Ear Biscuits with Rhett & Link - Ep. 48 Hank Green- Ear Biscuits

Episode Date: September 5, 2014

Hank Green, all-round Renaissance man and half of famed vlogging duo the Vlogbrothers, sits down with Rhett & Link this week to talk about the awkward circumstances surrounding meeting the love of his life, his personal take on sexuality, religion, and "nerdom," and the surprising way that he and his brother, John Green, have dealt with John's mainstream success with "The Fault In Our Stars." To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is Mythical. Welcome to Ear Biscuits. I'm Rhett. And I'm Link. It's time for another conversation with someone interesting from the internet. This week at the round table of dim lighting, finally, our guest, one half of the famed vlog brothers, Hank Green. Of course, John Green, who we talked to a few weeks ago, author of Fault in Our Stars, was on an Ear Biscuit. Now we get Hank.

Well, he spends all his time in Montana. That's where he lives. That's right. I've never been to Montana. I heard it's got big sky and there's moose up there. I want to go, but I haven't made the trip up there. So we have to catch him when he comes out here on the West Coast. Now we were humbled to find out that Hank said that he was a fan of Ear Biscuits,

and we were like, all right, we want you to be on Ear Biscuits. I mean, we've always looked up to Hank for what he's done in so many ways that I think will become evident. When we sat down to craft this intro to kind of clue you in on who he is, if you don't know, or don't know everything, we were just overwhelmed with the amount of achievements he's had. You don't really understand it until you just see it all listed out. So just really quick, just to remind you what he's accomplished.

He's a humble guy. He wouldn't want us to sit here and go through these accolades, but you need to know so you can just appreciate who he is and who it is we're talking to. He started the EcoGeek website. That was his first online thing that became really well known.

But then he went on to start just a few YouTube channels. You know the Vlogbrothers, Crash Course, SciShow, SciShow Space, Lizzie Bennet Diaries, The Art Assignment, Brain Scoop, How to Adult, his personal channel, Hank's Channel. It's called Hank's Channel. He doesn't have one called Personal Channel.

It's just called Hank's Channel. There's probably more that he's done on YouTube. Well, he's also started VidCon, the largest online video convention in the world. He created a foundation to decrease world suck, which then creates the annual online charity event Project for Awesome, which has raised millions of dollars for various charities. He also co-founded the record label and merchandising company of which we are a part, DFTBA. He's released five albums, musical albums,

including his latest, Incongruent, with his band Hang Green and the Perfect Strangers. And he created Solvable, one of the first crowdfunding sites for online video projects. This is one thing I didn't know. He even invented 2D glasses. That sounds like a joke. You can... It's not.

It's glasses for people who get wigged out when they're watching 3D movies, like it makes their head go crazy, like his wife. Deconverts. You can watch it in 2D. He invented that. Well, he's truly a renaissance man, and it's definitely evident in our conversation

on this week's Ear Biscuit, y'all. We talked to him about the awkward circumstances surrounding the first time he met his wife, Catherine, and a story that she herself has never heard. And we talk about nerddom, sexuality, and the surprising way that Hank and John chose to deal with the success of John's novel and the movie.

So we finally get to complete the one-two punch of talking to the other vlog brother, Hank Green. Here it is, our Ear Biscuit with Hank. We, we, we are live. We're live. Well, we're not live. This is streaming out. To nobody.

To that. Has this been live the whole time? I can tell you. Well, the conversation is live. I do it on Ustream. We are having it live to each other. We're all really here. We are living humans currently.

Though, someone may be listening to this after one or all of us has died. If this comes out in the next week or so, as it should, that's a sad thought. But if someone's listening to it like eons later, that's a really good thought. Yeah, people could be listening to this Ear Biscuit in the year like 4020. That's an interesting thought.

If you're listening in the year 4020, please leave a comment. Please leave a mental holographic comment. Which is laughably commonplace. In that many years from now, there will be no differentiation between a digital experience and a physical experience. I mean, and it won't even be digital. It'd be quantum.

A quantum experience. Sorry you can't reach out and literally slap our face right now. Right. Which you could probably do in the future. And just to present the other side of this, we're dead. But you could probably do in the future. Just to present the other side of this, we're dead.

But they could interact with our captured bodies, not our literal bodies. I think they might be able to pick up on the DNA signature just by the sound of our voice 2,000 years from now. Whoa.

Think about that for a second, boys. Probably. Think about how much is going to happen. Are you subconsciously trying to prove to Hank that you're actually smart? Is that what's happening here?

Is there some sort of... A little bit. Thing happening? I don't hate the idea. I don't think that you could fingerprint the genome. I'm not comfortable with the idea. I've listened to plenty of ear biscuits. I know how smart you are. You're both engineers. Oh, yes. Well, I'm not going to say I'm smart.

I'm just going to say I'm interested. Interested. Interested. You're not even interesting? I'm interested. Okay. Curious. I'm interested in you. How is LA? Do you still smell of Missoula? How long have you been here? I did see on your Instagram the evidence of two trips to In-N-Out in the first

day in LA. I did. We went to In-N-Out the moment we landed. I got a cheeseburger the first time with grilled onions, and the second time I got a cheeseburger animal style. Oh, and which did you prefer? I preferred the animal style. Oh, yeah. That's the best.

I'm off of the animal style. They burn the mustard into the bun, and it could be a little much. I mean, when you live here, you can be really picky. You know what I am glad of? That we don't have In-N-Out in Missoula. Because if we did, I would eat it all the time. And instead, it could be a special thing. Yeah, it's a treat.

Twice in one day is pretty special. I've never done that. I haven't been back since the first day. Now, I will say, I have a weakness for it myself. If I go a week without it, it's a bad week. I try not to eat a lot of red meat. So, like, it is bad in that way. Where I'm like, without it, it's a bad week. I try not to eat a lot of red meat. It is bad in that way, where I'm like, you know, I probably shouldn't be...

Have you done the 23andMe thing? Oh, the genome. Yeah. I don't want my genome on record. Oh, really? Yeah, because you know what they're going to do to you now? Give me targeted advertising? I'm just messing with you. Targeted advertising, targeted genome. I love it. Yeah, that'm just messing with you. Targeted advertising. Targeted genome.

I love it. Yeah, that's the worst thing you could come up with. Oh, you're interested in a sailboat, huh?

I can tell by looking at your jeans. My wife got it for me as a Father's Day present. Cool. No, it's very cool.

And I'm apparently going to get colon cancer. Oh, I'm going to get colon cancer too. High fives. Yeah, so I've to get colon cancer too. High fives. Yeah, so I've cut seriously down on the red meat. And I've tried to cut down on meat a lot in general.

Yeah. I have ulcerative colitis, so I very almost definitely will get colon cancer at some point in my life. If I live long enough, yeah. Describe that in a little bit more detail. We just high-fived over colon cancer, by the way. High-five, high-five, cancer brothers. Just so you know what happened in the room. Did happen. So, I mean, what is pooping like? And how long have you known of this problem?

I've had UC for, I was diagnosed about 10 years ago, and it's painful and urgent is the technical term. Like cramping? Yeah. So like if, when I have to go to the bathroom, I have to go to the bathroom kind of thing. Like run to the restroom? Yeah, like if I'm on an airplane and it's like during the times

when you're not supposed to go to the bathroom. You have a special badge for that? had my wife did this for me. I did not do it.

She had the plane stop on taxi so that I could go to the bathroom. You can't hold it? They can't. Or there's no holding. Okay. I mean, how deep do we want to get in the gross? Because I'm like stop one taxi oh so that i could go to the bathroom you can't hold it can't they can't

or there's no there's no holding okay i mean how deep do we want to get in the gross because i'm like perfectly comfortable with this uh i've dealt with a lot of poo problems in my life for example it would be very difficult during certain points of my life to to fart without pooping okay which is really sucky like way to live and then like I remember when I first got over that, I was so excited about farts. How did you get over it? Medication? Medication, yeah. And just the feeling of

farting without having to worry about sharting. And my wife, who does not typically enjoy my farts, was really into it with me, which I really appreciated. Yeah, that's pretty cool. Catherine was like, yeah, yeah, that one sounded real good. And I'm and i'm like yeah and it was all air that one didn't sound wet at all it was all methane yeah that's just how that feels and like you know there's like i i have come to appreciate farts in a very new way was there a fear of being in those situations where oh i'm

just gonna crap my pants absolutely it's like business meetings can be really weird when you're like in the middle of a conversation and you're like i have to go and sometimes you want to sort of like lead with that and be like hey just so you know i have a medical condition where sometimes i have to run screaming out of the room um because that that's still the case sometimes yeah though it's fairly well controlled like even now is there like a part of you that's like well okay we're sitting around in this conversation. I know it could be an hour. There's always a chance.

Yeah. Talking about it does not induce it, does it? No. Though like weird things do, like stress does, which is like great. It's like, oh yeah,

you know what I'm stressed out about? The possibility that I might poop myself. That's making me feel more likely to poop myself. So I'm lucky to have a great job and I have great support in my family.

So is that how you dealt with it? With just positivity? I'm a pretty positive guy in general, but I would say that I dealt with it with medication and also just sort of accepting that life has to be the way that life is. You don't complain about the snow. You don't say, man, snow. If we could only get rid of snow, we wouldn't have as many car accidents and it would be cheaper. We wouldn't have to have so many plows all the time

and we could drive and you wouldn't have to scrape your windshield off. If only we could stop the snow. How do we do that? But there's an obvious bright side to snow. Have you found that with this condition? No.

It doesn't really have a bright side. You can't sled on it. Maybe... I mean... Oh, gosh. I would think maybe character building or something? No, not really. I mean, I made a popular video about it once. You got some views.

There's always that. With anything in a writer or YouTuber's life, you're always like, well, at least this is a good story. Get a little ad revenue. If I had the choice 100% of the time I would choose to not have she sort of collided right? Well, I know that I'm just saying Yeah The other scary part of it is that like the longer it's active the higher your chances of getting cancer and you know

You have to get colonoscopies all the time and those are no fun And then if you get cancer then you have to keep your colon removed and having your colon removed is really unpleasant A colonoscopy is a video. Have you thought about it? It is. Yeah, maybe posting that. Will they give you a copy? I think they probably would give me a copy.

I bet. Katie Couric did that. Katie Couric did do that. Yeah, because she wanted to encourage people to get colonoscopies because colon cancer is one of the leading causes of death, and it's very treatable. Right. How nerdy are you? I mean, because you've built a community around the word nerd nerdfighteria it's weird now and i and i like i have a hard time with

it when i like i come to los angeles and and i get to hang out with the cool kids like you guys are pretty cool okay thank you and uh and like like tyler locally is very cool in grace like grace is like specifically like not only are you very cool, but you're also like clearly the hot girl. You know? And so it's very strange for me to like are like, are you guys, do you really want to hang out with? Like it doesn't seem right. And I'm 34 and I'm still thinking this. So that's one quantification that I'm still like, I don't think the cool kids should want to hang out with me.

And so I have a hard time accepting that they do, despite the fact that it is clear that they do in an irrational sense. I get that. Being a nerd is not defined by relative social strata. It is a little bit defined by exclusion. Like, that's how I felt it when I was in high school. exclusion. Like that's how I, I felt it when I was in high school. Like I was a nerd because I was not allowed to hang out with the people who were of the higher social strata. And you feel like in that sense, it's been corrupted a little bit with the trendiness of nerdiness. I don't mind that there's a, there's a little bit of like, uh, you know, like you didn't go through what I did to

get that label. So why do, so why should you have it? And, like, now it's cool, and suddenly you want it too, but I get that. But that's not a good thought. That's not something that I want to feel. You're a legit nerd. Yeah. You own that. Yeah.

But if you're calling me someone that's cool, then is it not something that you wear as a badge is it is there still some insecurity associated with me calling you a nerd and saying oh you own that and my assumption was that it was a badge of honor at this point yes uh there's very little insecurity associated with the label now but the thing that was once called nerd is a thing that's still inside me and that still is self-conscious. So, but as far as quantifying that, I think that there's the bit where you're quantifying, like, okay, to be clear, like, people punched me for no reason. Because, like, I was the person who looked like the person you should punch, you know? And then there's, like, the positive ways to quantify your nerdiness.

Like, I can tell you an awful lot about Star Trek The Next Generation. And like weirdly, I have been self-conscious about being able to identify as a nerd because I'm afraid I don't know certain nerdy things well enough. I don't know very much about Dungeons and Dragons, for example. I never played Dungeons and Dragons as a kid. I've only played it as an adult. And so I kind of feel weird about not having that D&D street cred. Who's the supreme, what's the standard who wears the biggest badge of honor of being a nerd? And do you wrestle with being somewhere on that spectrum of, oh, I'm less than nerd and I want to be more. No, I don't know that I'm afraid of not being nerdy enough. But I'm sometimes afraid of being found in a situation where I don't have street cred in that particular bit of the nerd realm. Because you feel like you should know.

You got to know those things. Which is why I was like, I made my friends play D&D with me a few years ago. Because I was like, I need to know how this works. Got a lot of catching up to do. I need to be able to participate in these conversations. Which is, it's just the irony of nerdiness being characterized in your youth and feeling kind of left out, like you're not part of something, but then feeling the same way about nerd culture now. Yeah, crazy.

Because it's not really about nerd culture. It's about the human condition. You're always going to feel left out of something. You're always going to, like feeling inadequate is like, if you don't feel that, you're probably a little broken. Yeah. It's going to come up every once in a while. Right. And there's nothing worse than feeling left out of the thing that you feel like you should be in.

And I, yeah, I do, like, sometimes find myself reading more young adult novels than I would otherwise do in order to, like, be into the nerdy things that my audience is into but mostly I read sci-fi novels because that's what I like you enjoy it and it's not I'm not reading sci-fi novels to look like a cooler nerd a more nerdy nerd I'm reading them because like I freaking love it what about below you on the spectrum though there's people that you see that aren't really nerds who are like trying to get in on the nerd thing, right? Yeah. How do you interact with that?

I just sort of say more power to it. The thing about being a nerd is it's more than just a cultural identifier. It's also like there are things about being nerdy that are good for humans, like being enthusiastic and excited. And if you're enthusiastic and excited,

that's good because I'm tired of people being all cynical and ironic all the time that you know like nerdiness is about knowing things about the world and i think if more people know more things more objectively true things that's a good thing for everybody but i do see sometimes i'm feeling a little bit like maybe this person just wants to like look the look and bandwagon, nerd poser, not really feel it. But, you know, who am I to tell who that person is or how they're feeling and like what they, you know, what they actually experience? Because a lot of that's just going to be based on what they look like, which is not true. It's very little to do with anything. Well, and for you, what part nature, what part nurture is your nerd?

Your parents, your parents nerdy? My dad can't see two inches in front of his face without his glasses. His glasses weigh more than a small dog. And so his neck is huge. He's got a great neck. Your dad is one of the nicest people I've ever met. He is so nice. Yeah, we just met him in passing at VidCon, right?

Yeah. I have great parents. My mom is also amazing. She's a little bit less nerdy. But we did, me and my mom, watch X-Files together, which is a pretty nerdy show, and she was super into that. My dad and I watched Doogie Howser MD together.

Doogie Howser was an important role model for me. Did you have a computerized journal before anyone else had computerized journals i did i did uh have a computer journal i think starting in uh 1995 maybe could you give me uh just a paraphrase of something that you might have written in a journal in 1995? It would have been very angsty. It would probably have read something like, people are so fake. They say hi to each other in the hall like it matters. Oh, wow. Yeah.

And are you... 15 was a tough year for me. Is that hypothetical or are you actually accessing a thought? No, I'm remembering writing... You remember typing that? I'm not remembering writing it? I'm remembering writing it. You remember typing that. I'm not remembering writing it. I'm remembering reading it later and being like, wow, dude, chill out. Yeah, I'm remembering reading it once I got to college and found those files.

It's poetic, man. I was curious if you still had the files. No, I don't. I don't. I lost a great deal of my terrible, terrible ramblings. Which there goes the rationale of doing it that way at all. You should have printed it off on that printer with the dots on the sides. Well, but the transfer of information is different now.

Back then it was a floppy disk, right? It was on a hard drive. It was on a hard drive, but still, how do you connect to anything else, right? Yeah, nowadays, you're basically trusting Google not to lose your email, and they better not or else we will be very angry. So if they don't lose your email, then you can probably say most of your data is safe in Google's hands. So do you remember the first time that you were slapped with a label of nerd and it hurt? Because that's what I seem to have been accessing earlier.

I remember when I hit middle school that suddenly I wasn't cool anymore. And that like the thing that I was, it wasn't just that I wasn't cool. It's that the thing that I was in elementary school, which was cool, which was smart and knowing stuff and doing well on tests, was suddenly not cool anymore. Montana? No, I grew up in Orlando. Did you do the boarding school thing? No. You stayed back. Yeah, I stayed. In a couple of videos, when you talk about sexuality, sometimes on Vlogbrothers, it's like, okay, I'm talking about this,

and then you kind of give more of, this is what's behind this for me personally. So you would talk about trying to reach a conclusion about your own sexuality, sexual orientation, and then you said that I might be a little bi. So was everything up for grabs at that point, and just a bunch of confusion? I remember, so my sexual

journey, I'm pretty damn straight when it comes down to it, but I was, for a little bit, terrified that I might be gay, which I knew was a bad thing, which of course isn't, but I knew that it was because I liked to ice skate

and I liked the village people. And so I thought that that meant that I might be gay. Well, as long as you don't like them together. No, I like to ice skate to the village people. Well, then yeah. You were gay. And I was like,

remember, I broke out in a cold sweat because I was like yeah boy and I was like you realized it maybe I'm gay and I was

but this had nothing to do with being attracted to a man but I did I did the men that I have been attracted to I think it requires

two things one for me to be pretty what's the good Randy and be like well that guy but I was really

it's like well really anything. And two, it to be a fairly effeminate. Yeah. That guy looks like a girl. That guy looks like a cute girl. Okay. No breasts.

Yeah. But I could totally see it, you know? So I think that like during middle school, I was just terrified that I might be gay. And during high school, I was just like, well, I'm outcast, so I might as well embrace the outcastness in whatever way is available to me. So if some guy wanted to make out, I'd try that.

I went to a very large high school, and so there were a lot of social groups. There were a lot of different groups of people you could be a part of that had very different aesthetics and very different values. And so the group I ended up being a part of was very weird and silly and nontraditional and and really into that. And this only happened in senior year of high school when I was able to embrace this stuff. And the silliness was really an important part of it. But so was not the like the traditional way of looking at things. We want to see what parts of the world are just made up and what parts are real. So that

was actually really great for me. What parts of the world were real and what parts were made up? So what did you discover was not real? Well, I mean, I was 17. So, meh. But, you know, you start to realize at a certain point in your life that the world doesn't have to be the way that the world is. And that's sort of like a 16-year-old, 17-year-old realization. And I think it happens earlier when you're more outside of culture. Like we listened to Hanson, which was for high school students crazy, right? Like Hanson was for kids. So it was intentionally ridiculous.

Yeah, we were like, Hanson, that's weird. Like that would be a weird thing for high school kids to listen to. And then like after the Hanson song, you listen to a Marilyn Manson song. Like, let's be, like, intentionally ridiculous for sure. We named, we renamed all the days of the week. We went and hung out at, like, you know, four in the morning in cemeteries one night. And the next night we'd be in a playground at four in the morning. And one of the group had a very non-supervisory dad.

There's always one. Who just sort of always stayed in his room and never came out. And we would just dance and sing and stay up and play vacuum cleaner fights, and nobody ever made out with anybody, which I think was hugely important to the success of this social group. I thought you were getting that one time you made out with one guy to see if you were gay. No, we never made out. I was ready to go there, but it didn't happen. But you said in that vlog,

which I found to be interesting, I can't remember the guy who, he was helping you edit something. Stephan. Oh, Stephan, yeah. And it seems like you really put him on the spot about his sexuality. But then you're the one who came out and said,

I'm a little bi. And I couldn't tell if you thought that was a joke or if you were just being honest. and said I'm a little bi and I couldn't tell if you thought that was a joke or if you were just being honest I think I'm a little bi in that like sometimes I think guys are kind of cute I think we might probably all be a little bi but like I think the idea of there being three labels

for what your sexuality is is kind of ridiculous in so far as like if you're going to give me one of those three labels I think it's ridiculous to give me the label of like a hundred percent one thing all the time forever. Culture is full. It's constantly whispering rules into your ear about what you should want, about who you should want, about how you should live your life and like how you should fill the holes of need inside you and like strip it down and maybe say like, not just like, how do I fill those holes? But like, where did they come from? What are they? What like, why do I want asking

what, why do I want is far more useful in the end than asking, what do I want? Because there's a lot of freedom there when you realize like this thing that's driving me nuts, really? And yeah, Orlando is not my favorite place. No offense to people who live in Orlando, but I'm glad to not live there anymore. When did you get out of there? I moved to, when I went to college in 1998, I went to St. Petersburg. And then in 2003, I moved to Montana. Okay, so St. Petersburg College.

And what did you study there? I studied biochemistry and also liberal arts because you had to. I had an art minor, actually. When I'm looking back on that, I'm very glad that I did science, like that I got a degree in science. And I'm also very glad that I went to liberal arts school where I could learn a lot of different weird things. I'm like, take a class on economics and take a class on religious studies.

And, you know. Did you find a group of people there, kind of like that formative group senior year in high school, where you were asking and answering questions and determining who you were and what you were going to believe about yourself and life and people? Yeah, I definitely found a very good group of people at college really quick. And our experience was one of like silliness. Like silliness is like one of the most important attributes to me.

What's the silliest thing you remember from the college years? I mean, this is still before videos, right? Yeah, I mean, though we did make some videos in high school, which hopefully we'll never see the light of day. Oh, yeah? I would love to see them, but I would not love for the internet to see them.

Yes, silliest thing we did in college. Oh, we did Rocky Horror a lot. We went to see Rocky Horror Picture Show. So you would get dressed up as the characters. We actually did a Rocky Horror show at school. I was in a cast. I was Rocky. Catherine, my wife, was Janet.

So that's where you met Catherine. Yeah, yeah. We lived very nearby each other. What was that first meeting? The first time I remember meeting Catherine, like actually like remember seeing her, this is terrible, was at night and she was wearing a t-shirt and no bra.

That'll do it. It may have been a little chilly. This is something I've never told my wife that this is like my earliest memory of her. My first memory of you. Yeah. Yeah, and she was just like out in the hallway. She had just come out of her room, and I said like a few words to her. What did you say?

Like, I like your shirt? No. No, I don't know what we were talking about. Nice shirt. All I remember is her boobs. Okay, fine. that's what i remember so now you're really you've never told her this yeah but you're telling us that i've never really admitted to myself we're gonna have to get you some brownie points some way to make

up for that now okay so and then what you started dating uh not not immediately no uh. We had a weird early relationship. How so? You guys. Her roommate was excitedly in a new relationship upon getting to college. And that made things a little uncomfortable for Catherine. And so I offered, or she asked, I think, if she could sleep in my room. And she slept in my room for weeks with nothing happening. And then one night something happened. Did you have a roommate also? Yeah, Derek. And then one night something happened. Did you have a roommate also?

Yeah. Derek. So then Derek had to leave. No, we were more subtle than her roommate. Than Catherine's roommates. So you guys shacked up as friends

and then hooked up and then that's all history from there. Well, there have been many things that have happened since then. We broke up like twice. Whose fault was that?

Well, she was going back home. I was going back home. I was going back home and it was like, wow, that's just. Mature decision. Yeah. And then we came back

and we weren't together for a while because it was weird and then we were. And then we broke up for a little while while we lived in Missoula, which was really hard

after we moved to Missoula together. What moved you there? And then tell us when the, just clue me in to when the video, when the Vlogbrothers 2.0 started happening.

So. Was it after that? Yeah. Okay. So what moved you? You graduated and moved together. You guys were like a couple. So we graduated for, I got a job doing chemistry.

I didn't love it. And Catherine had a job too in Florida. And then she got accepted into the University of Montana and their environmental studies program. And she got a full free year there. You know, we had been living like doing sort of a long distance thing. And she was going to go over there. And I was like, well, either this relationship is over, which I don't want it to be, or I move to Montana. And I was like, well, I don't like my job and I don't really like Florida.

And Montana sounds weird. So let's do that. And that was like it's a, like looking back, like crazy decision, but I, I have always been a little bit of a whatever kind of person. Like I, like, like, like decisions don't seem that important to me, you know, like options available X. Okay, go. So it wasn't as much a testimony to your relationship as it was to, it's just a viable option. I loved her a lot. Okay. Because those could have been your brownie points right there, Hank.

You'd be like, I loved her madly, deeply, forever, and I had to be with her. It was a done deal. I'm not a whimsical guy. But Montan, here I come. I'm not a whimsical guy. I love silliness. I love this moment in so many people's story.

Knowing who you are and knowing what you do and how many things you have done and how many things you are doing right now, to know that there was a time in which you were moving to Montana without an idea of what you were going to do. Yeah. Was that mentality, which now I feel like you're the guy who has to be doing something or else you'll go nuts, right? Well, yeah. Was that emerging at that point? Oh, yeah. I was already doing that.

I was already like all the time coming up with ideas and doing weird things. When I like during that period of time after college, when I lived in Florida, working at that lab, I started a website called IHateI4.com. I4 is the road that runs through Orlando and it's terrible and everyone hates it. And so I was like, let's start a website. We're going to talk about transportation policy. It's I hate I4.com. And I like stole road signs, like political campaign road signs.

And I spray painted I hate I4.com on them. I had a stencil. And then I put them out like on the on ramps and exits. A marketing campaign. Yeah. And then like literally within the day, the local news was calling me. And then like literally within the day, the local news was calling me. We had a sponsor and we made like 200 bucks and like the server bill got really expensive. But like to me, it was like, yeah, doing a thing.

And it was a political thing. It wasn't just a forum for people to vent. Well, to be clear, on the website, really, it was mostly just people yelling about different genders or races or age groups that were worse drivers and i was like not really what i was going for guys yeah i hate i-42 yeah but you but you you fostered a community and you found yourself a spokesman for something i mean this is certainly a template yeah that carries on and this may not have been the first example and it certainly won't be the last so how did you have to abandon that when you moved to montana i did i moved to montana and i remember

being like oh my god i have to like leave i hate i4.com behind and like and like i got i had so many emails i haven't thought about this in a decade but i remember like getting to missoula and thinking i'm still gonna run i hate i4.com in Missoula. And then within like a week realizing that it, but like, it's always been important to me to have something that I'm doing to keep my brain occupied. And so like that site was good for doing that in the space between figuring out what I was going to do in Missoula. And so when you got to Missoula, A, what did you do to make money? And B, what did you do that was the next I hate I4.com? At first, I applied for jobs, which was a long process.

I also just walked into a couple television stations and I was like, I have experience doing TV stuff and camera stuff and graphic stuff if you need that. And one of them put me on as a contract, like occasional camera operator, which I did. as a contract, like occasional camera operator, which I did. Camera operation is super fun in local markets because you just get to go to weird things. And they're like, you need to be here at this time. And you're like, okay. And then you watch this weird thing happen. Whatever thing is worthy that day.

It's a good way to like get to know a community because you get to go to all the things that you would never go to, like all the community events and then i i started to think probably i should go back to school so the second semester we were there i i took a couple classes i took one environmental writing course and one microbiology course and i decided to go the non science route and like really like at that point I was thinking I could set myself up to write about science which is something I'd always wanted to do I like have always been a huge fan of science communicators like Carl Sagan and the writing staff of

Star Trek the Next Generation and you know Beman's World, and Bill Nye, and that sort of thing. Mr. Wizard, all really cool things to me. And I had a subscription to Scientific American thanks to my dad from the time I was like 12. And I always found that to be unquestionably very cool, in whatever that cool word means. So I really enjoyed that class I took, and then I took the GREs and I did well. And then I got into the program with no problem. And I was a year behind Catherine in the same program she was in, but I focused on writing while she focused on policy. And then in the graduate program, I went in for environmental writing. I started ecogeek.org, which was my

environmental technology blog. The seed for the cause of environmentalism, was that something that your dad fostered from a young age? Yeah, probably because my dad was actually the Florida State Director of the Nature Conservancy for a long time when I was growing up. And that was obviously an important household topic. And Florida is a beautiful and wonderful place to attempt to protect and a very difficult place to actually protect because it is also a wonderful place to attempt to protect and a very difficult place to actually protect because it is also a wonderful place to build houses um and theme parks and theme parks and targets and you know but for you starting eco geek this is a big thing for you right well that kind of came from going through the environmental studies program at the university of montana which was a big

pile of like here are the worst things that are happening in the world and we have to activate ourselves to fix them. And me feeling powerless and terrible and like we can talk about this all day long, but like I'm into science and a lot of this conversation is about how bad the things that science has brought us are. And so I feel like we're sort of fighting against maybe one of the greatest tools that we have in this fight. Like we're pushing against science when science could easily be like the most effective possible solution

to the problems we're facing. And as a person who was into that, it seemed very uncomfortable and angering and annoying, which I still deal a little bit with in the environmental movement. So I found myself going home and like Googling, you know, what's the future of paper? Are we going to use trees in 20 years? What's the future of energy? What's the future of cars? What's the future of air travel?

And feeling better about the world. We can fix things. We've done it over and over again. We reach our carrying capacity and then we push through it. We're finally starting to see a potential end to the growth in the human population.

Not in the next year or anything, but it's probably going to happen. At that point, we can find a balance potentially if we continue to develop technology. But if we don't do that, we will actually be in trouble if we fight against the only tool that we have to make it all work. But these are the type of things that you are moving from just reading about and becoming encouraged to then saying, I'm going to be a part of writing about this and create a forum and a solution.

I don't know if it's technically a forum, but you know what I mean. My professor at the time, John Weber, said, the class was called Starting a Magazine. And it's like, you want to find something that you're obsessed with and that you're really into because you're going to be thinking about this 24 hours a day. And I was like, well, what's that thing for me? And then I like looked at my Google search history and I was like,

this environmental technology, technology that will make our impact on the environment less significant. So that's what, that's what I started my blog about. And it became a thing that was like my job for a while. And at that point, I guess you were experimenting with web video and so there was a natural no evolution into YouTube like how did that start there was no natural evolution I was getting bored with eco geek I was getting bored with writing sensationalist headlines to try and get clicks to try and get out impressions to try and get money and I didn't want to do that anymore but I also saw like if I don't do that anymore will i be able to pay the bills so i was feeling like probably i was going to have to have another thing and john my brother was like

what do you think about the idea of maybe doing a youtube show i was like videos and editing videos and we'd talk to each other on the camera and and I was like, yes, a thing, a new thing. Yes, absolutely. We should get Dad to buy us cameras for Christmas, and these are the ones we should get, and make sure we both have iMovie on our Macs, and I've tested it out. So Dad gave you both a camera for Christmas.

Canon Elura 100s. So then on January 1st, your video goes up first. Yeah. And, of course, we talked to John. His video went up the the day after but he put it up on the wrong channel so it's a little confusing we're not quite sure how youtube works at this point yeah but so in your first video i find it interesting that it's kind of presented as if it's your idea i don't think that was intentional no i did not mean to imply that but but you were very gung-ho. I mean, when John posts his first Brotherhood 2.0,

it's like, I don't know what I'm doing or how this is going. I'm going to be very bad at this. He said something to that effect. Yeah. But you seem to be much more gung-ho. I'm sort of a more excitable guy than John. I get really into new ideas, like really into new ideas. And you were kind of fostering, there were kind of prompts at the beginning, like, okay, we got to get this thing

off the ground. You kind of giving him some tracks to run on, helping your brother out. Well, you should probably post it on the right channel. And we, let's talk about our differences. Here's something we can go with kind of a thing. Yeah. I mean, he did that too. I mean, and it was clear to me watching those videos that we wanted other people to watch them. It's not like we just were making a YouTube show where we were going to talk to each other. John was like, you know what we should do? We should eat toilet paper while talking about the political situation in Nepal. Right. And it's like, as a punishment, that was just, no, that wasn't, no, that wasn't a punishment. Just an idea. John decided that that would be a good idea.

Right. And like, you know, we can talk about how we didn't really think that it was going to be popular. We didn't really think it was going to be popular. Of course we didn't.

Like, YouTube as it exists now is unthinkable to 2007 YouTube. But you were thinking of an audience larger than yourselves. Like, how do we get people to watch this?

And did you assume a character? I think as soon as the camera turns on and you're not a professional performer, you're a character. Like, you immediately start acting different when there's a camera on. So, yeah, there's a character there in that, like, you're being self-conscious and you're thinking about your thoughts more and you're thinking about your face and your presentation and where you're talking more and then you're nervous and like, so there's a difference. But if you watch the early videos,

it's a very different character than the one I have now, which is more similar to me, actually, because that guy was like putting on a thing because obviously, me as I am

is not interesting enough, so let's try something else. Well, he was funny and you're still funny, but I mean, it's, you know, it's, I mean, we're very different than the videos we made. And a lot of those, like you said,

are not anywhere for anyone to see. Well, you know, and it's interesting how so many things have sort of synthesized with your interests and your passions and your knowledge with this medium. And it seems like one of the things that characterizes so many of the things that you do, you really want people to know things, not in a preachy kind of way, or like, I'm going to teach you guys, or I'm going to take you to school. But I think about it in the context of, you know, with what we do, it isn't

that you don't ever learn something from A Good Mythical Morning or whatever. There is a fascination factor. But our primary objective is to entertain, and I think people kind of get that. Yours is equally entertaining, but I feel like you have a passion for people to get things, for things to sink in. To enjoy the ever-present game of knowing. Oh, yeah. That's a good Hank Green quote. Yeah, I am super into that because I love it when people do that to me. I love it when someone explains something to me

in a way where I finally get it. This is now a thing that I will always have in my head, a greater understanding of how the universe works. Knowing what is actually true about something is empowering. It seems like everything that you touch on, you're trying to give people knowledge that they can be equipped to then do what? I think understanding the world is its own reward in a lot of ways. In the past, we got to have that provided for us, like a certainty, which I think is just really inaccessible now. You know know religion provides

for a lot of people and i'm often envious of this uh that kind of certainty that kind of like i understand not just what the world is but my place in it and what i should do and how i should operate and when you break that down when you when you don't have that you can feel like you're lost and like you're sort of tumbling and when it comes to like why you're here we don't have a great answer for that because they're really like in my opinion isn't one like there's no cosmic purpose to any individual human life but if you understand your connection to other people and if you understand yourself not just sort of like how i think and how i feel but like why i think and why i feel and that for me has really allowed me

to like understand that like i have a reason and in a given moment if i feel lost i can touch on that reason and be like that's still that's still there and like that's a weird thing to come to from a place of like i want people to understand all of the universe and and i want people to understand like why shoes fall when you drop them and i want people to understand like what wood is made out of to like i also want people to understand that they have a thing called humanity that has not just cultural needs but like real objective, intrinsic needs. This quest for knowledge. Do you think that there is a point in which we attain the knowledge from an objective standpoint that then answers some of those questions so you don't feel

upside down or out of place where you find purpose in this knowledge? Yeah. I mean, I don't think that necessarily science does that, but I think that under like that observation can lead an individual human to find that for themselves. And I, that that's happened for me. To find purpose? Maybe not purpose, but to find the thing that, that shows you which way is up. That like, you can always touch on to say, here is the thing that makes sense for why I'm here. And like, I guess purpose is an acceptable word. And this is an interesting difference between you and John. Yeah, yeah. You know, he's been relatively open about his background. We talked with him. And the interesting

thing is that you guys are so in lockstep about so many things. And when we asked him this question about how does this, you know, he considers himself to have faith in God and you don't, but yet. So you call yourself an atheist, right? See, this is important. So I don't believe there's a God, but I'm not comfortable saying that there is no God. Cause I've had people ask me, is there a God? And I'm like, well, I can't like, wow. That's a very different question than I don't, than do you believe there's a God? Right. But where were you going with your question?

With John, we asked him how you guys interact about that. His answer was, well, we don't really specifically about that issue because we care about the same things. You guys are oriented in the same way. You want to decrease world suck in the same way and the motivation seems to come from maybe different areas but you when you when all is said and done you're doing the same thing yeah and i think that we like we have the same values it i mean it's like not important where the values come from it's important what the values are so do you have a

sort of a pact that's like we're not going going to discuss that. No, no, no. We talk about it all the time. You do? Okay. And what's the tone of that conversation? I mean, like, usually it's more like curiosity. And like, you know, like, maybe a little bit of like, what is that giving you? Like, I find myself oftentimes being jealous of religion. Like, it's an amazing community organizer. Uh, it's the reason why Republicans give more to charity than Democrats. Um, and I'm like, we like, obviously secular people need something to make them give money because like, that's frustrating to me. Like, like, right. I think people would maybe ask you, why do you want to decrease world suck if you're not doing it for

God? Well, I mean, I found that question very very funny so who are you doing it for uh the people who are suffering but there's certainly people who think that i mean i think that's like a terrible thing to think like like the only reason i want to help people is so I don't burn forever. What a terrible way to look at the world. Well, let's talk a little bit more about your brother, because it has been obviously an incredible year for him. We talked a lot about that on his ear biscuit. And we want to get your perspective on some of those same questions. Because even in that, I guess it was your second video post, you were talking about how people compared you to him.

That's true. You know, that was... I'm always impressed by how much research you guys do. Well, that was the first thing you chose to talk to him and the audience that you were just starting. Let's talk about how we're different. Because people always talk to me about what I'm not that you are

or vice versa, you know? What did I say? You said that he was pudgy and that you... That you would become pudgy over the next few years. Ah, right, right.

That's what you said. Oh, that's a good joke. You said that you were... It was a good comedy bit. It really was. Yeah. And then you turned it into a bit about basically it was your

confession of spilling coffee on Catherine's computer he would he would he would never do that or a beer yeah and then not telling her and then waiting till the next morning and just replacing the battery and then hoping that it works because you didn't want to have to tell her what happened right John would never do that yeah insinuating that you did do that just that day. So, I mean, what happens when your brother has this monstrously successful novel, which turns into a monstrously successful movie? And you're saying I'm not monstrously successful? Is that what you're implying? You're saying, what does it feel like to be the inadequate brother?

I'm not doing that at all. And you're saying when you haven't done those things specifically. It impacts me not at all. Like I don't see, like that doesn't feel like a thing in my life. That tension doesn't feel like a thing in my life. John's success is like a thing to deal with that we have to think about. And that changes maybe some of the ways that he thinks about our projects. There are often times when John's like, why would we do that? And I was like, because of money. And he's like, I forgot about money. I'm not there. Forgot about money.

So there are ways that has changed John. And like, and so I have, like, I have to think about that. And I wouldn't say any of it is negative. I don't think that it's changed John in any negative ways, except that he's possibly maybe a little more anxious. But as far as the tension of success goes, I have people ask me about that a lot. And my parents have it as well.

Like they're like, how does Hank feel about not being, you know, being in his brother's shadow? And like on Vlogbrothers, I'm not at all. I don't feel at all in my brother's shadow. I don't think Nerdfighteria thinks about it that way at all. I don't think people come into it and they're like, well, I like John's videos,

but Hank's just, you know, you just have to wait through those. Frankly, my videos are more entertaining and I'm better at making video than he is. And he will agree. He's a better writer than I am. But also at the same time, he's focusing more and like I can tell he's doing this intentionally on the boring stuff. And he's letting me do more exciting videos to make sure that people like they'll watch John's videos because he's John. But then they get to be like, oh, thank goodness, a Hank video.

I get to not have to think about Ethiopia for like 10 minutes. But you say you can tell like when he posts a video, there's no coordination in terms of, hey, I'm tackling this. So you can leave this one. There's a little coordination. I mean, on the average day, I have no idea what John's video is going to be about. And you watch it along with everyone else? Yeah. I love that.

So, for example, the one that went up today, the day we're recording this, I did know what it was going to be about. But that's because he wanted me to look over the script because it had science in it. Are there days when, for both of you, it would be a surprise, but you just don't get around to watching your brother's video? There might be a day where that happens. You'll catch up.

In fact, today is a day when that happened. I haven't watched that video yet. One, I've read the script, so I know what it's about. But I will watch it. It's just that I've been driving around L.A. all day. If ever I get to the point where I don't watch one of John's videos, that's the day I just, we might as well not have the channel anymore. Why? Because, like, that's the thing.

He, like, he's making a video for me. And if I'm not watching it, one, that's just bad brother right there. And two, like, it abandons the idea of what it is. And the idea of what it is remains very important that we are making videos for each other, even though, of course, we recognize and communicate with the broader audience. Like I will say something that John already knows and I won't say it to John. I'll say it to the audience. But John remains the most important member of the audience. And I think that that's like that's the way it has to be for vlog where there's to be what it is when you guys decided

that you were going to when you realized that the success was happening with the final start who instigated the conversation to be like all right we should probably talk about this and how how we're going to manage this I don't know it was definitely a conversation we had but I think that it was I think it might have just come up early when we were like this is turning into a movie and the movie might be very successful and like that sort of came up in conversation and if it is then what's like that the way John and I don't have agendas when we call each other on the phone like right like write down bullet points or anything. Occasionally, but not usually.

Yeah, I mean, we knew that there was a chance that this would be something that we would have to manage. And it turned out to be something that we did have to think actively about. And it was definitely a conversation that involved both of us. And concluded with? We do not want to capture the wave. This is not a wave we want to ride. To not see it as, okay, this is the opportunity to take Vlogbrothers

to a whole new level. This is not a level up. This is what we got to do. I think it was too big. If we caught that wave, it would change our community. It would have changed our community very fundamentally.

What would you have had to do? To catch the wave? Yeah. It's not immediately obvious to me what you would change oh yeah i mean like we were encouraged on several fronts to have the fault in our stars sort of become the narrative of the vlogbrothers channel for a long time before and after the movie came out. You guys were each just talking about the whole experience. Yeah, and also I think sort of more demographically aimed and making that kind of content

and collaborating with those people who have that demographic watching their shows. And I think if we had used that strategy, had a tremendous amount of subscriber growth. And we didn't do that very intentionally because we didn't want, we didn't want to have our audience double, but have our audience double with entirely, an entirely new kind of viewer. Right. That would have been terrifying. We wouldn't know what our channel was anymore because like the people who are watching the content are

just as important as the people who are making the content in terms of what kind of content ends up getting made. So we want to keep making of what kind of content ends up getting made. So we want to keep making the same kind of content we've always made. So not only did we avoid creating content specifically for fans of the movies who might be coming in for the first time as Black Brothers viewers, we sort of doubled down on what Nerdfighteria was and on what our kind of content was. I mean, there's a number of things that you've invested in that are equally as phenomenal

as the success of the novel or the book. And those things are... Eh, maybe not equally as phenomenal. Well, there's a phenomenon in a mass cultural success of a story that is very difficult

to duplicate in any other way. And that cultural importance is so awesome. I'm very proud of John. very difficult to duplicate in any other way and that like that cultural importance is so Awesome. I'm very proud of John and like that's an accomplishment that very few people Get to have and I think that he doesn't either he doesn't recognize it or he doesn't want to because of how Important it is for a lot of people and of how like important it will be for their whole lives Like John has a number of authors that have impacted him tremendously and he is going to be that for a lot of people and i

think that that's true of vlogbrothers as well but it is not like not in the same way as the fault in our stars at the same magnitude but i mean when you look at things like how much money has been raised through project for awesome or the benefits of an event like VidCon, they're so instrumental to shaping a whole genre of entertainment. And so I guess I make the point that these other things that you've created are extremely— Yeah, and I'm super proud of the things that I've done personally. And also, it's not really about pride. It's about doing something that I think is important and interesting and that is hard. Well, you do so many things. I mean, what's the thing that if you had to have only done one of them, what was the thing you couldn't let go of?

My marriage. Points. Okay. There you go. You you got it top of mind that was good got it but professionally not personally uh i have vlog brothers vlog brothers vlog brothers vlog brothers all the other things don't like wouldn't have been possible and and wouldn't matter without nerdfighteria i Like that channel. Is the coolest thing. That ever happened to me.

Do you guys agree. That the thing that you do for a living. Is so cool. Yeah. It's so cool. Yeah. It's living a dream. It is.

It really is. It's great. So I'm just. I'm infinitely grateful. To all the people. Who care about that channel. And also who. Care about the.

Institution as a community. And care about us. As individual creators. And care about that channel and also who care about the institution as a community and care about us as individual creators and care about each other as members of that thing. So cool. So cool. Because of VidCon, though, what you've done is that you've aligned everyone who's trying to do anything that makes them a YouTuber, which is such a broad term. Yeah. You're like the friendly uncle of every YouTuber. I'm glad you think so. Because of VidCon. Do you watch everyone's content? Because it seems to me that you really

know and care about YouTubers. Like, oh, Jenna's getting flack on Good Morning America. Who's going to write a blog post about it to set them, put them in their place? Hank Green's going to do that. Friendly VidCon uncle. How do you see your role in that capacity? I would love to be friendly uncle. I, if, and like, I am really into online video. I think a lot of people came into this with the sort of like aspirations that involved entertainment. I had none of those. I had a little bit of a maybe I wanted to do science communication, but that world continues to be boring to me. And at that point, it was just opaque or like I hadn't even considered it existed. And so like being a part of the early days of YouTube is like, that's like, I think one of the coolest things that, that will be

a part of my life. And I thought from like day two that YouTube was going to be a, not was going to be, was already a huge deal, like a huge culturally important deal. Because I mean, I was always obsessed with the culture of the internet and YouTube was a big part of like early YouTube was a big part of the culture of the internet. So I, I've always been obsessed with it and I've always thought that it mattered. And it seems like only recently, even the people who are involved in it, even the people who do it for a living only recently have they come, a lot of them come to accept that it is important. Whereas from like, like 2010, when I started VidCon, I thought it was late for a conference. 2007, when I started making YouTube videos, I thought I was late to YouTube.

Like I'm looking at the, the, the dim of the table here and I'm like, I see all these names and I like, to me, what this looks like is, is not a table with a bunch of signatures on it. It's like a thing that's going to be in a museum someday i believe completely irrationally in the deep importance of online video culturally like i think it's as important as like the printing press which i know it's not but i think it is and it's interesting that you but you find yourself being the champion of people who, YouTubers, who are just in it to scratch their entertainment itch.

I mean, that's not what they, not really. Like, that's not what it's about. It's not about like, am I just getting, using this as a stepping stone? It's about they're making great content. I don't care if they're using it as a stepping stone.

I care if they're making great content. I care if they're doing something interesting, something different, something cool. What trends do you see in online video that trouble you? The thing that makes me the most angry in all the world is watching people who suck get really rich off of people who are cool. Like who? Yeah. And then the other thing that really pisses me off is that people are too nice to call them out on it, which I am doing right now. Right. We can't say anything bad about anybody in this industry.

Yeah. It doesn't work. It doesn't go over well. It would work if we all did it. I ask that question all the time. Like when I'm sort of getting into a new area of YouTube, like say Minecraft gamers

or, you know, acapella musicians, I'm like, so just tell me, who's the dick? Like, who's the asshole? Because I know

that there is one. Right. And I know that you all hate them, but you're not going to tell me. Well, first of all, you're assuming

you're not talking to them. That's true, but I'd pick carefully the person I asked that question to. And what are they, no one ever says? They'll say it privately.

No, they won't. They're too nice. And they know they, no one ever says or they'll say privately. No, they won't. They're too nice and they know and they don't just know that that person is, you know,

only motivated by money. They know that that person has done bad things to people and I feel the same way. I know people who have done bad things to people

and I don't talk about it because it's not something you're supposed to talk about and I find it very frustrating and it's a thing like the snow, that I feel like this is a problem that we have to work around. But boy, does it make me want to not have that problem anymore. I so want that problem to go away.

I guess I'm a little surprised that that's what you said. I mean, I really thought your answer was going to be related to, well, you know, the established entertainment industry is going to come in. You asked me a really great question. I answered with the thing I hate the most in the world, which I probably shouldn't have done. But I maybe just really wanted to have that rant I just had. But let's go with that rant then, because I mean, you tweeted, I suppose I feel somewhat alienated from the idea of what a, quote, YouTuber is. And it makes me wonder if that's something I want to be.

That was a moment of weakness. I shouldn't have tweeted that. But you did tweet it, so explain it. And that is that the word YouTuber means different things to different people. But I had at that moment heard the word YouTuber used probably 12 times in a row in describing teen idols. And I have nothing against teen idols. I'm not saying they make bad content. I'm not saying that they, like, that the enthusiasm of 12-year-old girls is, like, a problem.

But that's what a YouTuber is, is a— Like, I kept hearing it used in that way. Good-looking guy vlogger that girls swoon over. Yeah. Equals YouTuber, period. Yeah. And like, and I think that is

what that word means to a lot of people. And I worry that that's going to be what that word means to the mainstream. Like, that would not be fun for me.

Because then we need a new word, you guys. But I think that I'm still like absolutely 100% YouTuber. The other thing is that people who work for YouTube, YouTube employees, call themselves YouTubers. And I'm like, oh, no, you guys.

No, that's ours. You can't have that. I am very proud to be a YouTuber and I think I'm a YouTuber and I think I'll always be a YouTuber. Maybe the word creator is sort of like it's certainly more vague but maybe more appropriate for use in certain situations. But I think that online video is a thing that will always be a thing. Like radio is a thing that will always be a thing. Like plays are a thing that will always be a thing. I think it's a new form of media. It isn't just, it's not a genre. It's as different from TV as TV is different from radio. And it's weird to have a

word for that thing that's the name of a website. But I'm perfectly happy with it. Like to me, when I say YouTuber, what I think of is people who make content on YouTube and people watch it. And like, that's anybody. People who don't know you watch it. Like that's what a YouTuber is.

And you're concerned about them making content that's actually good. I thought your concern was gonna be that the power will be taken from the individual and would just wind up in the hands of the gatekeepers of traditional entertainment. We were going to go down that path. I guess I am, but only insofar as it is something that's going to happen and I'm not going to enjoy it. If you're not going to give us hope that the you in YouTube is going to... If friendly Uncle Hank is not going to give us hope that the you in YouTube is going to- Friendly Uncle Hank is not going to give us hope.

I mean, when I was on the panel, let me say, when I was on the panel at VidCon called The Future of Online Entertainment- Oh, yeah, I wasn't on this panel. A weird thing happened to me sitting in the seat- You wet yourself. On the panel. I peed myself. At one point, I thought my eyes might be welling up. Yeah.

And I'm being serious. I'm not joking. I felt like, wow, we have enough success as YouTubers to maybe be able to help affect what the future of this is. Right. And you kind of think, well, we're helping invent this and we're racking our brains constantly to, yes, to be successful.

Yes, to be entertaining. And we did know this, but it kind of hit me harder for some reason at that moment that we have power to help shape the opportunity that other people have to follow in our footsteps, to live their dreams.

Yeah. So I'm hoping that you would give us some positivity, Uncle Hank, associated with keeping the you in YouTube, right? When the man comes in to take the power, they can't take all of it. Like the cool thing about YouTube is that there is no barrier to entry. I mean, there is. You have to have a camera and an internet connection and ideally a way to edit a video.

And as long as that's the case, people will be doing things that mainstream media will not get but will be very popular. And that is going to cause media to evolve far more quickly than it has in the past. Genres are created now as fast as television shows used to be created. And it's a beautiful thing. But is that threatened? It's not. What I mean when I say that this is a foregone conclusion is that in the future, there will be YouTube channels and there will be YouTubers who are basically run by Hollywood. And it's going to be less magical than it is now. And it already is less magical now than it was a few years ago. And I have always wanted to and will always use the power of VidCon to encourage what I see as legitimate online video.

But at the same time, I think that it's important to, like, recognize the path of power and the path of – and, like, people will follow money. People will do things for money. the path of power and the path of, and like people will follow money. People will do things for money and money will be easier to come by when you're talking to a Hollywood studio that is used to throwing down $10 million on something. There's a funny thing that people in Hollywood will say, this phrase that I hear frustratingly frequently, real money. And real money is implying that the money that you and i use to buy our cars and houses and get and gasoline is not real real money is when like you can no longer breathe because of all the hundred dollar bills that they've stuffed around you well let's let's shift it in on a positive note what are you most excited about i think online video is going to

continue being like super huge and super big and super diverse and lots of interesting new things will keep on happening. And I think that the mainstream will always be a step behind. And I think that is the cool part. And I think that like right now what you're doing with Good Mythical Morning, that to me seems like the mainstream is a year or two behind this. and this kind of format is going to be popular like it's going to be a genre i think right now you guys are making a genre of video that has never been created before and i think that that's amazing but i don't think it's at all unique it might not even be exceptional there's so many things happening and like it's easy to forget that like five years ago there wasn't anybody doing this who had an employee right and and now finally we're starting to get to the point

where you know like there was this weird moment where youtube was like dump money on people and see what you do and and it didn't work because they went from we went from like having just me doing the writing and directing and editing and talent and and you know graphics and everything right it turns out dumping money on people actually hurts yeah it's physically painful especially if you use coins which i don't know why they did that um so instead of going from just like one person doing all those things you went to having 10 people and and one person did each one of those things which was a bad decision what we should have done is had two people instead which i think is one of the reasons why so many popular youtube channels are two-person teams who started out as either brothers or whatever the heck you guys are friends not quite a little more than that

but that sounds weird old married couple yes friends yeah uh and and uh and and so it's only very it's only very recently that we diversified we like moved on from having just one person doing everything to two people doing everything yeah and then three people doing everything and it's you can do so many more interesting things but you have to let it evolve naturally you have to let that that progression occur in order to see how that changes what can be done because what can be done with three people is very different from what can be done with one person. And the kind of content you end up making is very different. But that doesn't mean that the one-person vlog is going to go away. Because that's a legitimately interesting format.

It's a legitimately interesting genre. It's like stand-up comedy. Right. It's like a mix of essay and video and stand-up. And you get to do all kinds of different things you can play multiple parts like natalie or superwoman or you can be talking about you know like the complexities of the marriage equality debate in america you're exactly right the just the rapidity of genres being created is it's amazing and it's fascinating And you're right that there's this wave of content

that is being created in this digital realm that is the future of so many different things. And it's fun to be riding that wave. And I know that when we look forward and we see what those next things are, that you're going to be there. We know, we're just committed to being able to look around and be in that space and be able to see people like you. So you guys know you're, you guys know you're ahead of the curve. You got to, you got to know you're ahead of the curve. You do such cool, innovative, interesting things. I'm proud to be in your studio right now.

And this has been a great ear biscuit. All you got to do is sign this table, man. So whenever it's, whenever we get it put in that museum you're talking about, And this has been a great Ear Biscuit. All you got to do is sign this table, man. So, wick yes. Whenever we get it put in that museum you're talking about. Well, for the person who's listening to this in the year 4020, is that what we said? Sure. Who's looking at the Ear Biscuits in the Smithsonian. Oh, yeah.

Listening to it while looking at the table. Yeah, it's in an exhibit. You press a button. Well, you probably don't press a button. You probably just think, and it starts. I think Hank can say that our table's in some museum, but I don't think we're in a position to say that. So I'm just going with that.

Just sign it, and let's try to end self-deprecating, okay? Okay, all right. I'm going to start a museum, and the first thing I'm going to put it in is this table. If you guys ever move out of the studio, this is it. All right. The museum is here. Okay.

Okay. Undisclosed location. Thanks, Hank. Oh, you're adding that yourself. You don't have to do that. And there you have it. our conversation with Hank Green. I feel like I could talk to that guy forever. There's so much that he's done that we didn't even touch on.

We could do a series with Hank Green. Well, and just his perspective, you know, on the state of online video, the future of online video. Got lots of respect for what he's done. For the good of not only online video, but for humanity. I mean, it's just cool to be in a space and, like we said, living our dream. Part of that is getting to rub shoulders and to become friends with people like Hank, to rub shoulders and to become friends with people like Hank who are not taking lightly the responsibility that we find ourselves in in shaping this whole form of entertainment.

Yeah, and I've always had a tremendous amount of respect for Hank. And it only increased in talking to him. I think to pinpoint one thing that was just so impressed me was his perspective on the way that they thought about John's success as a wave that they didn't want to ride. And to understand the value of what they have created and what they are cultivating as the Vlogbrothers, as Nerdfighteria, he's just got so much insight into that. I don't know, there's almost a recentering.

When you do what we do for a living and you talk to a guy like Hank, there's this recentering that happens and you kind of remember that just, it's inspiring, to see it in such a pure way, what we're doing here in online video. Yeah, thanks, Hank. And you should pass along what you think to Hank.

His Twitter account is Hank Green. It's pretty intuitive. That's Hank. It's like if you were to make this sound honk, but with an A, not an O, that's Hank Green on Twitter. Hank. Tweet at him. Hank. Hashtag Ear Biscuits.

Hank. Show him your appreciation. Show him your love in an internet way. Well, you know what? Also show us your internet love. That could be an iTunes review or just general gushing about Ear Biscuits to people whose opinion you respect. Strangers even.

Yeah, strangers. We appreciate that. Tell strangers about this. People on public transportation that you're awkwardly close to. Tell somebody right now, if you are in a public place, tell them,

I'm listening to Ear Biscuits. Just say it. Just scream it out. Check it out. Add that. See, I'm doing it right now. Hopefully you just did that. And thank you for that.

We really appreciate it. See you next week.