438: The 2014 Episode

- You're listening to a Complexly podcast. (upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. - Or as I prefer to think of it, dear John and Hank. - It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you the least advice and bring you all the weeks news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. John, I once heard about two communists who were sitting on the beach at a nudist colony. - Whoa. - And one of them says to the other, "Have you read marks?" And the other said, "Yes, it's these dang wicker chairs." (laughing) - So see, that's a good dead joke, Hank. That got me. (laughing) - So listen, Hank, are we actually gonna do this thing? Are we actually gonna put aside the entire the entire stick of this podcast to answer one question, what happened to John in 2014? - I think, sure. - Look, I forgot about this promise that we made, that I'm glad that you remembered. I am not prepared, but I have been talking about it with my therapist. - I was gonna say, haven't you spent 12 years preparing? (laughing) - It's funny, I finally, after a long time of working with my therapist, I finally was like, there's probably something you should know. And it was a really weird conversation. Okay, so tell me, let's start there. Let's start with what was the conversation? How did you explain 2014 to your therapist? - I mean, she doesn't know what Tumblr is. - Neither do a lot of our listeners. And so we should give the your therapist version. - Yeah, yeah, recently I said to my therapist, I bet you don't even know who Matt Walsh is, and she was like, I don't. But I will learn if you need me to, and I was like, that's the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me. - I don't know who Matt Walsh is. - That's great, that's great. - Is he a good guy or am I on his team or am I not on his team? - I don't think you're on his team. - Okay, great, that's helpful feedback. - He's solid. - 2014, take 20 for it back. - What did you tell your therapist? - Well, so there was this long period of time. When it was all like kind of simple and sparkly. - Yes. - As being a vlog brother went. And it was just, it was a roller coaster that only went up. - Right. - And it felt like it really was. It felt like what could go wrong. It's just a bunch of people goofing around having a good time. - Now, that's not entirely true. There were hard times before 2014. But in general, Nerdfighteria itself grew a little bit every year. So things got like, it was a little bit bigger. It was a little bit better. It was a little bit more powerful. The stuff we were doing was a little bit cooler. And it grew very organically. So I think at the end of 2007, we had 9,000 YouTube subscribers. - Which was a huge amount for us and also for YouTube. Like, that put us in the top 200 YouTube channels. And then by 2010, when we started VidCon, we probably had a few hundred thousand YouTube subscribers. And I remember actually, we were in the top 100 most subscribed at that point. - Right, so that happened. - That happened at VidCon. - It was the only time that we quickly soon after dropped off. But there was that moment when we were in the top 100. - We were a pretty big YouTube channel, but YouTube itself was really quite small and insular. Now, again, there were hard times. There were things that went wrong. There were mistakes that Hank and I made going into that. But in general, Nerdfighteria grew nonetheless. And in a healthy, what felt like a sustainable way. And I agree with you, Hank. It felt like, you know, we had really good jobs and our jobs just got better over time. - It was so weird and fun. Nothing mental, like there wasn't a high status career. It wasn't a high paying career. And because of that, there was not a lot of expectations and people weren't very competitive. And it was just, I don't know, it was just chill. And you were also very forgiving when you made mistakes. - Yeah, because it didn't matter that much. - Right. - John, you know, through this was like a weird member of this. In "Weirder Than Me" because like I was just a blogger, you know. But John, you had this like other part of your career that was very sort of mainstream legitimate, even before the Fault in Our Stars. - Yeah, I had a career before the Fault in Our Stars. And I made a good living writing books before the Fault in Our Stars. But for context, the Fault in Our Stars came out January 10th, 2012. And in its first week, it sold more hard covers than all of my previous books combined. - So there was this weird thing where you occupied a like culturally legitimate space of publishing as well as this like culturally important, but not yet recognized as important space of YouTube and social media. - Right. And that gave me a certain amount of "Cache" in two different worlds, right? Like I'd won the Prince Award, but I was also a YouTuber. And when I joined websites like Tumblr or Twitter, but especially Tumblr, which I joined, I think in 2011, there was a different level of attention given to me than was given to Hank, because I wasn't just a vlogger either. I was also that author of those books that were becoming kind of popular. - Right. And then in 2012, when the Fault in Our Stars came out, that became much more the thing where I was like, this person is a legitimate cultural figure, especially among this group of people who were like very nerdy, greedy type people, and also tended to be young adults. And so like you were there and you were the only one. There were a couple of people like this, who were kind of famous-ish, like they had status in more legitimate parts of society. And we're also on Tumblr in this rough and tumble, weirdo, cool, new social space. And that was very cool. People loved that. - It was very cool, it was very exciting. It's like how Ashton Kutcher was on Twitter. - Right. - Yeah, it's like, no, you're from the TV. TV guys, it shouldn't be on Twitter? How can you be on Twitter when you're also a famous person? Like, why would you risk all that fame for Twitter? I think was the general vibe, but then it was very exciting the Ashton Kutcher was on Twitter. I remember when he followed me. I was like, that's so cool. Ashton Kutcher follows me on Twitter. The next 10 times I tweeted, I was like, oh God, Ashton Kutcher's gonna see this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it feels like suddenly you're in the room. You know, there's this weird thing where certain kinds of status feel like they are inaccessible and then when the room makes them accessible, then that's really cool and exciting. But part of the excitement of that is like the proximity to that power and then like, what's the question? Like, what do you do with the proximity to that power? Well, okay, we're getting a little ahead of ourselves, though. Let's stay in 2012 just for one second. So 2012 was very exciting for me. It was also very stressful. Hank and I were on tour. Crash Course was launching in the early part of that year and then the rest of that year. I remember we got off tour and I'd been on tour before and we'd had big events before we'd sold out all of our events before. It wasn't the first time that it happened 'cause that happened with paper towns too because of Nerdfighteria. But then I got off the road and the book was selling better every week. Yeah, then it had sold while I was on the road and I remember calling my agent like we were on a family vacation to try to reunite the family after the stress of tour. And I was in New Orleans and I called my agent and I was like, when does this end? And she was like, I don't know. And that was the first time I glimpsed like, oh, my life is different now. I mean, on a functional level, it was different. Just in terms of financial security, I mean, I made more money in 2012 than I'd made between the ages of 22 and 36. Yeah. And then it was also different in terms of me being, having a level of attention I'd never had before. I remember time magazine named The Fault in Our Stars, the best book of the year. And it was just a completely different level of attention than I'd ever had before, but I think the thing to emphasize is that it was overwhelmingly positive attention. Like I think the book had like 4.6 average rating on good reads after a million reviews. Like that's the level of, I don't know if you've ever been on good reads, but nothing is 4.6, not even the great Gatsby. So the book was very popular, but it was also sort of beloved. Yeah, and this is kind of hard to remember in retrospect because now like anything that's popular, there will be some amount of backlash to it. Now what I'll say is that for most people, they are like probably haven't been exposed to that backlash. Like I have a guy, like there's an oncologist who goes to the same gym as me. And he's like, oh, I just found out that your John Green's brother can you tell him that that's the book I recommend to like to cancer patients. And it is the best portrayal of the disease. And this is a guy who like watches people, children and adults go through cancer all the time. And he's like, it's the best portrayal I've ever seen. And so like, to lots of people, and this is like a weird thing about our experience of pop culture, it's so online. And like most people's experience of pop culture is much less sort of like woven through with these various, you know, blowbacks and controversies and dramas that kind of tend to happen if you spend a lot of time in online spaces. - Yeah, tended to happen a little less. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So this was the other, yeah, the thing I try and remember is that like we were patient zero of a lot of things. - Yeah. - 'Cause we were so online so early. - We were so online even in the 1990s. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so also patient zero of like internet. - Yeah, being on CompuServe and having conversations, we probably shouldn't be having with people who probably shouldn't be talking to us. - Totally, totally. So it's 2013. They are making a movie of the fault in our stars, which like I sold the movie rights, I remember we were in a middle school auditorium, Hank before we were gonna perform somewhere. And I was like, "Should I sell the movie rights?" And you were like, "Yeah, it's free money." (laughing) That turned out to be an oversimplification. - Yeah. (laughing) - I sold, usually it is, because usually they don't make a movie. - Usually they don't make a movie. (laughing) - I got money from my books, movie rights, and they're never making those free money, exactly. And with looking for Alaska and paper towns and an abundance of Catherine's, it had been free money because they paid me an option fee and then they never made the thing. Now eventually they made some of those, but that was only because of the success of the fault in our stars. So I'd sold the movie rights and then like a script came, and I was used to that part, but the difference was the script was really good. I remember reading the script and being like, feeling like a sort of pit in my stomach, thinking, "Oh my God, they might actually make this movie." And it was a mix of excitement and dread because I knew from experience that when they make a movie out of your book, there are wonderful things that happen. I knew not from my own experience, but from my author friend's experiences. There are wonderful things that happen, and then there are really difficult things that happen. And those things happen sort of regardless of whether the movie is a good experience. And I want to be clear, the movie was a great experience. I was included in every aspect of it. I certainly didn't have decision-making power, but I was always welcome at the table. And the kids who were in it were very kind to me. And I have especially good memories of the cancer survivors who played the kids in the cancer support group. And in general, it was just a really awesome experience. It was a huge gift to me. And so all the while, the movie is being made, the book just keeps selling. It's number one on the New York Times bestseller list week after week after week for literally years. I mean, it eventually became, I think it's important to emphasize this, even though it sounds like I'm tuning my own horn, because I think it's important to understand how much of my identity I let slide into this world. Because that's what really got me. Why wouldn't you? Why wouldn't you? Because it's so good. It was so intoxicating. Yeah. The fame was intoxicating. The proximity to celebrity was intoxicating. The money was intoxicating. And then also there was this feeling that like, look, it's not like I was out there trying to sell something that I wasn't care about. I was out there trying to sell something that your oncologist friend thought was really good portrayal of cancer. Like I was, you know, like you had read so many cancer books. And you were like, these are all bad. So bad. There's so many bad cancer books. I grew up like loving the cancer book genre, but also recognizing how destructive it was because it portrayed the lives of sick people primarily as a series of lessons that could be learned by the well. And I was trying really hard to write an unromanticized book that used the conventions of that genre, but that wasn't about healthy kids learning lessons. It was about sick kids having meaning in their lives. That was the goal of that book. And whether I achieved that goal was not up to me to decide, it's up to readers to decide, but like I was proud of the book. And I wasn't like selling widgets. I was selling something that I was close to my heart. And I want to say, I hope that you are still proud of the book. Because I am proud that you wrote the book. I think that it is a good thing in the world. I think that it has been a positive impact on the vast majority, like the 99% of the people who have read it. And most of the damage done by the book has been done by people who are like, well, this is a big enough thing that we should probably use it as a tool with which to have a cultural discourse. And backlash is a way to gather attention. Yeah, no, I think most of the people listening to this podcast probably have no idea about the backlash at all. I mean, I have very complicated feelings about that book, the same way that you would have very complicated feelings about a rocket ship that sent you into space. Like, it was great to be in space, but it was also very weird. And if I could go back to space, I would do it differently. Right, yeah, I have all kinds of things that I do differently with my books. But like, I doesn't bother me because they didn't become cultural institutions. I mean, I would write it differently now. I'd write all of my books differently now. That's the nature of growing as a person. Hopefully you continue to change. And that's why I write new books. But yeah, so anyway, all through 2013, the buzz was growing. And then it was really in 2013 that I started noticing I had to apologize a lot. So I would say something on Tumblr. And somebody would be like, that's actually really hurtful. And I would apologize. And then it became kind of a joke that like, oh, John's always apologizing. And he's-- I think we need a step before this, which is how fun it is to like see a John Green. Because your Tumblr name is Fishing Boat Proceeds. I think it is a good way into this. So it's not like John Green's Tumblr. It's called Fishing Boat Proceeds because of an inside joke from A Vlog Brothers video. You don't even know that it's my Tumblr most of the time. Yeah, but then it's kind of a secret that it is. Like if you're in on that information, then you see a funny joke that John Green made on Tumblr. And it's like, you're there in the room joking with this author of the biggest book of the year. And he sees your posts about him, and he likes them. And when you tag him, he shows up in comments, and that makes you happy. And it makes you happy, too. It makes me happy too, but it's weird, right? It means that anybody can be in contact with me at any time. And you have-- You're setting up that expectation. And so if something is happening, and you are not responding, then everyone knows that you know about it, but are not responding. Exactly. And so you set the expectation that you reply to everything, and then you actually have to reply to everything, which means you have to apologize a lot. Because like, look, you make a lot of missteps. The metaphor that I found most helpful that in the thick of it, you shared with me was it's like you're in a giant robot suit. Like you are inside of a transformer costume, and your Godzilla, and everything you step on, you do way more damage than if you were just a human being stepping on the earth. And accidentally, you can step on a house. So you gotta be real careful. You gotta be extra careful. And in fact, I would argue you cannot be careful enough and still have a life online. And so I thought that I could still have a life online if I was just careful. But in fact, you cannot be careful enough because the giant robot suit gets too big and too powerful. And then you have to take a step back. I can use this for good. And I can show that I'm responsible and thoughtful, and that I can show that you can respond to criticism with empathy and do a good job of showing that you're growing as a person and doing better. I think it is actually powerful and those actions are good. - Yes, I agree. And I think it's really important, but it's really, I'll just say for me, it's actually you're better at it than I am, but for me, it's really hard to be inside the Godzilla suit and step on things. Because I worry that no matter what I step on, I'm hurting things. And yes, like a lot of good was done in that time. A lot of money was raised for people living with cancer. A lot of money was raised through the project for awesome. Like a lot of good things happened in that time and I tried my bet. I genuinely tried to use my power well. I think that I had to understand that when you have that much power, maybe Taylor Swift can use it well, but I can't. And like the amount of power that I can use well is like current nerd, viteria, anti tuberculosis efforts power. Right. - Yeah, I mean, I think you absolutely could do more. I think the question is whether you want to or not and the answer to that is no. And that's fine. - The cost of doing more to me feels very high on the world. - No, like the cost of being famous again feels very high. - Yeah, such that I'm confused by why you're doing it. - Yeah, no, I totally get that. - Which is maybe another video. - Yeah, we'll do that one next. - Why does Hank still want to be famous? - I actually am working on this as a Hank's channel video, of course. - Which reminds me that today's podcast is brought to you by Hank wanting to be famous. Hank wanting to be famous, astonishingly still a thing. - This podcast is also brought to you by Laura Dern. Laura Dern, not quite Helen Hunt. - No, but she's awesome. I mean, what a lovely person. - Really? I sound like I'm celebrity mooching or whatever, but I really like Laura Dern a lot. What a great actor and person. Today's podcast is additionally brought to you by the Faultner Stars. The Faultner Stars still in print. So like if you haven't read it, there's nothing saying you can't. - And today's podcast is brought to you by editing the reposts of other Tumblr users, a feature that actually existed, which we're probably gonna mention at the future of this podcast after the actual ads. It's a new year, which means colder days. This is the moment when your winter wardrobe really has to deliver. And if you're craving a winter reset start with pieces truly made to last season after season, Quince brings together premium materials, thoughtful design, and enduring quality. So you stay warm, look sharp, and feel your best all season long. I know I love my Quince long sleeve button down shirts. And if you've watched vlog brothers, you might love them too. So refresh your winter wardrobe with Quince. Go to quince.com/deerhank for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns now available in Canada too. That's q-u-i-n-c-e.com/deerhank free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com/deerhank. - This episode of Deerhank and John is brought to you by Factor. - Is it the new year? Do you still wanna eat healthy? Do you not have any time to cook? I know what that's like. Factor makes it easy with fully prepared meals, designed by dieticians and crafted by chefs. So you can eat well without the cooking and without the dishes. Inside your Factor meal, you got lean proteins, you got colorful veggies, you got whole food ingredients, you got healthy fats. You don't have refined sugars. You don't have artificial sweeteners. That would be weird to have in food. They have a hundred rotating weekly meals. They have options that include high protein or calorie smart or Mediterranean diet or GLP1 support. And also ready to eat salads. It's always fresh and it's never frozen and it's ready in about two minutes. And when they say about two minutes, I mean, I push the two on my microwave. Every time I don't care what they say, it's getting two minutes. 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And those things are in communication with each other and it's very difficult as a person with power to know which thing is happening and how seriously you should be taking something and that is like one of the hardest parts of our job. Yeah, it's hard to understand what's good faith criticism and what's bad faith criticism 'cause all criticism feels bad, right? Like all criticism makes you feel defensive and all criticism makes you feel like, especially if you've put all of your identity eggs into the single basket of the world loves the fault in our stars and John Green. It's really hard when people are like, "Actually, I don't think we do." And so even good faith criticism can make you defensive. It's just that when you get good faith criticism, you need to be defensive and work through that and then listen. And like a really weird thing is that good faith criticism can come along with a bunch of bad faith criticism. So it's like teasing it all apart is really hard. Yeah, teasing it all apart can be really challenging and I wasn't good at it. What's just say that? So there was some good faith criticism of my work and there always has been and I try to listen to it and learn from it. Some of that was about my Tumblr post, some of that was about the book itself, some of it was about previous books that I'd written whatever. I tried to listen to all that good faith criticism. There was also in starting in about May of 2014, right around the time the fault in our stars movie came out and the movie did very well. It was the number one movie in the world. It beat Tom Cruise at the box office. It was a huge phenomenon. It was one of the most profitable movies ever made. Yeah, it came out at the same time as Edge of Tomorrow, which was also called a live die repeat, which is like Groundhog's Day, but with war. Really good movies, by the way. Correct, I watched it like several years later 'cause like at the time I was like celebrating that you were beating Tom Cruise. Like that was the vibe. I was like going to the movie theater and being like, here's John's poster and here's Tom Cruise's poster. Which of these two think is gonna be the bigger movie? It's actually my dumb brother. And then I watched the live die repeat and I was like, actually, this kicks ass. It's a pretty good movie. Both good movies. Emily Bluntson and I think. Yeah, it's a good film. So anyway, that's, it was a very successful movie. I went on a very stressful press tour. My face was everywhere. They made it. Yeah, I went to the premiere. Catherine and I got outfits. Yeah, we had to wear a suit. But you did get an outfit, which I appreciate. It really did. I was wearing carharts. The stars of the movie and I were on a crazy press junket where we were like touring around the country. And we were, I mean, it was, it was, it was nuts. And the press junket itself was so stressful and overwhelming. And I didn't always do a good job answering questions. And sometimes, sometimes I would answer a question in a way that I wasn't proud of. And then I'd try to fix it. And then they wouldn't let me fix it because that's nature of press junkets. And so I had to apologize for a bunch of things I said on the press junket. Which I did feel really bad about and I even recognized it as I was saying them that I was like, was speaking and not saying what I was trying to say. But they published, of course, the, yeah, they published the thing that's gonna get the most of that. - Get clicks. So there was that going on. And then at the same time, people on Tumblr, a large percentage of people on Tumblr were like, actually, it feels like this guy doesn't belong here. Which by the way, was correct. - I didn't belong here. - And that's kind of like the reason why it was so cool you were there. Until it was the reason why it was so uncool you were there. - Yeah, so someone posted a post that got a lot of attention that was like, John Green is like the creepy uncle at a pool party who's gawking at all the girls or John Green's vibe feels like this. - Yeah, yeah. - And the proper way to respond to that, getting going viral would have been to just stop using Tumblr. Because what they were trying to say was, John Green, it feels like John Green shouldn't be at this pool party. And what I took it as is John Green is some kind of sex pest, some kind of predator. And for a variety of reasons that hit me very, very hard, I felt very defensive, I felt very angry. And I wrote a post expressing my anger instead of leaving Tumblr, which was a mistake. I shouldn't have done that. I should have expressed my anger to you and to my wife. And I should have expressed my frustration to a lot of people who weren't 15-year-olds. 'Cause it's like developing that any normal to not like the thing that you liked when it was popular. Like I also wouldn't have liked the fault in our stars if it was being carried around by my bullies in high school. - Yeah, and like very often, and this is a thing that you and I have had to get used to. Very often how you feel about something is more an expression of your identity than how you actually feel about something or how good or bad it actually is. Like I hated Dave Matthews band when I was in high school. Like a lot. And it had nothing to do with Dave Matthews music. It had everything to do with the people who liked Dave Matthews band at my high school did not like me. - Right, so I did not like Dave Matthews band in return. - Yeah, there was a weird thing that was happening in Nerdfighteria at the time, which is that Nerdfighteria was becoming cool and all of our videos were getting like 500,000 views and they were going to face with lots of cool kids. And they were like, I don't know about this term Nerdfighters. (laughing) - Yeah, but it was also like a younger audience than had been our like, not like way younger, but like a few years younger than the average Nerdfighter. Like changing the vibe. People were watching because they liked the movie. They maybe hadn't even read the book. And they were like, this is a cultural thing that is happening. And it is happening sort of like in the mainstream part of culture, it's like not what we were ever about. - Right, mainstream culture was never what Hank and I thought was cool even when we were teenagers. - No. - And so having somebody make a sketch about your book on Saturday Night Live was weird as hell because like that's not what we wanted to have happen to. Like that wasn't our dream. That wasn't what was cool to us. - Yeah, you'll notice that John and I never tried to like leverage YouTube success into like being on TV. - 'Cause you think being on TV was cool, it's not cool to us. - It's just, it's not because like we're above it. We just don't think it's like we're actually below it. (laughing) What I was on set for this Clash of Clans thing, so we made this like mini film for a Clash of Clans ad. I got paid good money for it, it was very fun. - More money than I got paid for the Faultner Stars movie. (laughing) - Well, you've made more money off the Faultner Stars movie in book sales, but. - In book sales, yes. - Yeah, I'm doing, I'm fine. I'm just a little resentful. (laughing) - So I did this thing and they were like, is this like, isn't it cool to like be doing like a movie to like see how it's all made? And I was like, I'm gonna be honest with you, like none of this is appealing to me at all. - This isn't my thing. I don't wanna be on a set with 60 people. - Yeah, yeah, like I am interested in the technical aspects of what we are doing, but I am not interested in the like stardom that I am experiencing. Like, please stop treating me. Like I'm different from any of the rest of you. I am just another member of the crew. - That great Clash of Clans celebrity that we're all asking. - No, it was like, they really wanted me to feel like I was the celebrity on set and like they wanted me to have all of the thing. And I was like, please stop. Just give me the normal food that everyone else is eating. - There's an author, I won't name them, who insists when movies are being made of his book, he insists on having an Eams lounger instead of a casting chair, like everyone else sits in. And so he sits in his Eams lounger and apprises the film. Just like, oh God, please give me a regular chair. Don't put my name on it. (laughing) - Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, we were talking about 2014. I think that we are being a little easy on me. - I know, well, you're being a little hard on you and I'm being a little easy on you and I think that that's the appropriate thing. - Let me give one example of-- - I agree that you handled that criticism badly. I don't know what the exact right thing to do is. I think that it's a very hard situation because you aren't just like, there's one thing where you're hurt by it. And but there's another thing where like true harm is being done to a lot of different things. And in particular, that harm is being done to the people who love what you do. Because harm being done to the community, that's really important to us. So you can't really do nothing with that. Like if it's viral, if a lot of people are seeing it, if they're questioning, they're like, oh my God, is the thing that I love actually bad? Is this gonna like shit? Like because one of the things that we, I know that we are both terrified of is making ourselves into the villain after being something that's like good in people's lives because we've seen people do this. We've seen people go from being beloved to like doing villainous things. And it doesn't just, it's not just bad for that person. It's also bad for the people who loved this stuff. It's so bad and we just don't want that to be the thing that happens here. That's like one of the huge things we are fighting for. It's one of the biggest pieces of stress in our lives. It's to like not be, like I had a panic attack about this last year because people were really mad about something I did. And I didn't know how to respond to it for a variety of complicated reasons. And I could feel that people were kind of like, oh, is this thing that not a lot of people, but some portion of people were like, oh, is this thing that I liked actually bad? And I just don't, like I want people to have things that they can have faith in not being bad. And that doesn't mean I'm perfect. But like trying, there's like, you know, like it's better to have people who are trying than people whose brand is being assholes and so you're not surprised when they're an asshole. - Right, which is, you know, at least they're not hypocrites. And I'm just like, it's so easy to tell a story. And I've seen this happen with a bunch of different like good-natured creators. Like the McElroy's have had this happen to them. - Yeah. - Where people like decide that like, oh, are the McElroy's bad actually, you know, like baby no money is like a rapper who like is like generally like a positive guy and like feel like has good vibes and like he's neutral. - I feel neutral about baby no money. But like he's had like a big blow up big, but like if he was like a professionally a dick. - Yeah, no, yes. Weird way. - I haven't paid attention to that. That's a shame. Yeah, so like I think that's, it's, of course there's an element of like I would like to preserve my reputation because all my identity eggs at that point in my life were in that basket. But there's also an element of like I want to preserve the people who love the fault in our stars and let them love the fault in our stars without thinking actually this guy is a terrible person. - So I think that it was right to leave Tumblr. Like that would have been the right call. - Well, I did. - Well, I did. - Yeah, I know. - So that would have been the right call. - Yeah, I mean. - But I do. - Yes, when you said that it, yeah. But I think that the like best case is like to recognize the harm being done. - Yeah. - And be like there is a piece of this harm that's being done that is, it's just perception. But like the fact that it's just perception, like there's a way to communicate the exit that hopefully mitigates the harm being done to people. - Maybe, I don't know. It was really hard and I didn't handle it well. - And again, you're patient zero of this. Like it was so strange. Like the network effects we didn't understand that so much of what works on social media is getting pissed off, and loving being pissed off and loving feeling superior to other people. - So what happened basically, just to summarize, is that Tumblr especially, but to a lesser extent, Twitter and the rest of the internet went from really, really liking me and thinking that I was the bee's knees to actively disliking me. And a huge percentage of people were like, actually this guy sucks. - Yeah. - And here are some of the reasons why he sucks. And by the way, some of those reasons were correct. So I'll give an example of this. When the movie came out, I was like, I wasn't the peak of like feeling myself is the other thing. - I'm really about to say, yeah. - So I was like really feeling myself and like feeling that I was like a positive force in the world and everything, which is always dangerous. So I remember I posted on Tumblr like, I can't believe it, 'cause they actually changed this for the movie, that in the movie, the girl kisses the boy. And isn't that great? And isn't that like progressive? And have you ever seen that before in a YA movie? Or something like that? Something terrible. - Yeah. - There was really stupid. And like, of course you've seen that before in a YA movie. - You just see it when you're, there's dozens of examples. - Yeah. (laughing) And so people were like, can you believe this jackass saying that his movie's so inspirational and radical because the girl kisses the boy. And then on media, I immediately deleted the post when I saw the backlash and I apologized for it. And everybody was like, this is how you apologize and he did a good job apologizing. But then later I did a worse job apologizing. And then the sort of culmination of this, this is not actually why I left Tumblr. There's a lot of misinformation. There's a lot of, there is a lot of this is, we're gonna send the record straight. We're sending the record straight out. (laughing) Back then you could change it to make it look like someone had said something they hadn't said. - Yeah, and it would appear just like any other repost. But in fact, it was not, it was, you just like headed the post. - Yeah. - And so somebody changed something I actually wrote to say that was very earnest, which was my brand, which would increasingly was like, no, I think I'm currently friendly. - Yeah. - I also wanna say that this is a platform effect. This is a thing that happens on every platform I've ever been on. And it happened first on Tumblr. Like that was my first experience of it. Where like it goes from being like fun and sparkly and community-based and everybody's sort of like riffing on each other and building on each other's creativity to over time, it just like there's something slowly sours. And like trying to figure out exactly what this is about is an interest of mine. But it does tend to be that it goes from being, like platforms go from being very open, very creatively collaborative. To having strains, not necessarily all of the platform, but having these strains of social policing over what isn't cringe, people feeling like they're not sure how to, and it shuts down creativity. Like the moment it shows up, it can shut down a lot of creativity. And I watch this happen on TikTok and I watch it up on Twitter. And YouTube has been sort of, that happened kind of early on on YouTube and that, but it kind of just turned it to like a more of a business environment, which I think is on the way that these things can go kind of healthier, but it really does. And I think that it is in part about it feeling like there is social status tied to success on the platform. And that means that people will do things to get attention that they wouldn't otherwise do because that attention feels better because there's more status tied to it. And they also become less collaborative because that kind of sharing feels less good. Well, the great irony of all this, Hank, is that Tumblr is once again an extremely creative, creatively productive place, precisely because it blew up. And then in the ashes, something was rebuilt. Yeah, and now there's no social status tied to being a Tumblr person. There is no social status tied to being a Tumblr person, or whatever you call them. I believe I called them tumbling poos, but now they call themselves Tumblrinas. Okay, yes. So one of the cringe things that John did on Tumblr is he would, as a way of expressing that you were an outsider in this space, you created this cringe word for people on Tumblr. It was supposed to be cringe, of course. I was aware that it was cringe anyway. We have to get to the re-blocking. A post goes viral, which appears to be written by me because of this editing feature. And the post is extremely sexually explicit. We don't have to get into exactly what it said, but it's extremely sexually explicit. And when I say it went viral, I mean, it was shared hundreds of thousands or maybe millions of times. And I am often still confronted with this post one way or another, people putting it in my inbox, people saying it out loud to me on the street, which happened recently, which was unpleasant. And I don't know how to read this post except as a joke about my sexuality. And so it is hard for me to read. It is hard for me to experience it because it feels to me like a joke about my sexuality. And I'm not comfortable with that joke. And I'm not comfortable with, I don't talk about my sexuality online. And like, it just makes me feel really uncomfortable is the summary of it. - To try and understand this sociologically. - Yeah. - You were a guy who was trying to be very authentic and Earth the word you used, Ernest, yes, that's a great word for it. Trying to be Ernest on this space that was becoming increasingly ironic and more cynical and growing up and these people were growing up. And they were becoming teenagers who were having more critical thoughts about their world, which is totally all very understandable. And I think that what this post was about was doing a transgression, like finding the way of doing a transgression that was like, nobody's gonna think that John Green actually posted this. And that's the whole point. It has to be something John Green would never post. It was not meant to fool. It was meant to be a transgressive, ha ha. Look, there's this high status guy who's from the world of the legitimate. But we are in the world of the scrappy and illegitimate and ironic and cynical. And so here is like a manifestation of that tension and of that rebellion. And you were just the lens through which it occurred. But like, you were brand got wrapped into that. And it was like one of the biggest social moments of the platform. Yes. And like, if anybody remembers anything about Tumblr, this is one of the top 10 lists, yeah. Just to be clear, like, I understand that it's probably not a joke about my sexuality. I'm just saying that like internally inside my experience, that's what it feels like. And what it does do is it puts an idea into people's heads of a sexualized John Green. Which I don't like. No, you just don't like that period. Like it's very bad. Well, I don't care if it's that or good, but like I just don't like it. And I feel like that's something that I should have control of. Right. And that's one of the transgressive things that it was about was like, let's take this very non-sexual thing and let sexualize it. In person. Yes, right. Yeah. So anyway, that happened. And a lot of people, the narrative that emerged out of this years later is that copy pasta bullied John Green off Tumblr. Which is a great narrative. And I wish to God it worked through. It's the most, it's the most like salient like it is the thing that makes sense. So the two things that emerged from that were, well, now we can no longer edit re-blogs because John Green told Tumblr to change the feature. Which is hilarious. Like first off, I would never, I never spoke to anyone at Tumblr about their features. I would have no control over their features. Yeah, they changed it because what a bad system. Yeah. [LAUGHTER] They probably knew before that happened that it was pretty bad. And then when it happened, maybe they were like, actually, we should probably fix that. One of the only times that somebody did reach out to me from Tumblr was at the end of 2014. And they were like, you were the most talked about author on the platform this year. Would you like to make a video celebrating your fans? And I was just smart enough to be like, no, I think I'm going to pass on that one. So anyway, the narrative should have been. The true story should have been. That was enough for John. He got off Tumblr. What actually happened is that that wasn't enough for John. And he stayed on Tumblr. And then eventually I got off Tumblr because-- I mean, this is very dark, but it's true. Somebody posted a picture of my house in my Google Street View of my house with a circle around the window where they were going to break in and kill me. And it was my kids-- I don't live there anymore. That's part of the reason I moved, actually. It was my kids. It was Henry's window. And I was like, all right, that's enough. I think I had enough Tumblr. I don't need to be carrying that around. Yeah, because it's-- I mean, obviously, somebody's probably not going to do that. And I still had anonymous asks turned on so people can send me anonymous messages because I was an idiot. And so it was an anonymous message. And of course, probably nothing's going to happen. But it freaked me out. And I was like, and I was just like, why am I still here? I'm still here because I'm trying to prove a point to my haters. I'm not still here because there's a lot of people who like me and who like benefit from my work here. I'm trying-- And at that point, you just got to-- it was long past-- it was long past time to leave when I finally left. And now I'm back. Now I'm back on Tumblr. I remember a different username. And I'm really enjoying myself ironically. Is there like a contingent of people who are mad that you're back? Yes. Yes, I'm in a care. I don't care there. Like, we got to bleach on free off Tumblr again. And I'm like, no, you don't understand. I'm broken on the inside now. You can't. I remember when I went back and I made some Tumblr posts a few years ago, you were like mad at me. You were like, this feels like a betrayal. I'll be honest with you, like a betrayal. And now I'm back. Now I'm the one who's back. Oh, God. Life is long if you're lucky. God will sometimes run across people. And it's so clearly illustrative for me. Because I'll run across people who are bragging that they once bullied John Greenoff Tumblr. And I'm like, it's been 10 years. Find a better enemy. When you say part of the cool thing that's going on right now is this proximity to this power. Yeah. That people can respond to that by saying, all right. Well, what's the most powerful thing I could do right now? And the most powerful thing you can do is always that you can make somebody's life miserable and harm a productive community. That's basically what the biggest professional trolls on the internet do all day. And some of them are in positions of tremendous power in the United States. We did hire a bunch of them to be hired a country. Yeah. We have hired a bunch of them. So that's really weird. But it makes sense because it is, like, an effective way to wield power. Yeah. And it probably feels to some of those people, like it was a good way to wield power because it helped Tumblr get weird again and not have Tumblr be this sort of platform where famous people could become more famous. And maybe there's something to that. I'm not, like, something did have to happen to Tumblr for Tumblr to get cool again. And it happened because Tumblr is cool again. But I think the biggest thing that had to happen is that Tumblr needed to, to your point, Hank, not be a place with a ton of social capital. Like Twitter is still a place with a ton of social capital. So much. I think honestly, why is because social capital is so tied to political and financial capital? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And like, I guess for me, we've talked a lot about the challenges that came out of 2014. We haven't talked a lot about the gifts that came out of 2014. And there were two big gifts. One was that the success of the Fault in Our Stars allowed me to focus on Crash Course more or less nonstop for two years, which I think has had a big impact on the way that people learn. And I think has been a cool thing in the world that I'm really proud of. And the other is that it built like half a hospital in Sierra Leone with the money that came from that. I have financial security, which is an incredible rare gift and something that I try really hard not to take for granted or take advantage of, but also like, I've been able to do stuff with that deploy that capital to use a Hank Green business man phrase in a way that I think is good. And so a lot of good stuff has come out of it. And there's the fact that like, you know, that book reached 50 million people. That's great. It, you know, almost everyone hasn't read it. Both things are true at the same time. But like, it reached 50 million people in the last 14 years since it came out. And what a gift that is. Like, it's easy to lose track of that because inevitably, you know, you pay attention to the one negative outcome instead of the 10 positive outcomes. But like, the positive outcomes from that book so outweigh the negative outcomes. You know, it's because of that book that Esther's actual memoir, this star won't go out was able to be published. It's because of that book that, you know, I was able to write turtles all the way down eventually. It's because of that book that so many people have written me to tell me that the story made them feel less alone or it made them feel seen or a consultant encouraged them. And like, so much good came out of that time as well that I tend to forget about. - Well, yeah, I mean. And also, like, I don't think anybody would have been likely to read everything as tuberculosis. - Yeah. - Look, it did not come from the author of "The Fault in Our Stars." - Probably wouldn't have been a number one New York Times man. (laughing) - And like, you know, the interesting thing about that influx of people that we had, you know, something getting, it was the most views we ever got on "Vogue Brothers" was that period of time. Is that like, some people stuck around and they were the ones, they were the like the right ones, you know? And we've always been a little bit conscious of that. Like, we don't want the biggest audience. We want the audience we want. - Having a big audience in 2013 and 2014 taught us that we don't want the biggest audience we can get. We want the best audience that we can get. And we want the audience that's right for our content. And part of that, you shape by the stuff you make. - My God, John, I cannot believe that we've finally done this. We did a whole episode about 2014. I'm gonna post it on Tumblr. (laughing) Sizzling sandwich perfection-blog.tumblr.com. Our big podcast that's way bigger than we thought it was. Once we get those Tumblr listeners, we're really gonna blow up. - Honestly, that period was a huge part of how I wrote my books. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, oh, I get to understand the terror of this, of how you get sucked into, you know, fighting these stupid fights and becoming a symbol in people's heads rather than like an actual person. - Right. - And the thing that I'm always reminded when I see the people who are on somebody saying on Twitter, like reveling and having bullied John off Tumblr is that those people weren't nerd fighters. You know, they weren't like people. They were never the people who liked us. I almost think of it like, this is what I sometimes think, is like there are, there is kind of a group of dedicated John Green Haters and a smaller group of dedicated Hank and John Haters. I will say, I think that you still have more of this than I do for I cannot figure out why reasons. - Yeah, but it'll change if you get more famous. Don't worry. - Yes. - I think that might be a part of it is that you still have been closer to the center of culture than me. And what I think of it is like, okay, so like the haters, if there's a fire, the haters are gonna pour gasoline on it. But that doesn't mean that the only thing that's burning is the gasoline. And so it's like really upsetting to watch people who are just there because they want to do the damage, actually like spreading the fire to people who I think are being damaged. Where it's like, you know, like I feel like sometimes the right thing to do is to take a step back because it's hurting a community of people, it's hurting people's ability to continue to have faith in things in their world. 'Cause I think that nihilism is so dangerous. And it is one of the main things that you and I believe together and are kind of trying to do is saying, like, okay. But like if you believe in the hopeful world, that actually does increase the chances that the hopeful world will arrive. - Right. - Like a society without trust doesn't exist. And people who trust each other accomplish far more than people who do not. People who don't trust each other accomplish nothing. - But I think that your metaphor is very apt because there's so much gasoline on the fire sometimes that it's hard to tell where the fire is, but there is a fire. There is, like there was something inherently impossible. So like two things are true at once. There was something inherently impossible about being as famous as I was in 2014 on the internet. Not being as famous as I was, but being as famous as I was in being on the internet were impossible. - Yeah, yeah. - And yet at the same time, there were many legitimate criticisms of the way that I was being famous and using my platform. Now, there were also very bad faith criticisms. There was also a lot of pouring gasoline on the fire, but there was something there and I did have to learn. And I still, I'm gonna have to learn again. I'm not done learning about this. So I think that they're, I think both those things are true at the same time. - Okay, last question for, and maybe only question I've actually asked you. Now I'm interviewing you, John. - Great, okay, but do you think that the fault in their stars would have gotten big if you hadn't been online, like super online? Like if you, like, was that part of the energy? And like being on, like Vogue Brothers, one thing, but like the energy of this sort of like cultural moment and like John being involved in it. - I think that it was a huge part of the success of both the book and the movie. And I think that the book probably would have been successful anyway. It was just one of those books that hits at the right time and has the right words in the right order to appeal to a lot of people, but it wouldn't have been as successful as it was, right? Like I look at a book like We Were Liars by E. Lockhart or The Book Heaf by Marcus Husek, two books I absolutely love that were really successful, like really best-selling books and both had adaptations made, although We Were Liars was just made last year and were really, really successful and still are successful by the way. The only reason the fault in our stars is in a different world from those books, which are both better in my opinion than the whole of our stars. The only reason that the fault in our stars in a different world is because there was so much energy around it and a lot of that energy came from online spaces. And so how can I not be grateful to those spaces? The point that I want to make there is like, you know, you couldn't be that online and that famous, but like that's true in both ways. Where like it wouldn't have happened at all. Yeah, but also like once it once it happened it wasn't sustainable. Right, that's exactly it. And I mean, everything is tuberculosis has been a phenomenal book in my life, unlike anything I've ever experienced before. And there's no way that happens. There's no way I get to go on that journey of spending five years warning about tuberculosis or three years writing a memoir if the fault in our stars doesn't happen. And so it has given me tremendous creative freedom and also with a large percentage of my readers, they have a lot of faith in me now. Like they'll follow me anywhere. They'll follow you know, like imagine in 2012 you were like, hey, this guy's going to write a history of tuberculosis and it's going to do pretty well. Yeah, like that would not have been possible. All right, Hank, we need to get to the all important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon. AFC Wimbledon lost. What's the news from Mars? Oh boy, they do keep, they keep. So the news from Mars is not from Mars this week. John, I don't know if you know this. Yeah, but we're going back to, we're going back to the moon. Oh yeah. And I feel like nobody's aware. But like the moon is. I just feel like there are so many empty promises right now and like MK threats, and then there are also threats that do happen. And like it's very hard to, are we actually going to the moon? So in a mere couple, actually, I don't know when this episode's coming out. But when is it? I think it's like February 10th. The Artemis mission is launching. And they're not going to land on the moon, but astronauts are going to fly around the moon. They're going to go out to it and come back as a test to see how this goes. Let me make sure I have my numbers right. The current schedule has less than a month from now. Artemis 2, astronaut launch. And then they will go around the moon on a 10-day mission. Wow. And that has already sent an uncrewed capsule to the moon into orbit in 2022. And then Artemis 3 will be landing astronauts on the surface of the moon, and then eventually, maybe from there, on to Mars. So that is actually like occurring. Wow. As much as it doesn't seem like news at all. Y'all believe it when I see it. Yeah, I've learned to trust my eyes, Hank, not the predictions of experts. Well, yeah, I don't know. Apparently, NASA schedules can change, and there isn't a set launch date yet, so we'll see. All right, well, we'll see. We'll see. I hope that we make it to the moon. That would be awesome. Thank you for listening to this therapy session. We appreciate it. Now, whenever somebody is like, hey, what's that thing about? 2014, instead of being like, oh, Tumblr did this, and then there was this, and then John got deleted. But no, instead, you can send them to this episode. We were there. Yeah. I mean, our memories might not be perfect. To be fair. Perfect. And, and I will stand and say it in a court of law. Yeah, there's a million different versions that that story, and they're all legitimate in their own ways. But this is our version. Thank you for listening to it. If you want more episodes like this, too bad, usually we just answer your questions. This podcast is edited by Ben Swardout. It's mixed by Joseph Tunamedish. Our marketing specialist is Brooke Shotwell. It's produced by Rosiana Hallsforohas and Hannah West. Our executive producer is Seth Radley. Our editorial assistant is Deboki Trucker-Varity. The music you're hearing now, and at the beginning of the podcast is by the great Gunnarola. And as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome. (upbeat music)