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Offline: Hank Green on Inspiring Curiosity · Pod Save America

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Do you look back at 2007 as like the good
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: old days of the internet and wonder what changed? Do
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: you think it's gotten worse or is that just what
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: people are, is that just, are people now paying attention
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: to what's good or has it always been good?
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: I don't think anything's gotten worse. Does it feel like
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: things have gotten worse? That's a ludicrous idea.
• 0:17
  Speaker 3: Where did you get that idea?
• 0:20
  Speaker 4: I'm Jon Favreau. Welcome to Offline. Hey everyone.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: My guest this week is YouTuber Hank Green. For people
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: of a certain age, and by that I mean young people,
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Hank Green is the internet. His first YouTube channel, Vlogbrothers,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: that he started with his brother John, has about 900
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: million views. His educational video series, called SciShow and Crash Course,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: have been seen in probably every high school in America.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: And today, Hank is on TikTok, where he's become sort
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: of a father figure to the app's teenage user base,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: answering their science questions and dispensing bits of parental advice.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: But one of the most interesting parts of Hank's career
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: has been his longevity. On the internet, people tend to
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: burn bright and then burn out. Hank posted his first
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: video back in 2007, 15 years ago. And now at
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: the ripe age of 41, he's become one of the
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: internet's elder statesmen. And somehow his stuff is still wildly
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: popular and he's still very well liked. Hank's content inspires curiosity. Today,
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: viewers turn to him to learn everything. And I mean everything.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: Hydrogen bonding. Giraffe sex? The galaxy size? Frosted glass? The
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: helium shortage? What happens to candle wax when it burns?
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: With curious why questions and a gentle way of making
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: sense of the world, Hank has cemented himself as a
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: major pillar of the way people learn online. So I
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: wanted to have Hank on so he could teach me.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Mostly about the internet, but I was also pretty curious
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: about the whole candle wax thing. I asked him about
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: building community online, the byproducts of social media... and the
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: way platforms compensate and make demands of their content creators.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: We got deep into the weeds about lessons Hank has
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: learned after more than a decade on the internet, both
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: how it's changed and what hope he has, if any,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: for its future. As always, if you have questions, comments,
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: or complaints about the show, feel free to email us
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: at offline at crooked.com.
• 2:10
  Speaker 4: Here's Hank Green. Hank Green, welcome to Offline.
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: You have a lot of fans here at Crooked Media.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: Your name came up when we were talking about guests
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: for this show, which is all about the ways that
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: the internet is shaping the way we live. And I
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: think someone on our staff called you the godfather of
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: the internet.
• 2:35
  Speaker 4: How do you feel about that title?
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: Just me and Al Gore. We built it together, the
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: two of us. He had a shovel, I had a pickaxe,
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: and we... We just made modems together.
• 2:46
  Speaker 4: You did it. You did it.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: I mean, just for people who aren't familiar with your work,
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: you know, your first big project was a video blog
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: with your brother, John, aptly named Vlog Brothers, that you
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: started on YouTube all the way back in ancient times, 2007.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: Can you talk about how that came to be and
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: what you guys were initially hoping to achieve with it?
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: It was a very optimistic time of the internet, which
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: didn't end that long ago. And we'd seen a couple
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: of great, interesting, creative, thoughtful video projects.
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: And online video.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: And this was sort of pre-YouTube in some ways. Like
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: Zay Frank, of course, who went on to run BuzzFeed
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: Video for a while, has done a lot of really
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: interesting things. He had a thing that was just on
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: his website where he hosted his own. mov files and
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: you could go and be a part of this, uh,
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: bizarre experiment in content creation where there wasn't someone who
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: was deciding what was getting made. Like there wasn't a
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: gatekeeper and that, uh, you know, it seemed I was 27,
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: John was 30 and, and we were figuring out how to, um,
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: And it just seemed very exciting to us that there
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: was this new way that media was.
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: Going to happen.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: And it felt at the time like we could be
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: at sort of the beginning of what TV was. And
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: wouldn't that be cool to be able to have a
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: hand in the beginning of television or in the beginning
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: of radio? And now it feels like that was actually
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: underestimating the case a little bit where the internet, it
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: turns out, to have been more powerful than television. recent
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: media evolutions and has sort of more significant analogs, I think.
• 4:31
  Speaker 4: More powerful and a lot messier.
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: Very messy.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: Very messy because it wasn't about centralizing power. It was
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: about distributing it, which we like, but also we don't.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: Just for people who haven't seen your videos, what's an
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: example of an early video that really broke through for
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: you guys?
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: Um, you know, we did a couple on giraffe sex
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: that did well, uh, because you don't really like, how
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: does that work?
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: It turns out it's interesting.
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: Um, I had a song about Harry Potter when the
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: last Harry Potter book was coming out and, uh, and,
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: and sort of how that was making me feel. And
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: that resonated with a lot of dorks and a lot
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: of the foundation of our audience was, you know, nerdy people, uh,
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: who were at the time, mostly teenagers and are now,
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: you Uh, and a lot of people have, have been
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: with it through the whole, the whole time. And, you know,
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: we also have people who come in and over the
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: years we've, you know, used that sort of, um, that
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: the activation energy and the values of that community to
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: do a bunch of other stuff. Like we started a
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: crowdfunding platform. We started an online video conference. We started Complexly,
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: which is our educational media company that makes Crash Course
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: and SciShow and Eons and a bunch of other shows.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: And then like through the whole thing, I, I mean,
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: I am really fascinated by and really enthusiastic about trying
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: to figure out how to make the internet work for
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: creators and to have it be a place where people
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: can make a living and that that economy continues to
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: grow and more people get the opportunities to have this
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: great job that I have.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: Why do you think that Vlogbrothers became so popular initially?
• 6:08
  Speaker 4: What core did it strike for people?
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: It didn't become that popular ever. Is one thing.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: We never had like a big viral video. We never
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: had a big viral jump. It was most popular when
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: John was most popular with The Fault in Our Stars.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: My brother John wrote The Fault in Our Stars for
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: people listening, which is a book that was turned into
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: a popular movie. And that was like the peak moment.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: And at that point, we were maybe getting 300,000 views
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: a video, which is... by the standards of today, a
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: successful YouTube channel. But like certainly at no point were
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: we ever in the top like hundred most popular YouTube channels.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: It's just that we are long lived. That is the
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: thing that like is actually weird about what we have done.
• 6:57
  Speaker 4: Well, you're so modest.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: I mean, like you were just talking about how you've
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: gone on from Vlogbrothers over the years to just do
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: so many more projects. And I'm struck by you saying
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: how you're trying to build community. Most of the conversations
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: I've had here on Offline have been about how this
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: technology that was supposed to connect us and bring us
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: closer together has in many ways driven us apart. It's
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: fueled alienation and division. You've bucked that trend and built
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: a real community, whether it's Vlogbrothers, VidCon, the educational videos
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: you were talking about, your successful charity projects. How did
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: you guys figure out how to harness the power of
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: the internet for good?
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: Um, I think that, I think that it remains to
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: be seen, like, we're not going to know for a
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: long time whether the internet is net good or net negative. Like,
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: I think that, you know, like, and I'm happy to
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: be an example of it, but there are, I think,
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: lots of examples of it, of, of real community happening.
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: Um, I think that there are.
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: As an example, I think that like, It is a
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: really vital function or a really amazing function of the
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: internet that it creates a space for people who otherwise
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: wouldn't have a community that they identify with, that they
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: share values with, that they share experiences with because their
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: town is too small for that. Their high school is
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: too small for that. Their experience is too small for that.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: And so they have to sort of like limit themselves
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: into sort of the way of living that is common
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: in the.
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: Place where they live. And the internet.
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: creates an opportunity to find those social structures among people
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: who do share your values that you maybe don't have
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: geographic proximity to you. And that is fantastic. It is
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: also great for white nationalists. Like this is the thing.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: It is this exact same function that is the good
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: and the bad. So there isn't like a way, like
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: it's very difficult to separate the good from the bad
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: in that way. And I think that John and I
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: were that in a way. We were just like, there
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: were certainly 100,000 people in America who were, really bookie
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: and really maybe enthusiastic in ways that was uncool in
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: their world and in their peer group. And as it
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: always is, like enthusiasm is for whatever reason, one of
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: the worst things you can be when you are a teenager.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: And providing a space for that. And also just, you know,
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: just writing videos that make people feel a little bit
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: good about being a person, make people feel like they
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: have a little bit of guidance if they don't have
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: people providing that for them. And a lot of the
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: structures that we would normally get that from just aren't
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: around as much anymore. Church used to be a really
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: big one, and I don't think that we have adequately
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: explored the extent to which the internet has taken on
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: some of the functions that church once took on for
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: people and that is a part of the sort of
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: that current shift that we are experiencing.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, or so many social structures and community structures and
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: associations and all the bowling alone stuff from way back.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: I mean, well, a big difference between the internet being
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: good and bad has to do with the content that
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: you put out, the content that you create. It seems
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: like a lot of what drives... engagement today is content
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: that makes people angry or afraid. That's not your stuff
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: at all. Like, how do you think about what it
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: takes to get people engaged in what you're creating?
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: Um, like, I think that there are lots of, of
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: normal human tendencies and, and you can lean into whichever
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: ones you feel. Um, I think that we sort of
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: lean into, uh, curiosity is a big one. And, uh, and,
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: I think that like there's actually evidence that shows that
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: one of the only things that pulls away from division
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: and partisanship is curiosity. Like if you're like, but why
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: would a person think that? That's very strange to me
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: that a person would think that because it seems so
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: deeply antithetical to everything I understand about the universe. Instead
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: of feeling like they must be a monster, if you
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: can think that's a peculiar outcome. So curiosity is a
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: big one for me that I think about a lot.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: And I try and actually try to cultivate it in
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: myself because I think that it hooks people in a
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: authentic way that does not make them less happy. Yeah.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: No, it's interesting you talk about curiosity. I talked to
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: Abby Richards, who's a TikToker, does research on disinformation and extremism.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: And I was talking about like how you get people
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: to stop believing in conspiracy theories. And she said that
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: one strategy or one tactic is continually asking them questions, right?
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: So why do you believe that? What do you think
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: is going to happen if you take the vaccine? Why
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: would there be a microchip in it?
• 11:58
  Speaker 4: What would happen?
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: And if you continue to ask those questions and sort
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: of pique someone's curiosity, you might start unraveling the conspiracy.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: Which is why it is so frustrating when you see
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: powerful people intentionally grabbing an answer to one of those
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: questions and being like, hey, remember this. Elon Musk recently
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: tweeted something about like how this is all about getting
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: people used to government control, which is like such a,
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: it fits for everything, right? It's like, why would the
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: government want to give a bunch of people a vaccine
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: that obviously isn't killing a bunch of people? Like, what's
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: their ulterior motives here for wanting to make you wear
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: a mask? And it's like, they're just trying to get
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: you used to them controlling you. And I'm like, wow, okay,
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: all right. And and like it's frustrating to see people
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: like having these stock answers that don't don't hold up
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: to much scrutiny. But it's like I don't really know
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: how to confront that. But, yeah, I think that like
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: I think that being curious about where people's, you know,
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: so there's like the level of like and I hear
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: this a lot. It's like, well, this comes down to loneliness.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: It comes down to economic disenfranchisement and it comes down
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: to like a loss of status among certain groups. And like, yes,
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: but that isn't, like, that might be a root, but
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: that is not the, like, the present thing that is
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: actually the story that leads people in. So to understand,
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: to ask people to explain to you the story can
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: be valuable because they might be able to see some
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: inconsistencies in the story.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, what about when you're creating educational videos about
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: biology or chemistry, the environment? I think, you know, your
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: videos have been seen in, like, nearly every high school
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: in America. Yeah. Like, are you trying to think about
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: what will grab kids' attention or what you can offer
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: that supplements what their teacher is offering? Like, how do
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: you think about the educational offerings?
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's the same.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: Like, it is a difficulty that I, you know, there
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: are these things that you have to know by.
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: Like law, like standardized test-wise.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: And that can be really limiting. And I think it
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: can be difficult for teachers to, Because what you want
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: to do is you want to get kids asking questions
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: and follow the line of inquiry that they inspire. And
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: maybe you get everywhere with that and maybe you don't,
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: but you do get to the place where people are
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: trying to figure out how inquiry works and how questions
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: have been answered. I'm very frustrated by the idea of
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: teaching people that things exist and not like why they
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: exist and how we found out that they exist. It's like, well, there's,
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: there's eight planets and it's like, well, there were nine
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: and now there's eight. And like, just remember that and
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: know the names of the planets. And it's like, so
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: interesting when you ask like, okay, how did we decide
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: what a planet is? Why did that get to be
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: a confusing thing? Like, And also, if you start to
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: blur the lines a little bit, then what does count?
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: At what point do you have to count Ceres, which
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: is a spherical, large object in the asteroid belt? At
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: what point do you have to count Titan, which is
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: bigger than some planets, but it's a moon? And if
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: there were a gas giant that was big enough that
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: it was doing some fusion, would that be a planet
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: or would it be just a star, even though it's
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: acting like a planet? And and fulfills all of the
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: IAU's like rules for what a planet is. So like
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: you ask those questions and like then the context around
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: it like starts to actually make some sense and you
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: have a fun conversation. I have this like longstanding joke
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: with my TikTok audience because people constantly ask, where does
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: the candle wax go?
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: I have that question.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: One of our producers, who's a big fan of yours,
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: he wrote down, he's like, the last question he wrote,
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: he's like, I would ask him where the candle wax goes.
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: And I was like, all right.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna, and I've of course watched some of your
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: videos about that, but where does the candle wax go, Hank?
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: Well, and this is like such a, interestingly, if you
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: want to absolutely be a true dork, you can watch
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: some recreations of Michael Faraday's lectures on candles.
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: Which is something that he did.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: And it was a popular science lecture series that he
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: would give to talk about what you can learn about
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: the universe through a candle. And he shows you, walks
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: you through the process of understanding that gases exist, what
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: they are, what they are made of, that things can
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: exist in different states, that you can have a candle.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: And part of the the off gassing part of the
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: like reaction reactants from, from the combustion is water. And
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: you can capture that water and you can be like,
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: this was a candle that had no water in it.
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: And then it had a gas coming off of it.
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: And that gas turned out to be the thing that
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: you drink to live, which is so cool.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: And then, you know, the other, and then like you
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: can divide it up and like have the water and
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: the carbon dioxide. And then he goes into talking about
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: how the process that's going on in the candle is
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: the process that's going on in you right now. Like
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: you are basically like, and instead of a flame, you
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: have thoughts.
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: And it's like, wow.
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: That's deep. I love that.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: So when the candle wax burns and disappears, it is
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: going where?
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: Into the atmosphere.
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: Into the atmosphere.
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: It is gases.
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: It is carbon dioxide and water vapor.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think what's important about all this is,
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: you know, what you're doing is teaching people how to
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: think as opposed to just sort of memorizing facts.
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: That is the goal.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, I always hated standardized tests because I was like,
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: I can try to memorize all these facts and statistics,
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: but they're just going to sort of go out of
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: my head after I'm done with the test.
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: If I actually think about things and I figure out
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: how to think and how to have these discussions, that's
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: probably more valuable for the long term, even if it's
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: beyond science or beyond whatever subject that you're studying.
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: Because you will always be solving problems every day of
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: your life forever.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: Do you look back at 2007 as the good old
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: days of the internet and wonder what changed?
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: How do you think it's evolved over the years?
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: Um, I think that the... Well, you think it's gotten worse, or.
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: Is that just what people are... Is that just a...
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: Are people now paying attention to what's happening?
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: No, John, I don't think anything's gotten worse. Does it
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: feel like things have gotten worse? That's a ludicrous idea.
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: Where did you get that idea?
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: You know what's funny is I have talked to Alex Stamos,
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: who was the former chief security officer at Facebook, and
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: he's like, look, I think Facebook has done a lot
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: of bad shit. I take responsibility for a lot of.
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: That, but.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of what we don't like about
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: the internet now is merely a reflection of human nature
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: and us and not necessarily the internet itself.
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: And I don't know about that.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: Okay. Well, let me hear what you think about that.
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: So about that specifically, this is like a weird name drop,
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: but I was talking, it was an interview. I was
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: interviewing Bill Gates and he And he said basically the
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: same thing. And it was like, there's not like these
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: platforms are trying to get people to do anything. I mean,
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: they're trying to get people to believe one thing or another.
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: They're not trying to get people to be like angry.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, yeah, they are trying to get people
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: to do something, Bill. They're trying to get people to
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: do whatever makes them the most money. And he was like,
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: oh yeah, aside from the profit motive.
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: And I was like, ah.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: So in our society, it is perfectly OK for a
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: social media platform to do whatever they can to make
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: the most money.
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: Because that's what they're supposed to do.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: It would not be OK for them to say, what
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: can we do to make people happy or sad or
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: vote one way or another? That we would not be
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: okay with. That's very, very creepy to think that this
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: social media platform is designed to mollify me or to
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: enrage me or to get me to vote for Joe Biden.
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: But it is perfectly fine for them to do whatever
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: it takes to get me to be the best consumer,
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: to get me to be on the platform for the
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: And I think that we have to accept that part
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: of the side effect of that may very well be
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: that it does result in me being enraged. The side
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: effect of the profit motive, the side effect of trying
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: to keep people on the website might be that the
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: best way to do that is to have people be
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: unhappy and lonely and angry. And in the long term,
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: that might actually be bad for the company. But if
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: they were trying to get people to stay on the
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: website for longer, that did seem to be the thing
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: that was doing it. And maybe Facebook is paying some
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: price for that now. And also, maybe we all pay
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: some price for that in the long term because it's
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: an awful, awful hard to run a company in a
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: society that's falling apart. And I am legitimately worried about that.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: I mean, one thing I've wondered about is, can you
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: have a profitable media company or platform that engages people
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: um by you know connecting them with content like you
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: do that makes them feel informed inspired um maybe they
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: laugh right like there's other ways to engage people right
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: like is this about tweaking the algorithms or is it
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: just like once you have these platforms that are seeking
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: profit all hope is lost Right.
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: I mean, so I have to have some hope. And
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: so I think a fair amount about how to have
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: hope in the face of all of this. I think
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: it's even deeper than that. I think that it may
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: not be about the companies. It may not be about
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: the platforms. It may be about human communication, which is
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: the thing that we are best at. It's the thing
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: that makes us special. It's what made any of this possible.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: The house that I'm living in, the headphones I'm wearing,
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: the drugs I take, I'm I have a chronic illness.
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: Also the recreational drugs.
• 21:57
  Speaker 4: All of the drugs.
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: It's the thing that makes all this stuff possible. So
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: revolutions to communications technologies, like communications technology revolutions, are always
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: really disruptive. The biggest one we have ever had was
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: the printing press. And Martin Luther was able to take
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: down the Catholic Church by himself.
• 22:21
  Speaker 4: Take on.
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: I shouldn't say take down. Obviously, there's still around.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: And the parallels are like really remarkable if you start
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: to look at them. Like one of my favorite bits
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: of this is that the Catholic Church kept trying to
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: respond to Martin Luther, but they would only do it
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: in Latin because that was the language of the church.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: Like you couldn't do it in the native languages that
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: people actually spoke. And so like Martin Luther would like,
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: he was translating these documents into all the different languages
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: and the church would respond. Only in Latin, which no
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: one spoke. And that feels a little bit similar to
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: some podcasters being like, I'm just want to think and
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: talk and be loud and like ask questions and be
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: curious and talk to different people. And the government being like,
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: we have to speak in a way that no one
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: can misunderstand and that will make no one angry. And
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: so we can say nothing and we're paralyzed and we
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: get everything wrong. And then people get mad at us
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: for getting everything wrong.
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: And then we're like, you need to be more authoritative.
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: And so they try that and it's like, whoa, that
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: turns out you were wrong, like a little bit wrong
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: about one thing.
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: So you need to be more vague. And so they
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: try that and it's like, you can't win.
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: And so you go back and forth and you have
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: this situation where there's this like asymmetry of like what
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: one group is allowed to do and what the other
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: group is allowed to do. And like the result is
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: that like, the really, like, strong, powerful things that have
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: existed for a long, long time are losing that power.
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: And that, you know, you see it in sort of the, like,
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: the disregarding of expertise and the denigrating of, like, elites.
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: And it feels very reminiscent of a kind of Reformation vibe,
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: which did not turn out well short term.
• 23:59
  Speaker 4: It did not.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: I mean, part of what I think you're talking about
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: is it's trust, right? It's trust in institutions. And people have...
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: less trust in institutions like the government, like businesses, like
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: these platforms for a variety of reasons. But part of
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: building trust is the way you communicate to people. And
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: if you are communicating in an overly officious sort of careful,
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: cautious way, you're going to raise some red flags in
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: people's minds and think, ah, maybe I shouldn't trust you
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: when other people like those, like those podcasters you mentioned.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: If they're communicating in a quote unquote, much more authentic way.
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: And people are like, oh, that person sounds like me.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: That person sounds like has questions that I have. And
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: maybe I'll connect with that person a little bit more.
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: But it's, of course, you also can't be authentic as
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: the government because people will, you know, find reasons to
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: hate that too. It is a very difficult spot to
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: be in, especially once you have lost some trust, especially
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: in a world that So, like, you both, like, maybe
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: lose some trust because you make some bad calls or,
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: and you also lose trust because there's a large infrastructure
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: of people who benefit from helping you lose trust, from
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: enabling the loss of your trust.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: And the question in my mind becomes, like, is there, like,
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: a path, like, what is the path out? And, like,
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: I think that there's kind of, like, there is a
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: certain amount of inoculation that we get where we get
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: better at things.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: But things change so quickly. There's a very clear pandemic
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: analogy where it's like, okay, so you build up the inoculation,
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: but then the thing changes. The simple version of this
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: is the evolution of the BuzzFeed headline, where they don't
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: use those same headlines that they used to. At first,
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: it was like 10 things, and then it was like,
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: you won't believe.
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: the sixth.
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: And so like these headlines work for a little while
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: and then they stop working on people because they get,
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: they get used to the format.
• 25:55
  Speaker 4: You're not going to trick me this time. I see
• 25:57
  Speaker 4: what you're doing. Yeah, exactly.
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: And then another, and then another format comes up. Um,
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: and so like misinformation also can function in that way
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: where people, it gets people at first and then they
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: get a little bit inoculated against it. And then it
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: has to sort of take another form. And you know, the,
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: the hope is that like maybe younger people who are
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: raised inside of this information ecosystem that has no expert curation.
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: Will get better at that.
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: I haven't seen any clear evidence of that as a
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: person who communicates with young people fairly frequently. I haven't
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: seen that there's a big movement of young people who
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: are just really good at discerning misinformation from information.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: I mean, you're a father. What do you think about
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: your own.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: Your own kid and like how are you trying to
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: inoculate them against disinformation and just how to navigate this
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: world I mean I have a one and a half
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: year old but I think about this all the time
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: like how is he going to interact with all these
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: platforms in a way that's as healthy as possible.
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: I have concerns about information but they are maybe a
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: little bit less than concerns about social interaction I have
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: a lot of concerns about that too yeah which I
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: think you know, TikTok grew so much in the last
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: couple of years. And you think like, where did that
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: time come from? Did it come from TV? Did it
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: come from Instagram? Or did it come from socialization? Did
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: it come from like the time that kids would normally
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: be spending in a room with each other that they
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: haven't been doing because of the pandemic? And also because
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: that's a long-term trend. Like that's not new. Like kids
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: have been spending less time with each other, which I
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: think is a it's scary. I don't know how big
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: of a deal it is. I don't know the science
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: on it, but like, it seems like a big deal
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: to me. I think that kids should spend time with
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: each other. I think that they, you know, I think,
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: I think that that is an important part of being
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: a person. And then as far as like what I,
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: how I feel about how to, how to talk to,
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: to my kid about what is, what is true and
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: not true. I think that there are like, you know,
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: if you could invite some interrogation of reality, because.
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: Kids are curious, like we're all curious, but kids.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: Are like, haven't had a beaten out of them yet.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: And so like, like inviting those questions and using them
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: to allow for models for how to engage with information
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: and how to seek out information, how to interrogate information.
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: And then like, as my son's five, so it's not
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: really time for this yet, but I think that as
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: he is older, it's, it's like, Take on examples of
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: previous times where people have been duped and look at phrenology.
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: Why did we believe phrenology? How much of that was racism?
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: How much of it was pop science? What were the
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: bits of it? How much of it was just that
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: we wanted something to find here? How much of it
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: was that it felt cutting edge because we were just
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: starting to understand the brain and so it was like, well,
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: maybe the head shape has something to do with it too.
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: And it felt.
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: Modern in a way that obviously doesn't now. our conception
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: of the universe is changing, but that doesn't mean that
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: nothing means anything or nothing matters.
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: It's all inside of a context.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: You mentioned TikTok. We're almost the same age. I joined
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: TikTok last year. Couldn't post a video if my life
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: depended on it. Have no doubt that I would absolutely
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: embarrass myself, especially my wife, if I ever tried. You're
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: already a successful TikToker who's built a huge following on
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: the platform. How did you manage to not come across
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: like an old dad Well, I did.
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: That's very intense.
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: I think the only reason I could do it is
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: that I have taught many of these children biology and chemistry.
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: And so they're like, that's the biology and chemistry guy.
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: And so I joked about that for a long time.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: And the expectation is that Um, I, I try and
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: I fail sometimes because it's too much fun, but I
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: try to like use TikTok the way that a teacher
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: would that, like, I don't want to do anything on
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: this platform that a teacher wouldn't do. For example, recently
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: there was a TikTok that was about how hot Jamie
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: Lee Curtis is. And I commented on that TikTok and
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: I said, they really said for you page, huh? Meaning, yes,
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: they have located a interest of mine. And then I
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: went back to that comment and I was like, should
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: I have done that? And I looked at it and
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: I was like, if I saw my chemistry teacher posting
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: that he thought that Jamie Lee Curtis was hot on TikTok,
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: how would I feel about that? And I deleted that comment. Um, so,
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: so like the, you know, and like, there's nothing like
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: harmful about thinking Jamie Lee.
• 30:49
  Speaker 4: Curtis is hot.
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: Um, but the, uh, um.
• 30:54
  Speaker 4: But you're trying to fit with what your identity is.
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: I'm trying, I'm trying to match the expectation of the audience.
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: I'm trying to not like, you don't want to feel
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: like you're at like you, you like at the.
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: Wrong party, you know?
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: And I want to be at the right party.
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: So I, I lean into that and like, I'm, I
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: am a dork, but you know, I, you know, I, I,
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: try to match the expectation.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: As someone who's spent a lot of time creating content
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: on YouTube and now TikTok, what makes TikTok unique compared
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: to YouTube or other platforms, aside from the most obvious,
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: which is the length of the videos?
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: Oh, God, that's nothing. That has nothing to do with it.
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: The difference is that on YouTube, the user makes decisions
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: about what they want to watch. And on TikTok, you
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: do not make a decision. TikTok decides what you want
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: to watch. Which is a huge shift. It is a
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: very big deal. And it means a couple of... So
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: it means that it's much easier for new talent to
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: get discovered, which is great. It means that it's much
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: harder for existing people to hold onto their audiences, monetize
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: their audiences, build businesses, build community, because you have no
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: guarantee that a video will be watched by your audience
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: if it is not enthusiastically... received by them, which is
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: going to be less the case if it is about,
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: you know, getting people to follow you on Instagram or
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: getting people to buy a t-shirt or something like that.
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: So it, it, it changes the dynamics hugely and it,
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: it changes it and it gives the platform a lot
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: more power over both the users and the creators. So
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: like creators really have to do everything they can always to,
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: to continue to get attention and audience. And, and it, it,
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: literally makes the decision about what video it's going to
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: show a person next. Whereas on YouTube, I might make
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: a decision that my choice might not actually be what
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: I want. And TikTok might be giving me more what
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: I want than what I would choose. Oftentimes, I would
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: choose something familiar and something that feels like me.
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: Whereas on TikTok, they.
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: Might know that actually they're going to see maybe I
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: want something that isn't familiar, something new, Something that, and
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: I see this like directly reflected and I'm very curious
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: about this.
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: I have no idea.
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: What's at the bottom of it, but my audience on
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: TikTok is majority female. And in my science videos on like,
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: I will post the exact same science video on TikTok.
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: It'll be like 70% women will watch it. I'll post
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: that video on in like YouTube's TikTok like.
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: Version, which is called Shorts. And it'll be 80% male.
• 33:42
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, is this because YouTube is a platform
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: where people choose things that they think is for them
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: and women kind of don't feel like science content is
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: for them? Or is it because YouTube is just more
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: male and TikTok is just more female? Or is it
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: because the vibe is different?
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: I don't know. It's so interesting to me.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: You talk about from a user perspective, from a creator perspective,
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: as you're making content for TikTok, how does knowing... how
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: the algorithm works sort of affect what kind of content
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: you create? Are you thinking about like, I got to
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: create something that the algorithm is going to put in
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: front of more people?
• 34:21
  Speaker 4: Like how does that affect what you decide to post?
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: Well, the thing to always remember about algorithms is they
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: only have human inputs. So what they do with those
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: human inputs is decided by, by the algorithm in a
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: very upsetting way, where are these things like, to what
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: extent do they make their own decisions? And also by
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: the engineers who build them. So, so, but so like,
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: when I'm making content, I have to know if I
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: want a video to do well, especially if I want
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: a video to do well, that, um, is promoting something,
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: which would normally not do well, that I need to
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: have a really good hook. I need to have really
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: good jokes. I need to like, I need it to
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: be like, to go hard the whole time. And, um,
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: you know, that, uh, is stuff that I've gotten good
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: at over the years, but, um, it's hard. And, and
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: it's especially hard. Like I'm, I've become friends with some,
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: tiktokers who like it's their it's their job but it's
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: a a grind it is very hard you you really
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: have to have every you don't have to have every
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: video be good but you have to have enough really
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: good videos that um that you keep your audience uh
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: engaged and and uh you keep keep reaching there for your.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: Page i imagine the length makes that even more difficult
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: to the shorter length like i always i mean i yes.
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: And no like it depends on what you're doing you
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: can tell a joke really fast.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, you know, in a past life, I
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: wrote speeches and I always thought that writing a short
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: speech was harder than writing a long speech because the
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: shorter the content, you really just have, like you said,
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: you have to pack it all in. It has to
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: be entertaining and keep people's attention from the get-go. And
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: you just have to, you have to do more with
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: less space.
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah. But TikTok's going to be up to three minutes now.
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: So that's forever. That's so long.
• 36:06
  Speaker 4: Three minutes is forever now. Yeah.
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: You recently posted a video on your YouTube channel titled
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: So TikTok Sucks. That's about how TikTok pays creators. Can
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: you talk about that a little?
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: Basically, platforms, video platforms specifically, tend to share revenue somehow.
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: Facebook shares revenue with video creators. YouTube is the one
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: that pioneered this back in 2008. 55% of the money
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: from like advertisements that run on my videos, I get.
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: YouTube sells the ads. I just get the money. There
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: are other ways I monetize. They're all big deals. But
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: like for my company, which is, you know, we.
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: Have 50 employees. It's pretty big.
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: Like YouTube, just YouTube selling ads and sharing the revenue
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: with us is a huge part of how we do
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: our business. It's like a third of our revenue. On TikTok,
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: instead of sharing a percentage of revenue, there is a
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: static pool of money.
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: It's like 250. I'm not sure.
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: It's hundreds of millions of dollars. It was 200 million
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: when they launched it. I don't know if they've changed
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: it since then. They haven't changed it a lot. And
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: so like everybody who gets something, I think it's based
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: on watch time and engagement, some mix of stuff, that
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: money gets distributed among all of the creators who are
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: inside of the program. And so like, If only one
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: person got a TikTok view that day, they would get
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: that day's worth of that pool.
• 37:33
  Speaker 4: Of money, which means that as- It's a fixed pool though.
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: It's a fixed amount, which means that as the number
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: of views on the platform goes up, creators make less
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: money per view because the amount of money is the same.
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: It's also a very small amount of money. It is
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: a small amount of money, certainly compared, like YouTube probably
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: sent about $ 16 billion to creators last year, TikTok's like
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: $ 200 million. And of course, YouTube makes more money than
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: TikTok also. But I think as a percentage, I've tried
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: to do some back of the envelope calculations. I think
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: it's probably about 10 times less than YouTube as a
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: percentage of the revenue that they make.
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: Wow, that's terrible.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: Something you said in the video that really stuck with
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: me was that the YouTube Partner Program was the one
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: decision in online media that has changed more than anything else.
• 38:21
  Speaker 4: Why is that?
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: I mean, because how much do you make for your tweets?
• 38:27
  Speaker 4: The tweets are free, unfortunately. The tweets are free.
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: So like, and that's, that was the case with, you know,
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: it's Instagram posts are free, Facebook posts are free, but
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: YouTube was, you know, a little bit pressured into this.
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: Like there were, there were companies that were offering creators
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: a share of revenue. But YouTube created a place that
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: was not just about fun. Like there was something to
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: get that wasn't just attention. And I think that this
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: is important because I think if you just want attention,
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: you don't get the best content and you don't get
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: the best people.
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: And it's very difficult to run a company that like
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: works hard and is trying to put out good information
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: and like fact checking and creating good content. If you're
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: basing it all on mug sales, you know, if you're
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: basing it all or like some like subscription conversion or something. So,
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: you know, you end up in this situation where it's
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: like the crap is free and the good stuff costs money,
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: which is like, where we like, nobody's ever, like Dan
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: Bongino is perfectly happy to have you come to the
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: website and not have you pay a fee for it.
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: And the New York Times does not feel that way
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: because the business model wouldn't work. So they at least
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: gave a way to build businesses. And now there are
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: many people on YouTube who have large companies. There are
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: lots of different ways that people make money as online creators,
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: but that is often the first money that they make
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: is the YouTube share. And that money continues to be
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: a big part of people's revenue throughout their careers.
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: So you've been a big deal internet person on so
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: many platforms for so many years. And I feel like
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: you rarely, if ever, get in fights or generate much controversy.
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: You seem like a hopeful, happy guy. What's your secret?
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: I'm glad it seems that way. I was just talking
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: about this with my wife last night. It is really hard.
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: It's really hard not to overreact when people are mad
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: at you. We are humans and we feel our own
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: stings more than we feel stings that we send other
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: people's way. And that is especially the case when we
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: see that person as somebody who has a lot of status,
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: they got a lot of Twitter followers, they got a
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: lot of money. When people come up at me, it
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: doesn't feel like they're punching up.
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: It feels like I'm getting punched.
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: So being able to react in the way where I
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: am not imagining how I feel, but I'm imagining... how
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: they think they're making me feel, which is mostly they
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: have no idea they're making me feel any way at all.
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: So that's an important part of it. And it took
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: a long time to learn. And like, I think I
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: was better at it because we had a really slow
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: growth rather than like suddenly having a lot of power
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: after the day before not having any power.
• 41:20
  Speaker 4: Right, yeah.
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: I watch this with younger creators all the time where
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: they don't realize that the amount of power that they
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: have has changed dramatically in the course of a couple
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: of months.
• 41:29
  Speaker 4: And how could they?
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: Like, why would they think that?
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: So that's part of it. There's a piece of it
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: that's like, you got to stay in your lane. You
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: got to know when you don't know what you're talking about.
• 41:39
  Speaker 4: Not every opinion has to be uttered.
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: That is very true. I have so many that I
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: don't say.
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: Nor do you have to comment on every development that happens.
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: In the world.
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: Twitter is like this more than any other platform, but
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: it's like, you know, to me as someone who worked
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: in politics, it's like something happens and everyone feels like
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: they're a politician that has to like release their public
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: statement on it. I mean, it happens in a sort
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: of benign way when someone famous dies and everyone like
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: gives their in memoriams on Twitter, you know, but I'm just,
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: oftentimes I don't do it because I'm like, who the
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: fuck cares what I have to say about this? This is,
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: I don't have to issue a statement on everything that
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: happens in the world. And probably sometimes it's just going.
• 42:19
  Speaker 4: To get you in trouble. Yes.
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: And it's easy to not know what's going on. And
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: it's also easy to have people say, why haven't you
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: said anything about this? And then you come out and
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: you're like, ah, here's my statement on Palestine.
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: And you're like, whoa, buddy.
• 42:32
  Speaker 4: Carefully scripted.
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, right. You don't, like, I don't need to know
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: Logan Paul's thoughts on Palestine.
• 42:41
  Speaker 4: Just don't need to know it. I live my whole
• 42:43
  Speaker 4: life without that.
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: Logan Paul actually gets that.
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: I think that, like, some people think that their lane
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: is everywhere, but I think that it's important to, like,
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: understand that, like, you can have passionate opinions even that
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: are not going to be part of the authenticity that
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: like is part of your, you know, public thing. And
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: the other, like the thing that I was talking to
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: my wife about is that like, it's a pretty extreme
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: thing to be a public person right now. And it
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: requires a lot of expertise. And I've had time to
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: develop that expertise. And I also have a better experience
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: of it because I'm a white guy. And I also
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: have a better experience of it because I like, or,
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: or I am able to sort of like see it
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: in a different context because I have so much security
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: in other portions of my life. Like I, my identity
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: is diversified and I can imagine a world where this
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: goes away and it's bad. And like, I, like it's a,
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: it's a terrible process, but at the end of it,
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: I have a lot of things that I value a
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: lot and I think are, um, you know, about, about
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: myself and my life. And that, I think that's really
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: important for people to, who have jobs like mine to,
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: to continue to try and diversify their identity and not
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: go all in on this one thing. And if it
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: feels like that's being threatened, you get really, really defensive,
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: really fast. Um, and you know, there, there is also like, to,
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: to be honest, like you have to be engaged with
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: what people are freaking out about lately. You have to
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: like know what things you might say that might get
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: you in trouble. And like that changes, you know, it's
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: changed dramatically since 2007. I've taken videos down that used
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: words that like I didn't think that they were bad,
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: that bad of words back in the day, but like
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: have become. you know, understood to be truly like super harmful.
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: And like, I didn't know that. And I think that
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: it is important to recognize that when you are a
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: person who benefits from your reputation, that when some harm
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: comes to your reputation, that is not the end of
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: your career. That is not someone trying to cancel you
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: or hurt you. It is some harm that has come
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: to your reputation. It's like a professional sports star who
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: has an ankle injury. It's like, this is a thing.
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: That maybe you should have prepared for better or maybe
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: you should have made a better decision in the moment.
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: But you have suffered an injury and like that's not
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: the end of everything. And sometimes there are career ending injuries.
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: And those people go on and they have lives that
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: are outside of that sport and that is okay. And
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: like it's not fun. It's very sad when that happens.
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: Like it's very sad for that person. Right. And like
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: having to have some harm come to your career because
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: you made a misstep. sucks but like it happens and
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: I try and think of it in that way where
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: like reputational harm has come to me will continue to
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: come to me like not everybody's gonna love me and
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: and try and sort of like when my car loses
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: a little bit of grip it's not like don't panic
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: just try.
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: And also and take it as an opportunity to learn
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: and grow from that too I think what you said
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: about sort of having an identity that's just outside of
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: what you do online is important I thought that was
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: a a important point like one thing that happens with
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: public people online is like being on the internet is
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: a is a very public performance that is just you're
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: on all the time and this isn't just like prominent
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: people this is now all of us all of us
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: that participate in this are on all the time do
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: you ever get tired of being on all the time
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: and like how close are the are the public and
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: private versions of hank green.
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: Um yeah i it's it's like um everything that i
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: that is on the internet is me but not everything
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: that is me is on the internet.
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 46:38
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: And, and I think that that's pretty important. It's in
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: the early times, that was not something that I maintained.
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: And now, now it is, and I have a kid
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: now and I've got like, you know, there's more of
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: that kind of stuff that I feel like keeping private.
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: And it, but it's also like back when it was
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: just like a, you know, a few thousand nerds. Um,
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: and there was, I didn't have like a company that
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: I had to try and represent as well as, um,
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: you know, myself. And so, you know, it's, it's all
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: delicate balance, but I think that, you know, and also
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: it's something that I think every, everybody has to decide
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: for themselves.
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: Uh, last question I ask all our guests, what's your
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: favorite way to unplug and how often do you get
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: to do it?
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: Ah, walking with my wife and maybe my son if
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: he's not being a pill about it. The answer I
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: would like to have is hanging out with groups of friends,
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: but I haven't been doing it very much. And I
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: think it's not just the pandemic. I think it's also
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: that I'm very online and I've gotten used to feeling
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: weird about hanging out with a bunch of people. And
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: I feel like it might be time for me to
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: start getting used.
• 47:57
  Speaker 4: To it again.
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: I think it took the pandemic for me to realize
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: how much I missed hanging out with groups of people
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: as opposed to just being among people, but all of
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: us being on our phones all the time. And I
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: think I took that for granted.
• 48:11
  Speaker 4: And then when the.
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: Pandemic hit, I was like, wow, I really miss that.
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: I really miss the actual in-person social connection.
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: Hank Green, thank you so much for joining Offline. Really
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: appreciate it.
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you. Thanks for doing this. I've listened to
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: every episode. It's really, really good.
• 48:26
  Speaker 4: Oh, thank you. Thank you.
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: I was like, holy shit, this exists?
• 48:32
  Speaker 4: More people complaining about the internet.
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: That's my bag.
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: Figured it would be. Offline is a Crooked Media production.
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: It's written and hosted by me, Jon Favreau. It's produced
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: by Andy Gardner Bernstein and Austin Fisher. Andrew Chadwick is
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: our audio editor. Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis sound engineered
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: the show. Jordan Katz and Kenny Siegel take care of
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: our music. Thanks to Tanya Sominator, Michael Martinez, Ari Schwartz,
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: Madison Hallman, and Sandy Gerard for production support. And to
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian, and Amelia Montooth,
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: who film and share our episodes as videos every week.