Hank Green Talks Joe Rogan, John Krasinski & SGN, His New Book & More! | Ep. 32 A Conversation With

hey welcome back to a conversation with my name is Philip DeFranco and today we're having a conversation with Hank green before we jump into this thinly veiled psuedo therapy session between two grown men who haven't talked to one another in a while with a monetary incentive I want to thank one of these sponsors of this podcast Nord VPN calm Phil be sure to secure your device's access to the Internet and shield your browsing data through encrypted tunnels at Nord VPN comm slash Phil on top of that security and privacy for all your devices it can also help you be entertained thanks to an unblocked and content on multiple platforms at our region block but with that said let's jump into it Hank when was the last time we have it like a real conversation it wasn't like Twitter god I like probably probably over a year ago honestly yeah it's a shame and I'm trying it's always I feel like it's always a little hard to describe you you're a long time youtuber creator in the space you created and sold VidCon your brother was a well-known author so you were like that sounds fun a really big merchandise company you decided hey we're gonna educate the youth with science and history and go educational but the thing that I was driving into the studio this morning the thing that will always forever stay in my mind is you are the inventor of the 2d glasses can it be please be my legacy yes that is in my head that that defines you because you saw this thing that was new and everyone is enjoying and you were like what about the people that think this new thing sucks or can't enjoy it because you know their eyes and I don't know that for some reason I feel like that speaks to you as a person in a certain way that I created the ultimate fad product for the ultimate fad product I was like this this thing isn't gonna last though let me create something that's gonna last even less long and hey you mostly like it worked and they invited me on Shark Tank to talk about 2d glasses I've never talked about this that got an email from the shark tank people and they were like we saw your 2d glasses want you to come on the show and I was like I've seen your show I know which one I'll be I won't do the one where they're all like clamming over themselves they'll be like are you thinking you dumb product creator but look yeah I made like five figures off-duty glasses man ya know it's probably a good thing you didn't go on cuz they were probably like oh this may be a layup for Cuban to do smack some cry for a moment I thought that maybe I was gonna make real money off 2d glasses and they like they'd like like I just sell them to the movie theaters but this was always folly but it was a very fun thing it was the first time I ever got a product manufactured overseas okay but I think it's also something that made sense because when 3d start going mainstream outside of Avatar oh is all garbage it was like piranha 3d and because a lot of the 3d pac-man was like okay was still like that cheesy stuff where it's like lunging at the screen lunging at your face rather than being depth that you're looking at yeah yeah and and it was it was satisfying a need which is like if you want to go to see the movies but you hate 3d movies but your friends when I'll go see the movies you're gonna pay extra twice you're gonna pay extra for the movie you're gonna pay Act for these dang glasses that Hank green made you buy what's what's your what's your favorite thing that you've created if he had with yet at ball your babies well I mean like my first thought was the the 45 pound ball of of human flesh that is in my house right now I don't know that I created him my physical contribution was small but but yeah I mean he's he's really great and I do kind of feel like I you know now that he's getting a little older like I do kind of feel like I kind of helped create him by teaching him how to deal with the world and interact with stuff but as far as the actual question that you're asking I think probably crash course yeah and you know just because like it helps it really does help a lot of teachers and students and like I get stopped about that more than anything and it's like when people stop me to say that they like crash course they're not like I'm such a big fan they're like thank you for helping me become a nurse thank you for helping me like in my time in my life and my job and like in my contribution to society which is way way you know better than then like you know the this sort of like anything it's it's so wonderful but the other thing is like really like the the thing that I like the most of all the things I've created is really just like the dumb 15 years of videos back and forth with my brother and like we're still doing it and like that like all the people who are still doing it from you and I Zahra is such a thing like it's it's amazing like nobody has 15 year old TV shows that never happens but you know we're still doing it we're still we've still got our communities and like of course people come in and out and a lot of the people who are watching now haven't but no one very few people have been watching the whole time but but that community is like that's the thing that I sort of think about the most when I'm thinking about my my body of work yeah well because because you do have a lot of those staples I wonder I wonder how many people when you say like not many have stayed with you I wonder how many people have cuz I feel like I feel like at least a third of my audience is over a decade I don't I don't know I don't not be well here's the here's the weird thing you would never really know because like any given time you ask you're asking the people who are watching that episode and like nobody watches every episode of anything anymore unless unless your show comes out like ten times a year maybe so yeah that it's very hard to tell and like if you also if you ask like the people who respond are gonna be the most die-hard people like we do a survey every year and to see sort of like like the state of our community but we are very well aware that the people who answer that survey are gonna be the ones who are most engaged who tend to watch the most stuff etc hell I know you mentioned your son how old is your son he is three and a half okay three and a half yeah if you ask him he will say I turned four at the end of October and I'm just like that's so great wait so do you just have the the one yeah yeah okay for some reason I thought you had an older son I don't know I just yeah it's a I will say that's like the the most interesting will be most uncomfortable which is actually I use that way in a good way because I feel like I'm very comfortable going into most anything these days right before I hopped over to the studio to film this i am i had my first zoom call for my son's new kindergarten and it's just and it's just like looking at all the people that i'm like are we gonna be friends our kids are gonna be around each other for the next four years minimum also it's such a weird time for us to go in because half the kids and us we're all gonna be interacting over zoom which this morning was my I've stayed away as long as I could this morning was my first time on it and I was like I could see how this this would slowly drain my soul over several buds of just people like on you nodding trying to show that they they're listening yeah yeah and at like it's weird because in situations like that I often end up like switching into performance mode like I have you know I do live streams and I and I like it's very hard like if there's a camera pointing at me to be behaving like a normal person and and not like trying to like control things and being like the flow of this meeting isn't going very well I think I'm going to to sort of step it and it's like this is not my responsibility company this is not my livestream so Hank before we kind of talk about the two things that that I remember you kind of said we need to talk about this Friday even though it's gonna be like a week old by the time it goes out but I'm genuinely interested in your thoughts one when when you were when you were making your first book write an absolutely remarkable thing did you did you did you feel that pressure because your brother's so established in the space no really I felt I felt pressure but it wasn't that pressure so there there's a couple of reasons that like john and i's dynamic isn't competitive at all one of them is that we do very different things one of them though is that i've seen what that kind of success looks like and it's great but it's also not great and so like there's good things about it and there's like terrible things about it so like having a book like The Fault in Our Stars which was like a cultural moment and people of a certain age are likely to have read it but definitely know what it is and probably have also seen the movie and at least are elected to have an opinion about it and that's just a lot man like I'd rather not I have like a hundred percent of a certain demographic have an opinion about me and because like if everybody has an opinion it's almost required that a bunch of people's opinions are really negative so there's that piece of it but there's also the piece where it's like that never happens and like in the publishing industry everyone knows that that never happens like one like The Fault in Our Stars was one of the top ten books of the 2000s and we're the 2010s I'm not sure which ever decade that was I think it was the 2010 obviously it was I don't know what frickin year did all it all blends men I don't worry as much to and that level of success or for for a creative work is just very unusual so I never expected it he never expected it and like so it's so no but I do feel a lot of pressure because of my existing audience and that's very different when you read a book and you don't know anything about the author and you're not thinking about the author I feel like I have to write a book in a in a fundamentally different way where I am both like thinking about the characters in the plot and you know like whatever like the tension and the pacing and all that stuff and then I'm sort of also on this meta level imagining what people are imagining about me as they read the thing and my cuz there's no way to get away from it so to some extent I play into it and like there are pieces of it like obviously I'm reading a book about a person who's getting famous on the Internet now of course it's also a very different circumstance than I was in and and she's getting way more famous than I ever was or want to be but the you know like I also like know that people are gonna be thinking about like my own experiences and like when April makes a vlog like it's gonna sound a little bit like I Hank green vlog and like I'm not doing that's not like not on purpose it's a little bit on purpose to let people like have this sort of meta experience of which is all content creation now we're we where we you know the the Creator is such a big part of the content now in a way that didn't used to be the case yeah well actually so kind of kind of talking about the the book specifically do you when you're writing from the point of view of a main character that's that's do you have to approach it in a different way is there a different process than kind of if you would write for another character cuz I'm completely alien to that world yeah I mean that well that's like it's it's to some extent that is true of every character like nobody is you in your book like unless you're writing a memoir and so so there's always a lot of creation and a lot of assumption that goes into character work and I think that the best writers are able to to sort of completely divorce themselves from their their characters That's not me so there's like basically all of the characters are like versions of me with dials turned up or down like more ambitious or less ambitious or more excited or less excited and like but like I don't know how to imagine a person who isn't me really like can any of us like that's sort of how we all imagine I feel like how many of us are most of us imagine the world is like we we sort of like start with ourselves is the base case and then like we imagine other people are us with some variations but as far as like you know gender is a huge huge difference it's a big difference in terms like it doesn't have to be a big difference in terms of like the person's base attributes like of course it there are tendencies there but the biggest difference is how society views them how they're viewed by people outside of themselves and that's the thing that I needed the most help with because I I can imagine what it is like to be a woman internally even more easily than I can imagine what it's like to be a woman externally so like how how people treat you how they see you like all that stuff is I can I only see people seeing me it's very hard for me to like witness how another person is observed especially throughout their whole lives so the real trick there is to get lots of people to read it and tell you the things you kind of got wrong like like the way that a woman feels in the dressing room is is different than the way a man feels in the dressing room because a woman is much more used to being observed in a certain way and so like to know how women text each other or to like I just won't I won't know that and so I need to have people be like Hank this this did not ring true and it's not it's not like like those people aren't reading in they're being I found a thing that people are gonna like criticize you for or you need to like tone this down or the Wilke beliefs are gonna come and get you it's more like this justice doesn't ring true to the experience of me a person who has more experience of being a woman than you Joseph it's like I was like Hank when was the last time the woke police went after you you seem like you you walk a certain tightrope pretty well yeah well I think like it's you know when you're when you are like either of us when you've in the in the public eye and you're making content that's being viewed really broadly like you have to spend a lot of time imagining how things are going to be received and I've only I've only really started doing that in the last three years I feel like my being a dad has made me more a more empathetic person about less less inward looking you know I mean yeah I think about it a lot I think about a lot about how my not just how it's gonna be received in terms of like the world is gonna like criticize you for it cuz there's definitely people out there who just like looking for a reason to jump sure but also like you don't want to do like if it's gonna if there's ways to achieve the goal while doing less harm then do that like and that can be you know something really simple like imp like imagining that there are people with disabilities in the world and like how are they gonna perceive this there are people you know there are different perspectives and so like knowing that going in is it I think that it does sort of like scale back the speed at which you can create and it limits the number of things that you can say not like the number of things that you can say but like it it makes you more careful and so and so that the content might not hit as hard or as true or as like exciting for 90% of the people because you're worried about the 10% of the people that you that your content might like hurt their feelings or make them feel worse that day or whatever do so you're put it do you think that that's a net good then I think isn't that good and but I think there is a point at which it's not and like that's the that's the thing that every creator is trying to figure out on their own the ones who are thinking about this anyway so I think that like of course I think for for me when I'm doing that I think it's in that good but like there's a line at which like you can't make everything for everyone and so and so like if if you end up in that place where you're trying to then you just won't make anything for anyone okay so then to just I mean actually wait no to go back to the book going back to the book I'm fascinated by the process just cuz when when I was much younger I would always write but I was one of those people that after I would write two pages I was like well that's enough of that [Laughter] yeah when when you started making your book did you imagine it as like a multi-part thing have you imagined what it is where it's going to end and you're filling in the blanks or as you're writing it you're kind of you're you're learning with where that story is going yeah so so both so the book is two books or the story is two books the second one comes out in July salmon's the end the second one's the end yeah and so it's done it's written like the audiobook is being recorded right now and it's it's done and the so the first book I had a very good idea of where the beginning wasn't where the end was and I had some good ideas for like some scenes in the middle and sort of like bridging those gaps was a really creative process that often created stuff that was even more interesting than what I where I thought I was going so some of those internal seems that I thought was we're gonna be there ended up not being there but the end is still there in the end was what happened you know the fact that I thought I was reading one book and then I sort of like got to the end of the first book and I realized like well that was a really good climax and that was like like that feel like it would feel really weird to be like alright and now we're gonna keep going it was much more that where I like like and then I like sketched out before I decided that that was the end of the book I sketched out what would happen in the second book to make sure that like there was enough stuff there for a second book which there was and more and the second book is longer than the first so yeah I I knew I knew where I was ending and I think I feel like for me that's important because I want to know sort of the overall arc of the story and like where what I'm trying to say both thematically and and also like how I'm going to express that through plot and character and action and stuff well what would you say with the first book and maybe a combination of both without giving something away was the message that you want to get across both books together are about power and they are about the accumulation of attention and both from the perspective of an individual like what we do like we you know we make things that people pay attention to and we we have different strategies for gathering that attention and then we have different strategies for using that attention to do things in the world whether that's growing the things more or whether that's selling things or creating community or like and it's all of these things of course it's not one or the other or like making the people feel better about themselves or understanding the world better the way that you do like all that stuff so the like that was like kind of the first book is like this is about the reasons why people do that and also about the dehumanization that comes along with it where you're trying to sort of shrimp yourself down to being like a really sort of pure version of what you are to the point where like we have these celebrity magazines who are like can you believe that Claire Danes goes shopping and that that's like the that's the level of dehumanization that Fame kind of asks for and when we say like oh there's all these bad things about Fame it's it's actually the same thing you know people are either having dehumanized love for you or they're having dehumanized hate for you and either way it's completely parasocial that's completely inaccurate to the actual looks like lived experience of a person like not like as me or as you a person with an audience and like the Internet has done I think a better job at like creating nuance around that stuff and we both have audiences that understand us more deeply and so when we we can make content for our audiences that has this deep understand like a more deep understanding of who we are but externally we still are sort of well-known enough that people have really simplistic views of who we are and that's how Fame always used to be like the Backstreet Boys we're all about like create a very simple image and like just sort of like live inside of that image like the Spice Girls are the best example because they literally in their names they put their single character attribute like this is what I am do not think do not think complicatedly about me so that's sort of the first books about that kind of stuff and like the dehumanization of Fame the gathering of power how that is how that plays off with like like opponents victimhood narratives the way that like if you find somebody who hates you you can like grow your audience by talking about how how much you're being victimized by this person which is something that certain political leaders have really started to understand really well and then you've got the second book which is more about when how that power gets consolidated at a large level and in in the way that I think social media companies are doing right now like you have a like like the it's really interesting I think a lot about this stuff so I apologize but consequent companies are more and more fragmented like you know a unless they are their own platform so Netflix is not fragmented it is controlling it but it is its own platform YouTube in terms of content creation is extremely fragmented it's it's hundreds of thousands of small businesses making content and BuzzFeed tries to get into it but then can't they can't hold on to their personalities because they can just go off and make their why I left BuzzFeed video and you're like vice and Vox are doing a better job of that but like it's really expensive and hard and we're probably gonna see in the next six months or so some consolidation in that space or some like big massive layoffs in that space so it's just hard whereas like really like fragmented creators who are able to like do what you and I do have small businesses with you know tens instead of hundreds of employees or just like one or two people doing it together like that stuff can really sort of like figure out how to get along and stay alive but the platforms are so powerful mmm like yeah because there are no big companies making YouTube videos except for the record labels there's we have no leverage over them like we cannot do like you know all we can do is yell but we can't leave because they have all the eyeballs so so I was so then kind of that brings up an interesting point of because there are so few and because they're so massive what do you think about the argument that they're becoming less and less private companies and more of these public utilities to the point that obviously connects to then removing someone's ability to be on that platform does that exactly equal like censorship in a really scary way because it's like if the big three remove eeeh you know you'd almost don't exist online unless you have some some back that other other thing so this is a lot of what the book is about it's about whether or not we have to sort of like we're at what point do we have to consider a company that provides a social space more than a company and like start to imagine them as a totalitarian government because like ultimately it's very few people who are making these decisions at the top or at least defining the policies at the top and you see these companies starting to like take steps to look a little bit more like governments like Facebook just put into the put into place dislike you know this I don't know what they're calling it but it's like it's like a panel of people who are deciding policy and in their external to Facebook and it's like almost like they're saying here's a balance of power to us here's this panel of people that you can trust in its lit and they are gonna create precedents for how we enforce policy and I'm like so you've created a Supreme Court like so you've created another branch of government in Sutton like they they know like they're aware that they are being perceived this way and the fat and the reason they're being perceived this way is because they're kind of acting like governments like I like I don't my business is not run in Missoula Montana my business is run on YouTube and I pay taxes to YouTube and like they provide services to me and like this is a it's a it's a wild reality and I when I was a kid I would read these science fiction books about futures where corporations would be governments and and I'd be like wow that's like pseudo super dystopian and I'm like oh no here I am [ __ ] I like I live in that future now I like I kind of am a citizen of a corporate entity so that's a lot of what the second book is about you know and there's sort of a fictional company that comes in and is able to in you know a science fictiony way take over and and sort of be the the you know on the path to being the only social media company and that you know this is not like overt at all in the book like it's not some it's not like doesn't sound like it's about this but it is about this and so that's that the sort of like theme I'm trying to get to and like how dangerous that is and how I know that I'm worried that is it is inevitable that's really fascinating yeah one of the things that it's been over a year since I since I last read it but one of the things that stood out to me was was April essentially having to to play the game in the first book of being on air as a way to enable but the allure of that is so easy to consume you that you kind of lose lose track of what you what you actually want to do what you like that this the good that you want to do because they're you by being a part of the problem you benefit right and that really stood out to me when I was when I was reading that and I will say I like that in the last three years we finally live in a world where in entertainment when something goes like quote-unquote envira are viral it's not 40,000 views that used to always piss me off in like wow that's not what are you talking about April one point in the book has like over a billion simultaneous streams yeah that's really viral I was like hey I feel like we're we're ten years away from someone doing that I saw I saw this was the this last week when we're recording this it was the first time a channel got a billion views in a week granted it was like one of these kid channels but I was like no it took me several years to get my first million I mean I brag about getting a billion the fact that my company has two billion total views all the time like that's like that's our like line and this guy's like I did it in a week yeah so he's like ever gonna sell it and it's gonna be kind of on the the kind of talking about cult of personality I know one of the things that you you said he wanted to talk about was some good news John Krasinski selling that to CBS all access and I want to I want to just hear you cuz at this point when people are hearing this when people are hearing this it'll be a week and a half so maybe Krasinski says something else maybe we get more information but this is initial reaction what are your thoughts it seemed like you weren't happy so I did reach out to some of my Hollywood friends and I was like what do you think this went for so like as a person who's in this business what do you and and their takes were all like people who do deals in Hollywood they were all like this it wasn't a lot of money and so so if it wasn't a lot of money I like in that case like I'm not mad at anyone I'm just shocked at the stupidity of trying to buy something without any of the thing the PERT that is that is valuable about it it's just it's wild to me that anyone thinks that the words some good news are in any way a valuable thing or the brand that John Krasinski created around this thing is it all valuable without him and like I just like it comes down to the fact that like like legacy media is having a really hard time grappling with the fact that you you basically can't buy attention anymore like you can't use money to get attention you have to use good ideas and and like that's not all true but it's pretty true and this is feels very reminiscent like it's just like it's sort of hitting home over and over again when it you know like when it comes to kwibi as well where it's just like well we'll have Rachel Brosnahan in a show and we'll buy like a million billion dollars of you know advertising like Instagram ads and and you know all this stuff that just doesn't work for that especially if it's not a good if it's not like a really clear mm-hmm like sales proposition for me unless it's really clear like why we're doing this I'd like and you know like an Instagram ad will get me if it's like wow this is a thing that I want or need but like I don't feel like I need kwibi so so but like they're so used to this idea that you can you can get audience in two ways one you can buy with paid marketing you can come in and have advertisements for your movie and people will see the advertisements and they will go see the movie or two that you can use star power and be like okay so look at all these famous people that are on kwibi people will come and watch kwibi because famous people are on it but like Fame has fractured paid marketing as a wet noodle and like you can you if you have enough wet noodles you can push some things but it is it is a wet noodle and it's getting wetter so and like you know when you're talking about the marketing in that standpoint do you mean kind of more traditional and not like influencer based because I would say I when you say like you can't pay for attention I think places like obviously it's all it's through the same creator but see geek and Chipotle have done a fantastic job of utilizing david dobrik to the point of like it became for Chipotle they had like this whole tick-tock challenge and it's just like when you see like the views stacking on top of the views I'm like okay but I mean yeah as far as the average night like when when kwibi launched one I had literally zero [ __ ] idea what it was because the the marketing that was out there was genuinely confusing and then and then - yeah it was like I didn't see anyone I knew that I watched any sort of influencer go like seeming pumped about it even if they were being paid to or I know that they had Liza Kochi on it but and I loved Liza but cheese is probably mainstream as you can get when it comes to like someone that doesn't have a vlog but originated from YouTube so yeah it was just that was that felt weird I will say for some good news there is maybe a world where it could make sense I'm like I know that the the article said that he was gonna stay on his producer right is that I would come executive you sir yeah is it gonna be like when LeBron James is like executive producing some show and then he's like there for the first episode and then he like tries to pass the torch but it's it I will say it's gonna bug a bunch of people I think initially there's gonna be a big drop-off but if they find the right personality because they can throw a ton of money at it it might work but I would put the chances of success close to like 7 to 10% well especially if you're putting it behind a paywall that not a lot of people have access to so like not many people have CBS all access I do but I'm a Star Trek fan and I'm wealthy so like the like that that there are many of us right where's that hangry shirt the Star Trek fan so you know like and also like I'm paid to pay I'm paid to pay attention to media so like I have subscriptions to everything my subscrube my my yearly subscription budget has now exceeded what I would be paying for cable which is amazing to get there and but yeah I mean I think that when it when it comes to like when I watched the last episode of some good news which was like three days before they announced the sale it's so clear that everybody is there for Jon like they make all this fan art of him and he was like talking about how like it's all about us and like us doing this together and it and it just felt like watching it at like watching it before the announcement felt really sort of like lovely and nice watching it after felt really like tone-deaf and confused and because like personality matters and like and really what matters is story and this this is the thing it isn't John Krasinski as much it's the story the story is a famous beautiful man who is rich and is getting nothing out of this decides to come and and spend time with people and make them feel better in a time when we don't feel good and that's really good like that's that's a great story and it worked really well and and it worked it did exactly what it wanted to do but what where does that story now like now the story is Viacom CBS paid a bunch of money to have a thing to put behind a pay wall and the pandemic is now sort of like this overarching society level thing that we're gonna be dealing with rather than sort of like crisis moding through so we're like instead of being in like lockdown freaked out we don't know what the future holds were like okay well we still don't know what the future holds really but like we've got a better handle on day-to-day life and we'll be figuring this out and like we just aren't in that crisis space anymore like not in the moment when like the power goes out in New York City and everybody parties in the street like that's what happens for the first day the power is out but if the power is out for like two weeks it's a crisis and you have to like handle it and it's not fun anymore and like we're kind of in the not fun anymore stage and like this thing was created by the lockdown and like the lockdown sort of lifting and the story was really nice and pure and now it's not nice and pure anymore and that's the thing that makes me most sort of upset about it is is like even if it wasn't a lot of money the perception is going to be oh so like we thought that like celebrities could be cool and we thought that like this could be about something other than money but turns out that it wasn't yeah but I mean maybe it's the I mean you've known me for a long time I'm a very cynical person I mean it's at a certain to a certain point right isn't it almost every celebrity that that's kind of gone on these platforms no matter how personable and charming they are isn't it at the end of the day business like yeah sure Kevin Hart probably likes to go on Instagram live but he also knows that it makes his contracts better because he gets to promote on his social platforms same for Dwayne the rock Johnson charming man literally know nothing about ml then like hey he's in this video and he's charming and he's a part of my life with Smith same thing it's like oh he's we see him featured here it turns into a youtube original of him jumping out of a helicopter like there's always I feel like there's always that and I guess the question kind of for me becomes well should it sits that says stupid because it makes us feel like children but like should we just be happy with what it is like John Krasinski he's an actor he's a director as you said this was a product of the the pandemic and people's self quarantine and are we looking at the better option of two things like it was either go probably going to go away or it's this thing that could potentially live on with em having a hand on it that said it's sold within two months of its starting so I think that's probably gonna leave a bigger like actually less I think I think it was weak yeah like I think that's gonna bug people cuz I mean you've done contracts you know it takes a while I know that like what like we like we could be talking about this as like media people and it's like yes when John Chris liked the first episode I saw I was like this is gonna be huge for his next movie like it you know like him doing this he'll in my my guess is that he will make much more money from his next movie of some good news then he will make from selling some good news and like and that's that that's the thing that's a little confusing to me about it because like tainting this story kind of hurts that and and so like fit to me it's it's like even maybe a bad business decision for him because really what John Krasinski wants to do is be a superstar he wants to be you know Tom Cruise and have those and have that ten years of being paid you know nine figures or eight figures per movie and like some good news is a great way to sort of like increase that star power and like have a bunch people have a really good positive affiliation with you selling it is a really good way to sort of like taint that so I don't know I find it perplexing i but i especially find it perplexing from the perspective of a media company that's supposed to know that like things are about ideas and stories not about like that you know the number of views is i guess if that's getting 12 million views it'll get 12 million views like you know I get someone getting 12 million views because it's a good story yeah I mean I feel like a lot of things end up selling when they're like just imagine if we could get one to ten percent of this thing that's available for free they'll probably get a good host for it like their problem to get somebody who is some star power to do it and they'll spend some money on it but I like like it's not really Krasinski that I think is the linchpin I think the story is the linchpin and it doesn't make as much sense without him it doesn't make any sense behind a paywall it doesn't make any sense at a different time yeah I mean that's the really confusing thing yeah well I will yeah because I will say to the to the point of a different time I mean we've tried to back in the day when we had SourceFed we had Joe Bereta at the top of SourceFed we had we had a show that was all about him doing some good news it wasn't called some good news and people are people in other times not as interested now I think we are in this special time of escapism or in the need of escapism but yeah it's I don't know I uh I I think after twelve years of me immediately hating everything I try things could could could work out because I am I could imagine this becoming like the the heartwarming part of Ellen but an entire show you know and they're like hey look at this person that needed something and everyone starts adding Ellen right it could be it could be that but to your point behind a paywall is an issue I think in one of the original articles they were going to then window it to some of their other properties maybe that even includes YouTube but they do lose the story to a certain degree I think it's important to recognize like why good news things don't work and and and and why it worked at that moment um so good news things don't work because we require attention and storytelling like we work like what is the tension of the story and you know like that that's why news is bad because like we're looking for the the tension and the and the dynamics and like you know it's the interesting thing and good news doesn't like it's almost definitional he doesn't have tension and it worked in that moment because we were all like the tension was this overarching story of coronavirus of copán 19 and like society like reality was providing the tension and then like this was the thing outside that was like you know sort of like being the the sort of like endcaps to the tension or like providing a break from the tension and those things are really important in the story it's like you got to have a moment where people like you know are having a like in a story people are in crisis there's always the moment where they like sort of sing a song together or something and that like it's some like some silly thing happens and so like this was the silly thing that happened in the broader scope of tension but like what like when there when there isn't the same sort of like universally experienced tension what is the what is this playing off of so I don't know like I have I have come the I've come the other direction from you where I'm a very optimistic person but now I'm getting much more comfortable being like when I see a bad idea I want to be like that's bad idea yeah looking at things I think for the very least the next decade we're gonna need forms of entertainment that are all about easing easing tension it's gonna be it's true it's true maybe yeah that is absolutely a thing hey I hope you're enjoying the special core teen edition of the podcast I just want to take a second to thank one of these sponsors of this episode of a conversation with Roman in times like these it can be especially hard to get treatment for common health issues and Roman is a digital health clinic for men that's making high quality care accessible and convenient from connecting you with a u.s. licensed physician to delivering treatment from their licensed pharmacies you know if you're dealing with conditions like allergies heart health or even more sensitive topics like a reptile dysfunction you want treatment ASA and her friends at Roman have spent years building a digital platform it can connect you with a doctor licensed in your state all from the comfort of your home just grab your phone or computer complete a free online visit and you'll hear back from a u.s. licensed physician within 24 hours and if a doctor decides that treatment is right for you Romans farmers you can ship your medication to you with free two-day shipping you also get free unlimited follow-ups with your doctor anytime you have questions or want to adjust your treatment plan and you can cancel anytime so just head on over to get Roman comm slash ville right now for a free online visit and free 2-day shipping so big thank you to Roman and back to the podcast so somewhat connected to this and I know is the other thing you want to talk about Joe Rogan at this point once again a week and a half two weeks old this is an immediate immediate reaction it seemed like you were not a fan of that as well I'm not a fan of a platform consolidation well though right yeah yeah yeah so like the and it doesn't even have to have a wall like Spotify doesn't have have a wall like you can go in and you can have an ad free podcast experience or an ad Field free podcast experience on Spotify and like the only I have come a little bit back on this as well the only reason this might be good is if it provides some alternative to YouTube so that is the interesting thing about this that I don't hear as many people talking about is that Joe Rogan's podcast is not just a podcast it is also a video show and it is very popular video show and and Spotify is to me the only player that looks like it could challenge YouTube in you know sort of on-demand user-generated video Facebook just doesn't like it Facebook doesn't okay and it provides like another version of it but like it's just so like caught up in the feed and the feed is such a thing and like an unavoidable part of Facebook and like if I want to go back and watch a video I saw on Facebook I have no idea how to find it and whereas Spotify I feel like could be a place where like where user-generated content really starts to happen I think going after Joe Rogan first is a really interesting way of doing that I mean obviously he's the biggest personality in podcasting secondarily he's a controversial figure and so it's kind of like saying look like if youtube's being all you know like really likes like you know touchy about this stuff we're not gonna be as touchy because like we're not as ad-supported we don't need to care about ads as much and so like we want to be completely friendly and open to whatever kind of content people want to make even if it's gonna be a guy who has platformed Alex Jones a couple of times and you know that that's you know that's like the fact that that Joe Rogan made podcasts with Alex Jones is like the majority of what a lot of people know about him this audience yeah yeah but there's a lot more there and and I think it's worth understanding the other stuff that is there and that it you know is in ways interesting and that he is a very good interviewer and that like there's reasons people like it so the you know like not that that like excuses like post Sandy Hook Alex Jones on your show like it's just freaking wild to me but he he he has his own way of imagining the world that's different than mine and so I think that like there's there's that piece of it that is interesting like if it can break some control that that one of these platforms has and I don't even know what to call them except platform like they're not media companies they're they're like but they are the ones who have all the control right now then that's good but what I don't like but as a podcaster and it's some person who loves podcasting and has loved podcasts for a long time I love that podcasts are still based on this like ancient internet like system like just RSS like it's just it's as old as as things get anymore and it's open and you can like if I could create a podcast like I could hire some people and like spend $200,000 and I could have an app that feeds podcasts do you like it no one like no one's in the way of that like Apple seems to have like intentionally and I don't know if it's just cuz they don't care but apparently it's not because they don't care because they just said that they're they're hiring people to try and get some exclusive podcasts like they just didn't for it like they had all the market share in podcasts for a long time and they didn't protect that at all and they just like left the door open even the company that has more cash than like governments do so it's it is it's wild to me that they sort of left the door open and it makes perfect sense that Spotify would do it and as a person who owns Spotify stock like it like I'm glad like the stock went up I guess but like from as I creator like I just what I'm worried about is that Spotify creates a place where it's easy to get audience and easy to get monetized just like YouTube did and like those are the two things that map that YouTube really does that that creates good content on the platform like it creates an ecosystem where we will go to and if if spot if I can do that for podcasts and then also like lock a lot of those podcasts in so they're not available anywhere else then suddenly there's this giant company that controls all podcasters and controls all podcast audience and it's like it'd be it does the thing that the YouTube algorithm does to us which is like and it like kind of decides what content we make by deciding what content they feature that's a scary thing to me and I don't want it to happen a podcast which is like the last beautiful bastion of of algorithm free internet yeah I mean I I hear you on it I don't think that it's a it's it's a place where there is a risk of it becoming a monolith just because like I think you're probably right I think I think they want to but it's impossible yeah because well especially because there's some places that like you to I mean look the look at YouTube in the gaming space right too big to fail too big to be something for someone to compete with but then in one specific Avenue you have a twitch right at twitch ends up getting a huge gets acquired gets a huge amount of money all of a sudden everything seems right there but then there you know there all of a sudden threatened by Microsoft and mixer throwing a crazy amount of money to take the the biggest guy now the difference there with between like a mixer taking ninja and shroud in several several of the big people is I feel like Spotify is way more established way more accessible there's not this negative connotation there if anything it's like he's very it was already kind of this positive thing for the everyman because otherwise people like had Apple music or title some yeah right which are more paid services so it's like it's understood that it's supposed to be for the everyman there are free services and premium but then the the effect is that all of a sudden twitch starts throwing guaranteed deals to lock people down YouTube starts locking people down so if all of a sudden Apple is jumping into the game then maybe you know YouTube goes hey this is another avenue where we have to lock people down and so it ends up being I understand maybe not for everyone it ends up being great for established people who lent lent their time and effort to giving these platforms success obviously like YouTube is what it is but to a certain degree a lot of us we're a big part of the rise little incremental parts but parts that were very important and even today it's like little you know bricks in the wall slowly building and sustaining those things so I think it's good obviously I hope to try to benefit from it we could throw our little I think it's the only way you can make these platforms care about the actual creator because otherwise we're just these things that I mean I know Rogan in the past talked about it in a sense of like I think even talking about Spotify specifically I could be wrong there where he was like why would I go there there's literally no incentive I'm gonna give you this thing because what I get essentially like the [ __ ] thing that artists have had to had to deal with forever is like I'll give you exposure it's like oh cool bucket thank you well you know you get a lot more audience and when you're Joe Rogan and you're selling you know he's selling a lot of a lot of ear balls most advertisers him specifically I see it being valuable for Spotify for several reasons not only you know do they get the full show by the end of the year not only it looked like in Sept they'll be able to partner with the company that he's been normally working with to sell ads and they're gonna potentially be introducing mid rolls right so that's like a sudden take more money is that he's still keeping keeping his YouTube clips right so he's gonna be making money on the things that are wildly acceptable to the people that were watching and I think after the initial brunt of some people saying that he's selling out which if someone offered me a hundred to two hundred million dollars I would put my [ __ ] on like toaster ovens exclusively just for clarity I'm in the same boat I will take if anybody's listening right now I will take significantly less than that to go exclusive on Spotify I'm against this like we have to we don't examine like individual decisions we examine incentives like what are the reasons why people do things and like how are those things gonna be set up and if if we're now in like the podcast war is beginning now and what I don't want is for me to need to subscribe to four different services to get all the podcasts I like that's bad that that's bad for the user it's bad for consumers and but the other thing that I will say is that that there is right now no platform in podcasts there just isn't there isn't one there's there's there's but there's tons you know there's like the market share is all divvied up and it's very easy for new entrants to come into that space but ultimately the the platform like my podcasts are hosted on a server that I own you know oh really and cuz I mean that's or that I rent is gonna say I was gonna say with Spotify I feel like that's a thing that they're doing in a pretty intelligent way is that they're buying up kind of the different parts of the business yeah and the real really they're one of the smartest acquisitions I think it was like a company that a lot of people hadn't heard of except because of Casey Neistat anchor right it's like they made it incredibly easy to upload the podcast monetize it actually from that yes have viewer interaction with like essentially integrating a voice message line and then it's like and then it would show you or then it would blast your podcast everywhere but the main link where you could listen to it notably had like especially now has the spot five are at the top so it's like they're they're getting everything it wouldn't really surprise me and I don't even know if it's the case I haven't opened up Spotify in a minute like it feels like if it's not already happening now there's no reason that we don't have a world where that's that essentially becomes part of the the Spotify browser yeah and it feels it like it makes a lot of sense and you know I think that if they can provide audience and monetization then like and a lot of the people like if you're only if you're uploading through anchor and that means that you're only on Spotify you know that's a very different world than if you're uploading through anchor and you're also available on all the other apps so like that like I just I just AM like hyper aware of like cuz cuz all of these companies want to create monopolies like that's what they want to do that's how that's that what their shareholders reward them for so I'm just aware of when people are trying to create monopolies in the in the last few space where they don't exist yeah but but you have a it's a good point that like you know it's when you know twitch like created something and then like now you know Amazon owns it now but like a lot of other companies have come to try and like challenge them on that and like it's like we need to have companies challenging each other well we don't need to have as companies trying to trying to like create a monopoly out of out of thin air Apple probably won't let them do it and I think that a lot of podcasters and podcast listeners won't let them do it either don't let them do it like just because though revolts against the they'll just continue using their podcast app they'll they would be like oh like so that podcast is going over there well this is a world of infinite content so I'm just not gonna listen to that one anymore yeah but I think and to that point I think that's where it makes sense to grab a Rogen cuz like I I was I was I was the first person to tell my wife and she was like okay well I guess I'm downloading Spotify which I know isn't gonna 100% be everyone that listens to hims reaction but I think that's what they're counting on is there's enough ya know and it makes it makes sense to go after the biggest fish so the people who get rewarded the most are the ones who have the most etc as usual that's how it works I so Hank here's we're gonna do unless is there is there another topic in your head because otherwise I'm gonna I'm gonna switch these cards and maybe learn something about you god we have to continue the therapy session I suck sweet that I felt very attacked by and it was like guys guys in their podcasts during the pandemic is essentially just therapy oh yeah absolutely I'm proud of it like where else are we gonna get it yeah yeah I was like I need everything everything to be a part of my personal growth and my business growth that's it we're all machines I have been listening to way more like podcasts that make me think about like the decisions that I make and like what I'm what I'm trying to do with my life than usual I'm just like tell me Hank what smart people what's it what's been your most recent breakthrough my most recent break is that one of the cards no it's not but it's a great question gosh what's been my most recent breakthrough understanding that that that like that attention is like in terms of like understanding media landscape which is a lot of what I do like understanding that attention is is really the currency now and like of course people need to turn that that into money in some ways and and like Joe Rogan certainly has figured out how to do that in the last couple weeks but but ultimately the first thing people are gonna want to be doing is building that attention like it's very easy to turn attention into resources and to change into community and to money and education and into helping people like whatever you want to do but it's very hard to turn it it's very hard to turn anything into attention like so that's the hardest thing to get so it's the true true currency of the Internet which is the thing that people have known for a long time in terms of like how Google and Facebook operate but it's less of thing that we've been thinking about in terms of media generally and in terms of the incentive of content creators so that is that is that has been my major breakthrough and understanding my own business but in terms of understanding my own self that's a that's a more important one yeah if if I've had a breakthrough recently it is oh gosh Phil I'm a little worried that my breakthrough recently is that I like it it's a very similar thing that like I you know want to make sure that I preserve my ability to to influence the world positively and that means um thinking about myself as a media property um which I guess I've always done a little bit but and I and this is also probably to do with like needing to promote my book but I just need to like I need to like suddenly have smart things to say so that I can go on podcasts and people be like I should buy that guy's book which is available July 7th wherever books are sold you can pre-order it now where's my early edition Hank god actually I can send you on really let me yeah I will that was a percent awesome okay I'll get it to you right now squeaky wheel baby but I hear you on that so but regarding regarding you know converting things to attention if you had more time or you were able to suspend your morality or you know what what would you do now to be it to get more that more of that attention I'd love to make tic TOCs like I have ideas for good tic TOCs all the time but I like no in no way in hell am I gonna like spend time making a like growing a tik-tok channel right now and I don't like I don't even know if that attention would be that valuable to me as a 40 year old science teacher but but I but but I I think it's a fascinating platform and I think it's really cool and I think that like if you want to hear a guess my guess is that it's gonna get spun off of its its Chinese owner and become an American company and the next year and so like this big problem that everybody has with it which is that it's you know owned by China or whatever is gonna not be a thing anymore and what we'll realize is the big problem with it was never that it was owned by China it was that like like all apps that get very powerful are dangerous to society but it's but like it is a fun place it is just a fun place and it's about fun and you know it's a little like certainly there's politics on there and like people making fun of politics stuff but it is a yeah it's a it's just like the creativity the platform is very good but like from a person who studies creator economics perspective it is a little worrying in a few ways but I just want to make tic TOCs because I think that it's it looks like fun yeah and I have ideas for tic TOCs all the time so I probably make tick-tock and I'd also like like like every person like me I want to have an interview podcast like I want to do this I want to talk to interesting people and ask them interesting questions and like so I got I would love to do that but I have no capacity for it right now yeah I mean cuz there are times where even I'm like I could do that or I need to do that or they're like three projects that I have right there and every now and then I'm like oh I got the time but I need to focus on me and just event so actually it for me that's tic TOCs become a little event I'm trying to watch less of it because it is an incredibly addictive yes but tea plates but it's just nice to be able to make a 20-second video and be like yeah especially because the it's kind of like in a sense of early days YouTube it didn't need to be a certain level you could fail there and that because because the kids all know who I am because they learned biology from me and what I'm worried is that I up put something - tick tock and then I become I'd be I'd go viral for the wrong reason that's that's my that's my heat I don't think there's such a thing as unless it's like inherently racist I think it was a wrong reason on tick tock because then blur where then you show them you're more human side like that's for a lot of the biggest creators someone turn into a meme or like everyone was piling on like I always end up I'll be its she's the biggest person on there now I think of Charlie D'Amelio because you know when she was at around 10 million and it's continued but especially around 10 15 million after there is all this hype for like two months straight it was nothing but screw this girl she doesn't deserve it and just the worst [ __ ] ever and then the the moment she was like that's kind of hurtful to me it flits going to this person yeah I mean that's that is encouraging can i I know that we how long how long we gonna curb this podcast cuz I hope that it's two hours yeah if it's two hours I'm good with it man it's it's literally just other people's time I've made it so that this is the first thing that I'm reintroducing on top of my for time a week's show and then and then the moment that I at the moment I have two weeks in a row where I'm not stressed maybe I'll reintroduce other other work but this is this is it and because this is also I mean you use the word it's it's therapy ish to me it's it's relaxing it's nice to connect people especially because my job is me by myself for eight hours a day talking to an Invisible Man we should we should be aware and say out loud but this is not not technically therapy and that we we also need regular therapy and we should do do our work not on a podcast is we but also it's important to talk to your friends about like stuff but this is not this is not about me it is about social media again I got in have you heard of Clubhouse yet Clubhouse no it is a new it's a social app it's in private beta and it is basically a chatroom app except that it's all voice so you like open up a room and you're like I want to talk about this topic and then like people can show up or you can invite people in and then like it's just all in your ears and in your brain and it's it has made me feel strongly that like the human voice has been excluded too much from social media and that the like voice based content transmits so much more meaning and it's so much harder to so much harder to to sort of like take like to assume negative intent when you're hearing someone's voice it's it's easier to assume positive intent and and like it is just a much more human experience and I've been using clubhouse for like three days now and I'm like I am feeling that tick-tock level of I kind of want to like open this app at every moment like I want like I want to see what's happening on clubhouse right now even though it's like 2,000 people in the beta so it's not like there's a lot of people there but and like you know the the conversations are sometimes you like pop it in people are you know talking about football or something and I'm like next but like you know sometimes they're talking about like stuff that's not inherently interesting to me but I'm like oh this is I'm into it like I don't know who these people are and I'm listening to them talk and sometimes I like turn it on so that I can talk to people and it's really social and it's really like feels human in a way that a lot that a lot of social media doesn't right now but also it's very new and and who knows what it would turn into if you know everyone in the world had access well yeah because I wonder how fast like the Xbox Live off' occation I'm just just everyone's screaming at each other like an old got a police it heavily I thought yeah but it sounds it sounds nice in theory because I definitely agree when I I'm Way more connected to something that I'm just listening to whether it be on a dry bore when I'm just sitting down then when I'm actively watching a video but it also might be because almost like 80% of the content that I watch I'm doing something at the same time unless it's like something that I would consider higher art that you need to like you super need to pay attention right like or like or to appreciate Breaking Bad I think is one of the biggest examples or if you just want to try and remember all the characters in a game of Thrones moments when you know like visual things are happening that if I miss it I will not understand the episode those kinds of shows ask a lot of the audience but there aren't that many of them so how would you compare the connection you feel to other people on on this kind of this new app compared to maybe you scrolling through the the comments on a YouTube video or looking through replies on Twitter or you know things like that on a YouTube video you know obviously it's like what like one thing is all of these experiences are somewhat asynchronous where like you know I've uploaded a YouTube video and now I'm getting a response and if I want to respond to them like I might do it you know 20 minutes after they post it or something and so there's like all of this like divided attention that comes along with asynchronous communication text messages are the same way where text message like in terms of like one-to-one or you know personal interaction actual social behavior text messages are ace Kronus and i think that that that sort of like asks divided attention of us so this is very focused attention and it is like a it but like it's not like there's something weird where a zoom call to me asks too much we're like trying to like look at a person and like think I know what they mean by their facial expressions are like what are they doing are they looking at themselves and are you looking at me like how do I look that is all taken out of this by just being voice and that is appealing to me and as opposed to it as opposed to Twitter replies it's it's not nearly as different as it is from the Twitter feed which is I'm starting to believe very bad like what it's not like yeah I'm not like bad for me but I think like in total I think it might be I think it might be worse for us to have a Twitter feed than not and just because it like it makes me think that this is where I'm gonna get my news now so if there's any news then like it's gonna show up on my Twitter feed but to check I need to like scroll through you know for five minutes to check and make sure there hasn't been any news which is just the worst way to get news mm-hmm and there I also get good jokes and pictures of cats and stuff so that's good but a lot of it is just you know it's it the incentives mean that you know the most engaging stuff is often the most enraging stuff and so that's a lot of what I'm seeing and and even if I'm trying to filter that out you know I like I don't I can't filter it all the way out and the stuff that I like the most about the platform I find often isn't the stuff that keeps me coming back to it which is a bad sign wait can you expand on that what's that last point so the things that I want are very different from the things that I enjoy Phil okay yeah that's I think I think you just I think you just described the human experience in a sentence and so like the the things that I that I enjoy most about Twitter are not what I think about when I'm opening the app like a weird serendipitous connection or you know a really funny joke that someone told are not what I'm thinking about when I'm opening up the app and mostly thinking about how do people respond to the thing that I wrote I'm ashamed to say this but yes like it's like especially if I wrote something a little bit inflammatory does everybody hate me I want to like check and make sure once a day if everybody hates me for some reason because that happens sometimes I've probably got a kindred spirit in that yeah and and is the world on fire like those are the things that those are that that's why that's the craving I have that's the hunger I have and it's it's like being hungry for a thing that can never fill up because the hunger returns basically the moment you close the app whereas the things I enjoy about it and there are many things like it is actually like a fairly enjoyable experience if it wasn't sometimes enjoyable I really would think I'd get it off mail out of my life but but the things I enjoy are connecting with friends celebrating their successes having serendipitous moments where like you know some person who I respect likes my tweet or something and and and you know to some extent creating content that people enjoy so like yeah and sometimes that's why I go to the app I will often go to the app because I think of a good tweet basically I sometimes wonder how how on world of I how on fire the world is based off of Twitter because if not all the time now but a lot of the time it's like you notice that a lot of the horrible stuff doesn't happen on weekends and it's because we're all just like busy or busy with other stuff that hasn't fully been the case and so obviously like days have merged yeah but yeah I hear you on on Twitter as far as the experience what are your thoughts at one I think one of the dummer features that they've done was make it so you could hide replies because it essentially just puts it in a box of have you seen that you can you can prevent them or just have not see them no you can so if a bunch so you put something out there and and you can hide an individual reply but but it's so stupid because it just it one on the tweet it lets you know that replies were hidden and it puts them all in this is like the person that posted this tweet doesn't want you to see what these people say [Laughter] but one for a while there'd be a pop-up that was like this tweet has has blocked has blocked replies and you're like well I mean I'm not a drama fairy but I do want to know what those are yeah look at the judge if they were just or they just not open to criticize regarding kind of the new at this time change to only allow certain people to reply and in the case of like Naughty Dog who has had like a ton of leaks about their game I said that was kind of like the number one example that I saw and cuz people have been kind of trying to spoil the game for people I was like that I get but what do you think outside of kind of that outlier situation well that's a choice that you get to make and to me like it's a it's a simple feature it's a little clique and and you know I I don't know why I would do it but like I also recognize that I'm a very different Twitter user than most people like most people don't have hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter and aren't a public person so like you know if you if you for whatever reason as a person with you know like you know just who are like you're making stuff with your among your friends you know like somebody to come in and like kind of ruin your experience it makes perfect sense to me so you can I think you can make it only people who follow me can reply I think and you can also make it only people I tagged in this tweet can reply okay and like that second thing might actually be interesting because it because it's a way to like as a person with audience I can be like I don't care like I really want to know what this person is thinking about this it's not like I don't care about everybody's opinion it's like I am calling this person out and I'm saying hello would you like to respond to this which to me is like one one to one and like it's a little bit of a call-out move but especially because I don't know that if I did it to like Susan Wojcicki I don't know that she'd see it because it's not like she's on Twitter all the time but I can see it okay so when you say it like that I could see it as an interesting way to have collaborative threaded you know when people do like 1 out of 20 or whatever like that but if there could be like the actual growing of a conversation that's in public in text I could see that I wonder if that all yeah I wonder if that will actually be hit how it gets used yeah I mean I think I think a lot of times of these little features we don't really like even the people who design them don't know how they'll be used so I think that like giving me more choice in terms of how I connect with people on Twitter is probably we're giving more people more choices probably good hey really quick I hope you enjoying this special quarantine edition of the podcast and I just want to take a second to thank one of the partners of today's podcast pink one network to help fight pancreatic cancer you may have heard of pancreatic cancer before in the news right since a number of celebrities like Steve Jobs Patrick Swayze Alan Rickman and so many more been lost to this disease and pancreatic cancer is considered the deadliest cancer with only an 8 percent survival rate and that rate has remained almost unchanged over the last 40 years due to underfunded research meanwhile other types of cancer have seen their survival rates double or even triple in that same 40 year period and penguin is making incredible strides in understanding the various subtypes of the disease to develop the best possible treatments and every donation gets them closer to that goal of raising the rate and that's where you and I come in personally I'll be donating a portion of the proceeds from today's video to the cause and if you'd like to contribute as well you can click on that link in the description down below to donate and every little bit helps fund research that could save thousands of lives and so if you're able to help at all thank you in advance if you don't have it definitely share that is it for now and back to the podcast Hank I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna flip this on you because you said that you want to have a podcast what's uh what something you want to ask me Phil what's the thing that's scaring you into most right now that I don't always want to do what I'm doing mmm yeah that's a big one man and like figuring out figuring out you know like you have two choices there and and I like I've dealt with this a lot too and what do you think the two choices are that's huge what well what do you what do you think like because cuz to me you can either do you can either be like I'm gonna be okay with this or I'm gonna find a way to love it like I'm gonna be okay leaving this or I'm gonna find a way to love it like those to me like you can't like that middle thing where you just do it even though you don't like it ya know so so here's the problem because every day is different right right take the the week that we're making this I felt like two out of my four shows were good like that I was like I'm proud of that like I don't even [ __ ] care what public reaction is I'm proud of that we accomplished something for everyone that I'm kind of aiming for regarding domestic news understanding the real potential threat of what we're looking at over the next eight months will actually next several years and then also I broke down an internet story and covered it in a way that wasn't full-on drama and it was more from a business standpoint I was like I felt like okay I [ __ ] nailed that and but then you know this it's certainly to a certain degree you're at the mercy of what's happening and even what we end up covering like there's always just like a natural evolution and that and I've come to realize over the last fourteen years that you know it ebbs and flows there are peaks and valleys regarding my own interest yes we have first week with self where people were self quarantine because coronavirus pandemic a lot of people very very interested but then you get two to three weeks in people are just exhausted by the the overwhelming kind of same news so we're always sometimes an eye even there's no forethought everything kind of just changes and evolves and so and and I think the idea of you know like don't do it if you're not feeling it I think the reason I sometimes push myself so myself through that is I know emotionally that that feeling won't stay but that but I do know that those of my friends that did abandon the platform or like didn't I don't want to say maximized cuz even with a lot of young creators that I end up talking with I constantly preach like don't [ __ ] burn yourself out I know you feel like you're gonna miss out on an opportunity if you're not going 120% but if this is successful for you this is a [ __ ] marathon I'm constantly battling with it but I think I think you know me taking the steps like I did several weeks ago to be like even though it's gonna hurt views I'm taking three days off right and and even that I still weeks weeks ago but with how long I've done it it it feels so recent and like I had forgotten that if I express a vulnerability one not always because then people like you're such a downer but if I express a expressive vulnerability that other people feel less alone with that same vulnerability and that same kind of thing so it's a kind of strength to like to say like we we have this relationship and like that it's it's it's leaning into the same authenticity that that is always the thing of YouTube that is always and that is really sort of like what we build a lot of you know the things we make on which is saying like you know like it's not that I don't it's not that I'm not grateful it's not that I don't like love parts of what I do it's that like right now I need to take a break and like it's just hard and people like and like expecting that people will support you and that and allowing them to and you know that's really hard when when a lot of the sort of cultural like a lot of this sort of young man culture is around like hustle and push and go and go and go and I like I think that that's really important and like when we have the fuel to go we should go and like and we should find the ways to as dr. Mike said pushed through I can't in the moments went when y is in our way but also like we we also need to be able to like take care of ourselves and find the balance between those things because one thing I know is is you know like when I talk about what I want versus what I enjoy like every morning I want to stay in bed but I don't enjoy it but I want to and like knowing how to how to tell the difference between those things and get to the things that I enjoy and and and work through the moments when what I want is self-destructive is really important and and it's been a and like I'm 40 years old and I'm still figuring it out would you maybe that's what happened is what happens when we die it's oh we don't we don't see our whole life doesn't flash before our eyes it's just like this is what this is what the answer was bye that's way too dark all right right and I know there's just a lot of responsibility buddy there's who does what we do there's a lot of responsibility but also when you know you've got a business that that is you know Blake is its rests on not just on your shoulders as a business leader but as a content creator and not as a leader of not just a leader of your team but also like you are the you know and like I like I'm very much the same way and have tried to find ways to to have other people takes on some of that responsibility but like it's hard to be a youtuber and like not everybody can do it and not everybody can sort of like connect with an audience in the same way and so I it's just it's a huge amount of pressure and and I find that oftentimes the pressure is the thing that's making me that's turning off something in my craving of it and and the little ways for me to hack that are really important like I was looking forward to this conversation all week and and so like I like it's it's almost like there are certain things I don't want to put on my calendar because then I look and I'm like I can just like the fact that it's on the calendar like it makes it worse than it already is it's just like why like this thing being neat like if I was good and I'd like have that conversation right now I wouldn't wouldn't bother me at all but the fact that I have to like wait to have it is very terrible I hate it can you just call me right now but having this on my calendar all week was really nice because it was like I'm gonna get to talk to Phil for a long time and and that like that's I just love I love this kind of conversation and I haven't talked to you in so long that I was really looking forward to it and like having that they're kind of like made the whole rest of my week better Wow that makes me feel great about me no I genuinely feel what you're saying I mean even us kind of bring the this podcast back my my initial thing was depending on if I'm initially I was gonna try and reach out to everyone and then I was like no just I'll have my producer do it but I was like literally only have people I either already know or I'm like a big fan of already or there's a mystery because I just the idea of having a first conversation with other than an andrew yang who i was a big fan of but I never talked to before I was just like I just don't want to have this conversation it's kind of the same thing of what I don't know we've we've had talks about the podcast when I want to say earlier yeah last year about getting a Booker and I was like I don't want to have other people on just because they're doing the rounds like obviously you're doing stuff for your book but it's like dad I'm gonna I'm gonna have to like I'm an I'm a genuinely awkward person with people I don't know or because I'm an introvert I'm an introvert that yeah you know I I got yeah sure I talk to people but it's I talk to myself and then other people see it so now I feel that it's a there was a sense of looking forward I had Joe Bereta on last week and I was like I haven't talked that forever yeah which it will say Joe yeah jumping jumping back I uh I didn't realize how emotionally attached people were cuz obviously was a different beast near the end I didn't realize how emotionally attached people were to SourceFed as having been a thing until it was when things were getting shut down I think you you tweeted something along the lines of like it it hit you in an emotional way and I was like oh that's right I guess it was this thing for a while for a lot of people even though near the end it was this whole different beast and views weren't what they were I was just like oh yeah and something and did is one of those things I've I'll look back and obviously I put romantic glasses on fun times in the in the writers room in the morning and [ __ ] like that but yeah it's and I think that also seeing that reaction that that's part of me when I'm having those that was weird in between times that I'm like I'm just gonna push through it because one I I like this thing that we've built and and then secondarily to I know just giving give it a man enough time I would hate not having it like having just that connection with people and losing it cuz yeah they're the things that bring me joy when I'm not making videos they're just temporary escapes it's not like I do not want you always garden ya know then Europe that's called a farmer and a lot of work yeah I'm not built for it not anymore ever there was a time all right so oh my gosh this is the latest we've ever gotten to the cards here we go we're gonna learn about those right goal that was what I was trying for okay let's go oh no um okay Hank what concerns you most about your future gosh I'll tell you what I don't think a lot about the future I guess I'm worried that my son might be a jerk he'll grow up to be just a big douche bag I can just adjust a shifter like and and I guess like I don't like okay here's here's a and this is not the same thing but I am really not looking forward to the first time that Orin like hates me which is gonna happen right oh yeah he's gonna be like yeah yeah yeah right to your fan and I'd like like teenage years I'm very I'm worried about I'm worried about him going into college or whatever we have then because maybe if we want to have college anymore and I'm worried I'm worried about I'm worried about like yeah his his ability to to sort of like make his way in the world I'm somewhat worried about like being him having a public figure for a dad I'm somewhat worried about you know how how you like you know I live in a small town and probably will for his whole childhood and and I'm worried that like he'll be treated differently by his peers for that reason and and I'm worried that like by the time I'm dying and he's you know my age that uh that like the world will be worse than it is now in a lot of measurable ways and I'm like I I know a lot of people sort of struggle with that as they're deciding whether or not to have kids but ultimately you know I I think that like we need people there to be part of the fixing of the problem and I like I hope that he's part of the fixing of the problem and you know and and I think that most people are like in in all the different thousands of ways and but I do worry that like the world is gonna be rougher for him than it was for me just because of know whether that's climate change or whether it's just more sort of geopolitical instability because like we don't have the same hegemony that we had growing up where the US was like this thing and everybody else was like well the u.s. is in charge so don't try and challenge that but if that has to switch a little bit and like people have to figure out who's in charge now then that doesn't tend to look good historically so worried about both both from a like a climate perspective and also from a geopolitical perspectives that the world's gonna be a harder place and also like I don't know what it's like to be raised with a dad who's a you know well-known youtuber science teacher author cousin I don't really know how to raise that kid so you tell me I'll ask you when I was cub what I'm going to ask you cuz that that's a 1 obviously yeah it's people watch both of us but I'm in LA are you like are you like the famous rich guy where you live I am I have the most Twitter followers of anyone in Montana discovered a BuzzFeed article you're like I keep track of it on this TV behind this show that was like the person with the most Twitter followers in every state and everybody tweeted at me they're like hey look yeah so yeah a little bit in a little bit not like you know I think that the way that that Fame is fractured like means that every like people kind of like they like somebody wants like will wake up I like make friends with somebody at a coffee shop mm-hmm back when I went to coffee shops and and then like then like a month later he'd be like oh I thought I heard about you like so we like it's not like they definitely know me when they meet me but eventually they figure out they're like oh you do things you think oh you're the so-and-so guy like I live in a town that's small enough to are like I know by sight all the who owned Tesla's because there's only three in town and so like eventually you see the guy getting out of the Tesla and you're like that's one of the Tesla's I don't know what that is because I like obviously like I'll meet people and there'll be some people that are like just so excited but in general I still don't matter in LA which is kind of a nice thing yeah yeah it's just like I'm on the low end of the high end and I feel like I feel like that lets me stay a little bit tiny bit grounded but okay so to the other point though regarding kind of raising your kid are you are you worried that you're just gonna give and there there's there might not there might not be that kind of like you have to work for it thing because I I've found myself my son just turned six I found myself having to actively not give what I want to just like because because also a lot of the time it's something we can both enjoy so it's practicing something I haven't had in a while where I was like oh I have to wait for this thing cuz but I think it's it's so for me it felt so incredibly important because I I remember once I remember once I had even the slightest bit of audience I had like a lot of ego and I felt like the world owed me everything and should give me everything and so I was just like how [ __ ] destructive would that be at 10 and 15 and 20 but have you you're kind of almost at that that point right because you have a you have a little person that's starting to remember they're gonna start remembering stuff yeah yeah and I think about that and what I try and tell myself is like this is this thing isn't actually gonna make it like it's not gonna solve the problem that we're having it's not gonna actually make him much happier and so like if I'm trying to solve the problem of him being like mad that doesn't have the thing like this is a temper like getting the thing is a very temporary solution that only leads to this happening again so so yeah I worry about that on sort of a larger scale where it's like how do I make sure that that he understands like his place in society that like not everybody has the same advantages that he has not everybody has like the same like like he can't expect that his friends will be able to do the same things necessarily like you know there is a trampoline house in Missoula and like we go to the trampoline house fairly frequently used to this is a disease Factory at the best of times but the but like not everybody in his peer group can afford to just like drop and go to the trampoline house cuz it like cost a bunch of money and like like Kathryn and I will both get tickets we'll both go we'll all be jumping and like most of the parents like pay for their kids and then sit and because like it's ludicrous to be like I don't like I'm just gonna hurt myself like why would I pay for the chance to get a broken ankle but uh but yeah like the you know cuz like that that you know that $30.00 isn't that important to us but for a lot of people it is and I want him to know that and I want him to know that like adjusting your behavior to like make your to like make it so that more people can be included in your fun is way better than having more expensive fun so like that's the stuff that I want to get across and and like and like ideally not have to say out loud for a while but then eventually make it clear like like not like I mean we don't just say it out loud we'll just live that way yeah what I've found is that there as I try and teach my son these lessons before incidents come up there they're like random blind spots that I missed cuz like with our son you know we we explain you know some people have you know mommies and daddies some people have two mommies some to have two daddies and thought we had [ __ ] everything covered and then one day my son came back from a summer day camp and he never understood that some people don't have a mommy or don't have a daddy and yeah he his he wasn't making fun of this kid but he was like what what are you talking about asking this kid and so the was taking it as like an attack and I was just like okay here here's another coke a so yeah I just gotta make a peace with the fact that I'm gonna I'm gonna miss something child but yeah okay wait so back to the cards kind of touching on something that you you kind of mentioned in passing how are you most like your father and how does that scare you and this is you're just asking me questions I'm not asking you questions yeah I realized that I like having the power in my podcast at any point you can switch it on me but I don't know I'm not prepared this is hard because my dad is like the best you've met my dad right maybe it eventually be at a VidCon yeah he's always there yeah he's he's extraordinarily kind he's really all about like it just doesn't seem like he cares that much about himself he just like wants to make things better for other people and and he but he's also not a pushover like he'll [ __ ] stand up and he'll and like he's adventurous too like he became a pilot accidentally once and and didn't tell my mom about it and that was like the biggest fight they ever had like I became a pilot on the down low like ya know literally he he became a pilot without telling my mom because he knew that she wouldn't like it that's like his version of cheating on her I guess with an airplane and yeah I am I am like my dad in a lot of ways and right and I think that it's just it's hard for me to have like that thoughts about my dad that are that are bad I had them at womp I was like let me let me throw in on you and it's it's in a positive light do you ever feel like you are too nice or that there's something that is bad about you trying to accommodate for others it may be but like I think that when yeah I mean I like I think I could I could run a business faster and grow it faster and have it be bigger and like go harder and so there is that stuff where I feel like but I don't think that any of the people who work for me would be happier I think that they might be richer I think that they but like you know I also think that there'd be an awful lot of them that I never think about it all and so like if when it comes to like maximizing my happiness probably not and and that's something that I think about like like is is maximizing happiness the right frame like is trying to find the ways to like to like you know do the things that I really want to do and and and focus on that rather than like having the biggest impact or changing the things that need to be changed the fastest so there may that you know like I think if I were a little bit more ruthless that I could definitely accomplish more but I also think that like that ruthlessness would not not just like make me a little less happy but also like it would mean that the things I was accomplishing might not be as good for the world mmm I feel like like that's a really that that's a that's an interesting dynamic there where I think people who like really believe in their mission are like I don't care if like every teacher in there in the world loses their job I don't care if like I put I don't if I like put a bunch of things out of business like like change is gonna happen and I might might as well be at the driver's seat because like I think that you know X or Y is the future and and so like when I've had ideas that are you know that are really like change agents I always have a really hard time implementing them because I think about all the people who will whose lives will be disrupted by them so in that sense like maybe because like I think that I think that those good ideas should exist and I think that like just because like people's lives will be disrupted doesn't mean that like change shouldn't happen right cuz like I I think that we shouldn't have any coal miners like I think that's a thing I'm sorry like we should not be burning coal it's bad and so like stop digging it out of the ground but you know like that that will happen and it has to have then and then there and then like the the the spectrum of where else that might land you know I probably fall pretty close to don't disrupt and I think that maybe this is the thing I I might want to be liked too much I think that's a lot of people online and actually I think that actually connects to this next question how do you think I like I like to asking Joe Bereta this question how do you think I want to be perceived how many times is this card in this deck you philip defranco or me a hankerin know how do you Hank green think i philip defranco want to be perceived I feel like you've asked this question three times you just want people to tell you this I think it's just in this deck like 12 times there's 200 cards I don't know how okay yeah i mean so like philip defranco right now as opposed to philip defranco you know maybe 10 years ago i love everyone keeps actually rightfully so I think separate the two but yes yeah well here's this is wild when I when I told Katherine I was gonna be on on this podcast he was like oh god she he's gonna he's gonna like he's gonna come for you and like try to get you and I was like wow someone some no yeah I've talked to someone recently that had concerns about coming on because they thought I was looking for some gotcha and I was like look at literally every podcast one person that it ended up going in a weird place that it was just because there was big discrepancies between their answers and then I had nothing to [ __ ] do with it but yeah their own thing yeah I think that I think that you want to be I think that you want to be seen as as nice I think that you want to be seen as positive force in the world and I think that you want to be seen as a and I'm I'm writing this boat with you I think that you want to be seen as sort of a an innovator and a like pioneer mmm-hmm and that's something that I take a lot of pride in and that like I think that we kind of share and I hope that you want to be seen as a good boss but I don't know very much about that part of your life I definitely think that want to be seen as a good dad mm-hmm and that that probably matters to you more than a lot of perception around you these days and that like ultimately I think that we are we are probably correct in this that like the way that we handle our families the way that we you know that the responsibility that we have there is is you know it is not as large but it is far more important in a way than the responsibilities like that like people who sort of take that responsibility seriously Mike the you know that that really that really matters and and I think that you want to be seen as tall now I feel like you pretty much yeah you pretty much nailed it I mean yeah I think I mean living in a time of less of what I wanted before like when you're when when I mentioned earlier like I'm concerned I don't want to do what I'm currently doing right I said years ago I set myself in a path of I always have to be building this other thing that is bigger than me right it has to be this thing like but I'm not I'm like but then I look back and I'm not inherently a guy that cares about legacy right I'm not someone that wants a shrine named after me or some [ __ ] staff you or I I think about the the now right the people impacted or that were educated or have an opinion about something even if it's not mine because of my videos that's where get the value there and then I realize like what is all this other stuff that I am doing right is is it something because I want people to be like wow look at Phil he built that thing does that [ __ ] bring me joy no it doesn't bring me joy and so and if it's not something that is special it provides something that I'm not already providing why do it and so I think that a lot of the things that I've been looking at more recently has been about ya pulling back what can I maximize what experience is gonna get with my family so like actually taking breaks where I normally wouldn't and enjoying that and then and then making little side businesses at the the show does like we're you know we have that here no but it's like yeah we have the haircare stuff which is a really fun it's like it's something and then we're working on a coffee line now but we don't want it to be a youtuber coffee so it's like it's something that we could - and those are the things that end up exciting me we've recently refocused on merch but doing it in a way that it feels like streetwear like an actual like an actual brand and I'm like oh it gets its is that changing the world no but it makes me feel creative in a different way that I get to work with you know really people that are smarter than me and or more skilled than me and a different Avenue in that that was that's been very refreshing yeah absolutely I mean I like I love to create things and and whether that's a video or a business or actualizing some kind of idea or just like like just like having an idea that sticks in my head and helps me understand the world like that's the kind of creation - and that's that's a lot of what drives me I feel like creators sort of like have this this arc that I like i i've only after a decade of this been able to identify where it was really first about attention and like it's a really first about like making something that people are gonna pay attention to and that's gonna affect someone and it's gonna make them laugh or it's gonna make them think and like that's the that's all that matters and like that's where like almost every tick talker is right now and then like at some point it gets to be that like your graphs change a little bit and like being able to sustain this activity is more important like to find ways to make money off of it to have it be your job and then like you know as and like it's it's almost as if you like you have enough of this that you realize that like one you have enough and two that having more isn't gonna make you much happier so like there's those are two different things so you have to have enough before you can realize that more isn't gonna make you much happier so first you have enough then you realize it's not gonna make me much happy to have more and then like that happens with audience and then it happens with money and then it happens with and and then like eventually you get to a point where and like not everybody gets here where it's like like what's fun though like what do i like doing like what is that what is the weird thing i can do that's interesting when i and and i think that is so easy if you are sort of plugged into a certain ecosystem to with money never get there where you realize that more isn't gonna make you happier especially when you got agents talking in your ears or like all your friends are spending money in really wild ways that make you want it even though it's not making them happy it's making you want it anyway even though it never makes you happy and like you spending money makes other people spend money and it's like this wild and I think in general like we are so good at following the paths that are are put in front of us and and taking the moment to be like okay but like what about that way that doesn't look like a path but it is a direction and so maybe I can maybe you can find that direction and I think like you know hair care and coffee and street wear and like all that stuff is like that's a direction it's not like it's not like a path that was laid out in front of you and I think that that everyone is a little bit struggling with with the difference between the path in front of them in the direction that is a little bit obscure and weird and they don't like it's not just that like it's not just that you don't want to go down the path it's that like the path is just it's clear like everyone knows where it is and for so many people that the path is pretty good or maybe great but for a lot of people like the path isn't great and so you have to like you have to go someplace and like you can't see it you don't know what something other side of those bushes like and that's scary but can be really rewarding for people when when we have the opportunities to do it which is of course not everyone yeah no definitely I like I like I'm sorry I'm just enjoying these questions because they keep they're touching on a lot of the same thing when thinking of the past Hank is it nostalgic or painful why oh it's nostalgic yeah and I think because I don't have a lot to be painful about like the main things await Linden let me insert my own question on top of it do you feel like your best moments are behind you I mean in some way yeah like in in terms of my career probably but in terms of like my happiness I don't think so and I hope not like I I'm really looking forward to like get like unlike having a conversation with Orin where we're like I learned from him or you know he you like like understanding his personality like watching that sort of really come to be him and seeing him fall in love or make something special or different or you know like just like all of the stuff that I loved doing like I feel like I'm gonna love watching him do it more than I loved doing it myself and and and also like I I hope that in in those you know in that next like 30 years ish that I will also have times when I get to like help other people and I've done this I'm already you've got to help other people realize their dreams like talented people give them an opportunity help them like you know be there when they have questions about something that not very many people know about which is this business and like that is really rewarding to me and it's it's weird how like like like helping someone else achieve their dreams can be more rewarding than achieving your own dreams that's wild to me like I would never have thought that that would be true but it is a hundred percent like I feel better about helping other people succeed than I feel about succeeding hmm I was like I don't know I don't think I'm there like if I'm being know if I'm being like truly honest and I'm not thinking like what public reception would be like for a child yes for someone I'm yeah for someone that I'm related to and but then it's like how am I then then if I get like really introspective on it how much of that is because I'm happy that they are achieving something in there and they're getting this experience and how much kind of to go back to that question because of how it would reflect upon me right is that always is that like a parental thing right that's a that's a part of it yeah I think but but I don't know that you know until you try but like for example like do you feel good about like you know helping Joe and Elliott and Lee and Steve and like you feel good about like helping them along their career isn't like getting them into a place where they you know could make some really beautiful creative weird stuff like that that's that's so great to me and there's yeah and there's levels to it right there's levels to it like when when I had Joe on and he had like this really candid chat because you know much like you said where Who I am is different depending on like what year you're talking about or like what with not generation but yeah what what Phil you're dealing with like there is part of me that's genuinely happy that I was able to give the opportunity for incredibly talented people to do something special in a moment and use it as a way to launch into a different Avenue but there's also stuff that's self-serving like the fact that people are like wow Philip DeFranco found these people right and then I get to where that I was like this kind of notch on my belt or or someone cut there's there's always gonna be part of that that's connected to it or we went you know we sold a source heard way back in the day and it was like oh and now Phil's a shrewd businessman so I think when I reflect back I think I think I might have cared about public perception more and then and its really healthy because it's just it doesn't matter but that's the unfortunate thing is you don't really you don't really learn that in so much later I think it matters I think it I think it's matters B you know because it's like it is reflected in reality to some extent like of course like you didn't like fine Steve Zaragoza like on a park bench somewhere like he was doing cool interesting things and Joe was like an old-school youtuber well that's the thing that was like Steve Steve I say I will say I feel especially proud of because he was working as an editor I believe it's Sony so and so like so I feel like so I feel like a happiness and pride with that especially for me with Joe Bereta it was just like an honor but I mean oh all those all those people like Lee Newtons easily one of the most talented people that I've ever come across and then yeah and it's just ona there's but yeah it's it's a mixed bag there's a reflection of reality in that so it's it's not just that you like it it's that like you like the reality of it you like that you because this is a very Phil DeFranco thing where you're like I like you feel good about something and like you're getting the the validation this way but you're not doing it this way you're not you're only getting it from outside not from inside and so when you're saying that even you're saying that like it's it's all about this external validation like there is reality to that external validation like when people are like thank you for helping me like get through nursing school like I'm not saying like like like I only like that because it's from the inside I like it cuz it's an objective reality like I help them get through nursing school like when dr. Mike was talking about that moment where he helped like he heard later that he helped someone even though he didn't remember it like those are reflections of reality they're not external validations they are they are signs that you did do a good thing and so like trying to incorporate that and let that be like actually fuel internally because like yeah the external validation is good but it's also a reflection of the thing that is real yeah so so so I think that like that yes check that check that out see if it's there I'm gonna explore it I mean even talking about it now I'm like just a lot of it not come from internal validation cuz and then I was like why and the [ __ ] voice in my head was like it just now is like maybe it's because you feel like any success you have is just something you haven't [ __ ] up yet you change and it's like yeah we both [ __ ] change it's just we parted Pat's we're like oh I feel if you'll like you're something different it's like yeah so I don't know I uh yeah that was an interesting question yeah no I definitely i that that when you're doing something big and why can anything like that there is all like I think that that our voice that the voices in our heads are different volumes but I'd the the things that can really go wrong it there's always that thing telling you that like this successful thing is just a thing that hasn't you haven't screwed up yet yeah oh god and sometimes you have to sell a business just to have that voice go away [Laughter] you have so many or you've had so many what are you yeah no I mean VidCon was very hard to own it was very hard down I so I cannot imagine I'm glad you guys acquired SantaCon though okay so what is the what is it what's the most important thing you didn't do that you should have and I think this is gonna be the last question from the cards I there was a there were a couple of moments and I like it's always like who the heck knows Rob because like I probably had lots of ideas for things I should have done that turned out to be very good that I didn't do them but I had a moment early on when I was like we're making two YouTube shows we should probably make twenty we should like like I thought in like 2008 that we were really late to the YouTube game oh wow and and then when we were making like when we first started like making shows like crash course and scishow I thought to myself like this isn't gonna be like TV where there are a few things like early TV where there are just a few things this is gonna be like now TV where there's like hundreds or thousands of shows or tens of thousands and like they will be owned things and there's gonna be a lot of power there and so I was like maybe I should sort of go all-in and like move to LA and get some venture funding and like make make like lots of stuff like make hundreds of shows and basically do BuzzFeed and I think that would have been successful and that I'd be you know at media mogul except that I would still have been me and I would still have been like like wanting everybody to like me and I would still have like I wouldn't have been the guy from Barstow barstool sports right I wouldn't be that guy who's like oh you don't like the way I do it well then let me do a rant on Twitter about why you're why you're dumb like I would still be me like like not wanting to be make enemies and you know I but I think that's also why Portenoy stands out because you usually don't have heads doing that and especially well you do more and more because it's turning out to be an effective strategy Larry I mean even the the caller daddy stuff that we talked about in like an extra bonus video how many other companies is it where someone like leaves there's not a lot understood about the contract and it's the company that looks like they [ __ ] up I've having a big notable loud as loud as the keyword voice is like that's that's the future man mention is the asset as I as I said my big big insight and and I think you know he has it Elon Musk has it like Donald Trump has it like they know I'm not putting those people under the same like boxes human beings but like people who understand that like building an audience gathering attention is just as important as like the other thing that they're doing and are really good at it so yeah I think probably it would have it would have eroded my soul and turned me into a smooth rock of sadness but like they're so like no that isn't a thing I should have done what should I have actually done I'm I probably should have been more critical of YouTube early on you know part of me thinks I should have like like this will always be a thing and people people who know me well know this that like part of me wishes that I had you know gone for like like basically said like VidCon isn't gonna grow it's going to shrink and been like this is about this group of people and like somebody else can make a conference for the other people you know and like it made perfect sense to me and I think might have been the right call to say like this isn't a conference about the people I like it's a it's a conference about online video and that means that it's gonna try and be like broad and huge and inclusive and you know we're gonna have sponsors and we're gonna have to pay for all these people and like we want like hundreds or even like a thousand featured creators and like we you know we're gonna buy up basically rent out an entire hotel and fill it with featured creators and that's still gonna leave a lot of people left out and it's gonna hurt and I'm gonna hate it but like that's gonna be that's gonna be where we're at we're gonna do what we can and versus being like and we're not going to try and reflect all of online video we're gonna like just do this fun thing and I prime ITA happier person if it kind of was like a little fun thing I wouldn't have been but I would also own it right now what it during a pandemic lockdown and I would probably be going through bankruptcy proceedings so that would suck so isn't you saying that that's when you enjoyed it more every single person yeah like now I walk into a room at VidCon and I'm like where's my friends I can't even imagine that like how many times for you VidCon must feel like just a lot of people yelling why wasn't I invited oh god yeah no that was like that was the sensation of running VidCon yeah and and like not to say that they're like that doesn't make sense it makes perfect sense I'm like good friends of mine we didn't invite and they were like publicly on Twitter being like I guess VidCon doesn't care anymore and I'd be like I mean I guess I do but like you know the world is changing and like we have to like if we invite the same people every year then like that doesn't make that that doesn't make the thing to her work and so it was a problematic company to be a public facing CEO of especially a public facing CEO who likes to be liked so I yeah I mean and I mean but going to VidCon now is like super surreal and also like euphoric as it's like look at this big thing that's good and that people enjoy being at and that I don't have to think about or worry about well yeah because I guess the last year that had happened how many people ish went through it I think that it was the way that things are count I always need to couch this the way they thinks I counted in conference world is is like not uniques but impressions sure so if somebody comes back the next day that counted again okay so the VidCon goes on for like five days yeah and not everybody's there every day so like I think that by that metric it was in the hundreds of thousands that's yes but like in terms of uniques which is how I think it should be counted at night it was like thirty or thirty or forty that's still that's such a brazen number I know there are 60,000 people in my town yeah that's it's very weird it's like I got I get to be the mayor of a like my town for three days but yeah it's it's really surreal and and the people who make it are really wonderful and I still really really enjoy it like there's just a part of me that wishes it was like the Joko cruise which is this cruise for nerdy people that I've been on which is just like it's all it's a lot of the same people and it's like a very it's it's like really intense and the people pay more for it but it's much smaller so it's like exactly your people and only your people I'm sure that I do miss that I'm trying to remember so are you in a position where you have like one year left with the VidCon of like as part of a handoff because I remember it's it's it feels like it's been forever so maybe it's already done and you're still staying there or what I am still working for VidCon like I have a job at VidCon for another year less than a year yeah and then you think after that you're like I'm just gonna leave it to other people I well what I want to do is continue to help the way that I that I help now which is like finding interesting things to talk about and our content like that's that's to me like that is really valuable work that I enjoy and so like like trying to find the interesting things to discuss at VidCon finding interesting people who are doing interesting things and championing them internally is something that I like doing what I will probably step away from is crisis management which is something that I have become exceptionally good at but not something that I enjoy just just imagining just the internet being angry about a situation they're like and this guy you could be busy with anything else they're like his silence is deafening for you is just like no it's it's the same thing I'm like I'll be gone I try to actively stay away from Twitter and there's like his silence on this is deafening and I'm like I just I don't want lately I think people understand that like humans don't live a hundred percent of their lives in social media and also that like it's always bad to respond in the first six hours like that never goes well like James Charles is apology like the fine brothers remember that controversy their initial apology was like I called them like we need to i sometimes I'm so good at crisis management I can't stop myself from doing I forget a five yeah I forget if I've talked about this they uh near the end I'm so glad they didn't because I was cuz you know especially in that situation metaphorically speaking it's very easy to get on the ledge when everyone is going at you and taking joy in it but yeah one of their hopefully bene Rafi you don't hate me for saying this one of their last ideas before they finally just decided to do the company equivalent of releasing a notepad statement was that they were going to go live and answer questions as they came in and I was like that's literally the worst [ __ ] idea I have ever heard please do not do that to yourself please do not do that to yourself everyone is going to eat your lunch and so they didn't but especially right now at this moment when every was sort of like taking joy if anybody remembers this controversy I'm impressed because it was the silliest little thing that happened but it was such big it was such a big thing at the moment I think it was yeah I think there was there is there is a legal concern that just wasn't thought of that just wasn't thought of or like it wasn't even it wasn't it wasn't done in a predatory manner but but given like their past frustrations with the Ellen show and [ __ ] like that it felt like sure like it made it made sense to be something to be concerned about it just wasn't like it just didn't like stick in the popular consciousness I feel like as a as one of them maybe it did like it was a really big deal at the time it's wild we've been this this this has been a [ __ ] roller coaster fill the whole ride this it's been it's been fun it's been fun but like it's there's been a lot of ups and downs and a lot of moments of peril oh ya know there have been times where I was like part of the fun is is aiding people on and them and then there are times where I'm just like dude I just want everything to turn off [Laughter] yeah yeah concern with my job in the sense of I'm like it's good for us when stuff happens but emotionally and personally I'd rather stuff not happen anymore Hank is there we've talked for two hours you crazy bastard is there is there any is there one final note or a piece of advice we haven't done this with a few guests and but I it was something I really enjoyed is there a piece of advice whether it be for anyone kind of just starting out personally business-wise anything what's something that you could throw out to people that maybe like maybe don't don't normally see your face do you mean creators yeah let's go creators no one is doing this in a healthy way there is all like there's there's a lot of talk about burnout and about and about how to protect yourself from it and that is very important but but anytime you're starting a business I guess this isn't just about creators like you do have to put in really long days and the important thing isn't that you don't put in long days the important thing is that you have the right fuel to get you through it and that you cultivate that fuel and you try to cultivate positive fuels so it's not about revenge or it's not about like like it maybe has been once or twice in my career but and it's not about you know the the main thing it's about which is just validation and attention but it can also be about craft it can be about making something that's better than the last thing you made it's not about making something better than other people but making but like challenging yourself to be better than your previous self and and if you can find that fuel and and when there's validation coming in you know like you could use those fuels as well but just recognize when they're bad fuels and when they're not gonna last forever I think that you do not expect to get to to start any kind of business without you know having it take up a large piece of your brain real estate and then the other thing that I will say that this is this is vital is when you say like I want to be a youtuber or I want to be an entrepreneur that like you understand what you actually mean when you say that like what do you actually want do you want to be a youtuber do you want to be a tick tock or do you want to be a business owner or do you want stability in your life do you want an audience do you want to a difference in people's lives like what is your root goal underneath that goal go to that first and because if you just want to be a youtuber then like you will have no focus and you also like everyone will know that you're not doing an interesting thing you're just doing a thing because you're like trying to get people to pay attention to you and so like like find your route and like and like make sure that you feel good about that route and if it's not something that you really do feel good about then like maybe you don't want to be a youtuber or maybe find a different one absolutely love that Hank green thank you for uh for hopping on having a conversation with me to everyone listening to the end of the podcast what a champion remember you can you can pre-order Hank Green's book July so it comes out July 7th right now all right do I say you can really foolish endeavor boom yeah and hopefully it's as hopefully it's as good Hank hopefully it's no but I genuinely love the first one I was I was like I hope this isn't something that's gonna take him like seven years which is a very selfish thing to say when you're not the creator main goal was to get it to come out I feel very bad for everybody who's waiting but it's happening I've got my countdown clock here oh right now is that what that is yeah it's from the it's from the year 2000 so it's my a y2k countdown clock but you could program it for any I love a dude once again thank you so much I appreciate you yeah yeah thanks very much bye fella [Music]

Channel: A Conversation With

Views: 370,522

Rating: 4.8867874 out of 5

Keywords: podcast, philip defranco, defranco, a convo with, a conversation with, video podcast, the philip defranco show, clips channel, funny, entertainment, new, interview, Philip DeFranco, DeFranco, A Conversation With, advice, hank green, hank, green, joe rogan, joe rogan podcast, joe rogan spotify, podcasting, apple podcast, youtube, money, business, sellout, vlogbrothers, vlog brothers, hank green jokes, john green, crash course, scishow, a fault in our stars, some good news, john krasinski

Id: _fvv-T6fqfE

Length: 125min 47sec (7547 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 03 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/catnap27]

thanks for posting! Hank is such a thoughtful and caring creator