Why Is the Alphabet in That Order? — Demi Adejuyigbe Asks Hank Anything

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: What is the hottest letter? [00:00:01] Demi DiGiwebe: Let's all go to the lobby. [00:00:03] Speaker 1: I can't hear Christopher Nolan's work anymore. You don't have to do it's a rat? It's a meme. ADHD. [00:00:09] Demi DiGiwebe: What can I say? I'm a dog. Cloud, cloud, cloud. Dope me, dope me, dope me. Where's this going? I'm Hank Green. I'm Demi DiGiwebe. And this is Ask Hank Anything. [00:00:23] Hank Green: Hello, I'm Hank Green. And I absolutely adore being asked a question because it means that I go to go on little journeys through the world to find out the answers to them. So I created a whole show where people ask me questions. I bring them on and then I answer their questions and I try in the process to just get to know them a little bit better. Today we have Demi DiGiwebe who, did you know I was on your podcast once? Yes. Yeah. [00:00:46] Demi DiGiwebe: What do you mean? [00:00:46] Hank Green: You remember that? [00:00:47] Demi DiGiwebe: Yes. It was a long time ago. It would be crazy if you're just like, no, we've met? You recorded a lot of podcasts. Yeah, but I feel like every episode was like two and a half hours and I'm in a room with a person. I'm not just going to go like, Hank? I don't know. Was it Hunk? LA is wild, man. [00:01:02] Hank Green: There's so many podcast guests out here. [00:01:04] Demi DiGiwebe: There are too many podcasts and too many podcast guests, but we're happy to have you. [00:01:08] Hank Green: Yeah. Well, I'm glad to have you now on my podcast. [00:01:11] Demi DiGiwebe: Yeah. [00:01:11] Hank Green: So Demi is, I would say you're kind of multiple, different, very cool, individual people. Sure. You were one of the original hosts of The Gilmore Guys, which I was on with you. Yes. Thank you for having me on to be a Gilmore guy for a moment. You might have seen the September video series, which was a multi, how many years did you do that? Six, I think. My God, it just kept getting better. You're the writer behind the Good Place episode, Chidi's Choice, and you got a dropout special. Demi DiGiwebe is going to do one backflip. That's right, which is either out now or it's not, [00:01:42] Demi DiGiwebe: depending on when this drops. Demi, I just found out about that. I did not know about that until just now. It was, I toured it for a while, and then we got to shoot it as a special, like in July of this year, and it was really fun. I'm very happy with it, excited for people to see it. [00:01:57] Hank Green: Nice. Did you have to do a lot of work to get the backflip? Have you, or have you had a backflip for a while? [00:02:01] Demi DiGiwebe: I have not had a backflip for any amount of time, and doing the show, it's, I'm like, I don't know how to talk about the backflip without spoiling it, but I'll just say, part of the problem is that I did not have a backflip. Right. Yeah. I'm so excited to see it. Yeah, I, nevertheless, I committed to doing one. Did you win a fringe, an award at fringe? I got nominated for best newcomer. Holy moly, man. All you got to do is threaten to do a dangerous stunt, and they'll just give it to you. All right, well, I'll keep that in mind. [00:02:26] Hank Green: Yeah. I feel like I could still be a newcomer. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, no, I think so. Yeah. Is that where most of your energy is right now? [00:02:32] Demi DiGiwebe: Kind of, but I feel like I, there's a little bit of me that feels like, oh, it was so fun to perform this show for a year and a half, and people are like, what's the next show going to be? And I'm like, next show? I put it all into this. I don't really have another one. [00:02:44] Hank Green: That's everything I have. Yeah, truly. My whole muffin's in that. [00:02:48] Demi DiGiwebe: I don't even think I want to do it past that. I think I'm, I'm a little like, I'm going to go back to writing stuff that I can hopefully make, and I'm working on a movie right now, and I'm like, maybe that'll take off, and yeah. So you're working on writing a screenplay? Mm-hmm. Nice. A little rom-com. I cannot imagine. It's, I'll tell you this, the dumbest people you know do it every day. And I remind myself of that as a way to keep going. I'm like, it's so hard. It's like, oh, but you've seen many a bad movie. [00:03:14] Hank Green: This is, this is so good for writing a novel. Yeah. Because you read all the best novels. They're like, you've got to read this one. It's amazing. Mm-hmm. But then if you just like pick one up that people aren't talking about, you're like, [00:03:25] Demi DiGiwebe: oh, I see. I can probably do that. You read a book that's 200 page, and you're just like, and they just, there's no editor or nothing, I guess. [00:03:32] Hank Green: They just put this one up on the shelf. [00:03:34] Demi DiGiwebe: I remind myself of that with so many different things where I'm just like, oh, it's hard, or it's like, ah, how did I do this? And it's like, some of the dumbest people you know are finishing it. So, what's to stop you? Just keep, just keep doing it. Yeah, just keep doing it. [00:03:46] Hank Green: Yeah. And yet I keep reading like Octavia Butler, and then I have the most tremendous imposter syndrome. And then I have to remember. Well, are you trying to write like, don't read the books that have been appreciated for 50 years. Right. You can't read like, read the one that came out last year and is doing fine, and no one will remember 10 years from now. Right. Which is what, if that happens to you, that's still a huge success. It's still you made a book. Absolutely. Demi, you have a bunch of questions for me. This is Puzzle the Pelican inside of his pouch of your questions. I've put them in an order so that I can structure things and keep some control over what's about to happen. [00:04:19] Demi DiGiwebe: That's great because I don't remember a single question that I asked you, and we'll see exactly what I was going through a month ago when I asked these. They're good. Oh, puzzle. Sorry to reach in your mouth like this. He's used to it. Hank. Uh-huh. Why is the alphabet in that order? Which is the type of question that like a six-year-old asks. You're like, oh my God, I don't know. [00:04:38] Hank Green: I think that a six-year-old might ask, why is the alphabet in alphabetic order? But you asked like that. You put so much emphasis on that. Yeah. [00:04:45] Demi DiGiwebe: It seems as if you prefer a different order. I think the order is wrong. [00:04:49] Hank Green: Yeah, [00:04:49] Demi DiGiwebe: that's my hard take. I don't like. Don't try to actually fix it. Just say it's wrong. It's wrong. Because that's how the internet works. And honestly, I'm not going to read a thing you guys have to say about this. I'm just going to say I think it's wrong. Yes. And I have Demi's order, which is kind of like the Dvorak of the keyboard. Yeah. Where I'll put it on the keys and you'll be like, whoa, this is way harder to type with. It's like, it's right to me. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll put all the vowels together. Yes. Fuck it. Okay. They should be together. Yeah. [00:05:13] Hank Green: And then Y is in between the vowels and the consonants. [00:05:15] Demi DiGiwebe: All right. Because it does both. Are you saying they're all together at the beginning or all together at the end, all together in the middle? Wherever. Okay. You could have a little island of vowels in the middle. Interesting. Are they still in the same A, E, I, O, U? [00:05:26] Hank Green: Yeah. I think by, let's actually do the whole alphabet by how often that letter shows up. So Z and X are still at the back. Whoa. Okay. But then Y moves way up. [00:05:37] Demi DiGiwebe: Yeah. It's efficient. And it's, I think then, some sense. There's some sense to it. There's an order to it. You understand why the things are in these places. [00:05:44] Hank Green: There's an order to it. Yeah. [00:05:45] Demi DiGiwebe: You can't call it alphabetical order when there's no order. No, it's just alphabetical selection. [00:05:49] Hank Green: Alphabetical chaos. Yeah. [00:05:51] Demi DiGiwebe: I would do it by surface area. Surface area of each letter where it's like, oh, there's a big hole in the middle. Move that shit to the end. Who cares? I guess what, what, what letter, now I have a new question before you answer this. What letter? What letter has the most surface area? W, right? That's another thing. I, W pisses me off. [00:06:09] Speaker 1: We're going to get into it. [00:06:10] Demi DiGiwebe: Okay. Yeah, great. The order of U V W. Whoever did that, that's like a, that's like, I created a letter. It's called U. What's yours? It's V. It's like yours, but smaller. What's yours? It's two U's, but actually it's two V's. Yeah. That guy showed up last minute. It's like, I didn't do the homework, but mine's theirs. [00:06:29] Speaker 1: My letter's those two. [00:06:32] Hank Green: So most of the alphabet, this is basically true. Between A and T, there's no reason that they are in that order that we know. That was the original order that the Phoenicians put them in when the alphabet was created. Ugh, Phoenix. What? [00:06:47] Demi DiGiwebe: Phoenix? Yeah, you're talking about the people of Phoenix, Arizona, right? Yeah, exactly. Those people in Arizona made the alphabet. [00:06:52] Hank Green: There were the Canaanites, which were sort of pre-Phoenician people who lived in Egypt. They saw the hieroglyphics, which had started to represent not just the picture that they were of, but also some sounds. So they had started to morph from being pure pictograph to actually have some hieroglyphics that were about spelling words with sounds. Okay. So they saw that system and they were like, what if we did that, but like didn't need an entire class of highly paid scribes to etch them? And we made them much simpler. And we just like made them out of lines. So you weren't like carving birds into rock and stuff. And then that got over centuries transported to, and the Canaanites sort of merged into the Phoenicians. I'm fudging this. I'm not a history guy. And the Phoenicians had this alphabet, 22 letters long, basically A to T, though I could try and make you guess, do the alphabet and try and find between A and T, a letter that's like UVW, like a letter pair. [00:07:42] Demi DiGiwebe: Do it out loud. I love your voice. L and M. O P. And I have to sing it too, because otherwise I don't know those letters. Uh-huh. No. No? A, B, C, D. E, F, G, H, I, I, J, K. I, J. Yeah, okay. [00:08:00] Hank Green: I and J used to be the same letter too. [00:08:02] Demi DiGiwebe: Oh, yeah. [00:08:03] Hank Green: So they're just like- That makes sense. So they are descended from each other, and they split off. And so like there's a reason why I and J are together, because they were once one letter, and then they split. And that is also the case for U, V, W, and Y. Four letters all have like a kind of a common ancestor. Oh. And so everything after T, so T, U, V, W. At some point, they tossed the X in the middle of those four letters. I don't know why. And Z used to be in the beginning of the alphabet, but then one of the groups that inherited the alphabet and was using it, they were like, we don't need Z. And so they took it out completely. And then later somebody was like, actually, we need that again. So they just put it on the end. I don't, I think Z is not as necessary. [00:08:38] Demi DiGiwebe: It's crazy to be at the beginning. That's, I can't see. It was like where G is now. What? That's, it's giving it too much power. [00:08:44] Hank Green: That's, yeah, that's like the, uh, yeah, the Nepo baby. It's really kind of upsetting to think of Z in the beginning of the alphabet. [00:08:51] Demi DiGiwebe: Yeah, Z's not a big time letter. It's like when you meet someone who has a Z in their name, that's like, oh. Yeah. [00:08:56] Hank Green: Which is why Y being at the end is fucked. Yeah, because Y's in everything. Like hanging out between X and Z. Fuck that. Y has imposter syndrome. No respect. No respect for Y. Why doesn't understand how important it is. I think Y is, I think Y is purely confident, understands how powerful it is, but knows it is being kept down. Interesting. [00:09:14] Demi DiGiwebe: Yeah. I think it is, uh, it's limited between X and Z just being like, oh, I'm a nobody. Nobody likes me. Who's the hottest letter? Hottest letter? You know what? I will say J is up there, but now that I know that it was just, it used to be I and just had a little curve, I'm just like, I don't know. You got too big for your britches. You added a little curve because you think you're special. Mm. What is the hottest letter? H. Mm. For Hank. [00:09:36] Hank Green: Oh, yeah. That's why. Yeah, D is the hottest letter. [00:09:39] Demi DiGiwebe: For Dank. [00:09:42] Hank Green: That could have gone a lot of ways. It could have. I think that it went a good way. [00:09:45] Demi DiGiwebe: Yeah. In my brain, I was like, what bit? What bit? Which one do I go? [00:09:49] Hank Green: So, weirdly, we don't know A through T. We do know I and J. We do know, like, basically, we know J. [00:09:57] Demi DiGiwebe: In your research, did you learn if I and J had the same sound, too? Yeah, they were kind of like a yeah. Yeah. Yeah. [00:10:04] Hank Green: And this is like, the ones that are weird are all diphthong letters, like W, W, is like a, like, it's just two vowels next to each other. Yeah. With a little bit of voicing on the W part. And then V is just like, unvoiced V is like, V is like, uh, like, sort of the U noise. So in Roman, obviously, you get the V for the U. You see that. Yeah. When people like fake write in Roman or actually write in Latin, I don't know. I've never tried. But there is something sort of similar about the W, V, U, Y noises that all came out of that letter together. [00:10:35] Demi DiGiwebe: That's strange. It's also like, I understand that it's, there's no like synchronicity between languages, but you have to imagine that it makes also sense for the alphabet to be in some sort of order of the sounds. Yeah. Even though so many of them make different sounds, but I'm like. It's not really. [00:10:50] Hank Green: Yeah. You could do it that way. In fact, like you, you definitely could like, there is a way, and I actually didn't research this, but like linguists talk about like the sort of where the letter appears in your mouth and then whether it's voiced or unvoiced and whether there's like a stop or not a stop, all of those things like is a stop. Yeah. Isn't it crazy that we just make a bunch of noises and we're like, yeah, I agree. I, or no, that was a bad idea. [00:11:12] Demi DiGiwebe: Yes. That it means the same thing to an, and then I think about how like animal brains work, where it's just sort of like, I talked to my cat and he can't process that I'm saying anything in a language, but I'm like, well then how do cats think when it's like, they don't have an alphabet. They just inherently are like, this sound means this, or like, I see it. I see another cat and this means, I'm just like, I cannot process the thought of thinking without thought. [00:11:34] Hank Green: Do you think only in words? [00:11:36] Demi DiGiwebe: Yeah. Oh, I don't think in words. What are you thinking? You call them clouds. You call them clouds. So that's a word though. Yeah, but I'm not thinking cloud, cloud, cloud, cloud, cloud. I think you might. Cloud, cloud, cloud. Are you, when you say you think in clouds, is it like literally like a cartoon? [00:11:54] Hank Green: Like. I mean, I guess like the simpler thing to say is I think in ideas. [00:11:59] Demi DiGiwebe: Yeah. [00:11:59] Hank Green: So like, there's just no, like, there's not a bunch of words that come along with the ideas. So I don't think of like, when I think of you, I don't think the word Demi, you know, I think of like the idea of Demi. [00:12:06] Demi DiGiwebe: It feels like I just literalized that entirely in my head. It's like, I think of Hank. It's like, I see the word Hank and then I see Hank. Yeah. [00:12:12] Hank Green: There's a thing that's outside of the word that is me. So like, I just don't use the words. And I like, when I have a bunch of thoughts, I don't start thinking in words until I'm preparing to write it down or already writing it down. [00:12:23] Demi DiGiwebe: Do you not have an internal monologue? No. [00:12:24] Hank Green: Wow. Yeah. So I made a video about this once and I saw somebody later on Twitter talking about how I'm dumb because they don't have an internal monologue. That's crazy. I was like, wow, that's a really weird thing to have taken away from that. [00:12:35] Demi DiGiwebe: That's a strange way to process it. And I'm also like, that is a person processing how they think in relation to what you said. Just be like, well, I haven't turned a monologue and I'm smart. So Hank dumb. Yeah. I'm like, no, this is not about you. [00:12:47] Hank Green: I probably shouldn't have given that guy the amount of brain space that I did, but I did do that anyway. So if anybody ever asks you why the alphabet's in that order, you can be like, we don't know why anything between A and T is in that order except for J. [00:12:59] Demi DiGiwebe: Yeah. [00:12:59] Hank Green: And everything after T, we do know why it's there in that order. And that is the weirdest sentence to me. [00:13:06] Demi DiGiwebe: It's so, yeah. Cause I'm like, the answer is there is no answer. They just sort of like this one, then this one, then this one. Well, it was so early. [00:13:12] Hank Green: Like, so like a lot of our past is lost, obviously. So like, and the weird thing also is that alphabetical order is older than any word in English. Right. Like the order has, was established and has stayed, you know, more or less consistent for 4,000 years. [00:13:26] Demi DiGiwebe: And it's consistent between languages, which is also fascinating to me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I also, I guess it is like, if you're inventing a language, you're, you're probably mostly concerned, the concept of the alphabet, you're probably mostly concerned with just being like, let's just make sure that all, all of them, it's like wrangling kids. You're not like, we got to get them in height orders. Like, just make sure they're all here. Yeah. Yeah. And then the problem is they're probably thinking, and this is easy for us. And they're not thinking, and for centuries, it'll be this exact order. [00:13:50] Hank Green: And also I think that it remained consistent because it doesn't, with alphabetical order, this isn't always the case, but with alphabetical order, it's mostly just important that there is an order. It doesn't really matter. Like it wouldn't be better if they were in order of surface area or an order of like phonetic sound or an order of commonality in, in the written language. It mostly just like, we need an order, stick with the order. And if you like wanted to introduce a new order, that would create so many problems for everybody. Like if there were some libraries that were in a different alphabetical order, that would [00:14:19] Demi DiGiwebe: suck. I'm going to open Demi's library and it's like, how do you find a book? It's like, well, it's in Demi's order. So you're going to want to think of letters in terms of what letter is the biggest first, and then you're going to find your book. Yeah. Mine's in order of hotness. Hotness. Yeah. Like, whoa, all the H's in one place. And there's a separate room full of just the J's. Shameful. Sick of it. [00:14:38] Hank Green: Shameful, sick little letter. [00:14:39] Demi DiGiwebe: Disgust me to look at it. K, I can't be near you. K, I have a M though. Oh, whoa. Me and M used to have a thing, so we can't, we don't talk no more. But I'm looking at N and she's pretty cute. To M's sister? I know, I know. You can't go there? What can I say? I'm a dog. I also, I feel like there are some letters that it's like that Kiki and Booba thing with, where it's like K to me, I'm just like, that is a spicy letter. There's too much energy there. There's too much energy, it's too sharp, but like a B and M. Oh, I want to cuddle with one of those. Yeah, so soft. I could cuddle with a B. You cuddle with a B? I could cuddle with a B. I'd love to cuddle with a B. B, letter of butt and boob. There's two in boob. There's two in boob. It's a premium letter right there. I'm going to be rubbing my hands a lot through this, and it's going to only get worse. Okay, we're going to do another question. Great. We're like, all right, let's stop that. Oh, yeah. If you had to make someone believe you were from the future, how would you do that? I thought about this a lot. Yeah, I think about this a lot too, where it's just like, you see it in movies all the time, and everyone's like, I don't believe you. And to me, I think the second anyone says that, I'm like, okay, I'll believe you. Because it's more interesting to believe you than to be like, yeah, yeah, right. [00:15:52] Hank Green: So if somebody told you they were from the future, you'd be like, all right, let's go. All right, what do you need from me? [00:15:56] Demi DiGiwebe: Yeah. Yeah. How can I help? I'll join your cult. Totally. Same thing if it's like, someone's like, I need you to know I'm being cursed by a witch, or like, I'm living a groundhog day scenario. It's like, I'll just, I'll accept it. Let's go. Because I'm like, what's the worst that can happen? Yeah, look, look, I didn't come to this earth to not have fun. Yeah. [00:16:11] Speaker ?: Yeah. [00:16:12] Hank Green: Let's party. Sorry, I got work to do. I thought about this a bunch. So the scenario is I'm from, I have gone back in time. [00:16:20] Demi DiGiwebe: Yes. [00:16:21] Hank Green: And I have to prove to people around me that I have gone back in time and I'm from the future. I think if you took me back 10 years, easy, no problem. Yeah. Take me back 10 years. I know what's going on. I know what's about to happen. [00:16:32] Demi DiGiwebe: Sure, yeah. [00:16:33] Hank Green: I could be like, COVID, Trump, like all this stuff. And they'd be like, oh my God, you know everything. You must be from the future. You take me back 50 years. I'm going to have a harder time. [00:16:41] Demi DiGiwebe: As in, like you'll be like, I don't really know what's happening this time. I wasn't alive then. Yeah. [00:16:44] Hank Green: I don't know what's coming next. Take me back 100 years, 1926. And I'm like, you know, the alcohol might be illegal right now. It's probably not going to be illegal for long. You all got to be really careful about Germany. That's going to be bad. They're waiting the next 10 years. That's a while from now, honestly. [00:17:02] Demi DiGiwebe: Like it's not like this guy, Hitler. I think it's also hard to place it in historical context because I'm like, I'm imagining that it's like, you need to convince me now. And so it's like, I need something that's either going to happen in the next minute or so. [00:17:15] Hank Green: Yeah. And I'd be like, in the future, there's going to be little rectangles that we hold in our hands and stare at all day. And like, that's nothing. Maybe. And it's also like, yeah, a bunch of guys have guessed that. [00:17:23] Demi DiGiwebe: Whatever, man. Everyone's saying we're all going to lose ourselves to some sort of device. [00:17:27] Hank Green: I'll tell them what the future is actually like. And they'll be like, that's very boring. Yeah. So you still die? Interesting. [00:17:33] Demi DiGiwebe: And you live longer, but you don't seem happy about it. [00:17:35] Hank Green: No, we're very stressed out, but our refrigerators are good. Refrigerators? Yeah, our refrigerators are great in the future. What is that? I think that they had refrigerators in 1925. [00:17:45] Demi DiGiwebe: The Feltman fact-checked me on that. I'm also, in my head, it's like, well, you've gone back to a period of a place in the earth where it's like, not only do they not have refrigerators, but the language you're speaking is fully just like, they're like, we're going to kill this guy. [00:17:57] Hank Green: Well, this is the thing. If I go back at like a thousand years, I'm lost. I'm useless. Not only can I not convince them that I know I'm from the future, I wouldn't be able to convince them that like, I'm a useful member of society. [00:18:08] Demi DiGiwebe: That's like me. I would add nothing. That's me now going to like France. I'd just be like, hello. And they're like, hmm. And also, you have to be naked, right? [00:18:16] Hank Green: Because if you go back in that, they're going to be like, yeah, future. [00:18:19] Demi DiGiwebe: Yeah. In this scenario, it's like, you're going back and you are indistinguishable from everyone else in style and you're naked. And I'm adding too many things to be like, well, how would it happen in this scenario? Yeah. [00:18:30] Hank Green: You might have a bunch of tattoos where they'd be like, actually, those are pretty different from what we can do now. Yeah. I got like this and it's like, they're like, oh yeah, we can do that tattoo. [00:18:38] Demi DiGiwebe: We have that. You got a lot of birds on, they'll be like, pizza rat? Who's that? And I'll be like, you guys don't have pizza rat? It's a meme? I'll get distracted just explaining memes and just like, so anyway, the New York subway. [00:18:50] Hank Green: I don't have the subway yet. Oh my God. Did they have refrigerators in 1925? [00:18:54] Demi DiGiwebe: It was still early. It looked like it was invented in 1913. Okay. [00:18:57] Hank Green: Oh, okay. So not even not spread. [00:18:59] Demi DiGiwebe: Our refrigerators are way better than your fridges. Yeah. You guys just got a big box with a piece of ice in it. It's like, ours is tall and sometimes has screens on it where you can play Spotify. [00:19:08] Hank Green: Yeah. And I won't explain Spotify. For some reason, there's a motherboard in it that can sometimes get broken. And then you have to put all of your chicken in your neighbor's house. [00:19:16] Demi DiGiwebe: Yeah. And you know how sometimes it's hard to open the door to see what's in it? Now the screen will just show you. Ooh. [00:19:22] Hank Green: Like you can see through the wall. But they don't want that. I don't think, like they wouldn't believe me. And I also think that if I tried to convince them, there's a certain amount of, you got to play your cards right at a certain point in history so as not to be thought of which. Yes. But I do think that if I played that delicately enough, I could probably be like Chief in like a couple decades. They'd be like, yeah, you're a clever boy. [00:19:45] Demi DiGiwebe: So you're thinking of it as trying to find a position of power. Yeah. I'm playing the Game of Thrones. Okay. I don't want any power whatsoever. I don't want a job. I'm going back for a specific purpose. It's like they sent me back because they need to alter the course of history in some way. Sure, sure, sure. And I'm like, you need to kill baby Hitler or something. Yeah. And in order to do that, it's like, I got to convince their parents like, look, I got to kill your kid. And I know it sounds crazy, but you got to believe me. It's a bad kid. And you're going to want to let me do this. And it's like, they're like, no. That's different. [00:20:16] Hank Green: Convincing somebody from the future versus convincing them to kill their child. [00:20:19] Demi DiGiwebe: Actually, this is a movie I want to make for the longest time where it's like just a normal family. And then a guy comes back and like, he's from the future while their kid is away at school. And he's like, I have to kill your kid. You don't understand. And these parents are like, what do you mean? You have to, it's like, you don't understand the amount of destruction and violence that happens if this child does not die. [00:20:37] Hank Green: Why wouldn't you just kill the kid? Why do you need to get parents involved? [00:20:40] Demi DiGiwebe: Well, it's like you tried, but then the parents stopped you because you were trying to kill their kid. And then it's like, how do you convince them? It's like, look, I got to kill your kid. You got to be way better at killing people. I agree, but this is the first time they sent anyone back. They're like, we're going to send you back to right here because it's most vulnerable and you tripped on something. [00:20:56] Hank Green: This episode of Ask Anything is sponsored by Ground News. With summer quickly approaching, a lot of us are really starting to feel the heat. Some of us more than others. The heat wave at the French Open had temperatures surging beyond what is normal, coming in at 33 degrees Celsius. That's 91.4 Fahrenheit for those of us who need a conversion. It was hot enough that fans were resorting to using the sprinklers to cool down. And I was able to learn about all sides of this story by utilizing Ground News. Ground News can make your fact-checking journey a little less overwhelming by gathering all sources into one place. For example, if I wanted to see how different sources were reporting about this heat wave at the French Open, I could easily compare with Ground News. The story has 42 different sources, with 51% of the bias being tracked as center. I could even see, at a quick glance, a breakdown of how these sources were reporting differently by checking the bias comparison. In this case, it looks like the main difference in how this heat wave was reported on was the emotional tone different sources chose to take. So give it a try at ground.news/complexly. If you sign up with this link, you'll get 40% off the Vantage plan, which gives you unlimited access to every Ground News feature. Make sure you use our link in the description or the QR code to sign up so you can see the full picture and can think freely for yourself. [00:22:10] Demi DiGiwebe: Yeah, it's time for me to draw another one when saying nonsense. Ooh, ooh. Is there an objective way that love registers in the brain? [00:22:17] Hank Green: Don't ask the easy ones, Demi. [00:22:19] Demi DiGiwebe: This is an easy one? No. [00:22:21] Hank Green: It's very hard. I was gonna say. I was like, there's no way. I hate brain questions. Ah. But I decided to take this one anyway. [00:22:27] Demi DiGiwebe: Is that because you think it's like, what is it about the brain that you're like? [00:22:30] Hank Green: It's just the most complicated thing in the universe. Sure. So every beginning to an answer about a brain question should start. There's a lot we don't know. There's a lot that we do know, but there's a lot we don't know. And oftentimes by saying the stuff that we do know can sound like this is everything, but this isn't everything. Do you think that's the brain protecting itself? I think it's the brain just having evolved into a very complex form in order to do a bunch of weird hard jobs. Have you heard this thing? Maybe the brain is too complicated for itself to understand. [00:22:57] Demi DiGiwebe: I haven't. But that's kind of what I was sort of getting at with is it like protecting or it's just sort of like you can only it's in the same way that it's like you, I can't conceptualize how animals communicate because it's like, that's not how our brain works. And then I'm like, is there a thing where it's like, we can't understand these things because we don't have the language or the function to understand these complex things that are just like imperceptible. [00:23:18] Hank Green: From what we could tell it is atoms and ions and electrons. It is forces. It is all is just made of universe, you know, it's nothing exceptional going on in there. So there is, there is, I can say that objectively there is some objective way that love registers in the brain. So like love is a physical phenomenon that's occurring inside of you. But what exactly that is, is complex because there's like all these little parts of the brain that are doing lots of different stuff. So there's a lot going on. You can stick like people in what's called an fMRI, which is an MRI that can tell where like blood is going. So you can see what parts of people's brains light up when they're having certain experiences. Right. So if you stick like a horny college student in an fMRI and you show them like their romantic partner or just like a friend, you could see like differences happening. I don't know how horny they are, but they're college students. [00:23:59] Demi DiGiwebe: I was about to say, you're going to have to, there's got to be a scale how horny they are. They walk in and they make them fill out a form and it's like on a scale of one to ten. Yeah. Have your friends ever called you horny your name? That's the guy you want. And it's like, oh, you get horny Steven there. You'll, the MRI is going to break. [00:24:15] Hank Green: He can't look at an M. No. He can't look at an M. It's hot stuff. So you can see where their, their brains light up and their areas are lighting up involved in reward a lot. So like you get a signal. It's basically like, it is like, it feels good just to look at you. Yeah. Like I am being rewarded just for looking at your face. I know this feeling. [00:24:33] Demi DiGiwebe: I don't. No one's ever rewarded for looking at my face. As you watch this at home, you're going, you feel the dopamine draining out of your body. [00:24:40] Hank Green: No, no. You experience it looking at someone else. Oh yeah. People experience it. Yeah. Yeah. You know that feeling. Sure. Where you're like, God, I just, like, it just feels good to look at you. Yeah. Yeah. So that is a thing. Um, and there's also areas devoted to focusing attention. So like grabbing your consciousness and keeping it focused on this thing. And also for being motivated to get the reward. And this is early, like, like romantic love, even like falling in love type love. So I'm not talking about the same thing as like loving your parents or your kid or your [00:25:09] Demi DiGiwebe: brother. [00:25:10] Speaker ?: Yeah. [00:25:10] Demi DiGiwebe: That's also the thing that I think I'm trying to like. [00:25:12] Hank Green: Yeah. There are overlaps between these things for sure. Yeah. Like with rewards and comfort and, but they do register differently in the brain. Not surprisingly, they feel different. [00:25:20] Demi DiGiwebe: It's also, I think to me the, the idea of love as an objective thing is so like immaterial. And it's just like, how do you determine like love versus lust in the brain or love versus like infatuation or just like the, like the affection or sort of this. So I think to me, the real question here is, is love in any way an objective thing that can be measured? [00:25:39] Hank Green: Yeah. Yeah. I think that it is. things and also it seems to be a thing that we evolved to have and the area of the brain that does a lot of this like uh focusing attention getting reward stuff and also this like the physical experience of love like fast heartbeat getting a little sweaty flushed cheeks and like the feeling of like anxiety and worry that come along with it also uh that part of the brain seems old like there is a love-like thing that lots of animals have yeah and i'm sure that's not like our love but like there's like this attraction and this this like want and this reward for being around this thing to like encourage you to be with this so that you can continue the species kind of vibes it makes sense that there'd be a really strong so do you think that animals also [00:26:24] Demi DiGiwebe: feel like anxiety i think they do they have like cortisol two foxes are just like oh god there's [00:26:30] Hank Green: oh god there's another like me yeah this is like a big thing that that like when you're falling in love you have really strong stress hormones and i think part of that is like worry and focus and like wanting to have this happen and then when like the worry is relieved by the other person's affection that's a really big high where you're like i like is this gonna work am i like is she picking up what i'm putting down and then it turns out that she is it's like oh my god yeah that feeling and then my favorite part of this is that there's also a dampening of the area related to being afraid of that person or judging that person so it decreases your ability to critically assess the other person yeah which is like the rose-colored glasses things like you get worse at detecting their faults yeah [00:27:15] Demi DiGiwebe: when you're falling in that's not familiar uh yeah oh yeah i do i also love that you started my phrasing this is a dampening of the area i'm like yeah i know that feeling very well i forgot the double meaning there's a damn there's a double area you for you didn't you said that you were just like that's not sexual in any way absolutely i did not think of your brain the second you said dampening i was like where's this going hands are back where's this going hank oh my gosh yeah that's so funny that the brain actively just sort of it's like no it's not i think even with people where you aren't in love with them just any sort of positive feeling you have towards a person you start to sort of just be like well now let's think are we taking this information in in a way that is like unfair to them like you want to give them the most generous rate of everything and you really don't want to do that if you hate any if you don't like someone you can just be like i'm going to give them the least generous rate of this thing and just be like you guys don't understand they're evil and [00:28:08] Hank Green: it's like yeah and this is why like people bring their boyfriend girlfriend home to their parents and they're like what the hell are you thinking sure it's like i wasn't that part of their brain [00:28:16] Demi DiGiwebe: turned off and you can't turn it back on dad sorry yeah sorry i i forgot that she's like this because i love her yeah you guys should fall in love with her then it'll be okay yeah you'll know you'll [00:28:26] Hank Green: understand don't actually that'd be a little weird yeah so there's there's a bunch of things going on and i think that it is you know we have different amplitudes of those depending on the situation and depending on the person and there is interesting overlaps though i can't tell you what they are because i didn't look that deep into it with other kinds of love yeah so it's there's similar areas of the brain but also others and some at different levels i think to me that is also the thing that is [00:28:49] Demi DiGiwebe: like not scary but disconcerting where it's just sort of like the overlaps mean that you can be like i think i love this person and then it's like scientifically it's like objectively you do not you care a lot for them or yeah you feel a certain attachment to them but it's like there's something [00:29:04] Hank Green: else am i feeling the same thing you're feeling like i'm feeling an affection i'm feeling a comfort [00:29:09] Demi DiGiwebe: but i'm maybe not feeling the same draw it's like when i look at blue are you seeing blue are you like that's red or it's like in your brain is it a completely different yeah it turns out we are all [00:29:18] Hank Green: different animals from each other i keep remembering that different people are different sure from each other and me always i never and i always have to remind myself even after 45 years of this it is a [00:29:29] Demi DiGiwebe: lot it's a it's so comforting to think that you are similar to people in a lot of different ways but then just one thing can make you just go like oh we don't know anything no one's the same there's no control group of like sometimes people will tell me like the tv show they're watching and i'm like oh actually i think i have nothing in common with you the number of times that you look at like what's the most popular tv show on earth right now and it's like i've never even heard of the channel that's on what do you mean it's like untamed on on glorbo and i'm like what everyone's on everyone's streaming on glorbo how do i get glorbo it's like you gotta have two tvs to watch glorbo it's like everyone has two tvs yeah yeah there's a special one that goes behind you yeah it's an immersive experience full glorbo vision it is yeah and i'll just be like the most popular tv show on earth is succession they'll be like one million people watch the succession finale i'm like that's not a lot that's yeah that's like a third of a percent of america and it gets worse the more that we sort of like give ourselves over to algorithms that'll just yeah here's everyone so fractured yeah which is why you have to send your [00:30:29] Hank Green: favorite tick tocks to your friends or else yeah you can't you're completely alienated from i'm not on [00:30:34] Demi DiGiwebe: tick tock at all and it's just what people send me and i think that partially how you have a special friend talk yes it's just the friend talk it's just it's literally just i'll get a text from a friend being like this is you and i'm like ha yeah it is and i'm like no no need to look at any more i'm just like i think the algorithm will be the will this to me the strength it's not will or strength it's just being like i have so many other things that take up my time i can't add this to it and i just know that the second i get on tick tock i'll never do anything again also i don't like the internet as a service industry as a service economy of it being like is that where your self-control here [00:31:08] Hank Green: comes from you're like you feel the dystopia do you feel the the sort of uh smartest people in the [00:31:12] Demi DiGiwebe: world trying to get their fingers into your brain i wish i could say it's like yeah i'm standing up against them but it's really just like i think i got so burnt out as a person who made content specifically for so long where it's like on a schedule or with the idea of what the audience is going to think that now it's like if i go on tick tock i could use it just in a fun way but over time it would be be my brain starting to think well how do i how do i gain this what do i make on this and it's like [00:31:35] Hank Green: i'd rather just not get involved now i'm rubbing my hands because that's not so long every time there's a new platform i'm like maybe i should just check it out and see what it'd be like to make [00:31:44] Demi DiGiwebe: stuff i i truly i could i could i could figure out how to use that algorithm to my advantage and i think it's like i understand that and it probably does make a lot of people's lives better but i think for me i'm just sort of like well what am i working towards and it's like you you're the most popular person on tick tock i'm like what do i want out of that right right right and i'm like oh you've created a system [00:32:03] Hank Green: where i feel like the numbers are going up i can make numbers go up make numbers go i'm gonna try and make numbers go up yeah thanks for creating a little game for me to play that's entirely to your advantage and none at all to mine yeah i applaud you for your intelligent social media decisions again i wish i could say it was intelligent i mean self-serving do you feel like uh you get rewards more off of the internet now and sort of your creative work no i i think that it's weird because [00:32:31] Demi DiGiwebe: i i do feel like a lot of my career right now is doing stuff for platforms that are on the internet but i don't have to be the one in control of it oh yeah and it's like you get the reward of people being like oh i love the work that he does on drop out or on this other thing and it's like yeah i think i like that because i'm distanced from it and that it's like you get to do [00:32:47] Hank Green: the part where you're making yes not the part where you're trying to make it the systems promote [00:32:54] Demi DiGiwebe: it for you yeah and it's like it's fun to just be like i get to perform and then i get to step away yeah and i also don't have to interact with the audience and i i also think my philosophy of entertainment and the internet is a lot of people have to treat it like it is a restaurant where it's like you have to interact with the people your audience you have to sort of like give them things and what they want i want it to be like the zoo i'm gonna put you guys can look through the glass and enjoy it or not enjoy it but you can't really interact you can't tell me what to do you can't give me yeah yeah all the thoughts you have that's great i'm a i'm a little capuchin playing the trees throwing around and i don't understand what you're saying whereas when i do stuff like that i'm like [00:33:30] Hank Green: on letterbox reading people's reviews like i need to know what you think about this for the last [00:33:34] Demi DiGiwebe: september video i was like someone put it on letterbox and i was like maybe i'll read some of these reviews and it's like they were all fine but i was quickly just like actually i want to do this this is not what i don't want to do it and i also i'm like what's this for it's out i can't change it yeah so i don't know i just i just follow where my monkey brain leads me it's like ghosts go see what [00:33:52] Hank Green: the the things that will give you a sensation i think there's a sensation over there go have one [00:33:57] Demi DiGiwebe: yeah dope me dope me dope me yeah at a certain point i think something just broke in my brain where i was just like i have to at a certain point get to the understanding that i can't do anything with all this information and just pull myself away from it and then because the adhd i forget it exists and that's when it's really good it's just like oh comments no oh what's this over here yeah yeah well good work thank you here's another question yeah from my pelican's mouth this is this is what i'm this is the dopamine i'm like another question new question yeah yeah okay i remember this one what decides if a food is a breakfast food like why are eggs and bacon breakfast meals so [00:34:30] Hank Green: it seems like eggs and bacon was a thing kinda but in the 1920s the pork industry was like eggs and bacon oh and they made a did a big like uh eggs and bacon push should have like this right way to start your day is eggs and bacon and there was also cereal was like this so cereal was kind of an invented food relatively recently and the cereal industry when they're first making cereals they're like here's the situation like all these fatty ways to start your day are bad for you you need a cleaner way to start your day is that true or they like okay i mean it really depends on the rest of your day sure yeah so culture to culture everybody's got different breakfast food and that is purely cultural like there's nothing breakfasty about pancakes no it's like are you serious we're gonna have cake for [00:35:12] Demi DiGiwebe: breakfast it is the most every time i've eaten a pancake a i don't finish it and b i just feel like i gotta lie down yeah or something like this can't be how we start this is a wild choice yeah and they [00:35:21] Hank Green: just put some powdered sugar on it some chocolate chips in there breakfast cookies wet sugar it's [00:35:26] Demi DiGiwebe: sweet and it's wet and you're gonna eat it and you're a child and then go to school with your [00:35:30] Hank Green: sticky little fingers the thing that does tie them all together though so like the tons of different cultures like uh i wrote some down like in medieval period in europe it was bread and cheese which sounds great i'd actually love to have bread they only had three foods back they also had bread and cheese for lunch and for dinner yeah also ale sometimes with the breakfast yeah and i'm like [00:35:49] Demi DiGiwebe: man it's like what's in reach start your day just pick a thing yeah japan you got like rice miso and [00:35:55] Hank Green: fish and turkey bread olives cheese in egypt fava beans stewed in oil with flatbread the thing that really does tie all these things together is it's fast so like some way to like prip like they're easy quick to prepare options cereal is like thing in a bowl thing in a bowl eating eggs is like more than that but like it's easy to cook yeah pretty easy i go i cook some eggs like probably twice a week and i'm like at this point i'm not you know it's eat cleanups easy making this easy the thing that really ties together breakfast foods is as long as you can just like get it done and get it on with your day [00:36:30] Demi DiGiwebe: interesting that's so funny because i feel like pancakes are not that no pancakes i feel like a sunday special thing yes yeah i mean i think anything as soon as you're using a stove is a little bit like oh there's so much there but i think that's because we made cereal and oats is a thing where it's like literally just combine the two right done yeah oatmeal like hot water and oats yeah yeah it's also i mean this is not part of the question but i'm just sort of like cereal as an industry is so funny to me that it's like i'm sure it started as just like it's oats and milk and then it's like and now we'll put marshmallows in there and now we're gonna make a cereal that's cookies actually i'd love to look at the [00:37:01] Hank Green: history like when did somebody first think to themselves what if we made a nice little cereal that also just was a cookie yeah this is like a crunchy cookie you pour milk on fully i think it's [00:37:12] Demi DiGiwebe: i mean this is not me answering the question because i don't have research but it has to just be like the industry just fully went hard on we have to advertise this to children yeah yeah like some some [00:37:21] Hank Green: point in the 70s somebody was like you know what i think we aren't making enough money making children less healthy yeah part of a balanced breakfast these cheerios if you also if you took it out that would be a better breakfast yeah hello it's future hank here to tell you that ranger joe honey wheat honeys came out in 1939 which is before the u.s entered world war ii and before american sugar rationing and the smithsonian institution identifies this as the first pre-sweetened breakfast cereal now that is not the same thing as like a bowl full of cookies but it is the start three years later in 1942 the u.s began sugar rationing and sugar was actually the first food rationed and the last one removed from rationing and that lasted until 1947. so then in the late 40s and early 50s it started to break open a bit more kellogg's sugar frosted flakes which we still have i think arrived in 1952 sugar smacks arrived in 1953 and i'm pretty sure they were the first cereal that was more than 50 percent sugar by weight this seems to have had some overlap with and influence from advertising on television by the 1960s the cereal aisle was starting to fill up with all of those cartoon mascots that we now know and also for example uh marshmallows just throwing those in there so lucky charms debuted in 1964. the idea was chopping up circus peanuts which are not peanuts they are a candy that you may not have heard of but i love it's hard to find them these days but apparently i'm that old and then finally the sort of cap of the mountain is when in 1977 cookie crisp was launched which was basically just a bowl full of cookies that you could pour milk on which doesn't sound bad but it also doesn't sound good so from the beginning cereal was about being a health food but then as sugar got cheap and then you know there was rationing and then we didn't have rationing anymore sugar took over the cereal aisle and there it remains all right let's get back to it did you remember that growing up part of a balanced breakfast and it'd be like a bowl of cereal surrounded by like a bunch of healthy things outside of it yes and i'm only now [00:39:26] Demi DiGiwebe: realizing i guess the phrase part of balanced breakfast felt like a slogan to me and now i'm only parsing that it's like yeah this is supposed to be part of a full breakfast which is crazy i would never eat cereal and then be like you know what i also want is like eggs and like uh bacon and some [00:39:39] Hank Green: bananas my mom has been up since 2 a.m making all of this time to eat it pop tarts what are nuts how american was this like oh i know what we'll do we'll make toast that's cake it's it's hard toast with [00:39:52] Demi DiGiwebe: just jam inside and then like another sort of jam on top of it and the idea also that like people be like i eat unfrosted pop touch and like oh that's gross it's like that's healthier that's more normal but barely yeah but slightly but it is still just like that's why it's wild to like toast and jam we we were like you know what's great pie how do we make pie into toast you got to make it to go and you got to make it portable so that like kids need to be able to take it to school you know [00:40:18] Hank Green: i never in my entire shot i ate so many pop tarts never in my childhood did i actually toast a pop [00:40:23] Demi DiGiwebe: tart i think i i did once or twice just being like this is what i'm supposed to do yeah and then just was like i don't want you you feel like a sort of rebel when it's like i'm not i'm gonna eat it cold i'm just gonna have it as it is yeah also all while eating like s'mores flavored uh pop tart that's the one i ate all the time as a kid oh even now i was a pure strawberry boy strawberry yeah i know so many people i think strawberry was like the control like the standard one and then they like expanded all these flavors now i do think it's funny to ask people what was their flavor because a lot of people like brown sugar cinnamon now yeah some friends i have are like unfrosted strawberry i'm like that's crazy you you lived in the crusades that is that is medieval that's disgusting and i'm like s'mores the ultimate luxury not a single hint or even like a simulacrum of health no one was like boy we can [00:41:09] Hank Green: really help out the health of the nation with our new invention we put s'mores into the toaster that's [00:41:14] Demi DiGiwebe: right you know the how healthy it is when you go to camp and you make burnt marshmallow and chocolate we put that in your breakfast put it in the breakfast yeah wd juay bae we have two more questions let's get to a pelican pouch uh this one is uh fun because i know exactly why i thought of it how are there racist dogs when they aren't trained to be racist so tell me your story that you have tied to [00:41:38] Hank Green: this man i looked at this one for a long time and thought i shouldn't do it but then i like i found out [00:41:42] Demi DiGiwebe: interesting stuff i just think about this a lot because a lot of times people will have a dog that like barks at me and they pull back oh i'm sorry he doesn't usually do that and i'm like interesting don't tell me that that means this dog is not around black people very often yes but also how did this get to be if they're like oh i like this dog is a dog i've had my entire life yeah or this dog is like i'm just sort of like you're obviously not training it to be like yeah darker skin attack yeah i'm like then how does it just happen because it's also not a genetic thing yeah it's not a [00:42:10] Hank Green: genetic thing yeah so there was actually a pretty good study on this where they looked at white dog white dogs they looked at white dogs and black dogs and they hate each other yeah white dogs be like dogs of white owners yeah and dogs of black owners and they found that uh dogs of black owners were more likely to be wary of and mildly aggressive toward white people and dogs of white owners were more likely to be wary of and more aggressive toward black people so we can we can do it either way but they also found that the effect was larger on average with owners specifically white owners who had kind of tested poorly on a racial stereotype quiz you know they kind of tested to see whether the owners were kind of racist okay yeah and they found that if you were owned by a racist the dog was more racist through like osmosis it's just like you're hanging around a racist and all well it's [00:42:59] Demi DiGiwebe: like that thing of like if you're if there are 11 people at a bar with one nazi there are 12 nazis [00:43:05] Hank Green: it's that with dogs yes but with dogs great that dog should have got out of that house yeah if it was a truly it was truly an ally yeah turn the other why are you still on x dog the thought is mostly that it's about exposure so if you got a racist owner you're not seeing very many black people but there's also like dogs do pick up on very subtle like vibes yeah and so if you're with your if you're a dog and you're with your owner and your owner like kind of stands back and like gives more space between you and a black guy then you and a white guy then the dog will immediately pick up on that and uh that's crazy but then like so obviously dogs aren't racist because they don't know that race exists sure yeah it's really easy to sort of apply the whole like sack of that we have as humans onto them but what they are is they are good at patterns and they're good at like noticing stuff and they are good at noticing differences and they are also originally most like the sort of original one of the big reasons we had dogs was to be a guard yeah so to be wary of things that were unusual and so i think that there's like when we're like oh our dog is racist there's like definitely what we're saying is this dog is acting strangely towards something that it is less familiar with sure and it is like matching that it is it is doing that noticing which is wild yeah like if you got a hood up and you're wearing a hoodie dogs were are much more wary of people they can be more wary of [00:44:24] Demi DiGiwebe: bigger people because it's like that's different the hoodie thing it's like what do you like if you are [00:44:29] Hank Green: shielding yourself if one if a person has a hoodie on dogs are more wary of them because they like aren't getting all the information they want to get oh wow yeah so there seems to be a thing there and they're like noticers and and like all of the that we pack up and they definitely like can notice when their owner is wary of a person and like you know pick up on that but i think that it's mostly a familiarity thing uh they also found that uh dogs who were more likely to be around both white and black people didn't have this effect sure so that kind of makes sense interesting so we're uh continue [00:45:00] Demi DiGiwebe: to be a fairly segregated nation and it shows up in our dogs i'm gonna go around to all of my friends with dogs and just be like let's see how this dog reacts to me now and i'll be like well i just learned a thing about who you're hanging out with and they'll be like i don't i don't know yeah so he was like i'm sorry my dog's a little racist it's like oh your dog huh yeah that's that's so fascinating to me yeah because i'm like how does it apply to i mean i'm sure it does apply to all sorts of other things too and i'm like well what are the things are do dogs pick up on that can tell you about yourself in ways that you maybe don't necessarily yeah yeah dogs pick up on a lot i would love to know what a dog could get from sniffing my ass like they just sniff my butt and they're like oh you're sad like oh you're in love huh i i smell the love in your body and i'm like i am really finally an objective measure love is held in the and you can also use that in the trailer for some reason when you were like talking when you were like oh dogs can smell things inside your body i was like menstrual blood that's the first thing that i was oh for sure yeah they definitely can smell that i would i would love more than anything to be able to just interview a dog and just be like what are you getting out of that what do you what's what what stories do you have of myself that i don't know yet absolutely i and and someday we'll get there you know yeah dog would be like adhd they all sound like scooby also narcolepsy really bad case do you have narcolepsy i do have narcolepsy is a really bad case i don't think really bad but i also don't know what the scale is i i will say you should know i feel like you should be informed about your condition i'll tell you this every couple of days i think of something where i'm like man i should have asked that when they diagnosed me where people are like oh my god what triggers it i'm like good question yeah i don't know i haven't really thought about this kind of happens i thought it was adhd for the longest time and it's like i thought adhd was narcolepsy so there's apparently a lot of commonalities and it's oh my turn to answer a question but like there's a lot of commonalities and it's often misdiagnosed as adhd but there was a time where i was like i kept falling asleep in work and like school and all these things and it got to a place where the first writing job i ever had it was like a real problem and i was just really i gotta figure out what's going on here and eventually i was prescribed adderall for adhd and it stopped happening i was like well that probably was a symptom of adderall and then a couple years later i had a therapist where i was like oh man and you know i'm falling asleep a lot because of the adhd and she was just like that is not that no and then i was like well no it's this and this and she's like it sounds like narcolepsy you should get diagnosed for narcolepsy and i did a sleep test and they were like usually it takes people like 15 minutes to fall asleep in rem you got asleep in 26 seconds and i was like huh okay interesting and i just i didn't have any follow-up questions but i yeah that's just the thing i know about myself now that's like a i mean i'm sorry this is insensitive but i know what you're gonna say and i think i agree it's kind of a fun one i was gonna say it's a fake one oh in the same way though where it's like for the longest time i was like narcolepsy is mr bean and rat race he's just excited and he just like falls asleep yeah well i don't have that yeah it is yeah it is a fairly fun one in terms of like disease which is like you fall asleep you get very tired very quickly suddenly yeah or you just have a lot of fatigue and i'm like yeah you don't like bleed out of your eyes or shit your pants no it's not a thing that majorly incapacitates me it's slightly inconvenient i'll be like i'm tired all of a sudden yeah like oh i just ate lunch so i have to i'm like i really want to take a nap but it's so manageable yeah it's not if i were to write a book about my struggle with narcos everyone would be like no no take a nap you're fine and they would be right to say it all right last one all right what's it gonna be i don't remember me neither okay yes this is another this is i keep you like great questions past me why did popcorn a crunchy noisy snack become the go-to food for eating in a quiet theater all right we're gonna do a poll yeah of the audience in the room [00:48:44] Hank Green: do you feel like popcorn is particularly loud yeses raise their hand we got we go we got we have one and a half hands in the room and you can see i'm counting you yeah [00:48:55] Demi DiGiwebe: and you so everyone's like this is a problem that you have i don't i just it's not particularly loud food i don't think it's that it's like noisy it's that i think to me it's just sort of like it is distinctively crunchy and i think it's like it's small so i understand the idea of like eating it in bits but i also think it's like it makes a noise and it's not a loud noise i'm never sitting in the theater like this guy is much and very loud but i am just i guess shocked that of all the foods to eat in as in a space that is meant to be quiet and i guess also it's not always meant to be quiet i can't be an expert because i i have not had popcorn in 25 years really yeah i'm not much of a popcorn at the movies person i feel like if i do it's like a i'm with someone and they want to split a popcorn or it's like sure the novelty of like oh sure why not but i'm not i don't love popcorn i [00:49:40] Hank Green: remember when my cousin took me to the movies he's like cousin that i ever hung out with much and he took me the movies and he like put m&m's in the popcorn yeah oh that's the way to do i agree i love it but then i got diagnosed with ulcerative colitis and it makes it worse so i just avoid the popcorn no m&m's are actually fine put them straight down both sides and you know what same time m&m's even [00:50:01] Demi DiGiwebe: noisier they got a bigger crunch i feel like you got really sensitive ears i'm measuring in like single decibel levels i'm just like this one's 12 decibels that one's 13 decibels i can't hear [00:50:11] Hank Green: christopher nolan's work anymore no i it's not i feel like that's christopher i can't see christopher [00:50:16] Demi DiGiwebe: nolan's work anymore that's for sure everything's so dark everything's dark bright mixing is so loud it's actually it's actively not i think if there was ever one director where it's like no the popcorn's fine it's not you won't hear it at all it's him yeah but i i in general like i think i'm just thinking about it from the sense of like this is a food that to me does have a sound to it and i think it's funny that any food that has a sound it should be all quiet foods you'd think junior mints [00:50:39] Hank Green: okay yeah hot dog great yeah ice cream you know the worst thing that i've ever had somebody consume in the movie theater behind me what dip spitting it into a can like he was new to it too it seemed like he didn't know how to do it well yeah you should like i'll figure this out all right by the third act i'll get into the can like it was like like amplified it i was like i'm gonna leave i just [00:51:02] Demi DiGiwebe: imagine him bringing like a giant boss like it's this platoon i'll slip yeah i missed that that time but by the time they kill this they go back to time and kill this kid but i did do a bunch of research [00:51:13] Hank Green: on how popcorn became a movie theater thing yes so back in the day when popcorn first like it has been a thing for a long time sure and it was just like a great fair food or like like circus food yeah because very easy to transport a bunch of it and the ingredients are cheap you have the corn you have the oil you have the salt and then like a little bit of it makes a lot of it and then the thing that cooks the popcorn very simple portable device yeah so they were around at fairs and then um theaters like early you know like the beginning of movie theaters they wanted to be like high class experiences that were basically like going to a theater you would watch like a play on or a vaudeville act so like a nice experience and they did not want people to bring food into this thing but people outside of them would sell popcorn and then they'd be like no you can't bring the popcorn into the movie theater so there was this thing the great depression sure heard of it they realized like actually we could probably make movie theaters like kind of a value experience like a cheap thing that lots of people could have access to in a time when people don't have access to many luxuries and they're like okay come on into the movie theater for like a more value experience and they're kind of caved to the popcorn thing yeah as like maybe we won't be like a highbrow fancy place and so first what they did is they let they like leased the interior lobby like little spots to popcorn vendors and like another thing about popcorn that makes it a really great snack food is that it advertises itself because it has that smell so like when you cook the popcorn it makes the smell you get a hot snack that's much bigger than like the thing that you have to carry around put it in a bag take another thing and then eventually they're like actually vendors get out of here we'll do this [00:52:45] Demi DiGiwebe: ourselves and make the money it's funny that you describe it as a thing where it's like the great depression made them cave to bring in audiences kind of like i think that's sort of what's going to happen soon i did have that thought when i was reading this you you hear people being like so much expensive stuff like nothing is value anymore you read headlines about them being like we're we're allowing people to bring their phones to this screening i'm like oh i don't i don't want that to be that's not yeah please don't break absolutely not i think theaters are they're not in trouble but they are constantly talking about like their one bad movie from going out of business yeah and i do feel a little like with the diversification of media and all of these things that like it's like well you don't it's not just there are three ways to entertain yourselves now there's like thousands of ways so why go to a movie theater it's like they got to find new things to draw people in and then when they do it's like people are like well i haven't been a movie theater in ages so i'm gonna talk or i'm gonna yeah be on my phone it's all this stuff like re-establishing all the the the uh norms of [00:53:40] Hank Green: of theaters i think got really bad during covid yeah yeah i mean it was wild to go to the minecraft movie with my son yeah because it was like rocky horror vibes or like there's like there were moments that all the kids were ready for and they would like do a thing i was like i love this they've seen [00:53:56] Demi DiGiwebe: the movie because it's like well you've seen it a million times and it's just like i heard about this yeah we gotta we gotta get ready to scream chicken jockey at the chicken jockey time which is fascinating and i'm like well i whatever bring them to the theater but then i'm also just like [00:54:07] Hank Green: there's gotta be a different way there's gotta be i don't know i loved it they were all so happy that that is like if it had been like a movie that i really wanted to enjoy i would have been pretty annoyed but it was after all the minecraft movie that yeah you can't be like pump down i want to see [00:54:20] Demi DiGiwebe: what jack black says jason moe is doing career best work here everyone needs to respect this they're putting their heads between each other's legs please and flying through a wall do you know do you know the amount of cgi work that went into this movie and you're not respect you're yelling yes i i do feel a little like i get curmudgeony with nothing makes me feel more like a oh you're old person now than with movie theaters where i'm just like you don't talk in here you you put that phone away even the movie's bad and i'm just like i i it's exciting that people are excited to go to a theater and you know why i go what just to get scolded by you well it's a symbiotic relationship you go for the it's gold it's sort of an snm relationship in that way uh but we're both paying 20 for it then who comes out on top amc yeah big regal big film nicole kidman's pocketing a dollar off of every every ticket that would be a crazy deal she would be a billionaire man she sure is in there i've started to realize that uh the reaction to nicole kidman early on is a good like litmus test for how successful a movie will be if there's no reaction it's like the movie's gonna do fine if it's a big reaction it's gonna be a hit movie because it means a lot of people who are not seeing this all the time are still reacting to it in a way where it's like this is novel this is cool i'm like oh you you this is the first time in a year you've been to the theater so you're like we're cheering we're still cheering oh yeah is there a cheering that happens oh does she ask us to cheer no people just i think like they like just get captured by her speech no it's just like it was a meme for a while so people would get excited about like seeing the nicole kid and just like applaud or like recite with it it's like that was the first year post-covid and then slowly just slowly dip down into being like all right we've seen this so many times we're over it when i was in college there will [00:55:58] Hank Green: be people out there who remember this the car mike theaters had like a like a giant on the screen roller coaster that you would go down together and my friends and i would always like put our hands up and we'd like to wait where'd you go to college or what city florida st pete this sounds familiar [00:56:13] Demi DiGiwebe: to me but i also don't think i've seen many movies in florida i miss it that's i that's what we had instead of nicole kidman was just like a glowing neon roller coaster and i do think it's really cool when every theater has their thing like that like i missed yeah at the vista they used to let's all go to the lobby yeah yeah i love that i love uh i have a video from when i saw the last jedi at the vista and they have the little pre-show like jazzy music and everyone's just going crazy and clapping along because we're so excited nice there used to be a i don't know why they got rid of this but it'd be like just sort of doing that thing of like different audience reactions to a movie and it's like a couple sort of like canoodling next to each other or someone just like looking excited yeah and the one that i love the most was a guy just jumping and throwing his popcorn up and they cut that out of it at a certain point i was like well that's the most exciting guy they took him out they took him out they're like you can't throw popcorn around in here they're like he's getting too much he's getting too many residuals off this cut his ass out of here he's getting a big head he's trying to make a career out of it he's going on tour as the popcorn guy it's like that delta lady who was like smoking is [00:57:09] Hank Green: not allowed she got big did she in my head anyway the algorithm fed you a hundred tiktoks about that [00:57:16] Demi DiGiwebe: lady you're like she's everywhere oh man she's like oprah something special about her demi thanks for doing this with me thank you for having me it's really nice to see you it's good to see you too remember when we were on gilmore guys remember that oh i do all those good times and thank you for [00:57:28] Hank Green: watching as well you could see demi's dropout special demi a did you be does one back flip on [00:57:33] Demi DiGiwebe: dropout.tv that's right i'm so excited i am excited too i think you're gonna like it if you enjoyed this or at least you made it to the end and you can handle an hour more of me check it out if [00:57:43] Hank Green: you would like to ask me anything you can post your questions in the comments and if you see a question down there that you like give it an upvote so that i know what people want answered i will answer a few of them over the next few days and also if you want more of ask hank anything or more of the many other cool things we're doing at complexly make sure you subscribe to the complexity channel right here youtube.com complexly i bet you can find the subscribe button they make it pretty easy to locate thanks for watching you can support complexly and get bonus videos from asking anything and more by going to complexly.org support also if you want to see more of what we're up to you can join the complexly newsletter by visiting complexly.org