The Internet Is a Misery Machine With Hank Green

In this inaugural episode of Galaxy Brain, Charlie Warzel examines the state of the internet as it stands now in November 2025 with Hank Green, a true citizen of the internet—somebody who has made a living riding the algorithmic waves of the social web. Warzel and Green look back on a time when the internet felt small, more serendipitous, and inspiring, and try to tease apart what went wrong. Are people starting to leave TikTok? How exactly did the internet turn into a misery machine? What makes a great headline? Why is it easier now for some people to trust creators over institutions? Green helps make sense of the internet we live on and offers his reasons for why it might get worse before it gets better (but it could get better!). Sign up for the Galaxy Brain newsletter. Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/listener. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:19Speaker 01

  Do you want to hear about visionaries creating a better world? People working in conservation, exploration, science and tech alongside storytellers imagining and creating a better future. I'm Alex Honnold, professional rock climber and founder of the Honnold Foundation, bringing you season six of Planet Visionaries. This season, I speak to guests like National Geographic photographer Tom Pescek and Anna Raffman, executive director of the Jane Goodall Institute, USA, in partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative. Watch Planet Visionaries on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 0:49Speaker 02

  Like, the thing that really gives me hope is watching teenagers think that what I do is so goddamn cringe. And I'm like, yes, I'm gonna do it more so that you think it's more cringe and you never do what I've done with my life. Stay away from this box!

• 1:06Charlie Warzel?

  Stay away.

• 1:07Speaker 02

  Stay away from the misery square!

• 1:18Charlie Warzel?

  I'm Charlie Warzel, and welcome to Galaxy Brain. Thank you for joining me here on the ground floor of this project. I am thrilled that you are here. This show is nominally about the internet and attention and the ways that all the tools and the media that we use and consume change us in weird and unexpected ways. And for a long time, I used to describe the internet as this black box, right? That we piped culture and politics and the economy and society into, and what came out at the other end was the same thing, only slightly misshapen and unpredictably weird.

• 1:52Charlie Warzel?

  But technology has always just been a cheat code for me. It is a way for me to tell stories and figure things out about the world. The internet is so firmly a part of every aspect of our lives that basically every story is a technology story. All the stories that I love to tell are about us as humans, how we come together, how we're manipulated, how we talk to each other, and how these tools change the way that we see ourselves and the way we see our neighbors. I want Galaxy Brain to explore all of this. I want to delight and obsess over news stories that I can't stop thinking about because they're ridiculous or they're weird. I want to talk to experts and I want to take you into my reporting process. I have so many great conversations in my work and I want them to show up here. My hope is to have them in public.

• 2:37Charlie Warzel?

  I want to learn and I want to think out loud with all of you. I want to make sense of big news stories, but also I just want to bask in the absurdity of the internet and go down weird rabbit holes. Being online too much can make me feel insane, but what I love about it is that the internet seamlessly blends high and low culture in our feeds. When something online feels good, it's because it's pairing a bit of informational chaos with this feeling of connection and also this sense of knowledge seeking. I want the show to feel that way. And that's why I asked Hank Green to be my first guest. Hank is, as one of his social media bios suggests, a longtime internet guy, but that's underselling it completely.

• 3:19Charlie Warzel?

  Along with his brother John, Hank started one of the earlier successful YouTube channels all the way back before the iPhone in 2007. He went on to found Complexly, which is an educational media company. Another of Hank's bios says, "I might have taught you biology," and that isn't underselling it. It is virtually impossible to list all the things that Hank has done. This summer, he and a friend were messing around with ideas and came up with an app to help people focus. It quickly became the number one free app on the App Store. There's a website that you can go to that counts how many days it's been since Hank started a new project. He is one of the original creators, but he also embodies the creative spirit of the internet.

• 4:02Charlie Warzel?

  And so I wanted to have Hank here for what I'm calling a state of the union of the internet in 2025. This is a look at where things stand. It's a conversation that's meant to level set this podcast going forward. We talked about how the internet has become a misery machine, how institutions have lost trust, how maybe they can begin to win it back. It's a conversation that touches on this universal frustration of being online and knowing that you're being manipulated by all these algorithms. And what if anything we can do to push back? Hank is honest, he's hopeful, he's funny, and he's real, which is why he's the perfect person to kick off this project. Here's my conversation with Hank Green. But first, a quick break.

• 4:49Speaker 00

  If you're trying to get news today, you'll find a lot of biased algorithms, rage bait, and AI noise. Think social media. That's where Inpress comes in. It's a social platform on top of factual journalism, not the other way around. Track your reading and earn points. It's like Strava for your brain. Plus, you can connect with other users in your city who share your genuine curiosity. Ditch the echo chamber for reality with Inpress. Download it today for iOS or Android at inpress.app. That's I, N as in news nerd, press.

• 5:22Speaker 01

  Do you want to hear about visionaries creating a better world? People working in conservation, exploration, science, and tech, alongside storytellers imagining and creating a better future. I'm Alex Honnold, professional rock climber and founder of the Honnold Foundation, bringing you season six of Planet Visionaries. This season, I speak to guests like National Geographic photographer Tom Pechek and Anna Rappman, executive director of the Jane Goodall Institute, USA, in partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative. Watch Planet Visionaries on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 6:00Speaker 02

  Charlie Warzel, thank you for joining me on the Galaxy Brain Podcast.

• 6:04Charlie Warzel?

  Thank you for doing an introduction for me, frankly. I, you know, I'm new at this thing. And you've done it once or twice before. So I just, I felt like maybe that would be, that would be a good thing. In fact, we may just give you this whole thing if you want it. Would you like a podcast?

• 6:21Speaker 02

  I'll ask you some questions. I bet I could come up with something.

• 6:24Charlie Warzel?

  Good, good. This is a total panic mode, minute one. We're just like throwing the whole thing out the window. I really thank you. Thank you so much. You, I think you might, you may be sort of the perfect person to kick a lot of this off. Because, because you are like truly a person of the internet in ways that, that are, I think, unique. But I wanted to start really quickly with, just out the gate and ask you to think back to a time, it could be yesterday. It could be 1998. It can be any time that you consider, like when you close your eyes, picture a golden age of the internet. Not objectively your kind of golden age, your golden moment. Like what, what is it? What, what pops in your head?

• 7:06Speaker 02

  2012.

• 7:08Charlie Warzel?

  Why?

• 7:10Speaker 02

  It's, it's everything until Gamergate was great.

• 7:20Speaker 02

  I don't know. There was like the, it was the moment. So as a YouTuber, I'm primarily a YouTuber. I think that I've, I've moved all around and had like places where I've had a lot of fun that aren't YouTube. But ultimately YouTube has been a very stable place and that's where we started as creators. I mean, I did actually start as an internet creator before YouTube, but YouTube was the place where I had actual success. And, and there was just this like time when there was like, everybody was friends. It wasn't a very big community. It was big, like it felt like it mattered. But also to the people who were there, but not to everyone else.

• 8:03Speaker 02

  And that's always the best time on a new platform is like when everybody there realizes this is something special. And we were all here together, experiencing the special thing, but nobody outside of the thing knows that it's special yet. And, and nobody has ever had the dream of becoming like, at that point, nobody on YouTube had ever dreamt of becoming a YouTuber. And, uh, and so all of these people, you know, they were, they had other dreams, but then they were like, what if like, this is great though?

• 8:30Charlie Warzel?

  I always think about the, around that same time on, on Twitter, it really felt a lot like, cause that was sort of like the place where I had that experience. And it felt so much like walking into like every day, like opening up the app on your phone. Just felt like walking into a lunchroom, right? Like it was contained in that way. Like it was obviously bigger than that. There were a million lunchrooms everywhere, but my lunchroom was like, these people was like, I'm going to check in on these people. And like, some of these people are, you know, dicks and some of these people are like my best friends and some of these people are just the, and you just kind of go to the different tables. And it's like, okay, I've, you know, I walked through the lunchroom, time to go to whatever class.

• 9:08Speaker 02

  To actually go to work.

• 9:09Charlie Warzel?

  Time to go to work. Um, okay. So with that is like a little bit of a baseline in like a sentence or two, like same sort of thing, closing your eyes. Like what, when you feel the internet now, like when you conceptualize it, like what, what comes to mind internet 2025?

• 9:27Speaker 02

  Wait, W E I G H T, uh, like just wait, it feels so heavy. It feels it, we have a government run by the discourse. And, and so it feels like the discourse matters so much. It feels like everything matters a lot. And I don't know that it does, but I don't know that it doesn't. It just feels, it all feels very heavy. It's very hard. You know, you can, you can go have a fun time in some corners, but it's always sort of. Tinged with the weight.

• 10:08Charlie Warzel?

  I think so, and I think there's also this this feeling to that the big, like, part of that, I think, is made by outside forces like life in 2025 and all the things that are happening that that are heavy. But I also think that there's this, like, the bigness of of all of it, like, the the size and scope and scale of the Internet right now is also this way where, like, I think so many of the problems that we boil, that we have boil down to this notion of, like, nobody knows what anyone's experience is like, right? Like, what anyone else is doing in this place? And I think that that causes just a lot of, like, agitation, right? Like, even in our conception of, like, politics and, like, this candidate and what are they thinking?

• 10:52Charlie Warzel?

  What is, what do working class people think? And what do, you know, the elites think? And it's like, we're all shadow boxing, this idea of it, because we don't know what anyone else is consuming.

• 11:02Speaker 02

  I think that sometimes people can can, like, be legitimately shocked by a, like, a majoritarian viewpoint. Like, they'll hear somebody say something that's, like, pretty much, like, right down the middle of the road, average American stuff, and they'll be like, whoa, people believe that still? And it's like, you're in a little corner and you think it's everybody. There's so much of that going on. And the other thing that I'll say, I want to hit you with this, and I'm curious what you think. I think that as these things start to feel more important, um, the the stuff that succeeds on them, and of course, algorithmically, uh, sort of amplified, recommended platforms, which they all are now, they're all about, like, what keeps people engaged, what keeps

• 11:47Speaker 02

  people watching or or, you know, clicking or responding or whatever. That the things that are sending those signals to the algorithms become more and more the things that are, like, feel very important. And so instead of, you know, TikTok being a place where, wow, that was a cool couple of twins doing a dance, it's like,

• 12:13Speaker 02

  I just found out about this thing that the news media isn't covering that is a very, very big deal. It is going to impact, you know, you or, you know, the, the least powerful in society or is, is like in some way morally stained, is some way outrageous or reprehensible. And like every, like the, the thing that gets selected for goes from being like a thing that makes you feel good to a thing that makes you feel bad. And that happened, and that's like almost, it seems to be impossible to not have happen on an algorithmically amplified platform. And the more algorithmically amplified it is, the harder it is for that to not happen

• 12:57Speaker 02

  to it. I think that Instagram actually like intentionally puts the brakes on this. I think that, that YouTube has some structures that make this happen more slowly, but I think they also might intentionally put brakes on it. I think that Twitter puts the accelerator on it, X, like accelerates this force. But I think that it's very hard to not have this be a thing. And I think that it, what it selects for is like just some guy. So never like a person with any kind of like institutional legitimacy, just some person reporting on something that is, is,

• 13:34Speaker 02

  you know, some combination of hidden, outrageous, disgusting, makes you feel superior to others while making you like scared or angry. And, you know, outrage bait is what we generally call this. But I think that like a great deal of the internet is sort of made of outrage bait. But as a creator, what I always think is, we make, as creators, we make what the algorithms want. And the algorithms want what the people will watch. And there's this like, like I'm, I work with these algorithms. I know that. I have to get views. I have to compete in this environment.

• 14:13Speaker 02

  And, and so I definitely like, I have to fight hard to not do that, even as a person who already has a lot of like built up audience and legitimacy and like all of that stuff that I have. So, so I, I kind of totally understand newer creators who indulge in this because it's the only way to get attention.

• 14:37Charlie Warzel?

  Yeah, I feel like it is so difficult. This happens sometimes, I find, when I'm trying at the Atlantic here to like create headlines, right? So you spend like all this time going through this process of making something, right? And it's the research, the reporting, the crafting, the editing, the making everything into what you think is like the most responsible, compelling, interesting unit of information. And then you realize you have this problem of like, oh crap, it has to travel, right? And then how do I do that? And there's this, a thing that I find very frustrating with

• 15:21Charlie Warzel?

  like the term clickbait. Like I've always been sort of against the term, only because of course, every single person who makes something that they think is of value wants people to click on it. Like it is not a bad thing to try to do that. But the process I have felt over time, and especially like especially given the different platforms and stuff, like I feel like the YouTubers almost have like an advantage here, right? Because it is something like you have the autoplay part of the algorithm, you have the recommendation situation built in. But especially on the text-based social networks, it's like, okay, how like getting that moment where you come up with the headline.

• 16:02Speaker 02

  I'll give you an exact example of this. So this Tuesday, my brother posted a video on our YouTube channel. That was a, he went to the Philippines to like look at how they are doing tuberculosis screening to try and figure out how to lower the burden of tuberculosis, maybe on this one island eradicate tuberculosis from the island, which is like, it's a possible thing to do. And he posted the video and he, we had three different titles, all of them underperformed tremendously. And I think the best performing one was, "We know how to end TB, they are actually doing it," was the title. And then, and this video was...

• 16:43Speaker 02

  On track to be our worst performing video in the last two or three months. Cause and like it's about the most important thing, you know? It's like a really easy way to tuberculosis is the most deadly infectious disease in the world. This would be a really easy way to, uh, to, to have that not be the case. John texted me and he was like, you're better at titles than me. Help me. It's fail. Like nobody's watching this video. And you want to know what the title is now?

• 17:09Charlie Warzel?

  Please.

• 17:10Speaker 02

  Elon canceled this. We're doing it anyway.

• 17:13Charlie Warzel?

  Yeah, yeah. Mr. Beast jumped this train into a canyon and.

• 17:18Speaker 02

  It has to, it has to tie into some like narrative that we already have. Like some narrative that we are already caring about and like, like, you know, I am, I think legitimately outraged about the gutting of USAID. And like, that was, I, I like, one of the most morally reprehensible things I can imagine for the richest man in the world to cancel aid to the poorest people in the world. And for that to just happen in front of all of our eyes and we have to keep going on with our lives.

• 17:48Charlie Warzel?

  Absolutely. And, and so.

• 17:49Speaker 02

  So it makes sense. It makes sense that that title would work, but like, that's not what I want to say. What I want to say is like, all that should matter is we're trying to eradicate tuberculosis. And like, let's just have that be a positive message. And, and like, that's the game we're all always playing all of the time. But what did I do? I made it about something bad.

• 18:09Charlie Warzel?

  Right, right. Yeah. And, and that just, that, that, that affects.

• 18:14Speaker 02

  Everything. I just think it makes us miserable. I think that like what we're living in right now is the world according to misery. And, and like, like you get Trump in that world. Of course you do. Like if misery is in charge, then like you get the, like an, like a, a conductor of the misery symphony.

• 18:32Charlie Warzel?

  Right. This was a little bit of, I, I watched this, this video from, uh, Zoran Mamdani's campaign the, the other day, sort of like the last push kind of thing. And it's just the thing that I've noticed in all those videos, he gets this, you know, this. A lot of people talking about like, he's so good at the internet, right? And like, I think that he is, and he's charismatic and all that stuff. But he's also just like, found this great way to like, invert that, flip that. Like, it's all about like, what makes it all stand out to me, someone is like, oh, wow. Here's like, one guy who sees campaigning and politics as like, a joyful thing.

• 19:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, he seems happy all the time.

• 19:16Charlie Warzel?

  It is so outside of the misery machine, right? Like, he just walks around New York, like, dapping people up. Like, that's, that's not who he is. Like, you know, that's a, a, a character, in some sense, that he is playing too. But it's like, it's so different, that it's almost like, it, it feels almost like alien on, on this internet.

• 19:38Speaker 02

  And it gives me like, a little bit of hope. What, like, the thing that really gives me hope is, is watching teenagers think that what I do is so goddamn cringe. And I'm like, yes, I'm gonna do it more, so that you think it's more cringe! And you never do what I've done with my life! Stay away from this box!

• 19:57Charlie Warzel?

  Stay away.

• 19:57Speaker 02

  Stay away from the misery square!

• 20:00Charlie Warzel?

  I, I, I love that, that you, I love that, uh, I think that, yeah, I think, I think we need to, I think there needs to be a complete change. Like, cringe, cringe is, we have to take back cringe. Cringe has to be, we have to take it back.

• 20:17Speaker 02

  Something's always going to be, something's always going to be cringe. The thing we need to take back is like, we can't let, uh, trying too hard. Like, that's of course, always the cringiest thing, is appearing to try very hard. But, but I do think that like, a lot of young people now are like, you know, it's, it's funny that like, Jonathan Haidt's out here being like, we must protect our children from the internet. And the children are like, the internet's kinda lame.

• 20:44Speaker 02

  It's like, happens like, always exactly at the same time, like, the kids have their their own backlash against it, and they're like, it's like, actually, we shouldn't try to make this look forbidden and cool.

• 20:56Charlie Warzel?

  Exactly, no, exactly.

• 20:57Speaker 02

  But, for clarity, we should keep them out of schools.

• 21:01Charlie Warzel?

  The phones.

• 21:02Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 21:03Charlie Warzel?

  Or the children, maybe the children too.

• 21:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, that worked really well, you know, we tried that for a year or so, and that was great, no problems at all.

• 21:12Charlie Warzel?

  Oh, well, see, you know, actually, but I am, I am sort of curious in terms of thinking about, thinking about misery and the internet, and, and, and also this idea of like, you know, what it's doing to us, like, you, you had a video, I don't know, a couple months ago, I think in the summer, that, the title of it was, "You're not addicted to content, you're starving for information," and like, the genesis of that video, when you're talking about it, was trying to come up with the right analogy for sort of our information, right, or like, social media ecosystem, like, correct me if I'm wrong here, but there was like, you were like grappling with the idea of like, like, you know, like cigarettes is a, is a nice, easy frame, but it's probably not that, and it seemed like, in that video,

• 21:57Charlie Warzel?

  you sort of got a little closer to this like, idea of like, hyper-processed foods, right? This, like, you're, you're, you're constantly eating, but you're never satiated, kind of thing, is that, I mean, I, is that separate in your mind from this issue of misery, or is that really the same thing, that the hyper-processed stuff is like, the misery content, and what, what we actually want is something nourishing?

• 22:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think, I think that they're, they're not the exact same thing, but they're very related, um, you know, like, the, if, I, I mean, a little bit, the, the sort of hypothetical to ask is, what would happen if you, like, so, so, step one, your reality is created by what you pay attention to, um, so that's step one, like, that, that, and I think that that's kind of philosophically true. Number two, what would happen if, um, you gave this, the, the, the smartest people in the world, uh, the most powerful tools in the world, for controlling people's attention, and then, you optimized that for making them never look away?

• 23:09Speaker 02

  Um, and, and that's very similar to asking the question, what if a big food company was like, what, what, what is the way in which we will take, uh, the ingredients of food and making something that people will never stop eating and you get a Cool Ranch Dorito or you get a Big Mac and fries with a Coke. I mean, God bless a Big Mac and fries with the Coke. It's very good.

• 23:34Speaker 02

  I understand why I would eat a lot of it. People, sometimes people are like hyper palatable food is so gross. And I'm like, no, it like, what's in the name? It's so good. I like, I'm glad that you've got your brain in a place where you think it's gross, but man, I want it now. I want a, I want a walking taco right now. Um, which is, uh, I don't know. Do they have those other places, Charlie?

• 23:57Charlie Warzel?

  Walking taco? No, I don't think so.

• 23:59Speaker 02

  No, that's, is that like a Mountain West thing?

• 24:02Charlie Warzel?

  I think it is. I think it is. The greatest time zone in the world, by the way. Absolutely perfect time zone.

• 24:08Speaker 02

  Yeah. Oh, yeah.

• 24:09Charlie Warzel?

  Somehow adding, somehow adding one hour makes working with the, the East Coast, the bully time zone makes it nearly impossible. Somehow working in the, in the mountain. It's like you're basically like you live in New York or DC.

• 24:23Speaker 02

  You just gotta, you just gotta pretend. You just don't even tell people where you live.

• 24:29Speaker 02

  So, yeah, the, and the, and like, in the same way that you might end up with like some foods that are, are very palatable because they are salty and some because they're very sweet and some because they're very fatty. Um, I think that you get a variety of kinds of hyper palatable information and one of them is the sort of misery inducing outrage bait.

• 24:52Charlie Warzel?

  So how do you, how do you combat this? Like in some senses, right? Like, cause you are, you are a, you are a creator in a, in a traditional sense, but you're also, you're, you're an educator in of millions of people all the time.

• 25:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:08Charlie Warzel?

  In a non-traditional sense, but like you are creating, like, you know, I, I was talking to one of our, one of our colleagues and I was like, I'm, I'm going to talk to Hank. Do, do you know of him? And it was basically like, yeah, like I was raised by him. Like your, your, your bio, you know, it's like, I probably taught you biology or whatever, right? Like, But like, I think so much about the way that you know, you say being trained by these algorithms, trying to use the skill for good. Like, but also there's that sense that we just talked about, right? With the headlines, it's like, sometimes you gotta use the dark arts, right? In benevolent ways and just get people to care. But like, how are you feeling

• 25:50Charlie Warzel?

  about your ability to balance that? Like, do you feel like you're on a day to day basis? Like, you're, you're winning this? Or do you feel like the forces are slowly kind of crushing?

• 26:02Speaker 02

  Do you mean personally, or like, in the work publicly?

• 26:06Charlie Warzel?

  I mean, I mean, I mean personally, like, in the sense of, like, do you feel, well, personally, in your work, I guess. Do you feel like those forces are winning? Like, do you feel, or do you feel like there, there are ways, like, that we can really just keep this at bay?

• 26:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, I think, I think that the, the forces are winning. I, I, but I think that it's like a long battle. There's no doubt in, well, if we still exist in everything, there's no doubt in my mind that there will be a future where we will all look back on, you know, the Twitter era as very similar to the yellow journalism era. And, and like, we will have developed a bunch of new norms and taboos and like, like, certain behaviors will feel very cringe and it will be, certain people will be like, oh my God, I can't believe, like, people listened to the, like, things that strangers said to them on Twitter,

• 27:07Speaker 02

  and that was how reality was created. I, I, I think that, like, I think that we're still in the it's getting worse part, though. I, there's, there's lots of signals that, like, I feel like it's getting worse less quickly.

• 27:27Speaker 02

  Maybe.

• 27:29Speaker 02

  I I think that the the fracturing of Twitter, as much as it hurt me, I really, I I loved Twitter.

• 27:39Charlie Warzel?

  Same.

• 27:40Speaker 02

  I think that the fracturing of Twitter

• 27:43Speaker 02

  has been like a just sort of like most, a lot of people like went to Blue Sky. A lot of people went to Threads. A lot of people just didn't, don't do it anymore. And I think that like, that's kind of the best outcome. And Twitter itself has become much worse, of course. It's it's a very difficult place to go if you're not a racist. And and I think that it's probably not ineffective at turning people who are mostly not racist to like more racist than they used to be. So like, I think it's a bad place to hang out. And I and I think that Elon is very above board about the fact that he would like to use both

• 28:24Speaker 02

  the algorithms of promotion and the the sort of effects of large language models to change people's reality. Like, he doesn't shy away from saying, like, most of them, I think, do you know that they're doing that? And and do you kind of like that they're doing it a little bit, but they don't say it? But Elon says it. You might think that with all the sex bots, that it would actually make people have less sex. But no, we're gonna turn, we're gonna turn the sex dial up and people are gonna make more babies. That's, he's, he says these things.

• 28:58Charlie Warzel?

  Right. Also, the the notion too of like, creating his own, you know, Wikipedia, Grokpedia. And the idea of like, it's like, facts aren't really fitting the way that I view the world.

• 29:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:09Charlie Warzel?

  So we would like to, we would like to basically take Wikipedia, take the skeleton.

• 29:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:14Charlie Warzel?

  Strip it and then inject our reality. And it's like, I I do get what you're saying. There is something minisculely refreshing about like, okay, well, at least, at least it's like, right there. At least we know what the political project is.

• 29:28Speaker 02

  It feels, and what it feels like is

• 29:34Speaker 02

  it's starting to seem.

• 29:37Speaker 02

  Just kind of gross and unproductive. And like, I see it in my like, my physical world where people are like, they're like, oh, poor Hank. He has to be on the internet. Um, and I've seen a lot of people, I'd really like to see TikTok's numbers, but I feel like people are leaving. I feel like, like that the numbers on TikTok are a lot lower than they used to be. I, I feel like people have moved more toward Instagram, which is, is very intentionally kind of more America's Funniest Home Videos. Uh, and to longer form content. Um, and, and there's something, I think, really, as a person who also loved TikTok in its heyday

• 30:20Speaker 02

  and, and participated very actively there, I think that there's something very bad about giving away all of your decision-making to the algorithm. So, so like, you never know the choices that you're making. You know, you are choosing to keep watching and that's, that's the big signal that it gets, but you don't know you're making that choice. Whereas on YouTube, you go and you like, pick out which videos you want to watch based on, you know, who you like, what thumbnails are appealing, what titles seem interesting.

• 30:44Charlie Warzel?

  It, it really does feel in that way, so much more like going to like the video store, right? Like, going back to the, the nineties or whatever, right? Like, you, you do that thing, you, I, I pull it up, like, it, it blows my mind too, how the more, more than any other platform, I think, the more I put into YouTube, the better my experience feels, you know? Like, I mean, not, not always a hundred percent of the time, but it's like, I, I open that thing up now and I feel a little bit more like, okay, like this thing kind of knows me and it knows like, here's my guilty pleasure section. Here's my, you know, like, I'm being a dude, watching sports stuff. Here's my podcasts, you know, all that, all that kind of stuff.

• 31:27Charlie Warzel?

  Whereas like with TikTok, it does, it feels, even when it's good, like being waterboarded, right?

• 31:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, it's the hardest time on TikTok for me was when I was going through cancer treatment and I would get like, I had to stop using TikTok because I would never know when I was gonna get hit with illness content because of course I had started to selectively watch that kind of content longer and I'd just be scrolling and then it'd be like, and then it'd be like a person in the hospital dying of cancer. And I'm like, well, this app is no longer useful to me because of course I'm gonna watch that, but like, I don't, I shouldn't be. Like, that's not helping me.

• 32:09Charlie Warzel?

  This, this also, this makes me think of too, is the way that, what you just said about like, you know, younger people sort of being like, yo, internet, you know, like, we've, we've had, we've had a lot of that, like, thank you. I think some of this too is like, just, the only sort of truism I think about the internet and like, younger, younger generations who've just grown up totally immersed in it is like, they just have such an innate understanding of the way that they're being manipulated by these things. And I think like, more so than anyone else, they're a little bit like, as soon as they can feel that, like heavily, there's this real like, oh, come on, man. Like, I, you know, like, I'm, I'm checking out for, for a moment, not forever, obviously.

• 32:52Speaker 02

  I think there has to be a real pushback against manipulation, which is a lot of what the algorithms are about and a lot of what the algorithms inspire creators to do. You know, we, on TikTok, it's really important that you keep people watching for the first five seconds. And so you wanna have them kind of be confused for the first five seconds, so that they're not, they're like, wait, I don't know. Because if they know, if they think they know what's coming, then they'll swipe away. They'll be like, oh, I know what's coming. I, I, that, you know, reward has already occurred now. But if you, you gotta, and like, but eventually that starts to feel really manipulative, because people get what you're doing. You're intentionally keeping them confused. And the, and, and I think that, like, we need to have like, a backlash against manipulation.

• 33:37Speaker 02

  I also think that we have to have a backlash against, I think we, we hopefully will have some kind of backlash against outrage, which is like, the ultimate form of manipulation. And like, it can be used for good. I'm not saying it can't be, and it has been. But the, but, but we.

• 33:56Speaker 02

  As we record this, the government is still shut down. And I think it is in part still shut down because what's the incentive to open it back up? What's the incentive for anyone to capitulate when everybody hates everybody? And working together is the thing that is, uh, loses you the primary, you know? Like, it's the, it's the thing that's selected against. And so we need some kind of like, like awakening that's, that's sort of, okay. So, so it turns out when government doesn't work at all, that is bad. It, it's bad for everybody and, uh, but it's also bad for like the politicians. And, uh, and so like, what are the mechanisms that work here?

• 34:37Speaker 02

  And I think one of the mechanisms is that there's like four guys in charge of defining everybody's reality. And the only thing they're optimizing for, three of them, is profit. And then the last one is optimizing for believe the same things Elon Musk believes, which his entire worldview was defined by algorithms optimized for profit. So he's like the meta profit, the meta algorithm has happened inside of Elon Musk's brain.

• 35:07Charlie Warzel?

  Yeah, no, I mean, that's such a great way to describe this sort of this period where it feels like we are like, a lot of the people in Silicon Valley have been radicalized by their own products and now they have, they're, they are exerting just an extreme amount of authority. But what they are parodying is, is the reality built by the algorithms, like the, the ideas, the, it is this very odd thing. It's like, finally, like everyone's getting radicalized or changed by these platforms in weird ways. But it's like, it ended up happening not only to the people who built the project or the, the tool, but also like the people that the tool made them so much money, they can

• 35:48Charlie Warzel?

  take that money, turn it into influence, turn the influence into policy or reality or whatever. And it's like, oh my Lord, like this, like this cycle just built itself into, yeah, into, into reality. I think that's a, that's a, it's a very good way to be thinking about it and also very sad way.

• 36:06Speaker 02

  A very, yeah, no, I don't like it. I hadn't, I hadn't said it that way before.

• 36:12Charlie Warzel?

  Well, that's what podcasts are about, okay? Figuring out what it is you have to say. It's like therapy that way. So I want to talk though a little bit about with with all of this in this maw. And as someone who is a an effective communicator and educator, as we just talked about, an effective creator, someone with lots of audience in lots of different places. After the after the election, I had a phone call with you in which I was like trying to make sense of some of some of this stuff, especially in like the media ecosystem and this idea, this long tortured conversation on my end about trust, right?

• 36:57Charlie Warzel?

  And this idea that institutions have lost tons of trust. And in some ways, the parts of the institutions that are meant to build them, right? Like fact checking, editing, all these things are actually weaponized often against them. And it's this this notion that like, well, why did they edit that? What are they? What are they hiding? Even though it's just like a quality control mechanism. Meanwhile, creators, many of whom are doing great work, some who are, you know, doing less great work, but but mostly like working very independently, sometimes flying by the seat of their pants. Again, this is not to demean anything in that space, but just people who are sort of more on their own, not part of these institutions, have built up so much of this

• 37:41Charlie Warzel?

  trust, like they have kind of collected the rest of that trust. They have it. And it's this very odd, understandable in many ways, but this very odd balance. And so you you you're somebody who, I mean, you have you've built up tons of trust with audiences. And I'm curious, like, what do you think about this interesting inversion of trust in this in the world as it is right now?

• 38:08Speaker 02

  I think it's bad. I, on the whole.

• 38:15Speaker 02

  I think that there's lots of reasons why groups of people working together are better than people working alone. I say this as a person who's done it both ways, but but I also like know that there's, at the moment, people really like it when it's a person doing it on their own. And I have thought a lot about what it is that that has made that happen and and what's what's driving that. And also, like, I think it's important to recognize that people are also this way with L L Ms. So it's not just creators. You also can go on to chat G P T and you can ask it a question and it's easier to trust chat G P T than it is to trust a news media

• 38:58Speaker 02

  organization, which is also very interesting. It's, I think that it is a a not so much. I had a fight with Neelai Patel about this, actually, I'm remembering.

• 39:13Charlie Warzel?

  All right, let's go.

• 39:15Speaker 02

  He he.

• 39:16Charlie Warzel?

  Air is dirty lungs.

• 39:18Speaker 02

  Well, Neelai's, Neelai's did this was this was public, so don't don't think that it's it's not it's not a secret fight. And it's a productive fight. We're very good pals. The his take was this is that the platforms want you to believe this, but it's not actually true. And I think that's wrong.

• 39:37Charlie Warzel?

  The platforms want you to believe which?

• 39:39Speaker 02

  That that individuals are more popular and more trustworthy than that people trust individuals more than they trust institutions now. And in fact, the platforms are just like, yes, yes, please believe that because because it's it's much easier to extract value out of individuals than out of institutions. Institutions will argue with you about what you could in like whereas like I'm like, you're gonna give me attention? Come on, give it. I'll do anything. I'll do anything for a little, just a little bit more. And especially like, you know, there's always somebody to come and replace whoever burns out, you know, there's always somebody else who who will do it for not very much money or just for the just for the clout.

• 40:22Speaker 02

  So, so I, I thi- I think, I think that it is, it is part of the misery machine. This is my take. It is part of the misery machine. And you have to ask if you are going to make content that makes people outraged. Who, uh, who is the villain? Who are, who are good villains? And news media is good villains. And I see all the time, people will say, the news isn't covering this story. So there was that, the flood in Alaska. And I saw a bunch of TikToks about how the news media wasn't covering the flood in Alaska. And they were from people who had read news stories about it.

• 41:02Speaker 02

  And, and, and the reality is that like, nobody was paying attention to the floods in Alaska. But if you lead in with, the news media isn't covering this, then people do start to pay attention. So they weren't, they, like, it wasn't that big of a deal to them. It didn't really matter to them that there were a bunch of indigenous communities in Alaska that, that, you know, had been wiped out by these floods. But then it kind of did matter when it turned out there was a big power structure at play. And that was fitting into a narrative of, of big, powerful institutions ignoring marginalized people or big, powerful, or like, you know, the sort of Trump fake news stuff.

• 41:44Speaker 02

  Big, powerful institutions doing these un-American, dangerous things. And so you can come at it from either direction. And the news media is always a good target. And it's always a good path into getting views and, and like, amping up the stakes, amping up the outrage, making it seem like it's somebody's fault and it's not your fault. So whose fault is it? It's the fault of the person who wrote this, the publication where I read this story. Like, but that doesn't count because like, you know, how, how does, how does like, uh, who, who determines like where the story goes on the front page? Ultimately, you gotta understand, that's determined by what people are interested in.

• 42:24Speaker 02

  And the, the newspaper will do everything in its power to have the most interesting story be the one at the top. And like, they're trying to suss that out all the time. That's the whole goddamn point of the, like, editorial team. It's to try and figure out which stories are interesting enough to cover. But anyway, regardless, that's just one sort of specific example. I think that the I think that the news media is just a particularly good target. I think that institutions are good targets because it seems like they should be perfect. And anytime you can find a way that they are imperfect, or tell a story about how they are, even if they didn't make a mistake, which is also fine, then that's just another sort of like puzzle piece in the misery puzzle. I think institutions are just easy to attack. And that goes for

• 43:06Speaker 02

  the CDC, it goes for academia, it goes for the news media, it goes for the federal government, it goes for every, everything.

• 43:15Charlie Warzel?

  It's, it's very, there's so much there. I think so much too about, I mean, there is a frustration when you're in the media, obviously with the someone's, you know, they're not covering this. And so much so, though, that like, you can kind of push, push that aside. But I think a big, a really big thing that has, that people don't talk about enough, is this notion that like, and people get very mad when you say this as someone in the media, but like, that audiences, like you said, are in control in ways that they don't understand. And it's not that like, publications don't have their own like, ideas

• 43:58Charlie Warzel?

  about like, hey, this is what we're gonna put, you know, front and center. But like, there is, there is this feeling all the time. And you see it a lot with the way that people, like when people talk about the news they want covered, right? Or the things that they want, versus the things they, they click on. It's, it's very different, right? Like, people just want, like, we're all have our base understanding of our base attention structures in our heads. And like, we click on the things that are interesting, that are, you know, that, that alarm us, that shock us, that surprise us, that confirm our beliefs, all those things. And often those stories, those things, those, you know, climate change is, is an awesome example of this. Like, it's hard to get people to care about climate stories in certain ways, despite the fact that everyone cares about

• 44:43Charlie Warzel?

  the planet, right? It's, it's, and, and I think, I think it's very, it's very interesting. So in that way only, in the way that people, again, this is like going back to headlines, right? That people want other people to care about what they're doing. There's this way in which so many people.

• 45:05Charlie Warzel?

  In the audience are in control in ways that they don't understand. Like it is not a, I think, a coincidence that like around, you know, this birth of like the social internet and like 2009, 2010, all newsrooms got these metrics like chart beat and like the things where you can see what people are doing. I don't think it's like, trust in media, you know, declines relatively steadily, but I think that it's not like a coincidence that once we realized exactly what people are seeing and thinking and clicking on and everything, that, that that trust, you know, didn't go up. Like, and I think that's a little because-

• 45:45Speaker 02

  Well, do you think that it's not a coincidence that that trust went down? Do you think that, that like as people, as people were given more of what they actually were more, not wanted, but were more likely to click on, that that degraded trust some? Cause that's not really how I, I see this, but I-

• 46:04Charlie Warzel?

  I have-

• 46:05Speaker 02

  I could put that puzzle piece in.

• 46:06Charlie Warzel?

  I have this theory, I don't think it's, it's like, I don't think it's neat, right? But I have this one theory that at least what's happening now is that there is a audience fatigue of being given what you want. Like in, in this sense, like I, I think a lot, you know, there's this sort of apocryphal quote from like Rick Rubin, but all the creative people like say this thing, which is basically just like, you know, it's like what people want is like your taste, right? Like the thing that, that they want is for you to not like crowdsource and poll test, what is the creative thing? They want the red hot chili peppers or whatever to be like, this is the sound, right? Like, no, this is the, this is the thing.

• 46:49Charlie Warzel?

  This is who we are, this is our taste and hopefully you like it. And people respond to that sort of like, I made this for you. Take it or leave it, not you made this for you.

• 46:59Speaker 02

  This is, this is definitely advice I give to creators, which is like, if you only chase the thing that's getting the most views, people will get tired of you. So you have to be making something that's, that's like, you have to be making some stuff that's like, this is going to get a bunch of views and I know it. And some stuff that's like, this is something that I'm interested in, but I think it's going to maybe do well. And some stuff that's just like, I just wanted you guys to know that I'm a person. And so here's, here's like some person stuff, you know?

• 47:27Charlie Warzel?

  I've, I've been thinking a lot and I know you have too, about like, about AI slop, right? And like, you, you've spent some time with the, the Sora two feed, right?

• 47:40Speaker 02

  I did, I did. I went on there for worst 30 minutes of my life, yes.

• 47:45Charlie Warzel?

  And this sort of deadening, like, humanless, but human-generated, but not human-made content thing of this like, sort of, you know, styrofoam packing peanuts of, of whatever that's also burning down the Amazon rainforest or whatever. And, and I, I've gotten relatively like, despondent at times about AI slop, right? Like, just like, like the fact that people just keep doing this and making it and like, at the same time, everyone kind of thinks it sucks, but everyone is still sort of like, yeah, whatever, like, you know, shove it down my throat, it's all good.

• 48:19Speaker 02

  It's very hard to know how many people think it sucks because like, the people who don't think it, who are like, ah, it's fine, aren't, don't say, say anything. And also they might just be like, normal people, you know, like, go on, I, I always go on Netflix and I like, look at the number one show of the week. And I'm like, well, I have no idea what's going on. I don't know what America is and I don't know who these people are because I've never heard of that show. So, so that's one thing to always keep in mind. But like, I think mostly, I don't know. I think, I think that it, I think it's a fad.

• 48:58Charlie Warzel?

  Yeah, but I also like, what it makes me think of, though, is that is this idea, right? That like, and let's say slop is not just the, the synthetic like photos or whatever, but it's also like companies that get, you know, chat GPT to write an article or SEO copy and, you know, create websites that'll help, you know, go up their rank, but it's all synthetic stuff. Like, there was a recent study, again, take it or leave it from an SEO company called Graphite, that was, you know, saying that like, we've passed the, you know, the whatever event horizon of like, more than 50% of this stuff is AI, is synthetic in some way, right, on the internet. And, but, basically, what I'm thinking about with

• 49:42Charlie Warzel?

  this idea is like, the notion that maybe, it's almost like a controlled burn of like, the internet, right? Like, you, in order for these other things to grow, like, we're going, we're so inundated with this stuff.

• 49:57Speaker 02

  The Great Chicago Fire of 2025, except it's the whole internet.

• 50:01Charlie Warzel?

  Exactly. And, and this notion that like, it, you know, eventually, there could be this, like, maybe, in this hopeful way, there could be this premium on like, man, there's just so much garbage, right? That like, I do want this, I want the opposite of that, whatever the opposite of that is. And the opposite of that is much more human-made, you know, whatever, stuff. Do you think of it that way? Or do you think, how do you think about that?

• 50:32Speaker 02

  I don't know. I think, I think that I was so wrong about how the internet went the first time, that I don't trust myself with any, any.

• 50:39Charlie Warzel?

  How were you wrong about it?

• 50:40Speaker 02

  Well, I thought it was gonna bring us together, Charlie.

• 50:43Charlie Warzel?

  Oh.

• 50:44Speaker 02

  I thought.

• 50:45Charlie Warzel?

  Joke's on you.

• 50:47Speaker 02

  I thought, I thought we're all gonna have our voice. We're all gonna be able to listen, and we're all listen to each other. Everybody thought that. It was Creative Commons and Wikipedia. Look at, look at, look at those great things that were from the early era of the internet. Like, Wikipedia remains, like, one of the greatest creations of humanity. And that like that came together very quickly in the early internet and it's still, I mean, it's still very good. Uh, but like now we have all this, now I have all this, now we have, now, now we have the discourse and the discourse is in charge. So I don't know. I do, what I know is that, uh, the way that it is right now is not the way that it's going to be. I know that

• 51:27Speaker 02

  people so far, every time you've given them a chance to give away choice and agency in how they spend their time, have wanted to take that, have wanted to take that product, the one where they make fewer choices, the one where they are served. And that's the thing I hope that we have the backlash against. Um, I think that the, I do want to point out that I think that the charts showing, you know, how much of the internet is artificially generated and how much is created by humans are one way of showing that data. And if you showed that data as instead of content on

• 52:11Speaker 02

  the internet, like indexed by search engines, you showed it as like content consumed by people on the internet, that the chart would look very different. And I don't know how to get that data. Like, I don't know what that would look like, but I, I'm fairly confident that if you looked at what people actually are reading, what they're looking at, that, you know, still 90 plus percent of it would be created by humans. But I don't know, maybe not. I, I do know that it's, those are two very different numbers, though.

• 52:39Charlie Warzel?

  Yeah. Well, I think that's, I think that's a hopeful place to end it here. I, I think, uh, I think we need, we need, we both need the, the revolution, in a sense.

• 52:49Speaker 02

  I don't know what it looks.

• 52:50Charlie Warzel?

  But also, it might not be as bad.

• 52:52Speaker 02

  It might look more like outside, honestly. I, I think like, like, maybe the internet will get better, but maybe we will just be on the internet less. I think that that could also be quite good.

• 53:04Charlie Warzel?

  Uh, I, I think that, I think that is actually a, uh, I think that's, that's the direction I want to push everyone with. In, in all the further episodes, I want you to end the episode by either realizing that you are outside and throwing your phone into the ocean, or throwing your phone into the ocean and going outside.

• 53:21Speaker 02

  Is this the first episode of this podcast?

• 53:23Charlie Warzel?

  It could be. You never know.

• 53:28Speaker 02

  Well, I was gonna feel honored and now I feel like I might be honored.

• 53:33Charlie Warzel?

  No, it is the first episode. You can feel honored.

• 53:36Speaker 02

  Oh, well.

• 53:37Charlie Warzel?

  Now, there is one last, very small question I have to be... And it's, I won't ask other people this, probably, because they're not gonna be good at it.

• 53:44Speaker 02

  What are three books that you're reading right now?

• 53:45Charlie Warzel?

  Not what are three books. My last question for you is you need to come up with the YouTube title for this episode.

• 53:51Speaker 02

  Ooh. Oh, great question. That is my job. That is the thing that I do.

• 53:57Charlie Warzel?

  I know.

• 53:58Speaker 02

  Um, okay.

• 54:04Speaker 02

  It's gonna get worse before it gets better. That might be a good one.

• 54:08Charlie Warzel?

  Hank, thank you so much for coming on Galaxy Grid.

• 54:15Speaker 00

  If you're trying to get news today, you'll find a lot of biased algorithms, rage bait, and AI noise. Thanks, social media. That's where Inpress comes in. It's a social platform on top of factual journalism, not the other way around. Track your reading and earn points. It's like Strava for your brain. Plus, you can connect with other users in your city who share your genuine curiosity. Ditch the echo chamber for reality with Inpress. Download it today for iOS or Android at inpress.app. That's I, N as in news nerd, press.

• 54:49Speaker 01

  Do you want to hear about visionaries creating a better world? People working in conservation, exploration, science, and tech alongside storytellers imagining and creating a better future. I'm Alex Honnold, professional rock climber and founder of the Honnold Foundation, bringing you season six of Planet Visionaries. This season, I speak to guests like National Geographic photographer Tom Pescek and Anna Rattman, executive director of the Jane Goodall Institute, USA, in partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative. Watch Planet Visionaries on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 55:20Charlie Warzel?

  That's it for us here. Thank you again to my guest, Hank Green. If you liked what you saw here, new episodes of Galaxy Brain drop every Friday. You can subscribe to The Atlantic's YouTube channel, or on Apple, or Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you enjoyed this, remember, you can support our work and the work of all the journalists at The Atlantic by subscribing to the publication at theatlantic.com/listener. That's theatlantic.com/listener. Thanks so much. See you on the internet.

• 56:05Charlie Warzel?

  This episode of Galaxy Brain was produced by Nathaniel Frum and edited by Claudina Bade. It was engineered by Dave Grine. Our theme music is by Rob Smersiak. Claudina Bade is the executive producer of Atlantic Audio, and Andrea Valdez is our managing editor.

• 56:22Speaker 00

  If you're trying to get news today, you'll find a lot of biased algorithms, rage bait, and AI noise. Thanks, social media. That's where Inpress comes in. It's a social platform on top of factual journalism, not the other way around. Track your reading and earn points. It's like Strava for your brain. Plus, you can connect with other users in your city who share your genuine curiosity. Ditch the echo chamber for reality with Inpress. Download it today for iOS or Android at inpress.app. That's I, N as in news nerd, press.