EPISODE 35: I HATE HANK GREEN

[Instrumental of ‘These Dark Times’ by Caged Animals begins to play.]

Dylan [VOICEOVER INTRODUCTION]: Hey and welcome to Conversations With People Who Hate Me. I'm your host Dylan Marron, and this is the show where I take a negative online comment or interaction and I use it as a starting point for an offline conversation. In some episodes I speak to people who have written something negative about me personally and other times, like today, I moderate episodes between strangers.

There are a lot of ways that we form identities both online and off. Sometimes it's through activities that we do, the work we take part in, maybe the faith tradition we follow and in pop culture, many identify around the things and people that we love. Now of course we can also forge our identities around what we hate. Hank Green is many things. He is an author, vlogger, a science nerd, and the co-creator of VidCon. He's a pretty big deal, especially on the internet. A lot of people love Hank Green and all of the cool things that he's created, but of course we know the unofficial law of the internet, which stipulates that the opposite must be true too.

So today Hank will be speaking with a person named Link who three years ago tweeted: "popular opinion but i hate hank green." First I'll speak to Hank and then I'll speak to Link and then I'll connect them to each other. So let's get started. Here is Hank.

[Music fades. Conversation begins.]

Dylan: Hey Hank. How are ya?

Hank: Good. How are you Dylan?

Dylan: I'm good. Can you hear me?

Hank: I can.

Dylan: Hank, this is the fastest a remote interview for this show has ever been set up. It is truly such a pleasure to work with such a pro.

Hank: Well, mostly I just, it's so much faster when you just do it instead of talking about when you're going to do it.

Dylan: Yeah. I also, in the messages that we were exchanging as we were being set up, I said the term "ready to rock" and I want you to know Hank, I've never said that term in my life except for to you [HANK LAUGHS] just now in those messages. So thank you for pulling that out of me.

Hank: Yeah, absolutely. Are you code switching on me? You sort of like see who I am.

Dylan: Yeah, I'm code switching.

Hank: And you decided that's the way to speak to me.

Dylan: Yes. I'm a dad now.

[Hank laughs]

Dylan: So Hank. Hi.

Hank: Hi. How are you?

Dylan: I'm good. So you are a man who wears many hats. You are known for many things. You make a video series, you make many video series, you make a podcast, you do conventions. You wrote an incredible book that I personally messaged you perhaps too many times of how much I loved it. Called An Absolutely Remarkable Thing. This is not a promotional podcast, but here I am-

Hank: Hey, thanks.

Dylan: ... throwing it. Unsolicited promotion. You do things that I genuinely love and I think you're a great person, but this is the public figure we know. Why don't, in your own words, tell us about you and who Hank Green is.

Hank: Sure. I live in Montana with my wife and my son and a cat in a house and we live in Missoula, which is a college town, sort of one of those blue islands in the red state kind of vibe. And it's a nice... It's 60,000 people, a nice little town. And I find that I kind of need to live here to keep my head on straight because I can get pretty competitive, and sort of caught up in my own quest for self-worth, which is maybe what we're all doing. And so I sort of, I need a lot of perspective, so I sort of stick around here. I grew up in Orlando, Florida with me and my brother and my parents. My brother is John Green who I make content with and who's also an author, more so than I even one might say.

Dylan: Well, you have one published book and that is more than most of us [HANK LAUGHS] so I'm proud of you.

Hank: (laughing) Yeah. And yeah, and I started making internet content a long, long time ago before YouTube existed. And so I've always sort of had this interest in communicating through the internet and get really introspective sometimes about this thing that we do on the internet, and sometimes feel like it needs to be pretty critically examined because it's really gotten very big and impactful very fast. And we don't know what to do with it or how to deal with it yet. So I've been writing a lot about that and that's sort of what my novels are about.

Dylan: Yeah, I, listen, I am fully with you on exploring that and questioning that. So as someone who has been on the internet a lot, what is your experience with negativity online directed at you, abbreviated to hate online? What's your experience with that?

Hank: I have had times when it has been very, very bad to the point where I wasn't hungry for a few months and it took up a very big percentage of my brain. One of my stress responses is to sleep and so I slept more than usual. It was sort of depression... vector.

Dylan: Listen.

Hank: And that wave was sort of a right wing troll brigade kind of thing that was happening to me. So that was terrible but useful in one way, which is that it toughened the skin a little bit to the regular hate. And then also watching more significant attacks happen to mostly my female friends, particularly female friends of color. And then it's just everything that... Even that very bad time sort of pales in comparison. So it's given me some perspective on it. And then I try to remember that I also hated people [DYLAN LAUGHS] when I was sort of trying to work out my identity and if Dave Matthews had heard the stuff that me and my friend said about Dave Matthews when I was in high school, it would have really hurt his feelings. But you didn't hear it because we didn't have Twitter because we couldn't @ him. And so I try to imagine that I am Dave Matthews to these people and I'm just one way that they're expressing their identity and that's kind of what comes along with having notoriety.

Dylan: Yeah. Well, it certainly seems that you have a thick skin to this stuff, but how does it feel to even be the kind of person who has a profile that is big enough that someone, a stranger you don't know, just has this opinion and expresses this fleeting opinion on an app that you are also on?

Hank: I mean, I think that what we are asking for in fame is to be de-humanized to that point where you are just a few positive traits and that allows for a broad number of people to know who you are. And so what became clear to me eventually is that I am asking for that dehumanization so I can't really complain when it goes the wrong way. This is also a thing. It's like it's a thing with any commodity, any idea in culture, whether it's the iPhone or a human being. When there is all this positive feeling around it, eventually there becomes a wave of negative feeling about it.

Dylan: Yeah. Well, everything you said, unknowingly because you actually don't know the comment and you don't know the person, you're of course about to get to know them. But they tweeted in May of 2017 just a simple phrase: "popular opinion but I hate hank green."

Hank: (laughs) That was a long time ago! This person is so much older now!

Dylan: They're older, they're wiser. So you don't know this person at all, but how does that even make you feel to hear it?

Hank: So, how many likes and retweets does it have because that would deeply impact how I feel about it.

Dylan: I will say zero and zero as of this recording.

Hank: Yeah. Then I don't... Then was it a popular opinion in that ca- (laughs)?

Dylan: Then that's a truly good question.

Hank: So, partially that. Partially that. But also I think that doesn't trigger any of my insecurities. Some sometimes they do a great job of triggering my insecurities. They find the things that actually bothers me and I do my best to not engage (laughing) because then they know.

Dylan: Yeah. So Hank, the person who wrote that tweet, their name is Link and you are about to speak to Link. How do you feel about that?

Hank: A little sweaty, [DYLAN GIGGLES] but probably Link feels more nervous than I do.

Dylan: Yeah. Well, there has never been a guest on this show who hasn't felt nervous. So I would say you are in the exact right head space to an episode of this show.

Hank: All right.

[Solo conversation with Hank ends. Phone rings. Second guest picks up.]

Link: Hello.

Dylan: Oh, hey Link. How are ya?

Link: Good. Hold on a second. Let me put you on speaker because I can't hear.

Dylan: Okay, great. I love speaker.

Link: Okay.

Dylan: Can you hear me?

Link: Yes.

Dylan: Okay, great. How's your day going so far?

Link: Um... it's been okay.

Dylan: Yeah?

Link: You know, I got paid today, so yippie! (giggles)

Dylan: Okay, great. What do you do for work?

Link: I'm a freelance artist, so it's kind of more like I get my money from PayPal. So when it clears, it's like, [whispered excitement] "Ugh, yes!"

Dylan: Yes, I completely get it. We are fellow peaceful soldiers in the economy of digital art. So I applaud you.

Link: Aw, thank you.

Dylan: Yeah. Okay. So Link, before we kind of get into talking about what we're here to talk about. Let's start with my favorite question. Totally separate from the tweet. I want to just get to know you and who you are. So in as many details as you're comfortable sharing in a recorded podcast, why don't you tell me about you?

Link: Well, I am a game artist. Well, going to college for it. I... Oh boy. I have a setup in my room that I usually use for game art and it is all pink, like the whole thing is pink. It's an eye sore.

Dylan: (laughing) That's good. Yes.

Link: My whole wardrobe is pastel, so there's that too.

Dylan: Good.

Link: Pink, purple, light yellow.

Dylan: You're naming my dream closet to be honest. [LINK LAUGHS] It's true.

Link: It is. It is.

Dylan: And so you said you're a game designer?

Link: Yes, I am actually for... Blah. I'm not a Twitch designer. Excuse me. I'm a game artist. Oh, that's embarrassing!!

Dylan: Why? Why is it embarrassing?

Link: I don't know. It's just like, I'm just thinking of judgment.

Dylan: Judgment from who?

Link: Well, that's my whole issue. I've always been afraid of people making fun of me.

Dylan: Yeah. When do you think that started?

Link: Childhood probably. I was bullied in high school and elementary school, middle school, kindergarten even.

Dylan: I got to be honest, I was too. But you said it started as early as kindergarten?

Link: Yep.

Dylan: What happened?

Link: I was the weird kid, so I had just moved to the town and nobody wanted anything to do with me.

Dylan: Yeah. I think also kids, and they're wonderful, but they have this way of sniffing out the people who don't feel like they belong and really excommunicating them. And it's horrible. Is that what happened to you?

Link: I think that's what happened. Yeah, now that I think of it.

Dylan: Yeah. If you're comfortable talking about it. In what ways were you bullied?

Link: It was silly playground talk. People would use my deadname and I was like, "No, no, please. No." Because I didn't want to be associated with that. So I'd start crying on the playground.

Dylan: Yeah.

Link: And then middle school, it was more like I was into anime a lot, so I was like, you know, everybody's like, "Oh, that's cringy. stay away from me."

Dylan: Oh, Link, that's hard.

Link: And then high school, it was my mental illness started showing. So I was just... Everybody was like, "Oh, it's that crazy chick again." You know?

Dylan: Why were they doing that?

Link: Well, I wasn't unmedicated and stuff like that, so I was wiry and out there.

Dylan: Were you put on ADHD meds? Is that what it was?

Link: Yeah, and I think it made me more wiry, because if you don't mind me telling, I have schizophrenia. So it did not do anything for me. It just made it worse.

Dylan: Oh wow.

Link: You know, because I don't have ADD.

Dylan: Yeah. Tell me a little about your experience with that.

Link: Well, I wasn't even diagnosed fully until recently. I mean eventually. And it is pretty hard to live with. I mean, it's not terrible. I mean, it's like, what is that? Is that me or is that actually outside? You know?

Dylan: Mm-hmm (affirmative). How does it manifest for you?

Link: Well, I don't want to get too oversharing, but-

Dylan: I mean only as much as you're comfortable sharing. But if you're comfortable sharing it, I'd love to hear it.

Link: Oh, okay. You asked. (laughs) A few years ago I had a problem where I just woke up in the middle of the night and I was seeing things like crazy. So I voluntarily went to the hospital. I don't want to get into details, but it was... I was not well and that was probably one of the most disorienting experiences my entire life. Yeah, that was my big awakening. There's something wrong. So I went to the doctor.

Dylan: And how did that go?

Link: Great. Actually, they put me on medication.

Dylan: Oh great.

Link: They diagnosed me.

Dylan: A diagnosis is always helpful.

Link: Yes. And I really recommend that people go out and see a doctor to get diagnosed if they think there's something wrong because there's so many things you can solve that way.

Dylan: Yeah. And so it sounds like you're under treatment right now, right?

Link: I am. I am.

Dylan: And is that helping?

Link: Yes. In fact they're trying to reduce my medication as of lately.

Dylan: Okay. Pretty cool. I also just want to say thanks for sharing. This is... I am of the mindset that the more we openly speak about mental illness and the more we kind of own our stories, the less stigmatized it becomes for people. And for something like schizophrenia, we are only beholden to these fear narratives about what it is, and it's really helpful to hear about it from someone who actually lives with that. And it's like, hey, you know what, I'm in treatment and we're figuring this out.

Link: Yeah.

Dylan: Did that affect your behavior online at all?

Link: It did. And it affected it a lot. I mean, I think I was probably undiagnosed when I made the tweet.

Dylan: Oh, (laughs) when you made the tweet?

Link: Yes. I mean, I'm not blaming on mental illness, but I'm just saying I was not there.

Dylan: I don't think you're blaming and if anything, the whole point of this show is simply providing context. But you pivoted to it. So let's take us there. In May of 2017 you wrote: "Popular opinion, but I hate Hank Green." [LINK LAUGHS] So, we'll get into why you wrote that. But I would love to hear what were the circumstances of your life at the time that you wrote this? May of 2017.

Link: Honestly, I think what happened was I was on Tumblr and somebody probably made a post. And I got rage, and I said, "Man, I hate that guy." So I made a tweet.

Dylan: Do you remember what it was?

Link: No, I do not.

Dylan: Yeah, and that's fine. I think that's one of the funny things about this whole experience I'm learning. We post things and don't remember posting them at all or why we posted them or why we felt a certain way, but why even write it? Not why did you feel that you hated Hank Green at the time? But why did you even articulate it on Twitter?

Link: Well, what my thought process was, is that I just honestly thought that if I said something, then my friends would like me more.

Dylan: Yeah. I think you honestly did successfully articulate how we all... What socializing is. "If I said something, my friends would like me more." I think this is what happens in our brain every time we say something, whether we acknowledge it or not. Without naming names of course, but who were you trying to impress with this tweet?

Link: Probably one of my Tumblr mutual's that just started Twitter. She was very temperamental at the time.

Dylan: Temperamental meaning her friendship with you was temperamental or she herself was temperamental?

Link: She was one of those types of people that would be like, "Well if you don't like this or you like this, you are canceled."

Dylan: Yeah. And often we want to impress those people in a big way.

Link: So you don't get called out yourself.

Dylan: I don't want to put words in your mouth, so please correct me. But it seems like you really didn't care one way or the other about Hank Green, but you tweeted this really to maintain a friendship and maintain the adoration of this person who you were trying to impress.

Link: Exactly. That's exactly it.

Dylan: And what is your relationship with that person now?

Link: We really grew apart. I mean, I just recently re-made my Tumblr and they re-followed me, but I don't think they know who I am anymore.

Dylan: Well, yeah, and it seems like you've had significant evolution since that day or that tweet.

Link: Oh yeah, definitely. And I think they have too.

Dylan: Yeah, I'm sure they have. Just as just as we're talking about you and how there's this beautiful full story unraveling right before us, behind this tweet that you wrote, I'm sure the same is true of her. That she has this complex and wonderful life that is unraveling behind her posts as well.

Link: Hmm. I never thought of it that way.

Dylan: Really?

Link: No, I really haven't. I don't take much time to think about other people on the internet and that says... That really explains my tweet. (laughs)

Dylan: Well, I think that is also true for a lot of people. Not to get you off the hook, but I just want to be fair Link. I don't think that we're encouraged to think that way at all. The structure of social media only encourages us to think about ourselves and our lives and everyone else doesn't look like they have a full life.

Link: Oh yeah.

Dylan: Yeah, yeah. Well, so the next step is that you are going to speak to Hank. How are you feeling about that?

Link: You know what? Let's do it, you know? (laughs)

[Phone rings. All guests are now connected.]

Link: Oh hello!

Hank: Hello Link!

[AD BREAK]

Hank: Hello.

Dylan: Hey! Link, you are on with me and you are also on with Hank.

Link: Oh hello!

Hank: Hello Link!

Dylan: Well hi friends. We thank you so much for making the time to do this. We're not going to dive right into what we're here to talk about just yet. So I would love for you to get to know each other. Hank, why don't you kick it off? Tell Link about you. Perhaps things that we know but also things that we don't know. What's your life like?

Hank: I live in Missoula, Montana. So I, uh... (Hank's voice fades down)

Dylan VOICEOVER:: All right, you have just heard this stuff. So let's skip a little ahead to when I ask them if they have any questions for each other.

Link: I do have one. What exactly do you talk about on your show or whatever you do?

Hank: So, I've got a few different things that we do. The nice thing about vlog, but there's this, that it has always been a channel about me and my brother and we get to talk about what we're interested in and what our passions are. And you know, what we're obsessed with that day. Even if it's a stupid Superbowl commercial. And then I have my other big channel that I do, it's called Sci Show, which is I do with a bunch of people and we just talk about science, news and science things. We just uploaded a video about airplanes and how they work and how we minimize turbulence and all the science and engineering behind airplanes. And we did one recently that I really liked about twins. So all the different kinds of twins. There's like identical and fraternal, but then there are sort of subcategories inside of that. (laughs) So stuff like that.

Dylan: Link, I'm only curious just because you asked Hank about what he does. How much did you know about Hank in May of 2017?

Link: Again, I don't remember.

Dylan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I will say it's funny that I don't think you were at all familiar with Hank in May of 2017, which is when you tweeted out: "popular opinion but I hate hank green." And again, this is a very loving space. So just share with Hank why you wrote that.

Link: Well, wow. This extremely embarrassing, but the reason why was because I really wanted to show off. So... (laughs)

Hank: Yeah, I hear that.

Link: I had some friends at the time. Maybe just one. I don't know if one of them was instigating it. I can't remember. But they would retweet or reblog posts. I can't remember which platform it was on, but I think it was probably Tumblr and they retweeted it or reblogged a post and it was about probably some call out of some sort and it was probably BS. And I went, "Oh boy, I don't like that guy." So I went and I hit tweet.

(Hank & Dylan laugh)

Dylan: Hank, have you ever done that? Have you ever kind of shot off a tweet about someone who you didn't know?

Hank: Well, I have sort of the... I've definitely shot off my mouth about somebody I didn't know. Do that all the time. And I think absolutely in part to express my identity and have people have a more positive view of me or just sort of express a sentiment that puts me more in line to sort of show people that "I am like you! And you should like me!" And I think that, to some extent, I probably do that on the internet publicly only to people who are politicians or are making, in my estimation, the world demonstrably worse for folk. But yeah, I mean when I was younger, I did that all the time. And I think we talked on our pre-call about my feelings about Dave Matthews and Link, just so you know, what you said about me was way, way less bad than what I have said about Dave Matthews. [DYLAN LAUGHS] But I know nothing about Dave Matthews. What I knew was that the kids at school I didn't like, liked Dave Matthews and so I was going to hate Dave Matthews. And even now, I don't like Dave Matthews' music, but I don't think it's because I don't like his music. I think it's because I put this as part of my identity and I'm just glad that... I'm glad I didn't write any of it down in some place where Dave could see it because I was doing it in Kelly's bedroom, not on a social platform that lets the world continue to see it and also forever. And so, then some guy comes by and is like, "Two years ago you tweeted this thing! You want to be on a podcast?!"

(Link & Dylan laugh)

Dylan: I know! That's why- Link, total credit to you for even being willing to talk about this. I mean I also think we're all growing up on this strange platform that encourages us to express these fleeting opinions about people. The kind of fleeting opinions that, for the record, humans have always had and have always expressed to each other. But now there's a very weird public-slash-private forum in which to do it. Link, you had shared with me a little about the stuff that was going on with you around the time of that tweet. If you're comfortable, would you want to share with Hank also what was going on? Because I think that's worth providing context.

Link: Yeah. I was going around with a very undiagnosed illness and I didn't know that at the time that a lot of the times the shit that came out of my mouth... Oh, excuse me. Can I say that if we're on air?

Dylan: Oh yeah, please, go wild.

Link: (laughs) Well, sorry about that.

Dylan: No, it's good. You can keep going with that. I permit it.

Link: Okay. Well the heckin' stuff that comes out of my mouth sometimes [DYLAN LAUGHS], there I censored myself. It was because of a... Well, I don't want to blame it on it, but it was mainly me showing some symptoms and I didn't know it. And I really think that because I was sooner than later diagnosed with schizophrenia and stuff like that, I realized I wasn't all there when I wrote stuff like that. I was not well.

Hank: Yeah.

Link: So yeah.

Hank: Yeah, I think that's super important to recognize too that, often I will see people sometimes saying things on the internet and oftentimes this is somebody who has a big audience. And I can see them sort of digging a hole for themselves. And I'm like, there's more to this than this tweet stream. They're going through something right now.

Dylan: Oh yeah.

Link: Yup.

Hank: And I don't think that the internet is a very forgiving place because if I'm like, "Hey, I think this person's going through something right now." The general response is either, "Well, that's not going to get a lot of traction." Or, "No, they're being bad. We must police our social spaces harshly because it is, this is a society!"

Dylan: Oh, completely.

Hank: Yeah.

Dylan: I also just want to be clear Link. Many people tweet those exact things that do not have an undiagnosed mental illness, so there is sadly nothing abnormal about what you tweeted, nor is it by far the most egregious thing that exists on the internet. I just want to be clear about that, you know?

Link: Oh no.

Dylan: Yeah.

Link: Oh no.

Dylan: You were saying that you were essentially tweeting this to impress a friend, right?

Link: Yeah. Basically. It was more of a thing like I could get called out if I didn't say anything like that is what I was thinking and that's really shitty reasoning to talk about somebody.

Hank: Yeah, I mean a little bit, I don't know. I find it completely understandable. I don't want to forgive everybody who's a dick on the internet, but I sometimes feel pressured to say something negative about someone because everyone expects it and they're like, "Are you not on the side of right here?" And it's almost like you have to, in order to fit in, in order to be a part of the culture that you have found safety in or have found comfort in or have found identity in, you have to express both alignment with things and opposition to things. And so when I read that tweet, I don't think that you are talking about Hank Green, I think you were talking about, in part, an identity and in part, the brand of Hank Green that had been created and then sort of once that isn't a thing in the public space, people do things with it that aren't in my control. And I had to let go of that because we all do want to control how other people think of us and letting go of that control is, I think that for everybody, it is necessary at times and it is a really difficult thing because, I mean, I don't know if everybody wants to be liked as much as I do, but... (laughs)

Dylan: Yeah, no, I very badly want to be liked as well. But yeah, I fully relate to wanting to control what people think of us. Link, do you ever feel that you want to control how people think of you?

Link: All the time.

Hank: Yeah.

Dylan: How so?

Link: I mean, I go on Tumblr a lot more than I go on Twitter and honestly, I feel judged from the moment I go on there. So I'm constantly-

Dylan: On Tumblr?

Link: Yes. Yeah, I'll go on Tumbler and I'll be like, "Well, okay, so game plan, I'm going to say this. If my shit posts comes out bad, I'm going to delete it in 10 seconds."

Hank: Yeah, I mean, I really do identify where I will delete things if it comes off wrong or if it starts getting interpreted incorrectly or even if I discover that a bunch of people disagree with me and part of that I tell myself is "if a bunch of people are disagreeing with me and they seem like good people, then maybe I am wrong and maybe I shouldn't be broadcasting this opinion as a good one." But probably a bigger piece of it is like, I don't want people to be mad at me and think less of me and that can come off a lot when my audience, of course, is pretty left wing. But if I'm out there being like, I completely agree that I have a candidate of choice, but I'm going to vote for whoever wins the nomination.

Dylan: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Hank: People are like, "This is centrist nonsense." And I'm like.. [ALL LAUGH]

Dylan: And you're like, okay.

Hank: Yeah, and people can come pretty hard.

Dylan: Yeah.

Link: Yeah.

Dylan: Yeah. No, I know. We're very rapidly changing here in terms of how we socialize with each other on a huge, huge scale. Another theme that I'm sensing is this public or private dynamic of who are we really talking to? Are we talking to everyone or are we talking to no one? And I asked myself this question a lot. I think a little different now that I have a bigger platform than I had a few years ago. Link, I'd love to hear from you first. When you're tweeting, do you think you are sharing something privately or publicly?

Link: Well, honestly I think it's a little bit of both, but it would probably lean more towards privately. But I've realized that I'm on a public platform, that anybody can find it. Especially because- funny story, if you'd like to hear it?

Dylan: We'd love to.

Link: I live in a very red state, so I got mad at one of my senators recently. I reached out to him and I said, "Hey look, I don't like what you're doing right now. And it's pretty bad." And he emailed me back and said some stuff that was not really towards my liking. So I did basically the same thing that I did to Hank. I said, "Man, I can't stand that guy." And then I got a 12 hour ban from Twitter.

Dylan: Oh you got a 12 hour ban. I see. So Hank you're... Congratulations. You're in the same category as a Republican Senator. That's how I always group you, as Hank Green and Republican Senator.

Link: Oh no! No, no, no.

Dylan: (laughing) Yes.

Link: I'm so sorry!

Dylan: No, no, no. I was just joking.

Link: Oh okay.

Dylan: We celebrate it. Hank, I think I know the answer to this, but when you're tweeting, do you think it's public or private? It seems like all public, right?

Hank: Yeah, it's all public. I'm definitely making stuff for public consumption and expect it to be. And then, imagining as I write a tweet, like "how is this going to be imagined in all of the different ways and when it is..." And I kind of see it as if it is misunderstood, then that's my fault and I should delete it. Which means that writing a tweet oftentimes is a half an hour long process.

Dylan: Oh yeah.

Hank: For 240 characters. (laughs) It doesn't seem right.

Dylan: Yeah. Link, how long did it take you to write that tweet about Hank? [HANK LAUGHS]

Link: I think it probably took me about five seconds to be completely clear. Okay. It's going to sound a little off topic, but you ever played a game like Dragon Age? We have the approval system.

Hank: I have only watched it be played.

Link: Sometimes it feels like that.

Dylan: Okay, so I'm unaware of this. Can you explain it to me a little?

Link: Well, it's a fantasy game. It's sort of like, I don't know, the earlier versions of it are sort of like Dungeons and Dragons. It's an RPG game. The approval system is sort of based on how you progress through the game. So there's this anarchist girl on there and she will sit there and you'll say something and she will most likely every single time disapprove. So I feel like every time I talk in there, there Sarah sitting right in front of me. [HANK & DYLAN LAUGH] "I disapprove!" (laughs)

Dylan: Wow. Okay. That is... Link, that is not a tangent at all and very relevant to everything we're discussing. So Link, you feel that there's a constant approval system?

Link: Oh yeah, definitely.

Dylan: How do you feel like you're seeking that approval?

Link: Well, back then at least I was doing it... I was doing it for clout.

Hank: Sure.

Dylan: Yeah.

Link: But nowadays it's more like I'm just chugging along, so it's not exactly that anymore.

Dylan: Hank, what's your relationship to clout and creating for clout?

Hank: It's something that I've tried to stop doing as... Well, I can definitely tell the difference between when I'm tweeting something that is, majority of the reason, is to get likes and retweets and if I'm doing that and it's sort of... The reason is that it's connecting with negative feelings and people, particularly like outrage. Then I am not doing that as much anymore. I get really mad sometimes at the world and I try to have that not be the thing that I'm expressing on the internet because I feel like there is an awful lot of that. It is the most shareable of the emotions, it seems like.

Link: Oh yeah, definitely.

Hank: But part of the reason why I am able to and less interested in that is that I'm also just less interested in building an audience than I used to be. And relying on that, sitting on that as my only source of validation was, I think, really unhealthy. And so in part, I think I'm able to do it for one reason because I've actually come to a place where I'm a little less interested in it and two, I have a lot of it already and I've had it for long enough that I can see that getting more doesn't actually make me feel better. And I have direct experience of that and I don't know how else to believe it unless you have direct experience of it. Because very hard to believe. It was very hard for me to believe before I could see it in my own life.

Dylan: Yeah. Link, do you have any closing thoughts that you wanted to express to Hank?

Link: Well, I'm sorry.

Hank: You are forgiven and it legit is no big deal. Of the things that I get, I actually really understand this and I think that I've done it before. My guess is that we've all done it before, especially because it was three years ago. And I think that it's really good to remember that we're all going through stuff. And I think that that's something that people who are catching hate might do well to remember sometimes.

Dylan: Yeah, I agree. Well-

Link: I think this show kind of opened up my eyes a little bit.

Dylan: Oh, wow. Well, I thank you both so much for doing this. Hank, thank you for being down and Link, thank you for being brave and being willing to own up to it and talk about this stuff.

Link: Oh, no problem.

Hank: Yeah. It's a great chat.

Dylan: Great chat. And we will all see each other on the internet. Sounds good?

Hank: All right.

Link: Yep. Sounds great.

Dylan: Okay. Bye guys.

Link: Bye.

Hank: Bye.

[Phone call ends with a hang up sound. The drumbeat from ‘These Dark Times’ by Caged Animals kicks in.]

Dylan [VOICEOVER CLOSING CREDITS]: If you'd like to be a guest on this show or have an idea for an episode, please visit www.conversationswithpeoplewhohateme.com for more information.

Conversations with People Who Hate Me is a production of Night Vale Presents. Christy Gressman is the executive producer. Vincent Cacchione is the sound engineer and mixer. Emily Newman and Mark Stoll are the associate producers. The theme song is These Dark Times, by Caged Animals. The logo was designed by Phillip Blackowl, with a photo by Mindy Tucker. This podcast was created, produced and hosted by me, Dylan Marron.

Special thanks to Adam Cecil and our publicist, Megan Larson.

We'll be back in two weeks with a brand new episode but until then, remember, there is a human on the other side of the screen.

[Chorus of ‘These Dark Times’ by Caged Animals plays.]