses on the scariest thoughts, about lacking agency, and forgets that maybe the thoughts themselves stress him: maybe it is the frame rather than the reality. (hedged) — 00:02:49

    “maybe it's the frame rather than the reality”

  • ★★★ Looking at what actually is, Hank says he and John have been aware of these problems for a long time and have not been doing nothing about them. — 00:02:49 · John Green

00:03:29 — What the brothers have done (the prompt journal, the focus app); working inside a broken system is not itself bad; leaving Twitter

  • ★★ Hank says they wrote a mystical prompt journal together whose explicit goal is to get people out of the phone and into their own minds and communities; many have sent nice notes, and it is available via the description. — 00:03:29 · John Green
  • ★★ Hank says he and his friend Bria made a focus timer app that blocks social media and was the most popular app in America; he has enjoyed these collaborations. — 00:03:29 · Focus Friend, social media
  • ★★★ Hank calls it a dumb idea that if you recognize the system you are inside as imperfect, broken or bad, any work you do inside it must also be imperfect, broken or bad. — 00:03:58
  • ★★ Hank adds that this leaves room for critique and does not mean you can do no harm or wrong: you still have to be intentional. — 00:03:58
  • ★★ Hank says he no longer posts on Twitter: he does not want to add to its network effects, calls it explicitly harmful, and has no interest in being there. — 00:03:58 · Twitter

00:04:46 — The internet is not going away but is designed to rob agency and attention; designing systems to take them back

  • ★★★ Hank says the internet isn't going away and is an important place with important people, but it is being set up to rob us of our agency and attention, so we have to act in opposition. — 00:04:46 · attention economy
  • ★★★ Hank argues that following only the profit motive yields systems that rob people of community, because people hanging out at a potluck aren't scrolling on phones or watching cable news. — 00:04:46 · capitalism
  • ★★★ Hank says we must design systems that take our agency and attention back, so we are not focused only on the hottest, most divisive thing of the moment; many other problems deserve attention. — 00:05:16 · attention economy

00:05:45 — The Pizzamas one-shot as an act of resistance; last Pizzamas reminder; sign-off

  • ★★ Hank suggests one radical act of taking back attention might be getting Kathleen DeVere's Pizzamas one-shot and gathering people for collaborative storytelling, a resistance against the attention of oligarchs. (playful, hedged) — 00:05:45 · Pizzamas
  • ★★ Hank says all the Pizzamas items are available only until the end of the weekend, at the Pizzamas site, and this is the last time he will mention it. — 00:05:45 · Pizzamas

Threads in this video

Mentioned

Central: attention economy · Internet

Also: Projects: Pizzamas · Thoughts from Places

Works: Beanie Sanfurbs · Focus Friend · Pizzamas D&D one-shot (this video) · The Book of Good Times

Organizations: Transportation Security Administration · Twitter

Rituals: Song Wednesday

Concepts: Cable news · capitalism · internet addiction disorder · network effect · oligarchy · social media

Places: Missoula Montana Airport

Products: Cheetos

Only in the description or credits: Bria · Kathleen DeVere

Also centred on Internet: Watermelon Internet Trolls · WE WON! Net Neutrality and Re-Thinking Cynicism · 19 Ways to Not Suck on the Internet · Is YouTube Good for Humanity? · Logging Off · History Is Happening

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