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How Do You Create When You Don't Feel Safe

2026-03-06 · letter vlog · Hank · 8:16 · watch on YouTube

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

Previewing a conversation podcast he is making, for which John is planned as first guest, Hank tells John that creating in public feels unsafe, online and always. He says people cope by creating less, creating in safer spaces or safer formula-driven ways, or growing a hard, mean shell. The hardest and rarest option is to be brave, as John is, carefully.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — Hank's new conversation podcast and the kinds of questions he wants to ask

00:00:30 — How do you create when you don't feel safe: online blowups, old fears, ways of coping, and being carefully brave like John

  • ★★ Hank says he plans to have John as the podcast's first guest. (hedged) — 00:00:30 · John Green, Humans
  • ★★★ Hank poses the question he wrote down for the podcast, which titles the video: how do you create when you don't feel safe? — 00:00:30 · Humans
  • ★★ Hank says the question matters to John, who is very creative and often does not feel safe. — 00:00:59 · John Green
  • ★★★ Hank says the internet is a hard place to feel safe right now: people are often ripped to shreds for doing something fairly innocuous. — 00:00:59
  • ★★ Hank says Rebecca Black's Friday, one of the biggest cultural moments in internet history, was at least partly about mocking a 13-year-old girl. — 00:00:59
  • ★★★ Hank says creating in public is volunteering to be misunderstood, decontextualized and raked over the coals. — 00:01:28
  • ★★ Hank says he has advised almost every public figure he respects and counts as a friend on handling their own surprise blowups, which happen a lot. — 00:01:28
  • ★★ Hank says blowups can be very surprising: sometimes you knowingly played with fire, other times something that seemed a harmless game still burns you. — 00:01:28
  • ★★ Hank says the question is about more than the internet: feeling safe while creating has always been hard. — 00:01:57
  • ★★ Hank recalls his first editor's notes on a magazine article, which redlined three quarters of it, and doing public readings of his work. — 00:01:57
  • ★★ Hank says that even now he sometimes worries a work won't be received well: no views, bad reviews, or people finding him a cringe try-hard. — 00:01:57
  • ★★ Hank says he has been working on a book for years and worries about it very differently than about a YouTube video. — 00:02:27
  • ★★ Hank says one way to deal with the fear is to create less, but for many people that is not a real option. — 00:02:27
  • ★★★ Hank recommends creating and iterating in safer spaces, at least at first, as he did a lot himself. — 00:02:27
  • ★★ Hank lists safe spaces: private drafting with yourself as the only audience, writers' retreats, and friends you trust to be honest and kind. — 00:03:07
  • ★★ Hank says some create in safer ways, painting by numbers: letting AI write their script so a flop is the AI's fault. (playful) — 00:03:07
  • ★★ Hank says others follow success formulas and define success in achievable, objective ways, as he does by defining good as view counts, so he need not worry whether his work might be bad. — 00:03:36
  • ★★ Hank says people also avoid danger by being less open and more ruthless, looking less vulnerable, or being a jackass whom people excuse. (playful) — 00:04:05
  • ★★★ Hank thinks many people act badly online partly because they don't feel safe, turning themselves into caricatures beyond attack for their own safety, which he calls kind of cowardly. — 00:04:05
  • ★★★ Hank says the hardest, rarest option, never taken 100%, is to just be brave: knowing many will call you a bad guy, you do it anyway. — 00:04:35
  • ★★ Hank says real creativity is harshly constrained by the ruthlessness of the current information environment. — 00:04:35
  • ★★★ Hank tells John he is often brave, carefully rather than recklessly, and that this is a huge part of his success. — 00:05:13 · John Green
  • ★★ Hank says care matters because it is easy to be brave and then do something harmful, or get into trouble you can never get out of. — 00:05:13

00:05:49 — Saving John's answer for the podcast, which launches in a month or more; sign-off

  • ★★ Hank doesn't know John's answer to the question and says they may save it for the podcast, making this video promo for it. (hedged) — 00:05:49 · John Green, Humans
  • ★★ Hank calls this terrible promo: the podcast cannot be subscribed to yet and is months, or maybe a month and a half, from launching. (playful, hedged) — 00:05:49 · Humans

00:06:18 — Post-credits: Maternal Center of Excellence opened with Good Store help; Awesome Socks and Undies Club offer; MolaCult

  • ★★ Hank reminds viewers that the Maternal Center of Excellence has opened and was funded in part by Good.Store. — 00:06:18 · Maternal Center of Excellence, Good Store
  • ★★ Hank says the Awesome Socks and Awesome Undies Club is open, with the first pair of socks or underwear 50% off with code SHAREAPAIR. — 00:06:18 · Awesome Socks Club
  • ★ Hank says Awesome Undies are by far his favourite underwear; he is ruthlessly culling his old pairs. (playful) — 00:06:45
  • ★★ Hank tells procrastinators that they have perhaps four hours left after upload to join the MolaCult before it is taken down. (hedged) — 00:06:45

00:07:15 — Creating for yourself and being a good critic of your own work

  • ★★ Hank says creating just for yourself is the safest place and teaches a lot; being a good critic of your own work is among the most important creative skills. — 00:07:15

00:07:39 — Hank's mouth still tastes of the raw garlic clove he ate yesterday

  • ★ Hank's mouth still tastes of garlic because yesterday he ate a whole raw clove, for a reason viewers will someday find out. (playful) — 00:07:39
  • ★ Hank says garlic taste lingers not from missed pieces but because it gets into the blood and evaporates out of the lungs. — 00:07:39

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: courage

Also: People: Rebecca Black

Projects: Awesome Socks Club · Awesome Undies Club · Humans · MolaCult

Works: Awesome Undies · Friday

Organizations: Maternal Center of Excellence

Concepts: generative artificial intelligence · moral outrage

Only in the description or credits: Good Store

Also centred on courage: I Am Not a P#$$Y - this video contains mild swear words.

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