Very Really Good #135: Helium Farts w/ Hank Green

recording now okay recording now okay well okay we'll jump right in i guess yep um so we were just talking about uh you watched my podcast episode where i talked about you yeah can you tell me can you tell me that can you just read to my face uh tell me what the joke was that you were being apprehensive about i believe i said uh i believe i asked uh do hank green got that stank peen right i didn't really feel it didn't feel to me in the moment it didn't feel like that was a joke about me so much it was a joke about uh about you yeah because i was looking for uh like you know uh misery loves company right right so i guess i was looking for if someone else had that i i think more than anything you were looking for something to say in the moment before you moved on to your next topic absolutely if if we're being real that's 100 what it was but uh i would like to formally apologize for saying yeah and it was very much um so i don't so now that we're recording i feel i feel weird about saying this but it is the reality um that i did not i had not heard of you i didn't know who you were uh but this is this is the way of the internet now like you are constantly being bombarded by cool people who have like a million followers on instagram and you're like i had no idea that that person existed until now but it's especially weird when that happens while simultaneously a bunch of people are calling you stank peen uh yeah which yeah for clarity i don't mind it was a delightful experience and then i looked into you and you know the other thing is yes i know that we'll start like start the podcast maybe in a more structured way soon but the other thing is that sure let's be honest um a lot of people who have our jobs suck and uh of many of our colleagues and so my my not not from like looking at you and being like i bet that guy's got some baggage or problematic moments in his career but like my first thought was like well before i before i like engage with this i'm gonna like look at this guy and i watched some of your stuff and i was like oh he seems lovely which means a lot is kind of a minority experience right well i mean that yeah that you that is very nice of you to say and i thank you for that uh because obviously you're the i am the arbiter of who is good and bad in the world yeah yeah i think everyone knows it's the moral you are the moral compass um please please have that not be true no i just mean uh obviously me and other people who do what we do we look i i look up to you a lot so thanks that means a lot let's get all this gross crap out of the way all this mushy crap yeah be like i like you i like you too you seem nice this is nice thanks for cleaning up your office before the meeting here looks good it's does it really there is a i see the vacuum and the vacuum vacuum made me think that you'd cleaned i've never used it it's it's just for sure it's to make people it's actually a cut out of a vacuum it's actually two-dimensional it's just to give the illusion to my podcast guess that i'm tidy okay um well i guess i could start the podcast now in a nice way a normal way hello this is podcast this is a very really good podcast uh with a huge guest monumental guest six foot one is that your actual height yes and what was the last time i checked okay not bad i am not i'm not over six feet so i'll i don't know what that's like but um i i'm here with world renowned uh genius certified genius uh he's an he's an author he's a he's a youtuber he's a he's a an entrepreneur if you will he's a he's also a grease 2 super fan that's true and uh hank green he's here on the podcast hello uh hold on can you can you hear this i do it's those people who cheer on your podcast yeah it's they are very overworked and highly underpaid but it's okay they're like they're here for the fun of it absolutely that's the beauty of royalty free is that you you only have to you only have to pay the once or probably even less than that yeah than ever yeah uh well thanks i thanks for coming on the podcast uh this is gonna be a good time obviously you've heard it before so it's just it's it's me shooting the [ __ ] for a while so uh that's what we'll be doing i love it in fact i listened to that i listened to this podcast and i thought to myself gosh that sounds nice i they there is a there is a pleasantness to it in that it does not seem to be and i've this suddenly as i was saying it was started to sound like an insult it does not seem to be trying very hard um uh but but in a very pleasant way where it's like let's just be calm for a bit and talk about interesting stuff with cool people yeah uh yeah and i was worried it was going to be one of these like high-energy things where we were going to be trying to like out-joke each other because you're very funny and i just i i i'm happy to do that uh yeah but it is not something it is not it's not it's not it's harder to look forward to absolutely i know what you mean yeah i being in the i guess comedy space and being when i'm on other people's podcasts that are like that i always feel like like an immense pressure to kind of match their energy and always be joking and it's like i don't know it's like i feel like it's more funny when uh funnier more funny well i think it's more funnier if uh you you have those it's just more human and then within that you can sort of sure i don't know you can find comedy just being a normal guy i don't know that was like i don't know being around comedians especially stand-up comedians is a [ __ ] nightmare it's work yeah it is insane there's no moment that is not work and i had like i love i love all my stand-up comedian friends but it's like yeah wow literally after like you would have got it you got to take a shower after hanging out for them for a while it's like this is a lot yeah they like go on they have to be testing they it you know it's a very hard job and i feel like there's a certain there's a certain amount of it that is like this is part of the job we're testing material and we're always trying to come up with new material and right and so like a social in interaction becomes a bit transactional in that way but it's it's part of the job there's another piece of it that is like i do not know how to communicate with people except through uh loud jokes and that is i have had some uh some friends that ha as they have gotten older i'm 40 years old now so that that actually uh over time has they have tempered and now are just much more enjoyable to hang out with that's that's nice yeah that's a nice feeling yeah i've well yeah when i started doing stand up i was like 19 and i we moved i moved to toronto when i was 19 and then uh kind of like being in that scene especially when i first started dating my my girlfriend um and she was hanging out with me and my like comedian friend she was like what the [ __ ] was that that was the weirdest thing i've ever seen it was like it's just bit after a bit after everything everyone is very funny and no one laughs yeah yeah exactly it's all just communities going like that's that's really funny that's funny can i use that or can you are you gonna use that yeah but we're wondering how's this gonna work yeah um have you uh well i know have you ever tried like improv or stand up or anything like that um i have done tiny tiny bits um i sort of for a while the musical comedy and uh and so i would i would stand up on stage i would uh play the songs the songs are funny you don't have to worry about that's one of the great things about standing there with a guitar it's like you're not going to forget the next part of your set um true though i i did i did try my best to occasionally just completely forget half of the song and uh and then i would joke between the songs and people would laugh but i always did it to audiences who already knew who i was and many of them even knew the songs and so it was it was as forgiving as you could have imagined yeah yeah that yeah that was a very big difference uh when i started to stand up because it was like doing comedy for people who don't know you at all or don't give a [ __ ] about you because they're other comedians and they just want to go on stage yeah and then doing shows for people who know me from like the internet it's like oh this is how it's like supposed to be yeah this is so good it's so good to stand up in front of an audience who already sort of like you don't have to introduce them to your vibe like get it already and that that's like the stand-up comedian dream is that you get up on a stage and you don't have to like the barrier to you is much lower right yeah they're already on board which is which is nice they're already they're expecting it yeah so you can take more risks you can do more interesting stuff you don't have to like like when you are first starting in anything it is often the case that you have to sort of like stick to convention more and then once you have established yourself some you can uh break out of boxes yeah for lack of a better word um okay actually okay we could talk about this really quick um so the the tech talk you made about me um well not about me but in response to one of my tweets um about i don't i don't remember it wait that's okay it was the if you put helium up your ass oh yeah yeah yeah yeah uh so this is this is how it all began yeah this was the the catalyst i guess uh so i i remember seeing like i got a bunch of dms from people being like this that wouldn't work your far it wouldn't change anything and then i got a bunch of other dns from people being like this would work this would make your farts high pitched so what what is i what is the answer yeah so um so my initial my first thought was yes i think that it would yeah um and then my second thought was no i don't think that it would and then i talked to someone who has done this no he and he was like it did not ah man um so yeah so like it is a perfectly testable thing um it's not hard to get helium into your colon uh right i mean it's not something i would do but like no it's you know it's certainly a possible thing and like also i'm not i'm 100 sure that if if i had a fart that was higher pitched than normal that i would notice you know like you take like i know my own voice pretty well i know what i sound like i know what people sound like you suck some helium and i'm like that sounds different but farts feel like they're kind of all over the place in terms of church anyway yeah it's like sometimes you can have like a fur like a grasp on what type they're going to be but at the end of the day it's like it's it's anybody it's it's any anybody's game down there like who knows who knows it's going to go on what kind of noise is so the the the way that it was explained to me then it made sense to me that so yes so helium makes your voice sound more high-pitched because right um because it is a lighter gas and so higher pitched noises travel more efficiently through it and so the the noise when you are producing noise with your mouth is being produced way down here in in your throat and then then it's traveling through a medium which is the breath that you are expelling okay and so that's the medium that it's it's coming out of and so like that is the point at which the the sort of like lower frequencies are getting damp into the higher frequencies are getting elevated because they're going through this medium and then once it's out into the air it stays the same pitch because it was like made that like that's the pitch that was coming out of your mouth but with your ass it's only there it's it's sort of for the most part i would think yeah and it seems that like inside is all helium but outside very quickly it mixes with the atmosphere and so there isn't like a canal that is pure helium the way that it is when you're exhaling helium from your lungs okay so you have this like from your voice box to your lips is basically would be you know a very high concentration of helium whereas from your anus to the exterior world there isn't like a chamber in which it is mostly helium okay so what you're saying if some if someday in the future we can somehow like put a chamber in our butt you would need to be wearing helium pants or some such okay so maybe it is possible someday it's like you know like cryogenics like freezing people and bringing them back i'm not saying it's not possible you're not saying it's just it's just very difficult and it would be pointless to really put all the time and effort into i wouldn't say that i think i feel like there's a very clear point to hear the higher pitched part and look did you see those guys who are trying to cook a chicken by slapping it like yes i like god bless you please go go go do it make it make it happen try to cook that chicken with your slapping machine and and curtis i think that you have it in you to build yourself a helium fart chamber but you do also have to fill your ass with helium okay i guess that's the that's the first hurdle i have to overcome first again i guess i got a you know baby step yeah baby steps okay um okay well that we settled it it is not and that's and that's what i was here for so i guess i'll go i guess this is it uh wow i mean thank you for um clearing that up i'm i guess this is now my life goal i'm quitting youtube i am building a helium fart chamber yeah um when did you feel like you first had a had an internet audience was there like a moment for you um this is a great question um i i don't know i feel like this might sound weird but when i i started making content on vine uh back like 2013 um and i think i when i first got like oh my god what was it like i think i had like 2 000 followers and i was like all right i'm sick this is great i have the most you could ever have i did it i made a joke and people thought it was funny yeah that's all i needed um but i guess right when i thought that was like cool but i guess i if someone shared one of my vines and that got like a bunch of likes and i ended up getting like like 30 000 followers in like a week on vine i was like okay so now this is now this is actually like something that's like kind of like more i guess like a real like tangible thing um but yeah it's just and that i don't know vine was it was weird it was a weird app and i was and i felt like once vine left i like lost an audience so i'm sorry i was like in a weird limbo for a bit um but thankfully i mean youtube worked out uh thank god but yeah it was uh it was a weird time for sure i mean but i guess there's there wasn't really one yeah even to me when i was i had like two thousand i was like this is this is great i'm happy there's like people who who like me yeah that i mean that that is very much my experience as well where it was not any one moment um and by the time a moment happened i had i already felt like a moment by the time it like hit i had already felt like it had already hit even though i was wrong for a while yeah right yeah that's so weird i guess yeah because i guess because i mean when did you start even you know you started making content like oh sorry yeah like so you've been doing it for a good amount of time i think yeah so i guess like you were even the one of the first people to even like experience that really like to even have like an an online audience which is yeah must have been weird to deal with it well i mean i it felt at the time like weirdly completely natural uh even though there wasn't a lot of um there weren't a lot of people that was like oh this person has already done it but there were enough you know there was like 20 people um who had done it like you know philip defranco was bigger than us and smosh was was bigger and before us and uh you know zay frank was of course before all of us and the you know and then he had like people like happy slip who you don't hear about anymore like who had these like great videos and um doing really interesting stuff um yeah happy lip was she was a filipino youtuber i think and she she sort of pioneered what we now think of as like lilly singh style content where she was all the members of her family right and uh her name was christine and like she just like like did it for a while it was really fun and then now she she just like went and had a normal career like she never liked she never like trailed off either it was just like one day she was like i'm done way to go yeah totally wow so there was enough of it that uh we we felt like we were late to the party in 2007 you know wow yeah that's so crazy to think about now yeah um yeah that was uh i think smosh was like the first like i think that's like the first youtube video i watched was their like pokemon theme song uh and i like introduced introduced me to youtube and like i was like you're not the only one yeah yeah and mostly for a lot of people right like that was huge and i i told a story in the podcast before but um i was at a vidcon in 2019 um and at the one at the youtube party i think and i met anthony there and i was i was i was black out drunk and i was i was i remember like just so [ __ ] drunk and i was just so happy to be there as my first vidcon and uh you know it's it's an open bar and i was like i'm gonna take advantage and then i was uh so you know thanks and uh that was youtube's plan i'm fine um but no i uh i remember like talking to anthony and i know i talked to zira for like it felt like yeah thinking back now it felt like an hour but it's probably only like five minutes but i i don't know i i remember i woke up and i was like what did i say what did i say to anthony he's like one of my biggest like one of my biggest youtube heroes like since i was like no idea what i said to him yeah that's so scary to think about he's i think i'm the only person who's been to more vidcons than anthony dang suck it anthony take that maybe i don't know oh that's actually not true i thought of somebody else but they work for vidcon so that doesn't count right that doesn't count at all um also another thing i that uh i i found out i did i did a little bit of research okay i'm a pretty uh i'm a pretty good podcast host okay um nice if and your birthday is may 5th that's true wow you did you did the deep research you found out my birthday yeah so a lot of people i i liked i was doing the nardwar route where i go and uh talk to your family and like okay i need some dirty details and they're okay and they said may 5th uh no i bring it up because my birthday is may 4th oh my dad's birthday's may 3rd so we've got all we've got all of them right in a row it's like a sandwich and i'm i'm right in the middle you're a green sand no we are the bread of the curry sandwich it's a curtis sandwich it's the green bread which is i guess that's like moldy bread best kind of sandwich yeah when the bread is green oh man yeah i'm eating that [ __ ] up um are you do you believe in um horoscopes or anything like that do you believe in god i was like oh [ __ ] where is this going uh i i uh yeah as far as horoscopes and astrology go like um tick tock thinks that i'm super into astrology like it is constantly shoving astrology content at me and i'm like tick tock yeah i am a science man and like i thought that i made it clear to you that i was a science man i don't like this like i love the stars stars are awesome planets are great too and um uh but i i as far as like and so i mean this is this is a similar thing obviously different but similar things to when it comes to you know god and religion which is like i like i feel a little bit uncomfortable talking about it because i have like you know pretty concrete views on those subjects for sure that deny people's beliefs and what i what i want to be able to say is like this is what i this is like how i understand the world and yeah you understand the world a different way and i think that's fine and that's funny what i don't but like it's very hard to to talk about it without being like this is how i view the world and from my perspective your your way the way that you view the world is wrong this is wrong but also the way i view the world from your perspective is wrong uh and so like it's okay for us to think that we're wrong about stuff yeah it's like batman the joker right they both think dirt it's not like batman and the joker because joker is a bad murderer it's exactly the same i think [Laughter] no one in this story is bad hold on i think we can go on record and this is a quotable line from hank green this is uh-huh i really like people are like the joke [Music] [Laughter] you know that that's that that line in the dark knight when he's like why so religious that's where they pay the big bucks [Music] that was the director's cut um yeah i i uh but why do you ask um are you gonna do my star chart oh no i'm not the thing is i was just i was because i saw i were both we're both tourists is why i brought that's why i bring it up um and it's there's some days where i'm like uh where i see something about a horoscope and i'm like this is it's it's when you were born you're telling me every person who was born on the like we're the exact same right we're not i'm sure like there's only 12 ways to be right yeah exactly that's insulting um but then there's some days where i'll read something about like a tourist i'd be like oh yeah i am a taurus i guess that is so touristy and it'll be like you like being warm and like yeah i [ __ ] love that it's grab me wrap me up in another person it's the most like basic thing and it's like yeah it's like you like things that taste good it's like no [ __ ] [ __ ] i do man i think everybody does your idiot yeah i mean i in the way that i i view it and like again i feel like i'm i'm unnecessarily placing myself into a space that like it's clearly not for me uh just because of my world view but like i do i i i guess i like there are people in my in my sort of like science community who see astrology as um and it can be as um a kind of con or a scam and that there are there are a lot of people and certain people specifically can like take the credibility that they create through their astrology practice and then use that to manipulate people in ways that are unscrupulous for sure in the same way with religion like obviously there are many religious people who have used the the power of that institution to do very bad things and like everyone agrees with that like that's not joker controversial statement um right but but there are also like there are really good things about religion like there are times i'm kind of jealous of it like i kind of want to go to uh a building once a week and have somebody tell me how to be a person because like i don't know i would i don't know how to be a person and it's hard and it is a cause of constant stress for me and uh and also like if there's a bunch of other people there from my town who are like sort of in the same you know physical space but also maybe mental space as me and i could like go hang out and talk to them that'd be kind of dope but i'm not gonna do it i'm not gonna get up at in the morning on a sunday unless the punishment is is hell like that's way way way beyond what i can do on a sunday morning uh yeah and and so like there is a piece of that that i i am jealous of and in the same way i think that astrology can be a way of self-reflection you know and like it's a path into that and and like far be it from me to uh come at people for taking some time to think about themselves right and uh and examine uh you know how their how their week was you know yeah i mean i definitely agree with um like being jealous of that a bit because if when you see these like like super religious people who are who belong to the are like christianity whatever it's just like i think having that sense of like i guess like purpose i guess or like higher clarity i suppose and yeah that seems really nice and i've like i don't know i just as much as i i'm jealous of that i just can't see myself ever uh yeah doing that even just in terms of spirituality i've never been that it's i don't know i mean tick tock another thing like tik tok all right they show me so many [ __ ] spirituality things i'm like i saw one of today where is like this girl was crying about a rock that she had because it has like really strong powers and i was like that's great but it could be just a rock i don't know seems like like a rock like a rock yeah i mean like maybe a really dope rock though i have gotten to the point where where um and it and because there wasn't a structure around it for me to just like like plug into though i think that in in in america maybe all over the place now it is it is sort of like nobody feels kind of right just plugging into an ideology it feels more like you have to sort of form it yourself but i feel like at this point in my life i have a pretty good um structure for understanding the universe and it took a long time right so you did it yeah and but like would it work for someone else i don't know it might work for like a couple other people but if it only works for tauruses that's right of course now that'll make sense one-twelfth of people is a lot of people though so i think there's some money inside it's true that's at least a thousand um i um i know we brought up tick tock uh quite a few times but um you're one of my favorite take talkers i'll say oh wow that feels really good yeah i know i know i knew like that people when people say that to me it it jazzes me up man it's i mean it's why it's wild how good that feels why does that feel so good i'm not i'm embarrassed is that religious experience not that it not that you like in part it feels good because you you said it but in part it feels good because i want to be a good good tick-tocker you are i mean i mean you've been making content for a while i mean you know how to make you know how to film a video that that's sometimes people will be like wow hank did a transition and i'm like i'm a 40 year old video producer like i've been making i can make videos for my entire career i don't i know how to edit yeah i've been doing this a long time but but i think it took me a while to decide to like really make tick tocks because i was terrified my camera stopped oh good i was terrified that um that like you know it's like it's almost like going to a foreign country where it's like i don't know do they eat bread here like what are they gonna get mad at me if my shoes are tied the wrong way right can i put healing up my ass here what are the holes and and i you know i i felt a little bit like if i like i could easily make some accidental cringe and then the kids would be like i can't believe hank tried to tick-tock um so i was i was like uh legit nervous about it at first though i think it turns out that it is it might actually be kind of hard to make accidental cringe on tick-tock if you have a basic understanding of internet yeah i know i my introduction to tick tock was um pretty negative and i feel like a lot of a lot of the videos i made like when i first started like kind of getting an audience on youtube was was about like weird bad things on tick tock so for the longest time i only associated tick tock with just bad weird like harmful um like misogynistic just bad content um but i don't know as time went on and i started like acting like actually like using it more it's like i don't know it's like you actually see like so i'm like there's some like really good content on there really talented people and like good people which is nice but i guess with anything it's always the the bad [ __ ] that people well yeah well it's but it's also so strange because as a user i don't see it because tick tock knows who i am well enough yeah to not show me noah back well they don't know you well enough to not show your horoscope video so right well i guess like that's the thing of course tick tock doesn't actually know anything about me they just know that people who like the things i like also sometimes like astrology content which right you know i'm on like you know bisexual d and d tick tock and and thus there's a problem there's some overlap there with more spiritual content um but yeah i just thought i'd uh you know i'd give you some reassurance because uh you're you're crushing it on there and uh i feel like i've i've learned a lot from your tech talks because i feel like you make the real goal exactly and which i kind of wanted to segue again but um the uh i guess learning things like learn like teaching things to people is really difficult but i think you have a really uh i don't know you have a really uh like it's easy to you i think you put things in like you can go into detail but you explain things very uh well like the one you recently did about that uh i had a weird name it was about like traveling faster than light you were small yeah uh i've never even heard of that and then for something for that guy to be like they did it they did it and it's you can do it we can go faster than light now i was so disappointed by that guy he felt like he felt like he had the the the a chance to do something more interesting than what he is doing right now but yeah i guess if for the people who don't are lost there is a video of some i guess he's like a journalist type guy he was making like a a video about um the alcubierre is that right so yeah he basically said scientists have figured out a way to make an alcubierre drive which is a way of traveling faster than light um it is more of a thought experiment into how one could travel faster than light um right and the the thought experiment that alcubierre put forward in the 90s required exotic forms of energy that we don't think exist that might exist but that as far as we can tell don't exist and then recently a paper came out they're like actually we it seems like you could build an alcubierre dry drive with our current understanding of how the universe works which is you know changing sometimes right um by without needing negative energy and that is that is a big deal like it is really interesting and it's a really interesting like math thing it's an interesting physics thing and it's also interesting from a cosmological perspective and from like a human perspective where it's like part of the worry that we have is that you really can't travel between star systems and it seems like maybe probably you can't because if it was easy to do we would it is likely that there would be something that we would have seen at least uh but also just a like a high likelihood that if if things grow exponentially as like we have on the surface of the earth that they would have grown exponentially throughout the galaxy and it wouldn't have taken that long for for them to sort of take over our star system um probably before we even existed but since we exist then it seems likely that interstellar travel is really really hard or impossible damn why do we have to go why do we have to go and exist man i'm happy i'm not like everyday but i'm happy i we exist yeah that's true yeah i mean so so i got to talk a little bit about um you know about about that and and about you know i think uh uh you know there's a a lot of nuance and difficulty like like learned skill in the job that i have which is you know how do you communicate complicated ideas without lying um yeah how do you simplify without lying and and here's here's for anybody who's interested in that here's a piece of insight um if you are simplifying in order to make something more exciting and you think well i'm getting this is how i'm opening the door to people so that they will be interested in consuming this content you probably are doing a disservice to your audience because you are pretending that it's more exciting than it actually is often oftentimes this is done intentionally people know they're doing it and like it is a disservice where they're like let's try to find the most like the way we can portray this as something that's really exciting or really scary when in fact it's actually they've just taken a headline and like changed a couple of words and they've turned it into like i don't mind what we call click bait as long as it's not lying i think that sometimes people can get get stuck behind the idea that like well if my headline which is kind of a lie gets people into the article and then i'll tell them the truth yeah that's a pitfall too because most people only read the headline and so they come away with the lie and that's yeah that's done terrible things as we as as we've seen in the last four years but the other thing that you can that you should be doing is asking how do i simplify to make this easier to grasp um to contextualize it inside of the mind of the learner yeah and that's a totally different thing so like to me there's like two things that you could be thinking of one is how am i going to make this sound interesting enough that it's going to benefit me the the science communicator because people will then consume the content versus how do i make it like what you should be thinking about is the audience how how do you make it for them um right and because then your first priority is to have the information have like the end result be an accurate understanding not like a full understanding but an accurate understanding right and that's yeah that's so much better for all parties that's that's something it's harder though absolutely yeah i struggled with that a lot i made a video about uh artificially like gen like ai generated content and it was really fun i was like i spent like put a lot of work into it and like scripting and planning and everything and it was a lot of fun but it like i didn't it was sort of a learning process for me too because i didn't really know too much about ai generated content i was just like excited about the topic and the idea and i thought there could be something really funny there yeah um but finding a way to explain something like that and while i hardly understand it was really difficult um so it was a it was a lot i think i did an okay job but i don't know still it's still so many like things that i was maybe not incorrect about but probably i could have been clearer but yeah i don't know i think the more i do it i guess because i wanted i don't know i want to start making more videos like that about like that are more sort of like educational and more like video essay type stuff but it's hard when there's this pressure to like be funny but also be like informative i guess yeah i don't think so i i don't think there's that much tension there i think that you like you you wouldn't have a problem being funny and informative at the same time the hard part is that yeah um you know you have to know more than you're saying when you're doing something like that and that's like and that means that like uh to get to be able to like to convey it in an interesting way you just have to like know like twice as much as you're actually talking about and getting to that point it's just work it just takes a lot of time like like i don't make those videos that much anymore where they're like longer 10-minute videos explaining a complicated topic because it's like ah yeah like it's like it's like two full days of research and exactly if you're lucky yeah it's yeah it's it's so much i guess it's like it's really it's valuable though for sure yeah i guess it's like i don't know learning is good and it does get easier as time goes on yeah that's true i guess yeah um i wanted to uh touch on something that's like i guess more i guess like advice but it could be educational for um people but when i was like doing my uh extensive research on you um i found out your birthday we know that which is huh pretty pretty epic of me i'll see you talked way too long about that yeah yeah uh um let's talk about your birthday even more how about what is the best part of not kidding uh um no when i was researching um like i know you've obviously done a lot of things obviously but um the sheer like the list of like different like avenues and like like different mediums you've like explored and worked on it's like it's really it's really admirable because i uh i want to do more in like in the world of comedy i want to like write like a screenplay i'd love to start writing and like acting and stuff um but i feel like really stressed and overworked with like youtube and stuff obviously um so i wanted to ask like how how have you sort of um like conceptualized like projects and ideas and actually like gone through with them because there's a whole thing of like yeah i want to do this but actually like acting on it and like putting the time into it um is very difficult for me so um there's how do you i'll do that i'll do that there's there's definitely a pickiness to it so like i don't get excited about a thing unless it starts to feel possible and okay unless and and also you know not always but usually there has to be a pretty clear path like i have to be able to see it and so um i was i'm very i think kind of lucky in that i came into this world of online video with a different set of ambitions than most of my colleagues yeah so i've never wanted to be on a tv show like that was just not like i i did want to be a science communicator growing up like i did want that um cool and i also find one of the things that's very inspiring to me is to be in a new space where where rules and cultures are being defined and like you know i will never get to have that in the same way that i did with uh early youtube um but uh but i i've always been obsessed with subcultures just small groups of people figuring out their own rules figuring out their own world views and uh and and so like that means that i i often operate while um in you know in areas that are plenty big like like the things that i've done i've not been small but um but i'm operating outside of like crowded spaces usually you know like vidcon was the the when vidcon launched it was the only online video conference right you weren't competing with like vimeo con or something yeah and uh and like when we started on youtube it wasn't it wasn't crowded there when we started doing educational content on youtube it wasn't super crowded in that space um and and and part of that is seeing that there is like asking like what's the what's the thing that isn't being done and when i see a thing that's being done a lot it turns me off right and that that is probably goes all the way back to being a nerdy high school student and uh all of the and wanting to define myself in some way oppositionally to the kids who didn't like me and so i was like they're all under the sort of normal stuff and so i have to find the stuff that i'm into because i've been kind of excluded from that and that actually turns out to be super powerful as long as uh as long as you have you know a number of other advantages which i have in spades um so so uh so so that that is part of it and when you can see a clear path it's less work right okay yeah and when it's less when it's when it's less crowded it's less work right you don't have to really yeah i guess like if i wanted to become a youtuber now oh man no way no way it's way too hard it's it's a chance it's so it's so much so much work too many yeah uh and but like so and and so and but but also as i've like you know continued to do different things that that you know that the tools in my toolkit have expanded and that means that like i have continued having like seeing exciting avenues um right whether that's like i wonder if i could be a tick talker or i wonder if i could publish a novel or like which was a very that was a long process but the path was clear because so what what was uh what made you more what made you more proud uh becoming a tick talker or writing writing novels they are they are completely different they i am proud of them for completely different reasons right and and i like i am not proud i mean i like i'm i probably shouldn't be as proud of being a tick-tocker as i am or i am worried about saying it because i think people will think less of me but but only because i think they don't understand how interesting a place it is that's what youtube was like when it started anyway yeah it was like well even now i feel embarrassed to tell people when i tell people like i'm a youtuber it's weird they're like what i've never had that that's that's nice i mean well actually youtubers people now it's actually okay when i say comedian i mean i never say p i never say that because they always go oh what's your so what do you do what's your stand up like what do you what do you talk that my my least favorite one least my least favorite one is so what are your jokes about what are you taught what kind of [ __ ] question is that everything i am i am really focused i just do dinosaurs i have a dinosaur humorist yeah that is it this is prehistoric comedy and that's it uh i mean there's probably a space for a dinosaur comedian um uh but only if they're not human yeah like an actual dinosaur a little t-rex holding a mic he can't hold all the way up to his mouth because he got little arms uh yeah yeah um but yeah i i'm proud of those things for different like it's obviously harder to write a book than to make a tick tock i'd assume so and it is also there's a thing that is similar about them which is that like understanding an audience is tricky um but with a book you work for five years uh on something that no one gives you any feedback on except for like your wife brother and editor and uh and then you publish the book and then you you find out whether or not it sucks um whereas a tick tock uh you find out whether or not it sucks and then you adjust and then you make two more that day right yeah you can't make a couple of books in a day no i mean you could but they wouldn't be very good i guess it's just a lot of copy paste yeah um okay well well thank you yeah i always something i struggle with so much it's just like devoting time i think i just like i've become so accustomed to youtube and like that instant feedback that i think i i think that's something i need to learn myself is to just like not need that and just make something because i like making it and when it's done maybe it'll be cool and if not then [ __ ] try again right yeah i mean it's i i think that id that that for me it's been about idea generation and like seeing seeing a path and um and and that has to do with a bunch of different stuff one is like having the the the privilege to be to to have it be open uh and then there's like stuff like who you know and yeah but also like what what spheres your ideas happen and are deeply affected by what you are curious and passionate about right and i've been curious and passionate about business since before i was a youtuber so like there there was always and like that's such a that's such fertile ground because uh that's the structure upon which our society is built in a lot of ways maybe unfortunately um and so that that uh you know it's much easier to function for an idea to function inside of a system that already exists you know for sure um do you think uh do you think shakespeare would have been a tick tocker oh uh yes absolutely i think i would have loved to see that i think i had to talk about that i think he would have killed it and i think but i do think that he would have written a lot fewer plays yeah he would have been too way too busy scrolling that for you page yeah for it was called the 4th page oh [ __ ] renaissance tick tock that is an amazing idea for a youtube video oh true or for the page um okay well i don't want to okay i had a i wanted to do like half and half like interview and uh sort of science quiz for the podcast um so i asked my um followers on instagram at vrgpod um who uh i told them that you're coming on the podcast a lot of them i will say like 50 of them were like is are you serious are you joking is he actually on the podcast or not they thought i was just uh lying um it's it's weird because you of course are a bigger youtuber than i am now i i don't no i'm not you get more i have this conversation with people all the time you get more views than i do that doesn't mean i'm i think in the the overall yeah you know i get it i get it i just i just want to make it clear that we are peers yes but at the same time literally i you are six one i am not six one so you are literally the bigger youtuber um so fifty percent of my uh yeah exactly that is fact a scientific fact um behalf of my half the responses are uh i don't believe you there's like 40 percent that were all about like farts and poop and and then there's like what did i say 50 40 10 so like 10 left there are um there are actually real science questions that people wanted to know lovely so i'm gonna go through some maybe we'll do they don't have to be like lightning round but you know we'll we'll get some quick answers um and just you know answer the questions that the people got okay i'll see what i can do yeah i mean it it i think it's also always important to be able to say i don't know so i will try to do that okay when i don't know okay cool um so this one's actually from me you don't have any followers on instagram at all do you no they're all bots um so boats how do they work how do they not think go underwater yes so you got a boat made out of metal metal sinks but metal boat no sink yeah metal boat full air and average of so if you take the if you take the the the area of the boat that is under the water line yes and you take the density of all the metal and the density of all the air um and also the weight of all of the ship that's on top of that okay that will actually be the same as the density of water so so basically at the water line you can count all of the air that's under the water line as uh as included in the density of the ship okay and so you just you basically you mix up you froth up all that metal with a bunch of air and it's got a bunch of air pockets in and it'll float so wow that's that's why because there's no hole in boat and if there's hole in boat then water rushes in and then boat sync okay it's because there's no hole in the boat [Music] [Laughter] because i talked about that on my podcast like i think last week and i was complaining about how i've always looked up videos and how they work but i was like i just can't they should sink they are so heavy well it is counter-intuitive because it's like i don't like you don't you don't understand like i guess take a next time you're at a pool or the beach get a beach ball and try to get it under the water like it is hard to push air under water because air is or water is heavy and air is not okay that's a good way of putting it too see that's what i'm saying man you're good at explaining so just imagine that that boat is full of beach balls okay there we go man is that easy um okay this one um are birds real uh from what i can tell if anything is real birds are real uh i i do like the idea that the people the fbi agents who invented birds also made them poop on people just as like just not for like like a clear reason they're just like you know it'd be funny if we put like poopers into them yeah it's true yeah that was devious prankster a huge amount of work like yeah have you ever seen how much of pigeon poops a lot yeah they got to refill them a lot they have to go back to the poop refill station a lot i feel bad for the guys who work there just pumping crap into fake birds you have to do it by hand too it's like one of those bicycle pumps they just have syringes full of bird [ __ ] uh okay great yeah i that was a good question um okay this one's interesting why do people feel a need to um squeeze uh cute things i mean it's not clear so in general when it comes to human behavior there's a lot of like we've created a name for it and we've looked into it and we've like maybe we've stuck somebody in an fmri machine and like scanned their brains while they cuddled a puppy uh but but you know the brain is uh is remains you know one of like maybe the biggest mystery in science so we don't know but it's called cute aggression so you can google cute aggression if you want to watch our scishow video about cute aggression and uh and there are some theories as to why it exists but like i i find them compelling but untestable you know so it's almost like it's a it's a bit like you're you're uh like there are certain areas of your brain that can get overloaded and like you and so to get that overloading out you like want to squish it i have a four-year-old uh son and he will like when when he sees his like friend after a day at school like his like stuffed animal friend his hippo yeah he like grabs on and goes like it's definitely innate like he didn't learn that from somewhere he's just like i'm so happy to see hippo he just squishes his face in it and just screams and it's extremely cute and then i want to grab him and go oh yeah it's a circle of life that's adorable yeah um what if i just said why do people want to squeeze boobs why do people want to do that i also don't know also one of the mysteries of the human brain maybe we'll get to the bottom of that i mean it it feels like a circle to me like it feels like the the desire to squeeze a boob feels like what came i'm saying what came first the desire to squeeze the boob or the boob i feel like they co-evolved right so like boob isn't like a common thing among animals no they're not yeah there's no like like ant boobs well even among mammals uh like like pigs don't have boobs you know they have teats right but they don't got like a big like you know yeah and oftentimes the boob sort of just shows up when it's time to nurse and then goes away when it's not time to nurse anymore whereas human boobs are there all the time and they're eternal you're just searching for merch right now it's what you're doing groups are eternal boobs and uh yeah and and so there there is a bit of a question as to why uh you know humans evolved to have boobs in this like sexually dimorphic way and then uh that it and that likely co-evolved with a desire like a sexual desire for boobs which is not un like it happens like like you know they're like animals grow weird traits just because the the you know other animals of the same species find it sexy like weird antlers and red red and blue butts on baboons and it's kind of like we have those too like we have like facial hair right is like a like one for us i mean look at him look at him and uh and it seems like boobs and butts also are maybe a little bit of that for us boobs are the mustaches of the chest is what you're saying so glad i came on your podcast um okay another one why uh this actually got this one a lot uh why can't we eat grass oh that's you know why do you know why because i made a tick tock about it oh okay i figured i feel like i might have seen that one actually yeah it was it was a um it was one of my breakout moments as a ticket oh it's because of the it's because of did you mention like goats in it or something like that i don't think so but i know uh so there so it turns out uh that this is a weird question um so you can eat grass uh you can eat grass in several different ways one you can just eat grass it's not gonna kill you it's just not gonna be nutritious second there are a bunch of grasses that you eat every day probably wheat corn both grasses uh but the seeds of the grass so not really the grass part of the rice um weed is weed gras well i guess it is it's like a slang term for it so that makes it what it is uh it's the weed is definitely not a grass but but i but i have heard you can eat oh my thing snapped again but i have heard you can't eat it um and then not that i ever would uh [Music] because that's because i was i was raised back when that that was illegal and now it's not anymore um and then uh and then there's the the part that's like really interesting about the animals that can eat grass which is that they also can't digest grass but they're the microbes that live in their guts can digest the grass so like they aren't actually doing the digesting it's the these symbiotic organisms that live inside of their stomachs without which they would immediately die um yeah are doing the actual digesting of the cellulose and then there's the chemical part of it which is like why can't i digest cellulose like it is extremely similar to starch like the the molecules that you looked like if you looked at a molecule of starch in a molecule of cellulose you you would think that they were the same i would think that they are different because like i have a biochemistry degree but um right but like but to a bozo like me it would be like where's waldo to find the bond that's different um yeah and it turns out that the reason is that uh the just this one bond that is different makes it so that they can stack up with each other and and create these like basically pseudo bonds between each other and so instead of having like a bunch of starch molecules that are sort of like clumped together and not really strongly interacting with each other and cellulose each one of these sugar chains can stack in a way where they are they're binding to each other in uh in really sort of rigid uh ways that you have to have extra enzymes to be able to separate that's crazy so i i've thought a lot about this because tick tock has been yelling about grass to me for about three months yeah because i feel like yeah that i'm sure they won't shut up about it um i yeah when i was a kid i feel like i remember eating grass all the time because that was like fun i was a kid yeah and also you're going to get new teeth the grass has like like some silica in it that's going to wear your teeth down but hey when you're a little kid you're going to get new teeth anyway you're going to get you're going to have bran spanking new teeth anyway god what a what a joy you can do whatever the [ __ ] you want yeah he could wipe his teeth up just for sure i'm 40 years old i've been working with these ones for an awful long time way longer than i was working with the first pair first set yeah i need a new one that's teeth grow me another set boy i think that was that's [ __ ] when i was a kid and my parents were like don't don't get don't drink a bunch of soda pop because then you're gonna get cavities they're gonna [ __ ] fall out anyway it doesn't matter that's that is great [Laughter] um okay actually this is a segue into another question um but why we're speaking of teeth why why are teeth like just a butt why do we have like a bunch of teeth when we could just have two big teeth that i i don't know that i could i could make guesses but i do not know that would uh be a lot easier to maintain yeah no space between them that's what the dentist is always mad about he's like yeah you're out floss and like i wouldn't you would have to floss if you just gave me two teeth you just gave me one up top one on bottom yeah talk to god take it up for the man upstairs my fault you're making me floss it's unpleasant and time-consuming one nice thing is that like if you can lose one without losing all of them so there's that and then they can sort of have different functionalities but i don't see why one big tooth couldn't do that but yeah yeah there has to be reasons because all all animals well i guess like birds kind of have like two teeth you know a beak is kind of two teeth oh those are their teeth no they are not but like in terms of essentially and yeah okay they're not actual teeth um even if they're real you don't know that though um um okay this one was i don't know why they would ask this but uh why can't we cross-breed a human and a dog maybe like a furry ass that one or something uh uh i mean because they are not genetically similar enough so i i think that we have a different number of chromosomes than dogs do but even even uh when uh if if that weren't the case um you basically uh you know as you evolve like as as evolution happens and like your last common ancestor is farther and farther away from each other um yeah you're you're like the proteins that make you up um and that and the the dna that codes for those proteins are become very different from each other and like there is the the question of of so with a dog in a human this is all very gross but with a dog in a human i doubt that an uh that the sperm would even uh recognize the egg or that the egg would even accept the sperm but there are you know there there are questions like very gross questions very upsetting questions about whether this would be possible with a human and a chimpanzee and it wouldn't it would not uh be possible like you could there may be ways to create an embryo but like the yeah the the thing that is holding us back from that is not science and it's ethics which is very much the way that it should be exactly and uh and so like it may it may be possible um but we won't find out because we are better than that exactly it's like helium it's like helium farts right yeah so there's two there's two questions is it possible but like let's not though yeah obviously let's maybe not do that for sure you're creating a life form and uh yeah it's going to be miserable so don't do it let's absolutely not do that um okay this one was i wanted to ask this one because this one made me laugh a lot when i read it um when will we be able to travel at light speed approximately i like that they had it approximately i know you're not going to tell me like it's going to be the year 32.85 [Laughter] yeah just approximately you know just like ballpark yeah like it it is very so because we already talked about this weirdly enough but it yeah you know the only way to make a judgment on that um because because of course like we we can't know the pace of future technological change or even the amount of future technological change but we can know that we have never seen what i so so my perspective it can't be that unlikely for there to be intelligent life to evolve on a planet uh you know i might be wrong about that but it's so weird for something to happen one time uh yeah and the galaxy's very big and there's a lot of stars and there's a lot of planets around those stars and it just seems really like right there that there's a bunch of other intelligent uh yeah like is smarter than us organisms out there in the universe even in the galaxy and uh if they if they could easily travel from star to star then there are sort of only two reasons why they aren't doing that um one is that it's just too like one that is it's impossible to travel faster than light the other is that there's some kind of uh intergalactic mutually sure destruction going on where everybody's hiding from each other uh because they're terrified and do not want to fight uh yeah or be noticed by some very big bad thing yeah um so hopefully it's not that one because that's just that's not terrifying fingers crossed i guess it's that whole thing where it's like if like like living in a simulation or whatever like how how things get so yeah like advanced then we should like if so i don't know that thing the whole thing starts it trips me out when i start thinking about it yeah i mean there's so there are a number of other so that's the fermi paradox is the i it's like there if if if it is common if there are so many planets why don't we see other organisms like us or any any signs of intelligent life and uh and there's a bunch of different solutions one of my favorite is that after a while you just get bored and the and the species the intelligent species just goes extinct because they like stop [ __ ] yeah they're like ah and then they just just stand kind of over it yeah that's a nice way to go out i'm done yeah um i'm trying to think of uh one we can uh end on with the science section um oh this one's i guess i don't know if there's studies about this but why do or how do um periods sync up sometimes i don't think that they do though that the the last time i did research on this was five or ten years ago so so there may be more recent research on it um but it's like a myth it's it seems like it is uh just a thing that people notice when it happens and don't notice when it doesn't happen um right and so uh so when it happens people are like it's it's a remarkable thing and you talk about it and like that spreads and when it doesn't happen nobody talks about it and so it doesn't express so but but like that there there have been a number of times when people thought that that was a thing with something and then it turned out actually not not with this particular not with period thinking but with other stuff where it turned out that we were we were wrong about being wrong so i'm not damn i don't know enough about uh because i haven't studied i haven't looked into it in long enough that i wouldn't be comfortable saying i respect that yeah just lie we've already said that's fine just lie lying is okay if it's interesting um how else is going to get people to get interested in the science except lie to them about it exactly why do they find out you've been lying to them and they're like god i hate this why do their [ __ ] face um well i mean i don't want to take up too much your time we've already gone for like more than an hour dude yeah your podcasts are usually about an hour right this is long yeah around the hour mark so you know i guess we could wrap it up but this was time time [ __ ] flew this is a this is yeah well i because you were like your birthday's may 5th and i was like let me tell you about god uh yeah that's my i know i doing do you you're the perfect podcast guys do you have a uh do you have a question that you didn't get to you look disappointed i look disappointed you look like ah i think that's just my face okay great i think i'm just perpetu perpetua oh there's like a few that i wanted to talk about but it's all good i was gonna bring up um the vaccine for coven no i love the vaccine for covet one of my very favorite things that exists i'm so happy yeah because um yeah we'll do some we'll do some good i guess we'll end it on a good note this is positive um i can't wait to get it yeah um but it's it's weird because i've talked to people in my life who i would consider friends who are saying who are kind of regurgitating some anti-vex things they have seen on the internet which is pretty upsetting um cause like they're my friends and it's like hey this that could be really like harmful you know um and it is harmful to not so i think if uh if anyone is out there who's very who's even like skeptical about it can you just explain what a vaccine does and how it's good how you should all get it yeah i mean so one thing i'll say to to those to the point that the people who you've been talking to is like because this disease is a really big deal and because the vaccine is a really big deal one of the things that our brains want to do with really big deals is examine them and so for sure you go out and you start examining and then the internet you know exists and i think this is also kind of human nature that that like when somebody is looking for something you kind of want to make that thing and so like people will then be out there being like ah like now i get to be kind of of anti-vax influencer and you often see that these articles are coming from places that you know they they're saying that the coveted vaccine does xyz thing i don't even know what they're saying but then also like you look and it's like they've been saying that vaccines cause autism or like or are are like dangerous and bad for 20 years before this yeah and it's like so why like is it all vaccines or is it just that this is your this is your beat and like this is this is like what you do for a living is you find ways to scare people about vaccines but it but it is normal to like do that to like do that searching around and i think it's also to some extent in our in our culture specifically normal to want to do it on your own terms and to say like you know like well the government is saying i should do it right now but i'm going to do it a couple weeks after that and it's almost like you just want to have some control in a situation where we don't we haven't been feeling like we have very much for sure that that's okay um like this like i am not i'm i'm i will be there the day they tell me that i can be there um yeah and i think that a lot of a lot of people are in that boat but then i also don't want to discount the the sort of like you know 25 percent of people who we really need to get the vaccine who are gonna do it on their own schedule because they wanna have some control or they or they wanna wait uh and like make sure that uh you know and at this point like people been getting the vaccine for a long time so there's not there's no actual reason to wait but like right exactly um but yeah i mean what what a vaccine is is basically a way of showing your immune system uh a pathogen before it encounters it in the real world and there's a bunch of different ways that this is done um for a long time it's was what was called um uh well i guess even for a long time it's been done in several different ways one is that you attenuate the vaccine so that so the disease the pathogen is still alive but you've bred it to not be able to hurt you very badly and so okay um so you're actually injecting like a live pathogen into a person um and that uh that's what like happening less and less because it's mostly because it's really hard to make those kinds of vaccines because you have to do a lot of testing to get like the exact right balance right um and but but also because we figured out better ways to do it and one is to like actually manufacture a little bit of the pathogen not the whole thing so like not like it's the it's not a dangerous part um it is just a part and it doesn't have any of the like ability to actually replicate inside of you which is the thing that you don't want it to do so we just uh so what we figured out how to do is to give our bodies the code for that little bit and then for a short amount of time like the the our bodies like take that code they manufacture those little bits in like a couple of days and then they all get used up and they aren't there anymore and then your immune system sort of notices them and is like that looks like something a little bit dubious a little bit i'm not sure if that's good and then uh sometimes it will mount a full on immune response to that and sometimes it will wait for a second look at it and so that's why you get two vaccines is because that that booster is like seriously this is a real thing and the second time your immune system sees it it's like oh that's definitely i see this is definitely a pathogen that's out there and i'm gonna you know create all of the all the machinery that's necessary to go after it the moment i see it again they put their dukes up yeah exactly it's like logan paul boxing match right it's like it's like the it's like it's it's the cold war and they're the russians yeah it's like batman and the joker okay get on board for this analogy it's like me and christians we're going to punch each other people who like astrology is the best way to describe a vaccine i'm so excited though and like it's uh you know it's a it's a real uh triumph that we've gotten the vaccines as fast as we have and that we are able to do it you know on our own terms not change the way that we test efficacy or safety we did all that stuff exactly the same which is why it took a long time um but uh but we we shaved off every uh amount of time we could without compromising safety or efficacy which is you know we did it exactly the way that we should have and like it came together and like now we're gonna we can see the other end of this thing and it's just it's very exciting and you can start doing shows again yeah i yeah i mean that's what everyone's waiting for that's like if finally courtesy get back on the road i know the world the world can heal [Music] i'm making [ __ ] fart sounds into a microphone again inside your helium chamber you're gonna have to tour with it i gotta do this i'm i'm [ __ ] i'm have to resort to this freaking sound board is that a stream deck you're punching on right now yeah yeah it's uh and i put all fart sounds on it it's a i think it this this edition of the podcast was either the best thing or and that's it it was the best thing that happened to my podcast okay because i can fart i appreciate what you do um thank you thanks thank you well it goes it goes both ways i am i love learning things i love watching all your videos obviously for a long time and uh it was it was a pleasant surprise that you would want want to be on my podcast um and you're always welcome if you want to come back and uh yeah shoot the [ __ ] again okay if you want to hear more of my voice i have a podcast called dear hank and john with my brother and one called scishow tangents where we it's like a science game show that you can go listen to vlog anything there's all the other stuff but those are those the ones for the podcast listeners the special podcast uh well hank this is a pleasure um thank you for coming on the podcast and uh well hopefully we'll see you again sweet thank you great thank you

Channel: Very Really Good

Views: 1,009,971

Keywords: kurtis conner, kurtis connor, very really good, vrg, podcast, hank green, scishow, helium, tiktok

Id: -93XVbNzndA

Length: 80min 11sec (4811 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 10 2021