Dear Hank & John - 249: The Liverbird in the Room (Live at VidCon Now!)

Episode Date: July 20, 2020

Any life advice for a recent college graduate? If you put milk in a bowl of croutons, is that dinner cereal? How do I stay motivated to create? What have you learned about yourselves or each other lately? What should I do for graduation cap decorations? What would you like to do for a solo podcast? How do create content while staying true to myself? How do you fit 3 bedrooms into 2? What was your favorite VidCon moment ever? What flavor of ice cream should I make? Hank Green and John Green have answers! If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [e-mail]. Join us for monthly livestreams and an exclusive weekly podcast at patreon.com/dearhankandjohn. Follow us on Twitter! twitter.com/dearhankandjohn

Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. Or as I prefer to think of it, Dear John and Hank, sorry I had myself muted. Ha ha ha ha. Perfect. That's gonna know it's real. Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you the abuse advice and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. John, my books coming out, my books coming out, and a bunch of people have been

asking me, Hank, why is this one longer than the first one? And I, you know, it's a long story. That was pretty funny, but I might have only laughed at it because I am in an exceptionally good mood. Well, that's great to hear. That's not usually how we start our podcasts off. And so I know that there's probably something unusual happening either in your life or in the world. Yeah, so I feel like we do need to just acknowledge the elephant in the room, or I guess more specifically the elephant in my room, which is that as we are recording this live for VidCon now, Manchester City

are playing Chelsea in front of no fans in the Premier League. And if Manchester City don't win Liverpool football club, we'll win their first league title in 30 years. This is a very, very, very, very big deal for me. It goes, if you don't mind a little bit of backstory. Oh gosh. Oh, well, okay, we'll do it. And then we'll tell everybody that this episode is weird, but you do that first.

It's not weird. It's a totally normal episode. When I was 12 years old, I was on my middle school soccer team. I wasn't the best player, but I was the worst player. We were not a good team at all. We did not win many games that season, but we did have one very, very good player. His name was James, and he was very, very good because he was from England, which in Orlando,

Florida, at the time automatically made you the best soccer player in the state. Yeah. And it was through James that I learned that football was like a profession for some people. Yeah. Like it existed as a pro sport. And it was also through James that I learned about Liverpool football club. And it just happened to be that season. They'll never put one in the title. And I was like, I think I'll hop on this bandwagon.

How's the last couple decades been? 30 years later, it's finally paying off. So a team that isn't Liverpool has to lose in order for you to get the title, and that's gonna happen in the next hour or so. Or tie. Oh, wow. The tie would also be fine. That's great. It's been a long, strange journey this season, obviously.

And, but, but yeah, oh my gosh, it's hard not to think about. Let's answer some questions from our listeners. No, we can't. We can't. So first of all, I've got one thing I have to say, which is that I wanted to look up the mascot of Liverpool football club so that I could say instead of the elephant in the room, the name of the mascot, but the problem is the mascot of Liverpool Liverpool football club is the liver bird. Yeah, but the problem is the mascot of Liverpool, Liverpool Football Club, is the liverbird? Yeah, it's the liverbird. Well, I'm not going to say the liverbird in the room. I'm just not going to.

And second, this is being recorded live during VidCon now, the distributed VidCon that has occurring all across the world. VidCon now has a bunch of events that are happening. And this is one of them, but they will continue to go on. So if you want to follow VidCon on Twitter, you can find out about them. They're free. So thanks to everybody who has joined us specifically for our VidCon now performance of Dear Hank and John, I can hear them wooing at home.

I can't actually, but I can imagine them wooing at home. Yeah, thank you all for joining us. We are really grateful and grateful to everybody at VidCon for putting this together. Yeah, and we have questions direct from our VidCon now live stream listeners. This question comes from wholesome SWM who says,

any life advice for a recent college graduate? Oh, has there ever been a better time to be a recent college graduate? Well, what's your degree? I have, the true answer to this is that I don't have any advice and I have no idea what is happening and I have no idea how to make things better. And I feel like there aren't enough adults saying that they have no idea.

So maybe that can be my role. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Everybody's got some real strong advice. Everybody who doesn't have to deal with this particular problem, and which is everyone, because no one's ever dealt with the situation as it stands right now,

no one who's under the age of 104. Yeah. Actually, a friend of mine, Grandma, was born right at the beginning of this Spanish flu, and remembers in her toddlerhood, a lot of fear continuing about that, and having to think of think about it. Great, she was a little kid.

Yeah. So hopefully it will be not a thing six years from now, but who knows? I will say that it's not a tear. Thank you really harsh it on my Liverpool buzz right now, man. It's maybe not a terrible idea to look at both, of course, options for getting into the workforce,

but also options for continuing your education in one way or another, deepening your skill set in your current chosen field or adding some other something, of course, in a way that probably will not involve as much traditional schooling, but hopefully will be less expensive just so you can have something to put on your resume during that period of time. Yeah, I think that's good advice. I also just, I don't know in a- But I also don't know.

I will agree that I don't know. For a easier question, John, and one that, but that may annoy you more, this is from M who asks, if you put milk in a bowl of croutons, does that make dinner cereal? First of all, cereal can be dinner cereal. I have dinner cereal all the time. Yeah, that's, as you know, Hank, that's one of my pet peeves.

We can't say that some foods are only for one meal. It's the weirdest thing humans do because we do a lot of weird things, but it is among the weirder things that humans do. It's weird enough that I hope that someone's studying it, that I hope that we can investigate this aspect of humanity and be like, we have learned a thing about humans, about our tendency to categorize.

But man, eggs for dinner is great. Well, so-called breakfast for dinner is my favorite dinner. And I also like it's so much more than I like so-called breakfast for breakfast. Like in the morning, I don't want to eat like eggs and a muffin and bacon. But in the evening, I very much do. To the question, however, if you put milk in croutons, what you've done is you've ruined both milk and croutons. John, you once had a summer job where you made croutons

and you were talking to me once about you making croutons. I did. And I was like, people make those. I did. Never even occurred to me. Oh, I would wake up at five o'clock in the morning and make croutons every day. There were two things that I got really good at making.

And even now, 20 years later, there's still only two things that I can cook, and I weren't had to cook both of them at Outtakes Restaurant in Alabama in 1996. I can make a mean crouton, and I can cut up those like red potatoes that are smaller than your fist, new potatoes. They were called when I was a child. I can cut up those and bake them and they will taste delicious.

Anything else is hopeless. I'm only a prep cook. I'm not a, my wife always jokes that while I'm very helpful in the kitchen, I'm not allowed near heat. Yeah. Well, heat is required to make croutons at least. But I think that we have to, yeah, what we have to remember is that croutons

are like really oily, like you put a lot of oil in them. And you don't want to like see that coming out into the milk. No, they're not just like dry bread. No, you don't really want to know why croutons are so delicious. Like, they're delicious for the same reason every other food that's delicious is delicious. Yeah, you go to the restaurant and you're like, why is this so much better than what I cook at home?

And it's like, well, probably the half a stick of butter. Yeah. I just, I'm very curious how much meat needs to be in a cereal before it's a little gripping and ripet, John. Sorry, that was a Mac early reference. Um, it was weird. How much? I'm not gonna die. Dr. Pepper, like a normal person reference. Um, it was weird. How much? I'm gonna diet Dr. Pepper like a normal person.

You have to make it weird. How much meat needs to be in a cereal before it's not cereal anymore? Before it becomes soup. Yeah. Oh, hmm. I would say, any. Yeah, if I just like put a cold cut in there.

They make all kinds of different cereals. They make like, you know, they made Sour Patch Kids cereal. You know, they made Sour Patch kids cereal, you know, they make, yeah, you've got every kind of cereal. But one thing you never see is a meat, meat-based cereal. Nobody ever is like hamburger cereal, corn dog cereal, or like beef jerky, but when you put it in milk, it gets, it gets real good. I'm getting, I'm getting nauseated just thinking about it. Actually, it actually. I really would like to move on if we can. We've got a question from, I think from Cotry,

who writes, what are some tips y'all have for when you lose motivation to create things? This summer has been hard on me and has got me in a deep creative block. Well, first, this summer is hopefully anomalous in human history. Well, first, this summer is hopefully anomalous in human history. Like, I think it's been hard for a lot of people to create things this summer.

And I'm not sure that my old tips and tricks would work in the face of a challenge this immense and multifaceted. So I just wanna say that at the outset. Yeah, I think that it's important on the question of motivation to go deeper than my own personal experience in terms of what actually motivates me, one, because I have a very unique set of motivations

after 15 years of creating professionally, or something professionally. But the thing that I think is really important is to be mindful of the things that help you make stuff and mindful of the things that block you from making stuff. And that's gonna be different for every person, but as long as like, when you're in a moment and you're feeling inspired,

look at where that inspiration came from so that you can try and track it down again. So, I think that's really interesting. It's different from my experience of making things. For me, the inspiration almost always comes after the process again. The process begins. Yeah.

The discipline sitting down and opening up the document and forcing myself to do that every day and stating a time for when I'm going to do it and keeping to that time. It's really easy for me to do all manner of Internet-y things until I open up the document or like all manner of distractions until I open up the document or like all manner of distractions until I open up the document. And then for me, once the document is open, even if it's blank, I'm like, okay, I should work. And I almost never experienced that joy of making something

that feeling of things clicking together, or the joy of telling a story until I've been, like I have to get past this place of boredom or frustration or blockiveness in order to feel that feeling. But now, because I've felt that feeling so many times over the last 20 years, I kind of know that. I remember when I was starting out,

I would often quit after like 30 minutes of staring at a blank page or whatever and just be like, well, I suck and get really mad at myself. And now, I mean, I still have some pretty devastatingly negative self-talk at times, but now I know that on the other side of that does potentially at least lie some fun.

Yeah, I totally hear that. And I mean, I think that that's a kind of mindfulness about where your creative process finds fuel. I find that all of the important work gets done while my fingers are on the keyboard, not while I'm sort of like waiting for a good idea to arrive. So many, so like an exponentially larger number of good ideas arrive, while I'm typing. Not saying I never get any while I'm in the shower, driving somewhere, or just, yeah, but like that's when the real work gets done. Those ideas can be really high quality,

and there's not like something unique and special about the ideas that like just sort of lightning bolt strike me. That like it's more more interesting that they come out of nowhere, but they aren't better than the ideas I have while I'm writing. No, sometimes my lightning strike ideas are so bad, actually. Yeah, they seem good. But they seem good because they arrived like a lightning strike. And also I think because I've been conditioned by the social order, the best ideas come

while you're dreaming or come while you're on a train staring out the rainy window or whatever. And so when I have an idea when I'm dreaming or I have an idea when I'm on a train staring out a rainy window, I always think like, this is it. I did it. I solved the biggest problem. I came up with the best idea of all time. And then I'll sit down to write it.

The dreamscape, I don't understand it well, but it doesn't, for me at least, like necessarily deliver the best ideas. We have another question. And I want to ask this Hank, just because I'm very curious about your answer. It's from Kathy, who asks, dear John and Hank,

what was your favorite thing you've learned about yourself or each other Oh God. while staying home during the last 106 days, not that anybody's got. This has been one of the least mindful times of my life. So like the idea that I had extra time to learn about myself while trying to run a business in the midst of a pandemic. And you know know, like having extra child care duties and having extra, you know, various extra stressors. I figured out that I can survive on less sleep. Yeah, that is a thing I learned. Right.

I don't like it. It's not been good. Yeah, I think all the lessons that I'm going to learn from this time in my life, I'm going to have to learn in retrospect a little bit from now. I can't wait to see how we all look back on this mostly because that will mean that it's over. That's it. Yeah. And I think when this first started, the way that I was thinking about it was that when this ends, all, you know, kind of have a download about what it all meant and what I learned about myself and my family and and and and in some ways, maybe there would be some things that I would be really grateful

for like like the time that, you know, all the time that we had together and God knows we've had a lot of time, the four of us. But now in the middle of it, honestly, all I can think about is making sure that the kids are taken care of, that we are present for them and then doing the chores, the laundry, the dishes, making the food, just doing the things of life. I mean, this is, and I'm conscious of the fact that it has been really, really easy for us compared to what it's been like for a lot of people.

But the challenges of basically homeschooling the kids have been real, and then, yeah, so it has been challenging. And I have tried through the podcast, I have with WNYC, the Anthropocene Review to think something about what it means, I guess, but I will say that I have learned something about Hank. Oh yeah, during this period. Just because of the way we are, I have always been cast,

I think, somewhat in our relationship as the anxious brother. Or I guess I've cast myself as the less competent one, because you are so wildly competent. Like, you know, you always have bandwidth to do everything. And I've always, you know, we make a very strong point of not being jealous of each other and I try really hard not to be. And, but I have always admired that a lot about you.

And I've often felt like Hank's capacity to continue working at a higher and higher level all the time has no limit. And that is beautiful. And also like I am jealous of it. But it turns out it does have a limit. It does have a limit. And I have seen the limit. Yeah, I have seen. This is the first time in our lives together when I have seen Hank hit the wall. Yeah, I'm sorry about that. Like, and I, maybe I shouldn't apologize. Don't, don't do not apologize for hitting the wall, Hank. It's, it, all it did was make you seem human, which is kind of nice. I am human. Skylar has a question for us, John.

Skylar asks, great. I want a Nerdfighteria-related grad cap, but I'm not sure what to put on it. I just graduated, but my ceremony is postponed. Any dubious advice would be appreciated, DFTBA. There's so many options. We've given you too many options. Yeah, I mean, from, you can go back to 2007 with a puppy-sized elephant sort of look,

or you can have, I'm a big fan of the Hanckler fish, which is an anger fish that Hanck has sort of personified into a face with a face. DFTBA. Got it right there. The nice thing about DFTBA is that people who get it will get it and people who don't get it will ask about it. So it's a conversation starter.

And it's not like it comes out and you're like, what's that and then you tell them and it's not like gross. It's like, oh, that's nice. Yeah. You can always always go with pizza, John, the picture of me with a mustache. Yeah. I have a funny pizza, John thing has been happening to me recently, which is that Henry, oh, no. What's wrong? Manchester City just scored. Oh, no, I can't believe you're paying attention to that right now. Well, I mean Hank, I just reiterate it's been 30 years. So one of Henry's best friends has a favorite shirt and that favorite shirt is a pizza John shirt. Oh my god. Wow. Oh, it's so funny. That is Henry's like, please, please.

Yeah. So I don't know. You get to, you, you, at some point, you start embarrassing your kids and I'm there. Yeah. I might suggest Kyla or a Pelican, which is, uh, apparently I'm now really into. This is my new thing. Oh, yeah. You're, you're, you're TikTok's leading Pelican authority.

Yeah. I'm the head of, the Pelican side of TikTok. That's, yeah, you're TikTok's leading Pelican Authority. Yeah, I'm the head of the Pelican side of TikTok. That's, yeah, and congratulations on that. That's a really wonderful achievement. Thank you. And if I can't tell if you're being honest because you're staring at the TV too much. I'm first off, I'm not staring at the TV. Okay, I'm occasionally glancing at the TV.

Let's call it what it is, which is glancing, not staring. All right. Many times I'm glancing, not staring. All right. Many times I'm glancing off just into the infinite space because I don't like looking at you when we make the podcast, because this is not how we usually like podcasts. It's weird to me that you have a face when we do this. Yeah.

Oh, this is a great question from Hannah. Dear John and Hank, what do you want your new solo podcast to be about? That's correct. Question is not from Hannah. Oh right, Hannah's the person who put it in the chat. Oh, sorry, it's from Em. I'm not doing a great job reading,

but not because I'm paying attention to anything else. Ha, ha, ha. Yeah, John, well, you've got your own solo podcast right now, the Anthropocene Reviewed. I do. I'm, oh my gosh, she's, what happened? They hit the post. Okay, everything worked out better than expected.

So maybe it's a soccer-related pot. I've always, I have, I feel like you do a good interview podcast. I would love to listen. I don't want to do an interview podcast. Here's, here's why I don't want to do an interview podcast. Hank, because I do not think the world is, is suffering from a paucity of them.

I, I would be interested to do a podcast about sports for people who don't like sports. I'm interested in talking about sports, but not the way that sports center or the endless stream of sports radio talks about sports. But instead, more of like, what are we really thinking about when we're thinking about sports? Yeah, yeah, yeah. What about you, Hank? By deeply, deeply do not want another thing to do. So I think that my solo podcast, I've actually thought, I've had two ideas for solo podcasts.

One is silence, which is a podcast that just broadcasts silence and you just sign up and then you listen to nothing, which is something that we probably could do more of. And the other is, well, I guess this wouldn't be a solo podcast really, but reading public domain literature and potentially discussing it as well. So like going through Jane Austen and like, just doing a read through, but actually reading it out loud so people can listen along and then

talk about it after. Right. So it's like an audio book, but with book discussion. Yeah. And a similar podcast idea I've had is that there's so much important audio in the public domain from throughout history, mostly 20th century history of course, but not exclusively. And I thought it would be a cool podcast to make a podcast that is those sounds and then after listening to them, a discussion of them and contextualizing discussion of them.

Because there's a lot that we're missing from 20th century history because of our kind of relentless focus on the present. Yeah. I think that'd be a great idea. I think the main thing that you want to do is to not have that be a podcast that's just John. Oh, no, I wouldn't want to be involved in it. I know.

I think I'd have to be a story and like somebody like Daniel Bainbridge or somebody who knows history as more than like an enthusiastic amateur, which is my thing. And speaking of making stuff, because this is our VidCon now, Dear Hank and John, Miriam asks, I, uh, more of a question about content creation. I love how much you two are yourselves in your videos.

So many creators hyper focus on do's and don'ts. And I often get criticized for not being niche enough, not using keywords enough, et cetera. How do I grow my channel while being myself and making content I enjoy? Time machine! I don't think that's the only way. Yeah. But that is certainly whenever we get credit

for something that we did or do on YouTube, the answer is not that we are good. It's that we started in 2007. Yeah, and like, if you look at our social media strategy, or especially our YouTube strategy, it is deeply designed to not grow, at least at the current moment. Like, and in the last year, there have been moments when we've been interested in reaching new people. But I think it is clear, if you go to the vlogger this YouTube channel, that's not the goal right now.

Certainly in the last couple of months, it's been pretty aggressive in its desire to do something other than grow. I don't know what you thought. But yeah, yeah, that's not a specific reference to anything. But yeah, I think that Hank and I don't know how to make a successful YouTube channel in 2020. No. But I do think it's possible.

I think there are people doing it. I think that they are aware both of what audience is like and what the algorithm likes, which YouTube would like to imagine is the same thing. But we all know deep down it isn't the same thing. Yeah. And so those are videos of a certain length usually like eight to 15 minutes, and their videos, they tend to be have a lot of visual change in them.

But look, the truth is like, Hank and I don't know, but also I don't think anyone knows, like what is going to emerge as a popular format on YouTube in the next six months or five years. You just don't know. And the reason Hank and I have been able to do the things that we've been able to do is that we have a very loyal core audience that we are extremely grateful for and that it is in our jobs.

And so because it isn't our jobs, we don't have to, I mean, this is the great, I mean, this is, yeah, it's just a really lucky thing in our lives that because vlog brothers, ad revenue doesn't go to us, we don't need it to do well. So we don't have to orient our content around trying to grow. Or like we did that.

There was a period of time when that was our goal. It would sort of like move through it. And it's very difficult to have a YouTube channel that continues to grow forever, like, or impossible. Obviously, it's definitely impossible. And so like at a certain point, you see that your viewership starts to go down and like there's kind of three responses to that.

Like you fix it and you start to grow again. You try to fix it and you fail and you feel bad or you are like, well, maybe like the thing I'm doing just isn't going to keep reaching more people forever. Right. And I'm going to keep doing it because I like doing it. And it's not about like I have like try and move beyond the part where it's about having the audience always get bigger. Now of course, but that's like after that period of initial growth. And I think that we were

pretty strategic and careful back in, like, 2007 to 2010. Sure. And beyond that, even to try and make some fairly viral content. And the way that we did that was we looked at the stuff that was working on the platform. We put our own twist on it. We thought about how people make decisions and how algorithms make decisions about what content they're going to watch and what content they're going to serve. And we thought about that stuff. We just don't so much anymore. Right. I think a lot of times people say like nice things about us that we don't make content

for the algorithm. But the reason we don't make content for the algorithm. But like the reason we don't make content for the algorithm is because for a long time we did make content for the algorithm, which allowed us in this position. Like we're not like, yeah, we're, say it's not like we're above it. Yeah, at all. No, no.

And I, and like I actually, I'm really impressed by people who figure out sort of the next, the next thing that might be happening because human choice changes and the algorithm changes. A lot of times people are like, the algorithm has changed so much, my content isn't as successful anymore. And I'm like, well, the people got less interested

in certain kinds of content too, like people change. And they want to get stuff. Yeah, I mean, there's no version of this on YouTube, right? Like, because it's all still new like the number of People who've been doing YouTube for 15 years is none But the number of people who've been doing YouTube for 13 years is like a few hundred. Yeah, and and so This is all still new and it's all still like we're all still figuring it out together all still new and it's all still like, we're all still figuring it out together. But if you think about it and I know this is not a perfect comparison, but somebody pointed

out to me a while ago that if you think about it in terms of TV shows, like the number of TV shows that have been on TV for like 13 years and are still making new episodes is almost none. Yeah. It's like the Simpsons and Grey's Anatomy. And so, you know, like nobody says like, oh, Seinfeld, what a failure. You know, like people who watched it for four years. Yeah. So, yeah, I think we've got to figure out together how we're going to think about YouTube

as we get older and it gets older. Yeah, absolutely. This question comes from Alice who asks, for legal reasons, my housemates and I need to switch bedrooms. Wow. This is providing to be a huge logistical nightmare. How do you move three bedrooms into two bedrooms across two floors in the height of a very humid summer?

Alice. Ooh. Wait, do you have to fit three bedrooms into two bedrooms or just like temporarily while you're like emptying one out so that you can put stuff into. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. Here's what you do though.

The only fair thing is you draw lots. This is an old strategy and you go with this, you know, short stick long stick, whatever your strategy of randomization is, now you can use a random number generator,, whatever your strategy of randomization is. Now you can use a random number generator, you can draw numbers out of a hat, you just do it that way and you make it work. One of the great things about how we're doing this right now is Alice actually responded and they have to reduce the number of rooms because one room is legally too small to be

a bedroom, which yes, does occur. This does occur. Yeah, so you're going to have to play some high stakes drawing of lots. And I really wouldn't do it in any like weirder, more interesting, more skill-based version of this. No, no, no. I wouldn't try to make it complicated at all. I'd be like, this is it.

We are, and like we are assigning value to this one interaction. This Rochambo is for all of the marbles. And worry about- But don't make it that, because even rock paper scissors is a little bit a game of skill. You're right, you're right.

You really do have to make it something totally random. It's gotta be completely random. Jewels has a question, Hank. Jewels asks, dear John and Hank, what was your favorite moment that you've had at VidCon ever? Oh gosh, I mean, that's kind of easy, weirdly enough. It's easy for me too. I wonder if it's the same one.

I bet it is. The Gregory Brothers bringing you somebody bear out on stage to do double rainbow. I think it was one of the first two VidCon's. I was the second, I think. Yeah. You know, everybody, it was one of the first two Vidcons. I was the second, I think. Yeah. You know, everybody, it was one of these viral videos that had recently gone really viral.

And everybody had seen it a bunch of times. And the hook of that song is so hooky. And having somebody there there. And everybody in the room knowing exactly what were like every word to the thing. And then just going on and on with it, like drawing the song out so that we could all sing together and like, I think at one point they stop playing music

and we all just sang. And singing together with a bunch of people in a room who all sort of like love something together is one of the most special things that you can do and I will never let go of that memory. And we recently lost Yosemite Bear and is very sad, but just trying to think of the joy that so much joy that he brought into people's lives.

And that that joy came from just a place of admiring a natural thing that exists and that that is a thing that people all over the world now whenever you see a double rainbow, like we share that joy with him. And like that, really like that song and that experience that he had is about joy and that experience that I had with him and the Gregory's

and the rest of the people at VidCon was also really just, was all about joy. That is also my favorite VidCon memory. And it wasn't just joy, right? Like it was also this earnestness, it was this, this ability to be deeply moved by a double rainbow brought to tears by it to feel like an absolute unironized emotion

around this beautiful phenomenon that then the Gregory Brothers turned into a song that is itself like in some ways a version of that that somehow without being like overly earnest or without being cheesy or saccharin or sentimental, somehow still captures the true emotional experience of that original seeing of the double rainbow. And so singing that song with all those people, I mean, when I like, when I'm, this is silly, but like when I'm running and I'm really tired and I feel like, oh, God, I can't finish it. I can't do six miles today.

There's two or three memories that I will turn to, to like push me, to like get me to go. And one of them is singing double rainbow all the way across the sky with all those people. It because it just, that's how good it felt. Yeah, which reminds me, John, that this podcast is brought to you by double rainbows. Double rainbows, it's two of them in the sky. And they're there to make you happy. That's why

they're there. And today's podcast is also brought to you by Seinfeld's failure. Seinfeld's failure. It was only four seasons. I mean, who even, that's not what a disaster. What a disaster indeed. And this podcast is also brought to you by beef jerky-os. You put them in milk. Oh no. Put them in milk, they're better. I don't know how. No, they are.

No. Oh god, why do you have to give them a name? Before we get to you all important news from Marzenaipsy Wimbledon. Do you want to do that? We could just not do the news, because I don't, I don't have any. Okay, that's fine.

Okay. All right. I do have a bit of news. Oh, yeah. Chelsea have scored, meaning that Manchester City now have to score two goals in 13 minutes or Liverpool are champions of England. We're in a game. I have imagined this moment so many times.

And I have imagined myself being at Union Jack Pub and Indianapolis with all of the other Indianapolis Liverpool supporters, all my friends in Indianapolis who support Liverpool. And I've imagined myself at Caragher's Pub in New York City. And I've imagined myself in Liverpool watching the game at Anfield. And I've imagined myself, I never imagined

that I would be in a basement. We're alone. Regarding a weird remote podcast for an audience using a tool that I had not heard of two years ago called Zoom. This was not quite how I imagined it, but I am not going to let that in any way affect my profound enjoyment of this development.

It's also very weird to like, and I guess maybe this isn't weird, but it seems very weird to me for it to happen while they're not playing. Oh, yeah, that's pretty common though. That seems very strange to me. It is weird. And I guess that you could root for a more dramatic version of this, but I for one have no interest in adding drama. Yeah, so this is like the old season has picked back up again.

They did manage to do that. Yes, and now they're playing without fans and there's extensive regulations and everything. But yeah, so it's definitely, just in general, it's a weird environment because like they're going to lift a trophy. I don't know in a stadium that has no people in it Maybe I who knows but like but I'm gonna frankly I'm gonna have hopefully 30 more years to enjoy this right There you go. I so I intend to like Spread out my enjoyment not just over the next now 11 minutes, but over the next

You know several decades. Yeah, all right over the next, uh, now 11 minutes, but over the next, uh, you know, several decades. Yeah. All right, John, this next question comes from Sarah 9999999. I recently taken to ice cream making as a hobby. Oh, that's awesome. Yes. I basically run out of common flavor combinations, any suggestions ice cream was a luxury in

the Victorian era. It still is Sarah. Still a luxury. I mean, when I get ice cream, when we get ice cream at the house in the Victorian era. It still is, Sarah. Still a luxury. I mean, when I get ice cream, when we get ice cream at the house, I get very excited. Yeah. It's not common. No, and I don't actually ever eat it at home. I kind of like make a point to only eat ice cream when I'm out like this.

Oh, okay. It feels so, I went to a cooking school once. Oh. It was weird. I am shocked. You made croutons and those red potatoes about the size of your fist. No, but I did go to a cooking school and we did make lots of delicious food.

And one of the things that we made was ice cream that was basil flavored. Oh, and that was something I didn't think was gonna work, but it turns out that there's a lot of sort of, like not so sweet ice cream flavors. Yeah, totally. That I dig. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, one of the ice cream shop down the street for me has occasionally an Irish whiskey ice cream that I am extremely fond of. Ooh. It's, you know, it's like a complicated vanilla, basically. Yeah. And I don't know how they do it or anything, but I love it. And maybe, I think maybe there's a catalog of flavors.

So not like, you blend up the basil yourself, but like you just like go and you buy like vials full of lemon basil or whatever. And you can just try and stuff out. Yeah, I'm just trying to find out. We did blend up the basil ourselves and it was delicious. That sounds very good. Like that idea. Yeah. Or you could just put, I mean We did blend up the base of ourselves, and it was delicious. That sounds very good. Like that idea. Or you could just put, I mean, can you just put whiskey in it?

I don't know if you can, because it's got a bunch of water. I think it depends on how old you are. That's a good one. It's my honest answer. Yeah. When I was in college, I used to put vodka in frosties from Wendy's, and I was like, my favorite used to put vodka and frosties from Wendy's and I was like my favorite, it was my favorite drink. There's something about the way that young people consume alcohol. I know. I know. I know. Though I really do. When I was in high school, I drank Zima.

Zima. Zima. You drank strawberry hill flavored citrus wine. Zima! You drank strawberry hill flavored citrus wine. Strawberry hill ice cream would be amazing. And that is our ultimate suggestion. I'll strawberry hill ice cream. Yes, yes. We cannot wait to find out how delicious it is. Please keep us up to date.

Thank you so much for joining us. And a huge thanks again to everybody at VidCon behind the scenes, especially Hannah and Duncan for helping us out, making everything work. Yeah, absolutely. John, how many minutes are left in your football game? Six, and so I'm gonna go enjoy, I'm gonna go call some of my Liverpool supporting friends

and we're gonna enjoy this moment together. That sounds great. And can you record an update to put in the end of the podcast? I will record an update. Okay. But thank you all for joining me for this strangely important hour of my life. Ha ha ha.

Thanks for making a podcast with me, John. Thank you. This podcast is edited by Joseph Tuneh Mettish. It's produced by Rosie on Halstero Hassan Sheridan Gibson. Our communications coordinator is Julia Bloom. And the music you're hearing now, and at the beginning of the podcast, by the great gunna rollout,

and as they say in our hometown hometown don't forget to be awesome. Hi, it's John here with an update and the update is that Liverpool won the league and are champions of England and I cried a lot. You know, I thought of the decades of my life that that that have occurred in the interim between those two days. I thought of my friends who support Liverpool who aren't here. I thought of all the great players we've had over the years,

the friendships that Liverpool has brought me the great conversations. I've had with friends where, you know, football is the text but the subtext is more important, like it is for anybody who loves something. A lot of times, it isn't so much the thing as it is having your love oriented in the same direction as other people you care about.

So it's a magical day. Obviously this is a strange way to end a 30-year title drought, but it's a really special day for me, and I know a really special day for a lot of other Liverpool fans. So, thank you for letting me make part of the podcast about this moment, and in general for indulging my sports fandom on this podcast over the years. And big thanks to everybody at Liverpool Football Club. Oh my god, it's just, yeah, I, it's just amazing. And I'm thinking about that great Liverpool song that sung before and after every game they

sing, though your dreams be tossed and blown, walk on, walk on with hope in your heart and you'll never walk alone. And whether you're a Liverpool fan or not, you never will walk alone. So congrats to Liverpool. I'm going to go drink some champagne now. whether you're a Liverpool fan or not, you never will walk alone. So, congrats to Liverpool.

I'm gonna go drink some champagne now.