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Two Unrelated Destroyers of Trust

2026-01-23 · letter vlog · Hank · 4:43 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Everyday life (also: Internet & YouTube, Personal life) · mode: Personal essay · tags: on location

Waiting at Heathrow after a secret London trip, Hank tells John that talking to strangers shows the world works because of people, that society has less trust than people deserve, and that online attention mechanics, as in their recent Dear Hank and John episode, are a second way we lose trust in the world.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — Two hours early at an empty Heathrow gate: who owns the airport, and the broken chairs at LAX

  • ★★ Hank films at an empty gate at London's Heathrow Airport, not his own, having arrived two hours early as advised; his own gate isn't open yet. — 00:00:00 · London
  • ★ Hank wonders who owns airports and who chooses their chairs, joking that the LAX chairs, perhaps once comfortable, are like literally all broken. (playful) — 00:00:00

00:00:47 — Heathrow's ad campaign of Londoners with varied jobs and the Wimbledon judge's oddly treated face

  • ★★ Hank likes Heathrow's advertising campaign showing Londoners with a wide variety of jobs, including a woman who judges at Wimbledon whose face the ad treats oddly. — 00:00:47

00:01:16 — Big cities versus Missoula, becoming a stranger talker, and why all the people are valuable

  • ★★ Hank finds the person behind that ad choice pictured in the campaign two people down, and calls it perhaps the best unintentional prop comedy he has witnessed. (playful) — 00:01:16
  • ★ Hank was just in Boston and is now in London, a big change from small-town life. — 00:01:16 · London
  • ★★ Hank says many Montana people feel big cities have too many people; in Missoula he knows what people are doing, but in a big city you cannot conceive of all the places people live and work. — 00:01:16 · Montana, Missoula, Montana

  • ★★ Hank says, apologetically, that he has become a stranger talker, and everyone he talks to is doing interesting things that seem valuable in the world. — 00:02:03

    “I've become a stranger talker”

  • ★★★ Hank says being a stranger talker is valuable because it shows the world works because of people. — 00:02:03

00:02:31 — Society has too little trust, partly from not talking to each other; a podcast joke

  • ★★★ So all people are valuable, Hank says: they are not competing with you but helping you, if indirectly; we are all in it together. — 00:02:31
  • ★★★ Hank thinks society has ended up with far too little trust, partly because people literally don't talk to each other, and that more trust is deserved, not merely useful. — 00:02:31
  • ★ Hank jokes he is happy the brothers have a hip podcast for teens, calls it a podcast in-joke and apologizes to Vlogbrothers viewers who don't listen. (joke) — 00:02:31 · Dear Hank and John, Vlogbrothers

00:03:01 — The recent Dear Hank and John episode and attention-driven internet mechanics as another destroyer of trust; London and a hoped-for game with John

  • ★★ Hank is reinvigorated about Dear Hank and John this year (2026), partly because of a recent episode illustrating something he has seen happen online to many people, first to John. — 00:03:01 · Dear Hank and John
  • ★★ Hank listened to that episode while walking through Kensington Gardens and thought they did a good job; he will talk to John about it one-on-one, not online. — 00:03:01
  • ★★★ Hank says much online content is about capturing attention rather than representing reality, so it is easy to carry mechanistic, probabilistic accidents of history as if they reflected reality. — 00:03:27 · attention economy
  • ★★ Hank says that when you are sucked into that loop it is very hard to accept that it isn't something you did or a reflection of your work. — 00:03:27
  • ★★★ Hank calls this another mechanism by which we lose trust in the world; he wants to watch for such mechanisms because, though not reflecting reality, they harm it. — 00:04:04
  • ★★ Hank calls London magic and hopes to come there with John sometime and to go to a game with him. — 00:04:04 · London

00:04:33 — Hank always liked Zombicorns; sign-off

  • ★★ Hank says he always liked Zombicorns and thought it was good, and is glad John now agrees. — 00:04:33

In the description and comments

  • ★★ In the description Hank, very sleepy and glad to head home, thanks people who said hi at the airport and apologizes that he cannot say what he was doing in London. — video description · London

Threads in this video

Mentioned

Central: Heathrow Airport · trust

Also: Projects: Dear Hank and John

Works: Zombicorns

Concepts: attention economy

Places: Boston · Kensington Gardens · London · Los Angeles International Airport · Missoula, Montana · Montana

Events: Wimbledon Championships

Also centred on trust: The Time a Taxi Driver Stole My Money · The Kony 2012 of Roads - Solar Freakin' Roadways · My Ballot Made Me Angry · How Actually Crazy is This Mess?

Replies to

  • answers · Am I ... Good? — “i always liked zombie corns i always thought it was good so i'm glad you now agree with me”

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