by Hank Green
They swept that stage so much, but I feel like it never got any cleaner.
Her reply came in a half hour later.
Honestly, Andy, I sweep at work every day and I am not ashamed to admit that today it was a bit of a dance for me. Thanks for a great night.
I tried to not respond immediately, but I failed.
I’m headed out of town tomorrow, but would it be OK for me to call you when I get back?
Yup. ttys.
She was way too cool for me, but that was OK. Honestly, if we were just starting up a friendship, that would be doubling the number of friends I had in New York, which would be wonderful.
The “out of town” was an investment convention in France. I have no idea why, but they were paying me a lot, and it was hard to say no to big piles of cash. Look, I got off on the money. I know it’s gross, but April taught me to be honest.
The conference was in Cannes, a town on the Mediterranean that you have heard of because of the film festival, but that also is home to tons of other events. I was headed there to give a speech on the anniversary of the arrival of the Carls, and thus the anniversary of the first video I made with April. I didn’t really know how to feel about this date. It was both arbitrary and huge. It felt like something I wanted to commemorate somehow, if only in my own life and in New York.
But then I also wanted to completely ignore the milestone. I didn’t want to think about the fact that the last year, which had seemed like the whole rest of my life combined, had only been a year. And I had gotten used to not looking too hard at the things that hurt. That’s normal, or at least that’s what my very expensive therapist told me. And then there was the part where I didn’t have a topic that felt worthy of a momentous occasion.
I handled that conundrum the usual way: I went and checked out some of my favorite internet thinkers. These people had no idea what a huge influence they were on me, but all of my ideas were just amalgams of the stuff they were talking about. I tried to pull from a diverse group, Black women sci-fi authors, Chinese business analysts, nuclear disarmament experts, and of course YouTube video essayists. I hate-watched people with massive audiences and terrible ideas that were nonetheless resonating with people, and I watched the smart ones who had all my same biases. This was the only way I could have the number and quality of takes people expected of me. You watch four different videos, trying to keep all of them in your head at once, and then out flops an idea that looks and feels fresh and new. When I knew I was going to have to say something useful soon, I watched a LOT of videos.
It feels a little phony that my process works this way, like I’m an impostor who doesn’t have any real ideas, but I’m pretty sure this is just how ideas work.
The amazing thing about YouTube is that new channels just appear and disappear all the time. A new channel might pop up, and suddenly some smart lady from Baltimore is having a massive influence on the cultural dialogue.
There was a channel that had done just that thing in the last few months. It was called The Thread and it was weird. You almost had to be weird to get noticed these days. Good ideas alone weren’t usually enough. The Thread had uploaded his first video the week after April disappeared and it had gone pretty viral. It was about the song “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” His point was that we sing that song now while knowing pretty much what stars are. They’re big balls of protons and neutrons and electrons that gravity is smushing together so hard that fusion is happening.
But when the song was written, the wonder was legitimate. The person who wrote “Twinkle, Twinkle” didn’t know what stars were. In 1806, no one did! It was a beautiful video, aided by The Thread’s graphics and music, which were absolutely gorgeous.
It was, on its face, just interesting information in a beautiful package. But deeper than that, it was about how we as a society have learned so much so fast, and how we have adapted to big shifts in our understandings before. It was professional and thoughtful and it felt like it was about Carl without being about Carl.
But it wasn’t world-changing. It just looked like another popular video. But as the world started finding its new normal, The Thread’s videos started pushing more buttons and getting more political. And then The Thread actually broke a story, which was basically a brand-new thing for YouTube essay channels. In a video about money in politics, The Thread released a half dozen emails between a major donor and politicians of both parties guaranteeing that judges friendly to the donor’s company would be placed after the candidates were elected.
The Thread wasn’t just a YouTube channel anymore; it was news. The “Dark Money” video ended with information on how people could send encrypted, anonymous information, and ever since then, Thread videos had felt almost illicit. It was very James Bond.
Adding to the mystery was that no one knew who The Thread was. The creator of the channel had completely hidden his identity.
The channel had a new video up I hadn’t seen yet. As always, it was beautifully animated. The Thread never showed his face; you only ever heard a voice. It had to have taken a solid month just to make the graphics. The video was called “The Clear Path,” and it followed the course of a life forty years ago and the course of a life today. In the life forty years ago, the path was clear and obvious. The illustrated protagonist of the video did not need to spend time thinking about his sexuality or his gender or his religion. That same protagonist living life today was given options. What is your sexuality? What is your gender? How do you want to find connection and community?
The point the video was making now was that there was no longer a clear path, and that was more work. And, at that point, it was kinda pissing me off.
I felt like it was making it seem like allowing for different kinds of people was a burden. But then the video turned it around. Over illustrated images of happy families of all sorts the narrator said, “The reality is, the benefits of this far outweigh the costs. If we do not let people know that it is possible to be different, the ones who are different will live their entire lives in a kind of cultural prison. And there are so many ways to be different that almost everyone ends up feeling imprisoned by some aspect of a society that only allows for the default path.
“The problem is that, as progressives, we pretend that there are no costs, and that no one is losing anything,” the video continued. “But, of course, some people do lose—especially those whose power was tied up, not in their wealth, but in fitting comfortably into the clear path. Now, these people have only lost what they should lose, but that is also true of other forms of concentrated power. We’re in a system that tells, for example, the wealthy that they deserve all their wealth and it should be protected through force. So, naturally, the newly alienated feel singled out and victimized.
“The solution isn’t going back to the one clear path. The solution is, everywhere and always, the decentralization and redistribution of all forms of power.”
The video went from making me think it was too centrist, to pushing right up against being too radical. Then I went back and watched the original “Twinkle, Twinkle” video, and with those in my head, here’s the video script that flopped out of my brain at 1 A.M.:
Hey, everybody, it’s Andy.
The fact that it has been only a year since the Carls first arrived does not seem real to me. It feels like centuries, it feels like they have always been here. And, in a sense, that’s true. We’ve rewritten our story to match some new evidence. We didn’t just stop being alone in the universe when Carl arrived, we stopped ever having been alone.
We weren’t alone in the universe when the White Sox won the World Series in 2005. And we weren’t alone when the White Sox won the World Series in 1906. They existed when Jesus was born and when the first person spoke the first word. This doesn’t just change our present and our future, it changes our past. And I know that sounds silly, nothing can change the past. But we don’t imagine the past as
it was, that’s impossible, there’s just too much past to know, so we cobble together a story that makes sense to us from what we know. And when we get a big new piece of information, that changes what narratives make sense.
The Carls may not have always been here, but they certainly existed. They were out there somewhere, even if they weren’t standing on street corners.
It would be easy to just make a video that’s about how the Carls brought the world together, because in some ways that’s true. But also, it’s a huge burden to live in a world where we don’t know how we’ve been physically changed and psychologically manipulated by an outside intelligence.
We can either intentionally ignore it or accept that meaning is different now.
And this is a burden. I watched April love Carl, and I was always willing to go along with her trust, but there was a cost, and we are paying it now. The cost is in well-trod stories that now make less sense. It’s not that the new stories are worse, it’s just that we haven’t had time to settle on any good ones, and so now, many of us are adrift. And these moments in history when things stop making sense, they don’t tend to be stable times. We need strong stories, but we still must be very wary of those who offer them to us.
But the strongest story has not changed. The meaning of life is still, as it was, simply other people. When we care for each other, we are always in a place that matters. That is what I am thinking about on this anniversary. There has been a cost to our new knowledge, but it may not be as deep or as lasting as it feels right now.
* * *
—
Jason and I had set up encrypted chat because I was a high-profile target for hackers, and while I didn’t think I did or said anything that could be damaging to myself or other people, the last decade was littered with people who had been wrong about that.
I sent him a message:
Hey, I just finished recording a video. I’ll give you $500 if you edit it and upload it on the Carliversary tomorrow.
He replied almost immediately.
You got it, I can’t wait to see it, honestly.
It’s about the cognitive and societal burden of the Carls. I guess I didn’t feel like making a super happy one.
Hah. Well, remember when you told the internet to be nice to each other? Super happy doesn’t always turn out great. Is this video at all inspired by the new one from The Thread?
Hah, shit. I’m that transparent?
“Do you know who he is?!” Jason shouted from the other room. I got up and walked into the living room, where Jason was sunk deep into our couch on his computer.
“I’m as clueless as everyone else.”
“It’s fucking genius. You think a progressive white guy could make a video about the societal burden of social justice without getting crucified if he wasn’t completely anonymous?”
“I’m pretty sure he is getting crucified for that video right now.”
“His ideas are, absolutely. And I don’t mind that. But no one is sending letters to his house or brigading him off Twitter because there’s literally no way to find out who he is. No one even knows if he’s a white guy! He takes identity out of it completely.”
I sat down on the couch. “He’s definitely a white guy,” I said.
The Thread was so serious about anonymity that he hired a different voice actor every episode. People had found some of the actors, and every one had been contacted and paid anonymously. He didn’t turn on ads, and there was no way to send him money, so, legally, The Thread didn’t even exist. The Thread understood how fame worked and had run with it.
It was also genius marketing because it felt so mysterious. Like, was this person famous? Was he wealthy? Was he someone I’d met? But it was also something I understood all too well. I was attacked all the time for being a professional manipulator of public opinion, and that makes sense. I’d made a video a few months after the warehouse about how kindness was important and people on the internet were too cruel to each other. I maybe went a little bit overboard with the criticism, and the response was . . . a lot.
Turns out, there are lots of people who are unkind not just because it’s fun, but because they believe it’s the right strategy. And getting on those people’s bad side is unpleasant because of how they believe very strongly that being a dick is a vital part of making the world a better place. And hell, who knows, maybe they’re right.
“Yeah, I mean, he’s probably a white dude,” Jason replied.
“But you’re right that he’s able to say things he wouldn’t otherwise be able to say by removing his identity. It’s fascinating and also a little terrifying.”
“And also already being copied,” Jason said.
“Really?”
“Yeah, there’s a channel called Common Dissent that has the exact same MO. All animated, anonymous host, no ads. He doesn’t respond to anything The Thread says directly, but he’s gathering steam the same way, and in a different direction. It’s grown a lot in the last few weeks.”
“I guess we’re at the point in history where being a person has become a liability. Better to just be a disembodied jumble of ideas.”
“And then you just walk away and let other people argue on your behalf.”
“‘Other’ people or computer programs pretending to be other people.”
It was true, The Thread had paid for an analysis that had proved that a lot of arguments happening in the comments of his videos and other video essays were being had by combination human/AI content farms . . . and then he made a video about it. The battle for hearts and minds was being waged, in part, by beings without hearts or minds.
Daniel Judson
@DetachedNihilist1
Is death just god moderating the comments section? I know it’s not PC to say, but I for one am enjoying April May’s shadowban. Too Soon? Lol
2.4K replies 894 retweets 6.3K likes
CARSON COMMUNICATIONS OUTAGES CONTINUE
If your internet service has been spotty the last couple weeks, you’re not alone. Internet outages have been rippling across South Jersey for weeks now, with Vineland and surrounding areas being the most affected, but complaints being registered as far north as Cherry Hill.
“Part of the value we provide customers is high-speed internet,” said Derek Housen, owner of Wolton’s Dream Bean Café. “We haven’t had stable internet in six weeks. I’m paying my bill, but I’m not getting service. I’ve taken to setting up a hotspot with my phone, but the data charges are out of hand.”
Carson Communications, the company most affected, has been in communication with customers, but service remains inconsistent and slow. “We have had technicians in the field every day for over a month now,” said a spokesperson for Carson. “We are aware that we are not providing the level of service we aspire to.”
Though representatives did not confirm this, several Carson customers told us that they have been receiving partial refunds for periods of significant outage.
MAYA
My hands are huge and made of metal, and they’re scraping away at the scraps of a collapsed building. I am giant and joyous in my strength. My invincible fingers dig into the brick and steel, and it feels like digging through balls in a McDonald’s ball pit. I am unstoppable. And then I look down and see that the dust and wood and crumbling bits of brick are wet with blood. I lean down to look and see April’s eyes and snap awake.
I used to puke when I had that dream. It had been coming less often now, and I’d been more able to handle the fallout. But I still shook, sweat coating my skin. I pulled the sheets off of my body and then wrapped myself around them, to feel like I was holding something. Or maybe just to feel like there was something else in the world besides the emptiness of failure. There was no way I was going back to sleep.
Here was my working theory that I had gleaned from conversations on the Som.
Cable int
ernet slows down when more users are on the system, but this shouldn’t be system-wide. Basically, cable internet is like a giant underground tree with branches that are sometimes physical, sometimes coded into the frequencies being used in the signal. Multiple customers use the same frequencies and the same branches, but if one branch is over capacity, all the other branches are completely unaffected.
But in South Jersey, all of the branches were being affected, turning on and off at random like a string of Christmas lights. My theory was that, if this had something to do with Carl, which every other conspiracy theorist on the Som also believed, there would be some pattern that might lead us to where or how all that extra bandwidth was being used.
I figured if I could follow some vans around for a couple weeks and map out where the problem spots were, maybe I could find some kind of pattern.
My first day of this was a learning experience. I had thought that I would go to their dispatch office and maybe follow vans from there, but I actually spotted one before I even got there. I did a quick U-turn and followed it a couple cars back, doing my best to not focus on how ridiculously I was behaving.
About fifteen minutes in, the van pulled up at the biggest barn I’ve ever seen. Painted on its front it read “Cowtown: Often Imitated Never Equaled.” Next to the giant red barn was a giant red cow. It was distracting enough that I almost lost sight of the van. I pulled into the mostly empty lot and parked a few cars down from my target.
I tried to get a look at the guy. He was wearing a blue denim shirt and a white cowboy hat. His belt was buckled at the base of a tight, round belly. I only got a quick glimpse at his face as he pulled a few big cases out of the back and put them on a hand truck to wheel them inside the massive barn. I waited a couple minutes and then followed him in.
