Hank Green: 30 Years on the Internet, the Algorithm, and the Art of Making Things (Part 2)

In Part 2 of this conversation, Anita sits back down with Hank Green to pick up where they left off, and the conversation gets more personal, more urgent, and more honest than ever.

They start with the platforms. Hank has a clear-eyed view of why the algorithm puts us in silos: it's not because the technology is bad. It's because the technology is very, very good at keeping us watching. The problem isn't incompetence. It's incentives. And Hank isn't sure the platforms are going to fix it, but he does think people will eventually change, the way they did during the yellow journalism era of Hearst and Pulitzer. Newsrooms that once competed on salience eventually had to compete on credibility. He thinks something similar has to happen now. He just can't work out exactly how.

From there, the conversation turns to X, and what it has become. Hank goes there to check on cancer drug research and ends up scrolling past videos of people dying. That's not a platform problem anymore. That's something else.

And then: the cancer diagnosis. In 2023, Hank was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma and shared his journey publicly. He talks honestly about his first reaction (annoyance that he didn't get a choice), and how he made peace with it by realizing he actually wanted to talk about it because he cared about his audience. He also talks about the moment he stopped being afraid and started getting curious. He was taking four different chemo drugs simultaneously, each with its own discovery story. One of them can only be made from Madagascar periwinkles. Science, he says, is just cool.

The conversation closes with AI: how he uses it, how he doesn't, why he hates that it gives opinions, and the AI flattery moment that made him want to put his laptop through a wall. Plus a lightning round that includes his worst internet take ever, what he would say to the algorithm if it were a person, and the retirement of 6-7.

Disclaimer: I'm a lawyer, but this podcast isn't legal advice. It's for general information only. Listening doesn't make us attorney and client.

Produced by Anita Sharma and Phoebe Dunn. 

Edited by Carmine Mattia. 

Social Media Strategy by Maureen Lloren Sedlak. 

Signed Theme Music by Carmine Mattia.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Signed Conversations with Digital Mavericks. Please like, follow, and subscribe at Sign the Podcast. We are on all socials and everywhere you listen to your podcasts. My name is Anita Sharma, and I'm your host. I am super excited to present to you part two of my incredible conversation with Hank Green. It goes places I didn't expect, from why the algorithm is putting all of us in silos to what it actually feels like to go through cancer as a public figure, plus his very strong opinions on AI and how AI can be surprisingly embarrassing. Hope you enjoy this part too as much as I did. Thank you for listening. Signed Conversations with Digital Mavericks. You obviously do a lot of stuff on YouTube. Complexly does a lot of amazing stuff, Crash Course, SciShow. But what about the other platforms? Like you were big on TikTok for a while. Um, I think you would probably still are big and would still be big, but I think it was a choice for you. It seems like TikTok and you know, those shorter form platforms, like how do you feel about those? I know you talked, you touched on meta briefly, but but in terms of like creating content and shifting your mindset to create content on these different platforms.

SPEAKER_01 1:17

It's super so like it's super fun to try and figure out how to make content in a different way. I had like a pretty good training in making TikToks because John and I, for the first however many like 10, 15 years, we kept ourselves to four minutes per video and we tried to say a lot in those four minutes. And so uh we always wanted to say more, and we always had the same time limit. So we just started talking faster.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

And is that back when you were doing Vlogbrothers?

SPEAKER_01 1:43

Yeah, yeah. Which I we still are doing. Just you know, my my my home base. Um and uh and and and the uh and the the early, like the really uh compelling thing about TikTok was in the early days when it didn't matter whether or not you succeeded on TikTok, it just sort of felt good. It wasn't like, you know, a super high status thing and it wasn't something people everybody was fighting for. It was just like a weird, artsy, goofy, collaborative. Like there was very low stakes of for failure. There was, you know, the you know and that was just such a lovely time. And like I knew because I've watched it happen on a bunch of other platforms, I knew that it was a time-bound thing and eventually it would not be that way. Um, and it would become much more, you know, scary, and it would be like, you know, failure would would feel like something, and people would be less collaborative, and they'd be, you know, like all the things that happened would happen, and it did. But in those years, which was like three solid years, it was just a blast.

SPEAKER_00 2:45

It was just creators, because they could be discovered more easily.

SPEAKER_01 2:51

Oh, yeah. Great. What yeah. I mean, like the it's it's not that like TikTok had had some like better discovery algorithm. It's had they they had better discovery data. So if you watch, you know, you know, five YouTube videos in an hour, then you the tick to then YouTube gets like, you know, 50 data points. Whereas if you watch when you're on TikTok, you're gonna watch 500 videos in an hour, and that's gonna give you 5,000 data points, you know. So it's just like better data on on how to discover, which which was is so good. Like, and these, you know, short form is still better at discovery than long form, though YouTube has responded to this and has gotten, I think, somewhat better at discovery since 2020. Um, but the the uh that's so good because there's all kinds of people who I work with now, who I am fans of, who I have mentored, who, you know, wouldn't I never would have known of or would never have had careers without that discovery.

SPEAKER_00 3:47

Yeah. One thing that I'm starting to do is really discover.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

They would have had different careers.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

Right. The one one thing I'm I'm that really annoys me to put it mildly, is just being fed things that are similar to what I've clicked on.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

Like that's how we end up with silos, right? Like even like politically, like you're only getting left-leading content or right-leading, or like how like how can we how can you and I, Hank, convince Google to change this or convince Meta? Like it's just, I think it's honestly, I think it's wrecking people and discourse and conversation. Like there's plenty of stuff I would like to watch that I don't necessarily 100% agree with, but I think would be informative, right? So it's really frustrating. And I don't know, I think that's really causing a lot of chaos in the world.

SPEAKER_01 4:39

Yeah, yeah. I think that that's that's one of the one of the effects that is causing a lot of chaos. I think that's a bunch, and I think that they all directly follow from the incentives of the platforms. Like, how do you say to YouTube, you know what we'd like is for you to do the thing that's less good for you and your shareholders. You know? If there's a thing that keeps us on like they're not giving us, they're not putting us in silos because their algorithms are bad. They're putting us in silos because their algorithms are very good and they're good at figuring out what keeps people watching.

SPEAKER_00 5:11

Well, that's the irony. But the effect, I think, nowadays, especially is not good. So Yeah. I mean, look, you do so much impact programming, which is amazing, right? Like stuff that educates people and entertains them at the same time. I just think, yeah, it's too bad these platforms can at least take a little bit of a closer look at that, at like what is the actual impact on people, what is happening, and that's you know, that's a whole other, you know, podcast and and topic, but it's it's unfortunate because I think it's getting worse and worse now.

SPEAKER_01 5:45

I worry. Um, well, here's I mean, here's what I think. I think that the thing that has to change is there probably won't be the platforms uh deciding to do things that aren't in in their best financial interests. And like, you know, what like what they'll say is just like, we give people what they want to like what. Like it would be very weird for us to say, like, we know what people would choose, but we're giving them something else for a social purpose. Like that that's something Congress wouldn't like. Sure, sure.

SPEAKER_00 6:21

But I think it's I think it's more about there's but there's more manipulation than that happening, right? It's more about it's more than just feeding me a bunch of travel videos because they know I like to watch travel videos. It's a little bit, it's I just feel like it's not sort of as black and white as that in a way.

SPEAKER_01 6:37

It's it's hard to articulate, but I don't I think that what they would what what folks would argue is the algorithm doesn't know whether this is travel content or political content. You know, the algorithm is just like this is the kind of this is like the the 3D space inside of our matrix that that that is occupied that that like this person sort of is in, and so let's show them other stuff from that space. And there's another 3D space over here, and that's travel, and there's one over here, and that's like you know, climate denial uh or like climate change deniers or something. Um and uh yeah, I mean like that that's that's I don't know. Like I don't even know what I would do. What I what I think is that that uh what what has happened in the past is not like during the yellow journalism era, so like uh, you know, we had these these like new like newspaper printing got really cheap, paper itself got really cheap, and also this new advertising model was invented. So the technology of selling ads against large numbers of people. So that made it so that you could basically give the papers away uh and still make money. And that's what like Pulitzer figured out, that's what Hearst figured out, and they had these newspapers, and they they they were had to be like the most like attention-grabbing things possible because they were competing just on the getting the number of people. And also, people had previously like had a vibe around newspapers that they were like trustworthy, or they didn't have any vibe around newspapers because a lot of people were like first literate generation in their family. And so, so like that you know, that there was this thing, and there was a lot, there was a lot of them, and they like Purst and Pulitzer made huge amounts of money, and now we don't think of them as monsters, and they were monsters. They were, you know, all kinds of terrible effects on society because of these papers. Um, and and like probably a whole war that we got into because of them. Historians, I apologize for simplifying things. Uh and and but like what happened was not that like Hurst and Pulitzer woke up one day and they were like, I think that we should do a better job. I think that we should be less destructive to society. People changed. They stopped feeling good when they got manipulated. Like manipulate, like they started to recognize the manipulations. And then eventually the headline writers ran out of manipulations that they could innovate that wouldn't feel like manipulations. And then newsrooms had to start competing on uh instead of salience, they had to start competing on credibility. And then that happened. And in the 80s, when I was born, newsrooms competed almost entirely on credibility. And if they messed up, it was a huge deal. It was like a huge financial crisis for the papers if they got a big thing wrong.

SPEAKER_00 9:19

Yeah, I wish we could get back to that time.

SPEAKER_01 9:21

Yeah, not even because they got like sued about it, but because like people would lose faith and they wouldn't want to have a newspaper in their, you know, on their doorstep that they couldn't trust. So we I I think I I don't know how it happens, and I like worry that that the mechanism, like the structure of this problem is harder, and so it won't happen. But like I I think what will happen is that that people will change, and so the market will change, and so the platforms will change. And I but I don't know what like I can't work through how that happens mechanistically, which worries me. Like I don't know what happens, except like I guess people get smarter, um, which doesn't people rise up.

SPEAKER_00 10:02

I mean, I hope you're right. And I think I mean I do think it's possible, and I do think like even TikTok right now is sort of falling out of favor. The lot of people I think are recognizing like this isn't the healthiest way for me to consume content, and you know, there's a lot of like garbage on there, and now AI slop, of course, um happening, which is just a whole other thing.

SPEAKER_01 10:24

A real potential problem for TikTok if um the kinds of people who's the kinds of viewers who stay on the platform are the ones who uh are sort of more open to being sort of rage-baited and fear baited. Then and then what happens is the only way to get views on the platform is to make increasingly more rage bait and fear bait. And then you have more of the people leave. And so there's like there can be a bit of a a cycle there that can happen.

SPEAKER_00 10:55

Yeah. I mean, that's the story of X, right? I mean, a lot of people left that platform.

SPEAKER_01 11:00

In fairness, they still are chugging along, like lots of people, lots of people, you know, yeah, but I think find utility there.

SPEAKER_00 11:07

I think that funnel, so to speak, is narrowing, right? Because of exactly what you're saying.

SPEAKER_01 11:11

There's a it's sort of like self-reinforce and yeah. I mean, hate speech, and like weirdly, when I go on X, and I and and this is this is the situation where I can feel comfortable calling it X, uh like there's like a pretty high chance that I'm gonna watch a human die.

SPEAKER_00 11:26

Jeez.

SPEAKER_01 11:27

Very weird.

SPEAKER_00 11:28

There's like a lot of I'm not on it at all.

SPEAKER_01 11:30

Yeah, there's a there's a lot of like like videos of like like real violence. And I'm like, whoa, okay. Like like I literally, there's a lot of oncologists on here, and I'm writing a book about cancer, and so like I'm going and checking out like the the scuttle butt around the new cancer drugs, and then I scroll, and it's like war death.

unknown 11:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:51

Why I came here.

SPEAKER_00 11:53

Yeah, exactly. You came there for the exact opposite. And I yeah, I do want to touch on that. Um, you know, Hank, you were diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma in 2023. And I I don't usually like to speak for people, but I'm gonna speak for everyone right now. We are so glad you're okay. And we're so glad you made it through that very difficult period. And you were very public about it. And you you spoke about that. And, you know, can you tell us a little bit more about that? Because that is that's authenticity right there, I think. Yeah. That's the meaning right there.

SPEAKER_01 12:23

Yeah, that was super weird in the moment uh to be like, like at the very first, I felt like kind of annoyed that I had to be public about it. Like there was just no way, like I didn't get a choice there because I could I couldn't, I I, you know, ultimately, like I of course I could have. I could have just disappeared. You know, I could have been like, health reasons, I'm gonna be off the internet. Um, and and so like what made that better was that it wasn't like me saying um, it wasn't like the world saying, hey, you have to talk about this. It was like, oh, I want to talk about this because I care about my audience and they care about me. And so as much as there's a bunch of people who are gonna find out about this who I don't care about, and I'm kind of like, I'd rather not be. And I I actually hadn't thought about this, but like John's publicist was like, just so you know, this is gonna be a news story. It's gonna be like a big news story. And so, like, if you want to manage that in some ways, let me know. And we did a little bit. Um and that was annoying.

SPEAKER_00 13:29

Like being a news story was annoying, but uh Yeah, do you did you feel like that like devalued your experience in a way, or somebody else took it to the stuff?

SPEAKER_01 13:38

I feel like it was so out of my control. Yeah. Right. Other people taking the narrative.

SPEAKER_00 13:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:42

And like talking about it in in ways where I'm I'm like, you know what? I'm I made my video and it was like 20 minutes long, and it talked a lot about a lot of stuff. And so I didn't and I didn't talk about it until I had all like a good amount of data, like staging and what kind of cancer, etc. And um and uh and that I felt like, you know, I had control over that. And but like it's very weird to have Right.

SPEAKER_00 14:05

I mean, it's your story. You want to tell your story.

SPEAKER_01 14:08

But like absolutely, I understand the mechanism of it, and it makes sense that it was covered. Um, and like I wasn't gonna do interviews, so they were gonna write the things they were gonna write. Um so so that, um, but and and then a little bit like I had this big fear that I was gonna become like the cancer guy. I was like like a YouTuber, like and and weird, like like a couple of things happened. First, I called uh Greg, uh game over Greggy, who is a YouTuber, um, who had Hodgkin lymphoma 10 years ago. And uh and and I I was like, you know, how did this go? And I'm worried I'm gonna become the cancer guy. And he was like, nobody remembers it. Really? Nobody remembers it. Like it's just like two, though. It's like it's yeah, I mean, it's it's that there's a lot of famous people, so that's part of why it feels more common. Um you know, Hodgkins, as far as I know, has not increased in in uh prevalence, uh, but it's more common in young people, so like you see it more um when you're younger. Um and then uh the yeah, and so that was a little bit of a relief. And I had another friend who's a YouTuber who was much more private about his cancer journey. He's like a like just a voiceover. Like his like his videos don't have his face in them, so he was able to do that much more easily. Um and uh and and then I talked to you know Simone Yetch, who um had uh a kind of dangerous benign tumor that sometimes becomes malignant. And um so we, you know, so I like talked through it with people, and then I was like, you know, like one day I woke up and I was like, actually, I'm a science guy, and this is so science-y. It's so science-y.

SPEAKER_00 15:57

I mean, there's like so much science, like so much research.

SPEAKER_01 16:00

And yeah, it's so interesting. Like, like, you know, I was taking four different chemo drugs at the same time, and each one of them has like a different story of how it was discovered. And one of them's like the only way to make it is from a flower. Like they have greenhouses full of Madagascar periwinkles. Science is cool, they just like harvest and shred up and then like do science to the to the shredded up flowers to take out the tiny, tiny amount of this molecule that they make. Um, like so as like so much cool stuff going on. And and I was like, and then the other thing is I was like, oh, like this is life, you know, and that's a weird thing about serious illness, is that that like when you're outside of it, it's like, oh, they're in illness. Uh, when you're inside of it, you're like, uh, this is like life, but worse. You know, it's like un more uncomfortable life. And uh, you know, uh on a on a spectrum, and I had a a pretty a pretty easy go of it go of it. Um and uh and it that just like meant that I was happy to have my career where I got to do the things that I do for a living. You know, I got to tweet and I got to make videos and I got to take it as easy as I wanted to, um, but I still had this thing that I could do where I felt like I was still like living my life.

SPEAKER_00 17:15

Yeah. And and sharing all that and being so personal, did that change your relationship with the internet? Like did things surprise you in in sharing something so personal about yourself?

SPEAKER_01 17:26

It changed, yeah, a little bit. So so it didn't change my relationship with my like core audience. Like that all felt completely natural and normal and and like still felt the same afterward. But it it did feel like um I became more human to a broader part of the internet. So there's just like there's a lot of like we're all like this. And and I have a hard time imagining as a creator, but most people who know who I am like could not tell me two things about me. They're just like, yeah, I've seen that guy on TikTok. Like that's the whole, that's the whole thing, you know? A lot, a lot of a lot of people on it in airports who are like, You do you do TikTok? And I'm like, Yeah, yeah, that's me.

SPEAKER_00 18:06

And he's like, I feel like people know that you were like super early to the internet, but also that you're like the science guy. You're like a science guy.

SPEAKER_01 18:13

That that second that first thing they really don't know. Like, I all the time, people people are like, You started VidCon? And I'm like, Yeah, I started Vidcon.

SPEAKER_00 18:22

Yes, I remember that. I remember VidCon back in the day was awesome, man.

SPEAKER_01 18:25

Yeah, people have no idea I'm an OG YouTuber. They think I'm they think I popped up in the last five years.

SPEAKER_00 18:30

Well, that's because you look so young, Hank. That's why that's what it is.

SPEAKER_01 18:34

But some I mean, uh some people do, some people don't. Like it and like you can totally not assume. But yeah, there's just a lot of people who like feel like got invited into a very personal version of me as like the first story, which was a little weird, but I think it's mostly faded.

SPEAKER_00 18:51

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, we're I mean, I'm so glad you're okay.

SPEAKER_01 18:54

Yeah, I'm about to hit three years uh in remission.

SPEAKER_00 18:57

So that's yeah, that's awesome. That's amazing. So I know we're running out of time, but I no podcast is gonna be complete unless I ask Hank Green about AI.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

Oh no.

SPEAKER_00 19:07

I know I'm like the biggest question of all. But I mean, basically, you know, I guess quickly, I don't know. It's it's hard to talk about AI quickly, but I what do you think about AI and how creators should use it or should not use it?

SPEAKER_01 19:25

Oh, I mean, I wouldn't tell anybody how to use it uh or to use it, I guess. I could tell you, like, if you're going to, I could say some things about how, but I would like a lot of people are like, that's not for me. And I think that that's great. I think like we it turns out we've been able to be successfully creative storytellers without AI. Uh, we maybe should get uh you should feel free to continue doing that. Um you know, I find it to be uh like a useful first step in research a lot of the time. Um uh the um, you know, a lot, especially if I'm dealing with something that's like not complicated. It's like just not an area. If it's an area of my expertise, um it tends to be like, you know, we we run up against its limitations and my limitations roughly at the same time. Um uh but but when it's something when it's something that I just like know very little about, um, it's a great place to start. And then like I've got papers to read without having to have uh, you know, trolled the citations, which is what I used to do. Um and trolling citations can be very hit and miss and slow. Um so that's that can be a great a great way to sort of like start off with like the right papers to start with. Um and then um there's like certain like tools that just make like like, you know, I God bless content aware fill, which is like AI, but not what anyone would think of as AI. It's not like an LLM. There's also like AI tools that can help with video editing, just like like doing that first pass that you know, to cut out all the pauses and stuff um that uh I think are are kind of like good tools for creators if you want to use them. But they're not gonna do like any, they don't do the creative work, you know? They're just like, oh, cutting out pauses. Yeah, cutting out bad takes, fine. And then like as as far as like the the the harder to crack stuff, like I find myself kind of needing to use them mostly on an analysis basis. Like I feel like if I'm gonna be talking about it, I need to have some awareness of the capacities of the tools, um, which can be really hard because like sometimes you're using the tool and you think it's doing a great job and then it's not. Um you know, and you like you get like one level beaker and you're like freaking lied to me.

SPEAKER_00 21:48

Do not use it to review your contracts, please. It is not good at that.

SPEAKER_01 21:52

I mean, well, I'll tell uh like I I I I think here's what I'll say as a client, I think that it's fine. For a first pass of a real. No, Hank.

SPEAKER_00 22:02

We're gonna talk off camera, you and I, my friend.

SPEAKER_01 22:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:06

It's really, it's really not.

SPEAKER_01 22:08

Okay. Well, I mean, like this is the thing. Like, whenever anybody hits their expertise, they're like, you can't use it for that.

SPEAKER_00 22:14

Of course, it's called self-preservation.

SPEAKER_01 22:17

Yeah. Well, it's called what I think it's really called as expertise, you know, where you like you understand all the ways you can be drawn into the wrong spot. Um, but like, is it better than me not reviewing my contract at all?

SPEAKER_00 22:30

Well, it's not as good as you sending it to me, but I Oh no, I would know.

SPEAKER_01 22:34

Oh, I th I was completely misunderstanding what we were talking about. Yes, no, I'm definitely also sending it to you. Yeah, no, I get it.

SPEAKER_00 22:43

I I understand what you're saying. I mean, look at I look at, you know, people look up medical stuff, right? Like, oh, this is happening to me. I have a headache and I'm dizzy. Like, what do you think it is? kind of thing. And sure, but I use AI for well, that's funny because a doctor would be like, don't use it for that. Of course, Dr. Google. Of course. We were like, no, no, don't go to Dr. Google. Yeah. I just think of AI is.

SPEAKER_01 23:09

Like, we are like, I can't trust you. I'm like, they like a doctor just can't trust that you're that good at diagnosing yourself. So you do have to tell them what your symptoms are. Well, again, yes.

SPEAKER_00 23:20

Go to the go to the person that studied for many years. Yes. Um, I mean, I use it honestly, it's it's for research, for like I use it to get come up with questions for my podcast sometimes. Like it's just things like that, like the basics. What I don't want it doing is telling me, like giving me an opinion.

SPEAKER_01 23:38

I hate that it gives me an opinion. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:41

I mean, I like that it tells me how great I am, but I don't think I like that it gives me an opinion. It's always like, great question. That's very smart that you're thinking about that.

SPEAKER_01 23:50

It's so embarrassing.

SPEAKER_00 23:53

It is.

SPEAKER_01 23:54

So I I I had a I was I was doing a little uh I had like a frustration and I was uh I put put like a um a thing I messed up. So I messed up something in a single thing I was writing. And I was like, do you know what I messed up here? And it was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, you messed up this. And I was like, I thought that I messed up that. Um and uh and then it was like, and the fact that you checked with me is one of the reasons why you're better than most people, basically, is what it said. I was like, my God, lay off. That's not true.

SPEAKER_00 24:29

Yes. You're like, I don't want to date you. It's fine. You don't have to court me. I'm just you know, looking to you for a bit of true here and there.

SPEAKER_01 24:38

It's so it's such a hard tool. Um, it's a hard tool for research because you really like it can be helpful, but you really don't know when it's missing. Like you don't know what it's missing. And it can be missed.

SPEAKER_00 24:49

I mean, you have no idea. That's why, yeah, you have to just put with a best output.

SPEAKER_01 24:53

And then like it's like a a thing that I've tried it out for is and that I really don't like is first drafts. Um, a lot of people say this that they like, they like want to use like they get the first draft, and then they work through the first draft and they put in their voice, and I'm like, I don't like all my ideas come out in the draft. Like that's where the ideas come from, is the drafting.

SPEAKER_00 25:16

Right. And um well, it's gonna influence you too, right?

SPEAKER_01 25:20

Because yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:22

It's words on a screen then, and how can that not influence you in some way?

SPEAKER_01 25:26

Yeah, you're it's it's not your it's not your writing at that point, which is like, you know, there's lots of people who don't care if it's their writing. Um, you know, LinkedIn, all of LinkedIn, apparently.

SPEAKER_00 25:36

All of LinkedIn. Exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 25:39

Yeah. Yeah. That that's like a uh I mean, it's it's remarkable that people are just okay posting deep cringe. You know, like like reading somebody's tweets that sound like they were written by Claude, I'm just like, aren't you embarrassed? I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 25:57

Yeah, but my theory is that those people don't care and also probably aren't self-aware enough to know, right? Like they're just like, whatever, this makes me sound smart, and they don't get that it really doesn't. So they're gonna do it regardless.

SPEAKER_01 26:12

Uh yeah, and I mean sometimes I see them has got like 50,000 likes. So what do I know? You know? Yeah, like people like what they like, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 26:20

Um exactly. So I know um we only have a couple minutes left. I'm gonna do, we always do this rapid fire kind of fun session at the end. Just a few questions for you. What is the worst internet take that you've ever had?

SPEAKER_01 26:34

That I've ever had?

SPEAKER_00 26:36

That you've ever had.

SPEAKER_01 26:37

Oh, great question. I told a reporter once that YouTube would never go HD.

SPEAKER_00 26:45

That's the worst take, Hank?

SPEAKER_01 26:47

That's I mean, it's it's pretty embarrassing. I look, I've had I've had I've had worse takes, but I'm more embarrassed by them. So we're going with that one.

SPEAKER_00 26:57

Okay. All right. That's fine. Um if the algorithm were a person, what would you say to it?

SPEAKER_01 27:04

Chill out, man. We don't we don't need we don't need to go this hard.

SPEAKER_00 27:08

Back off.

SPEAKER_01 27:09

Back off. Look, look. Think think of the children.

unknown 27:15

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 27:17

What is something you understand that you wish you did not?

SPEAKER_01 27:22

Oh. Teratomas.

SPEAKER_00 27:27

I I figured it would probably be something along those lines.

SPEAKER_01 27:34

I don't know. That's on the line. It's pretty fascinating, but really terrible.

SPEAKER_00 27:39

True. True. Two more. What's a topic you could rant about for 30 minutes with no prep?

SPEAKER_01 27:45

Oh, yellow journalism and our modern era of of internet content, obviously.

SPEAKER_00 27:52

Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna sound really dumb. What is yellow journalism? Is that a general?

SPEAKER_01 27:55

There's just this it was this period, and I think that it I actually don't know why it was called yellow journalism. I always assumed that it was because the the new kind of paper was kind of yellowy.

SPEAKER_00 28:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 28:05

Um, but it it was a period of time uh when when we had innovations both in the the efficiency of printing and in the business model of newspapers, that meant that newspapers were basically free. So uh, you know, sort of like imagine the extra, extra, read all about it, kind of craze. Uh and it it meant that in order to sell newspapers, uh, your newspaper had to be like the most um uh I don't know, lascivious is the word that came to mind, but I don't know what that word means. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 28:36

Lascivious, I think that's isn't that a bad thing?

SPEAKER_01 28:40

Yeah. Uh lewd, wanton, intended to around sexually. That's not what I mean. Uh just attention graphics. That'd be an interesting newspaper. It was a like it was a lot of different. Also, that was that was occurring at the same time.

SPEAKER_00 29:00

That's what we call OnlyFans now.

SPEAKER_01 29:01

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That'd be an interesting parallel to check out. Um the it was like uh all of the headlines were like children murdered, like uh foreign influence, like foreigners taking over America.

SPEAKER_00 29:16

Um we've come full circle.

SPEAKER_01 29:18

We have uh a lot of like um a lot of like other countries are super bad and they're they're like trying to infiltrate America. Um a lot of like you know, just like the worst things, like highlighting a lot of the worst of humanity kind of things. Um Yeah. And it was not not a not a time period known for its uh editorial standards, you know, a lot of stories slipping through the the cracks that were straight made up or uh or portions of them were.

SPEAKER_00 29:50

Interesting.

unknown 29:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:52

Um so the last one I have, and I'm not gonna lie, this this one question was generated by Chat GPT, and I'm like, what is the most internet sentence you've ever said out loud? I don't even know.

SPEAKER_01 30:04

Oh, I do this all the time. Like I will say sentences and people will be like, Hank, that one's not allowed. That's you can't oh do tell. Well, I don't, I mean, I don't have an example sitting in my head. That's uh that's um, but but you know, like there there will be there's just like a lot of memes in here. There's a lot of memes in here, you know? It's just it's it's a it's weird too, having like a child who is now like of meme age, where I'm like, yeah, buddy, 100%, no cap, 6'7. Um he actually they had a his his classmates and him had a 6'7 retirement party in the last Super Bowl. It was Super Bowl slash and they like it, it is fading. Yeah, they like burned candles and they were like, We're retiring 6'7, we're not not gonna do it in the classroom anymore. It was very cute.

SPEAKER_00 30:59

Yes, at my daughter's school, if they say six seven, they have to write sixty-seven sentences.

SPEAKER_01 31:03

Oh, wow. My son's teacher is an angel about six seven, and all of the rest of it. She's like, Yeah, six seven, and then she just moved on.

SPEAKER_00 31:11

Well, she's probably very young then.

SPEAKER_01 31:14

She is she is relatively young. Yes. But yeah, I think my son uh had a six seven retirement party is a pretty internet sentence. But also the way dad sent it.

SPEAKER_00 31:26

That's true. That's all the things right there. Um, what a great way to close. Thank you so much, Hank. I I could talk to you for hours, which I know that you don't have, sadly, but hopefully you'll come back. Thank you so much. Really appreciate the time. Thank you. Signed Conversations with Digital Mavericks. This episode was produced by myself and Phoebe Dunn. Edited by Carmine Matilla, social media strategy Maureen Lauren Sedlack. And signed theme music by Carmine Matilla.