THRESHOLD CONVERSATIONS

Hank Green

(Membership Drive 2020 fundraising pitch)

AMY: Welcome to Threshold Conversations, I'm Amy Martin, and my guest today is Hank Green.

HANK: I think that the biggest thing that we make as people is ourselves. And like this is a lifelong project and it takes forever. And it's like you never stop and it's hard. 

AMY: Many people first encountered Hank through a video blog that he created in 2007 with his brother, author John Green. It's called Vlog Brothers, and it made Hank and John early YouTube stars. Their tagline is “raising nerdy to the power of awesome,” and the community that rose up around them calls themselves Nerdfighters. VlogBrothers continues to this day, and now has more than three million subscribers and more than 800 million views. But at this point, it’s kind of a side hustle. Hank’s first love was actually science and as his online following grew, he began to use his platform for science communication. Through his programs SciShow, Crash Course, and other online projects, Hank has become an in-home science teacher for millions of kids, teens and adults, covering everything from black holes to bivalves. I wanted to talk to Hank about how he has harnessed the personality-driven world of YouTube to inspire people to get more curious about and fascinated by the world away from the screen, and how he makes complicated scientific information accessible to a wide audience. I spoke to him, in person and indoors, unmasked, back when that was still possible, in January 2020.

AMY: Hank, good to be with you.

HANK: Hi.

AMY: Hi. So I just want to start out talking Vlogbrothers a minute first before we get into more science stuff. What were you and John setting out to do when you started it? 

HANK: Well, I mean, there's the sort of simple version of that story, which is largely to have a shared project that we did together as adults. John moved away when I was like 13. Before that, even I went to boarding school and so we'd never really known each other as even, you know, adolescence, really much less adults. And and I thought he was very cool and he was very into online video and he thought this would be a fun thing to get involved with. And because he was so into it, I was immediately got way more into it. This is like a you can look through all of my like what I was listening to in any given year. And it's because John, like, offhandedly said that he liked this song. And then I listened to it 2000 times. So that's just sort of like my younger brother-ness, believing without question that this was a valuable thing because my older brother liked it, which is really valuable because most people at that moment in 2007 weren't thinking like, oh, YouTube, what a revolutionary technology, what a world changing platform. It was like, “this is a dumb thing that is happening on the internet.” But I was like, this is going to be as big as TV. It's going to be like a bigger shift than the shift from radio to TV. And I think that, like, once I had the time to look at it and once I had the sort of inspiration to look at it, anybody would have come to that conclusion, but most people weren't being pushed to to be sort of critical of it, to look at how it was functioning, to look at what it was enabling. And and that sort of set me up to sort of like push a lot more of my life and time into a thing that was growing really fast and that ended up being a really good-for-my-career thing.

AMY: What's the age difference between you?

HANK: Three years?

AMY: Oh, it's just three years, huh?

HANK: It was enough of a difference that, like, we played together and when we were young, you know, I was like six and he was nine. And like they like there were these three kids, John, Matt and Andy who were all the same age. And there were three kids who were my age, and we were just like, “oh, they're so cool,” all the time. 

AMY: Pretty adorable. 

HANK: Yeah.

AMY: So what I wanted to do here, what I was planning to do was to do a rapid fire, you I give you a word and you define it from the vlog Brothers Lexicon. But then I discovered I didn't need to...

HANK: There is a thing, there’s a website for that.

AMY: Because it exists, so for listeners who are not familiar, there is an entire world inside Vlog Brothers that has its own gang sign and its own sort of vocabulary, and I just want to play the first couple of minutes of this video just to give folks a sense of your vibe.

HANK: This is a...when was this video from?

AMY: 2009, I believe, so we’re a couple years in.

VID CLIP

HANK & AMY: (laughter)

AMY: So DFTBA, what is DFTBA, I cut you off there.

HANK: Sure, yeah. Don't forget to be awesome. But yeah, just sort of like a reminder that we all have in us the ability to suck and...

AMY: and the ability to be awesome. 

HANK: Yeah, right. And it's very weird to watch those little videos and be like, who the hell edited that? I know it was me, but boy did I suck! But like that being a productive person isn't something that just happens. Being like a good citizen, being a good friend, being like all that stuff is work and and we have to work on all of our relationships, whether that's family or friends or business or, you know, it's citizenship and and like that's… You know, and there are always times when we're not when we don't live up to our expectations or when we let our friends down or ourselves down and and like not to assume that the default state is just being sort of good at life. And that's something that we work for. 

AMY: That's really beautiful. 

HANK: Yeah, it caught on really well. And as the name of our merged company now.

AMY: And it resonates with people. I have to tell you a quick story. I was at a conference somewhere and just doing the chatty thing you do at conferences. And I said something about being from Missoula and they're like John Green is from Missoula. So, oh, no, no, no, it's Hank. No, no, it's John. No, it's. But that just led her, like she got tears in her eyes, and was like DFTBA means so much to me. And I know you have this experience over and over and over. And I, I think it's it seems to me like it's not only reminding people that it's possible to suck and that we have to work to not suck. But don't forget to be awesome means that you have the awesome right. You don't have to go get it. You've got it. You've got to remember, too,

HANK: You do have to remember and. And oh, yeah, that. Has has sort of like had all these different ways of existing and like, you know, like there is some, there was at one point this is a long, long time ago that there was a push to be to be like, no, like we have to remember that we're always awesome. And I'm like, well, there is that like that is a thing. But that's not what this is saying. Like like the the intrinsic value and the meaning that we have in just being people and, you know, like that has intrinsic value. Being a person is valuable. We should protect all people regardless of, you know, their impact on and contribution to society, even when they are super sucky, do terrible things like there's still, you know, like we protect people. But that's not what this thing is about. Like this is about, you know, a guide for folks who are trying to do their best.

AMY: That kind of segues into something really interesting, I think, about Vlog Brothers, which is that it could have so easily been two bros being super bro-y, being really, you know, and feel and making and sort of maybe feeling exclusive or just could be, you know, guys getting together to put down women or, you know, who knows with all the different things that it could be. And instead it feels like it was very self reflective and very vulnerable kind of from the get go. And that that feels like one thread of like Hank Green-ness that was I mean, you know, obviously from the start. But there's this whole other side of science guy. And you you came to University of Montana to get your master's in environmental studies, I believe, and you started this blog, Eco Geek. But Vlog Brothers wasn't super sciencey.

HANK: There are science-y episodes and there were more science, the episodes before we started SciShow, which sort of scratches that itch for me, which is a separate show on YouTube. And but but yeah, it's sort of in the early days of YouTube, everything was very personality focused, everything. There were no formatted shows. There were no shows that were about a topic. Everything was about a person. And there are still a lot of things that are personality based on YouTube. But of course, there's also lots of other stuff. And that let us kind of do whatever we wanted to do on any given day, and this was necessary because we were making, in the beginning, five videos a week between us and you can't make five videos a week and have them all be like super high quality or really well researched. You know, science videos are obviously harder to make because you have to do much research beforehand. And that meant that it was like it was sort of whatever was authentically interesting to me belonged on the channel. Ah, yeah, so we were making content that was like really like what we wanted and it was about us, it was about what we found interesting. And there was nothing there was no like strategy to be like we need to be good people, we need to not be bro-y. It was like we're going to make content the way that we want to. And right now, there's a lot of nerds on YouTube anyway. There's a lot of sort of like Harry Potter was ending at that time. And so there was a lot of overlap with the Harry Potter audience trying to find new things. There were a couple of other online video projects that ended around when we started and those people were sort of looking for new communities to be a part of. And, you know, it was it was just that like now there is, of course, lots of bro-y stuff on the Internet. But at that time there wasn't as much because the bro-y people hadn't got, like, you know, didn't feel comfortable, like the internet wasn’t their space yet.

AMY: Yeah. The nerds were the vanguard. 

HANK: Yeah. 

AMY: Yeah. What I think is interesting looking back on it is that there's this, there's this very science-y part of you that was developing and then there's this very like emotionally vulnerable, you know, self reflective part of you that we're watching play out in front of the camera. And now it feels like these two threads have have merged. You know, and I'm just curious, how did that happen? Was it through Vlog Brothers that you started to become a science communicator?

HANK: Well, yes and no. That was my dream job. I have a biochemistry undergrad degree. And like the thing that I liked most about biochem was not lab work. It was learning about it and it was talking about it. It was teaching other people I like I had the room what people would come to to be like. Hank, I don't understand this thing, which only for biochem stuff and organic chem, not for like physical chemistry or calculus stuff like just I just want to be really on the table here that I was not a tutoring people in calculus. I don't want to pretend to that. And so that was that was what I always wanted. And when when Vlog Brother sort of got big, one, it was sort of being defined by our brotherhood and so it was weird to have too many episodes be about the circulatory system or whatever. And and also it was personal and it was about our lives in the beginning. We've moved away from that as the audience got bigger because it got less comfortable to have it be about our lives when they're like 200,000 people or 400,000 people watching. You're just like, I suppose. Yeah. Seems like a strange thing to be commodifying in that way. There are lots of people who do it and they have different relationships and that's fine. But it felt weird to me. And so we we scaled that back. But those those have always been different parts of me and and I think to me, like, there's sort of two different reasons, and this is one of those demographic clashes that we have at SciShow, where there's there's two big things that inspire people to watch SciShow. One of them is like genuine curiosity. And there's overlaps between these things, of course, there's genuine curiosity and just like passion about like the world is so frickin weird, and I get to find out about that. And and I will have a fact that I'll get to tell somebody and their eyes will light up the way mine lit up. And then there's sort of a...how I feel valuable as a person is in comparing myself to other people. And and this is my wealth. This is how I sort of exercise my internal power over other people, is that I know more science facts is that I have a like a more correct understanding of the universe. And people who, like, cling to these old ways of understanding the world are are hurting themselves and the world, and like and I want to break that thing and and like I agree that, like, the quest for knowledge is the right quest. But I, like, really try and separate in my head that out from judgment of other people and like comparison of myself and because otherwise it's like unpleasant.

AMY: It's abrasive and aggressive.

HANK: Yeah, well, it's unpleasant way to be, but it's also unpleasant, like it's an unpleasant for other people. It's also unpleasant internally. I find that like that kind of and I have that of course that's one of my like we all have different ways that we value ourselves and find meaning. And like, of course I have pieces of me that it's about comparing myself and I want to succeed to have revenge on the people who succeed and suck in all that kind of stuff. But I yeah, that's something that I recognize as bad fuel and don't want to feed it. 

AMY: Well, that’s actually at the heart of one of the things I wanted to get into with you, because, I feel like the magic of what you're doing is that you both know a lot of stuff. It's clear everything is really well researched and deep. It's not this is not fluff, but there's this sense of play and wonder and you bring some of that what feels to me, Vlogbrothers-y energy of emotional vulnerability into it. Right. And and I was going to ask you how intentional that was, but it sounds like it's very intentional.

HANK: It's well, it's intentional in that it's it's intentional in me. Like I think that the biggest thing that we make as people is ourselves. And like this is a lifelong project and it takes forever. And it's like you never stop and it's hard. So I work on it internally and I like and then when I'm talking to the camera, all of that is just it's as long as like I've set myself up the right way, it's like I've created this this rubric or an algorithm for how to understand the world. And then, like, I it's it becomes kind of impossible to to not have it carry over into the content. 

AMY: I wanted to talk to you about vocab because I feel like there's this thing in science communication where I feel like sometimes in the interest to communicate, there's this pressure to use very simple language or to like spend a lot of time explaining every term. And I feel like you bring people along, but you are not afraid to bust out like some serious vocab. Just a couple examples I wrote down, phospholipids, protobionts. But there’s also this humility that you demonstrate, I want to play another bit of tape here, this one’s from Crash Course.

HANK VID: So the first living things were prokaryotes, single celled organisms with no nuclei that were probably pretty similar to the idea that we find living today in hydrothermal vents, sulfur springs and oil wells. And I apologize for pronouncing archaea wrong for the entire biology series. My bad.

HANK and AMY: (laughter)

AMY: Like to me, that is where the magic is at, because how many people spit out a sentence with all of that in it and then also be like, and I messed up and I didn’t just mess up like once but in the entire series. It's charming. And I wonder, you know, do you feel like there is something there that you that can be a model for other people who are trying to communicate science and not doing it as well? 

HANK: Well, I think like as scientists, sometimes we get into a place where we are. We we're so used to communicating with each other and there's all these shortcuts and they are necessary and they're good. And like there's nothing wrong with the shortcuts when we're communicating with each other. And then and then the other piece is that I find almost regardless of the the the topic I'm traveling in, that experts have forgotten what's interesting about their field, because what's interesting to them at this point is like way over here. And it's like this thing is slightly different than this thing. And you're like that. I have no idea what either of those things are. And like the fact that they're slightly different seems especially uninteresting.

AMY: How did you do it? Because it feels to me like somehow you've hung on to your wonder and your curiosity and your willingness to be wrong, even as you've been learning your stuff upon stuff upon. 

HANK: Well, that's really about studying broadly. And I just like I, I, I couldn't I was so bad at getting super hyper specific. And this is a problem that a lot of students have is, you know, you you really enjoy your first three years of school, of college, and then you have, you know, your fourth year and they only get really specific. And you're like kind of feels like a I'm deciding what to do with my life. Like, if I really go all in on this and then I get a Ph.D. in this, like, this is what I'm doing forever, like it's going to be ribosomes from here on out.

AMY: And I'm twenty years old. 

HANK: Yeah. So that that for me, like, I like my first, you know, like after school job, I worked in a lab, I was the only person I ran the lab all by myself. It was quality control. It was really boring. I couldn't, like, there was no one to talk to like it like it's it's hard to go to work eight hours a day and not see another person for six months on end, which is what I did. And I was just like, I can't do this anymore. Yeah. We need to we need to hire someone else or you need to give me a dog.

AMY: Yeah, or a whole kennel.

HANK: Yeah. So and it wasn't you couldn't even listen to audiobooks because the work was too intense. Like I had to be paying attention all the time. 

AMY: Yeah, that’s very much a square peg, round hole. 

HANK: So yeah I, I, you know, coming out of that experience, it was like I need to look more at what I'm interested in. And so my environmental studies graduate degree was focusing on communication and journalism. And that was just like I have this base knowledge, like I know how chemistry works. I know some about physics, I know some math, I know some bio like biology stuff. I'm like super into evolutionary biology. And like, that's a big that's a strong enough trunk that I can sort of get what's happening with most things pretty fairly quickly, but I don't have all of the built up knowledge of, you know, like I already I've known this stuff for ten years and so I forgot that it’s interesting. 

AMY: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

HANK: So that that sort of and that's, you know, kind of what we look for when we're looking for writers at SciShow and Crash Course is people who, you know, had robust educations in undergrad and maybe some grad school or all of grad school. And then we're like, but I like I want to know more than just my topic. Like the what's interesting about this to me isn't isn't really discovering that new thing, which to some people that's it. Like you're going to know something at the end of this day that no one has ever known before. And that's amazing. Like, that's what drives a lot of scientists. But people who that's not doing it for them are like I just like to know things. I don't care if I'm the one who figured it out. I just want to know all this stuff. 

AMY: Yeah.

HANK: And so that's sort of what we're looking for, people who want to who are just have that passion and that curiosity, who want to share it with other people. 

AMY: Can you just do quick definitions, like what is SciShow, what is Crash Course.

HANK: Sure, SciShow is science news and interesting things about the world and about the universe. And it's just like...this is cool. The world is cool. We're talking about it. And sometimes that's what happened today. And sometimes it's what happened 150 years ago.

AMY: And they tend to be, lengthwise?

HANK: They could be anywhere from two minutes to 15 minutes.

AMY: As opposed to a crash course.

HANK: Crash course is all like this is education for people who are currently in school, like Gratz is unlike every YouTube video in the world, and that most of the views come after it's uploaded, like sideshow videos get all their views in the week they're uploaded. Crash course videos get views before the AP tests, you know, like people are using it to study. So it's a it's a study tool and their episodes are ten to fifteen minutes long. And we're taking on topics that people are actively learning. And so there are some people who watch it for fun. It's mostly watched by students and teachers.

AMY: There's so many nature or science videos that are really elaborate. You know, we're like out on the Serengeti or we have huge graphics showing us the planets moving around us. Most of what you do, we're just looking at you talk and there's little things that pop up on the sides and and it's wildly successful. I mean, wildly. So what can we learn from that? Should we be trying to teach about nature and science in just a simpler way, or is it just the power of Hank Green's personality?

HANK: I think part of what we learn from that is that there is a lot of gatekeeping in science communication. So like getting images of the Serengeti is a, you know, minimum, you know, six figure proposition. And even if you want to use stuff that other people have filmed, like you don't, you're not even going there, you're licensing that footage, the prices of that stuff is astronomical. Now, some of that is starting to change a little because tourists are going and then they released their content in the Creative Commons. But it's not going to be like good footage. It's not going to be like that stuff that you sit there for days and days and days waiting to get that one shot. And that's like it should be expensive, but that doesn't mean that there's no other way to do it. And and what you know, what YouTube has taught me is that, like, the world is really interesting. And if you're going to try and compete on TV, yeah, you need to make Planet Earth like you, that stuff. If you want to like get somebody like make somebody Netflix subscription worth it, but if you want to find something interesting about the world, then it costs nothing. There's like I have a friend who makes a show called Technology Connections. That's just like the elegance of your toaster. Like you have no idea how cool your toaster is until you hear this guy talk about it. 

AMY: What it makes me think about is sort of the early days of citizen science when, you know, in the Renaissance, after the Renaissance, when everybody's like, l can just go out and discover stuff. 

HANK: And as long as you're very, very wealthy. They were all lords.

AMY: Yeah, as long as you’re white and male and wealthy, but still, even still, it was it was not only people in labs, it was like, I'm going to go out and learn something and share it 

HANK: Yeah, I’m going to go on the beach. I'm going to be like these fossils have been here the whole time, but nobody's ever looked at them the way that I'm looking at them. And now I understand, like, you know, like a couple of paradigm shifts happen and suddenly the whole world opens up to, you know, evolutionary biology. 

AMY: Yeah. Do you see yourself as a part of that tradition?

HANK: Not... I mean, hopefully I like I inspire people to like do good science, but I don't I don't really consider myself part of the story of, like, the history of science. But I do feel that way about media that like and I definitely see myself as part of the history of media. And that's something that I and and and like media is extremely important. You know, like never before have we been as aware of that as we are now. And, and  I think that, like, obviously, the tools of the internet can be used very badly. And, you know, the the flood of people onto this space, you know, into a space that, like we used to sort of just sort of assume credibility. And it's remarkable that there are lots of really credible spaces on the Internet, but like the flood of both sort of credulous people and also, you know, bad actors onto the platform, or just like sort of unstable folks who actually believe the conspiracy theory or whatever, has like, you know, it's it's been a bit of a hit to my self worth to be like I am part of this tradition that is like, you know, not 100 percent good. Is it more than 50 percent good? I hope so. But like at this point, who knows? And and I and like, you know, I kind of wrote a whole book about struggling with that because the, you know, understanding both like the sort of motivations of fame, like why I have been interested in gathering an audience, both the good reasons and the bad reasons and also how, you know, how we can get caught up in, you know, really, you know, believing the things that are in our own self-interest, which is, of course, something we all do. But that that can that that can cause a lot of tension and love. And you just go out there and, you know, take the turn yourself into a tool, into a weapon of the culture war and and forget your own humanity or even like invite your own dehumanization. 

MUSIC

AMY: We’ll have more of my conversation with Hank Green after this short break.

BREAK

AURICLE PROMO: Membership drive, Patreon, Rebecca Ashcraft

SPONSORSHIP: Clearwater Credit Union, read by Judit

AMY: Welcome back to Threshold Conversations. I’m Amy Martin, and my guest today is Hank Green. Hank is a true polymath. He’s a musician, a podcaster, an entrepreneur, a science communicator, and an author. His first novel, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, and it sequel, A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor, both made the New York Times best seller list. The books are centered around a character named April May, who, like Hank, got famous on the internet, albeit for very different reasons.

AMY: I don't want to say too much about what happens in the book because I don't want to spoil the fun for people who haven't read it yet. But I do want to talk to you about what it was like to inhabit this character, April May, tell us about her. Who is she to you? 

HANK: I mean, she is her own person, you know, like, I think that every I've never been able to write a character who isn't at least part my kind of me, but with different dials turned up to different or down to different levels. So April is like April kind of is to some extent, you know, partially what I think might have happened to me if this if I had started to get famous on the Internet in my early 20s as opposed to my late 20s, like I was married when this happened to me. And I you know, I didn't have a house, but I'd had a career, you know, before I had other sources of self-worth. And I watched a lot of my friends get famous in their teens or early 20s. And this is the first job they have. Their first job is to be famous. And the first validation they get is, is this level of validation. It's just thousands, or hundreds of thousands of people telling you how amazing you are. And that is a, that is a very hard thing to come back from. So like this inevitably doesn't last forever. You know, it doesn't it does not last your whole life. It oftentimes does not last even a couple of years. And finding where your self-worth comes from after that level of adoration or or like, you know, it's you know, I think that April describes it in the book as like being a balloon that, like, stays the size that it is. But then when the air goes out, you just flop to the ground and it's like, I can never be taut again. I can never be like a firm happy balloon. I'm always going to be a little floppy and unfilled. 

AMY: Yeah.

HANK: And I, you know, like I felt a lot of that stuff and like have gone through plenty of cycles at this point of being like more and less and more and less popular on the internet and and having people also. You know, one thing that April taught me is that part of what you want when you get famous is to be dehumanized. You want people to forget that you are a human, you want them to read US Weekly and say, I can't believe that they also go to the grocery store. You want... but you want it in the positive ways. You want people to just imagine you as two to three really positive characteristics. Like he's a great football player, very charitable and handsome, like those are, that's what you want, like you. And and that's like that's what you you hire human beings to tell that story about you to do this. 

AMY: And many people believe it. 

HANK: Yeah, of course. 

AMY: Millions. 

HANK: Yeah. And that's what that's the whole thing. And and then you say something wrong or you know, you do something wrong or just like somebody lies about you, and and but the dehumanization goes both ways. Like, you now have all, like, people want to sort of imagine you in the worst possible light. And you know, like now having this insight on this, through like having done it, been through it myself, like been sort of crucified by certain parts of the internet, like right wing parts of the internet and and then and also had like that, you know, a lot of appreciation came my way…

AMY: More than appreciation. 

HANK: Yeah. 

AMY: Like the tearful adoration thing.

HANK: Yeah, exactly. And like now having that insight sort of like I will see people going through these struggles and be like I can explain this to you in like five words, I just need you to listen. But they're so big and they're so outside of, you know, any...and also, like, they want to be outraged. They want to feel like they're they're the victim, even though they're making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year or, you know, in some cases you see this with people who make hundreds of millions of dollars a year, where they're like they're somehow convinced themselves that they're the victim and they're like, the press isn't treating me fairly. And I'm like, dude, who the fuck cares? Like on the like like, I'm so sorry that you didn't get to have only your one simple story told about you and that now something has been complicated and and maybe that is, maybe that is taking something away from, from your audience. And that's something I worry about, is like, you know, if people have, you know, part of their identity tied to our community or to me, that when, you know, something tarnishes that or, you know, makes that look complicated, then then like that's a you know, it's one of those moments, and we all have these moments where we have to reassess our identity and feel really uncomfortable. And it sucks. 

AMY: That’s called growth.

HANK: That's OK. Like, yeah.

AMY: And it kind of goes back to the science part. I mean, that is the that's what we have to do in science is like we learn stuff that's like why we're not the center of the universe. 

HANK: Yeah. 

AMY: Damn it. You know, so much more convenient that way. 

HANK: Yeah. I worked really hard to make this model work, and it just didn't work.

AMY: Yeah, it complexified. And you know, one of the things that's that's interesting to me about April as well is that she's living at this intersection of the best and the worst of the internet. I mean, so much of the story could not happen without all the collaboration...well, the story could not happen without all the collaborative elements of the internet. It's also, you know, the ugliness and the division and the way that it can be used as a tool for hatred. You were just alluding to this. You are living also in that intersection. And how much of writing her was your attempt to just work through that? 

HANK: That's yeah, that's like I have been wanting to write a book for 20 years. And, you know, this one took me fiveish. But even, but, but like, those first three years were very unproductive until I found that I was like, oh, I don't want to just write a story about like this really interesting and kind of scary thing happening to this young woman. I want to, like, write a story about what it's like to be an internet person. You know, like to have this be your job, which is really an uncovered under-examined thing that is becoming kind of common. You know, like there's a lot of people who have, you know, some level of internet fame or notoriety or infamy. And and I like that's the best, that's the most rewarding feedback I get is from those kinds of people who are like, I had this video go viral and like I'd read your book and it helped me through the process so much that, like, I, you know, like I feel like I handled it in a really healthy way and I would not have without that. And like, of course, that's not like the biggest market in the world. So I'm not just writing a book for those people, but it's really helpful to you that feedback, because that that's sort of a lot of what I wanted to get out. And and also that like we need to tell a different story about fame now.

AMY: And because there’s a wider pool of people becoming famous now, and famous for different things, you’re maybe kind of changing what fame means. I mean you and John really got famous not in spite of nerdiness but because of it. Your blog was called EcoGeek, your community is called Nerdfighters, and there's this like,”we're outsiders, we're this kind of this group of underdogs,” and I I feel like maybe the question that's predictable that would follow from that is like, “have you ever felt like an underdog, Hank?” But I think that's obvious. And so I want to ask a different question. I want to ask the question, what what are some times or have there been times when you've seen this group of of underdogs and outsiders who you've gathered into this fun and loving and open community become the thing that they abhor, become bullies, become...

HANK: That's yeah. I think this is a really important thing for nerds of all kinds to look at. You know, when I was in high school, like, people punched me for fun and like, that's a thing that happens to people and like, but like now, I am, I am the powerful one and like understanding that transition, and when it happens, and it happens for a lot of people and then they don't notice it happened. And they and like and they and I think that we all want to think of ourselves as powerless. But just like if you have a high speed Internet connection, you're one of the most powerful people in the world. If you are an American, if you like, have food stability, if you you know, especially like if you own a house like that, like, there's so much inability to understand the reality of our like, position of privilege, like this is not like a conversation just about race, it's like a huge thing we don't recognize. We don't talk about the privilege of wealth. I don't get it. And it's so everywhere and it's so taboo. I mean, I get it. I know exactly why we don't talk about the privilege of wealth. It's because, like, if people understood it, it would be a problem.

AMY: The world would have to change.

HANK: Yeah, because it feels really unjust. And you know why? ‘Cause it is.

AMY: Yeah, that statement right there leads me to something I wanted to ask you about, which is a big part of your VlogBrothers stuff, but I think even in your science communication, there's there's so many meta levels going on. We're not just learning science content, you’re imparting like a whole set of ethics. Like, we all have a responsibility to look at our privilege, and when science questions lead us into moral dilemmas we need to grapple with that. And at the same, I feel like you're imparting like a confidence to the viewer, you’re communicating, like you are smart. You can, you can get this. I don't care who you are. And I think all of that combined is part of what helps the scientific information to really land. And I’m wondering is there something that you are doing there, some combination of things, that you wish other science communicators did more of? Do you have something to teach there about how to do this?

HANK: Well, I think that, like, I think all great communication begins with empathy. And I think that, like, trying to understand your audience is the most important thing that any communicator does. Like if you're a stand up comedian, you walk out, you have to look at that audience and decide what jokes are going to tell. And we do this with everyone we talk to, like we we, you know...

AMY: We calibrate to each other.

HANK: Exactly. 

AMY: Or we should.

HANK: Yeah. And I and there are people who, who like want to say that that's something that's sort of contrary to their values that like, no, I have to be me. Exactly. Me. And this is I'm like that kind of loyalty to yourself. Like doesn't sound like anything more than selfishness to me, like just make make space for other humans. And and if you got this far without ever modulating your, you know, yourself in front of other people, that's because that is what like that's privilege man. That's amazing privilege. That like enough people are exactly like you that you works for enough people that you got to do this professionally, that's amazing.

AMY: It's not even that enough people are exactly like you, is that the world is shaped around letting you be you.

HANK: Right. Yeah, also. Yeah, it's both of those things. 

AMY: Yeah.

HANK: Yeah, it's funny how that's always guys who are like that. (laughter)

AMY: (laughter) OK, Last question. This is another April May moment. This is my favorite moment from the book. I highlighted it even before I knew I was gonna talk to you. This her talking, “it's so much harder to actually define yourself and work to imagine the best possible future than it is to tear down others ideas.”

HANK: Oh boy.

AMY: That sentence brought tears to my eyes. It's so beautiful and it's so true. 

HANK: Yeah. 

AMY: And I, I wonder, is that what you feel like you're trying to do, work to imagine the best possible future?

HANK: Yeah, I think, I think that like, like it's hopefully what everybody's doing a little bit and I think that, you know, it is it's somewhat it is, of course, harder to build than like it's yeah. Harder to build than to destroy. And like that's that is a that is a actual physical principle of the universe. You know, there are infinite numbers of failure states and very, very few success states. I read a book once. I can't remember what it was called, but it defined life as far from equilibrium-like stability. And you're like far from equilibrium stability, fuck. Oh, geez. That's just rocked my world. It's like I feel I feel that a lot in America right now. This is far from equilibrium stability right now. And and of course, there's always going to be a push back to that equilibrium. And that equilibrium is just goop. You know, it's just like slime on the ground. And that's no good. We don't want that. So that yeah, I so so of course it is easier and it is also more fun and your tweet will get more retweeted and it.

AMY: And to be divisive. 

HANK: To be divisive. Yeah. And to, and to show everybody how bad the thing is as it exists or how bad the thing that other people want is. And, and then when you start to ask like what are the solutions, it's like well it's you know, like I, I know that I think that it's ludicrous that we don't have universal health care in America. But like, I understand that it is not easy to remake an entire health care system. And and so, yeah, we have to do it. But I also want to recognize that that things are hard and that like and that there are probably, you know, a thousand different things that each have a thousand different ways of being done in that in that problem-solving. Like, it's a very easy sentence to say and a very hard system to build.

AMY: What role does science have in that, and shows like SciShow and Crash Course and just trying to communicate the excitement and the wonder?

HANK: Well, I hope that, like. Do you mean like a better world in general or health care in particular?

AMY: A better world in general. 

HANK: Like I hope that one we give people a chance to really appreciate the world because, you know, a thing that is really unproductive to say but is nonetheless true is that to someone 200 years ago, this world would look like a utopia. It's like I don't like I'm not out here saying that this world is a utopia, though, like and so to to understand our part of that process, we're like refrigerators and, you know, pooping and having it go away immediately and never seeing it again. It's so big. And like that's like that stuff's amazing. But also like so is, you know, the Spitzer Space Telescope and so is the Curiosity Rover and so is but also so is like the amount of information we've been able to gather about history, both recent and very distant, and understanding the story of humans better and and understanding the ways in which we've gone wrong and seeing, you know, the ways in which things, you know, on average over time have gotten much better. So I think that the there is a there's a sort of dual purpose to the indulgence and curiosity. One is that it is in itself really enjoyable. And then the second is that like if as you understand more about the world, you can better imagine the future and you can also better imagine the present. 

AMY: Hank, thank you so much for being here with us, I really appreciate your time and just all the contributions you're making to the project of being awesome on the planet. 

HANK: Thanks. Thanks. I appreciate that.

MUSIC

NICK: This episode of Threshold Conversations was funded by the Park Foundation, Montana Public Radio, the Society of Environmental Journalists, and the International Women’s Media Foundation’s Howard G. Buffett Fund for Women Journalists. We’re also funded by contributions from our listeners. Join our community at thresholdpodcast.org/donate.

AMY: The Threshold team includes Taliah Farnsworth, Eva Kalea, Nick Mott, Caysi Simpson and Angela Swatek, with help from Caroline Kurtz, Dan Carreno, Hana Carey, Kara Cromwell, Katie DeFusco and Matt Herlihy. Our music is by Travis Yost.