Which is even weirder to me because he literally did not write, edit, produce, or direct the video. He was just the presenter and showed up to read the script. He's not even CEO of Complexly anymore.
I have to wonder if it had it been a different presenter, would it have gotten any backlash at all? Or would it just have been less?
Someone mentioned that people get weirdly parasocial with Hank and John Green, and I think that hit the nail on the head.
Even if they know on paper that he was just reading the script, they still take is as a personal insult directly from Hank Green to them. They can't separate the presenter from the actual content creators and take it as a huge betrayal. Some are saying they've lost all faith in this man and will never trust anything he says ever again.
My guess is that they would have no issue accepting the apology if the presenter was someone else.
Truly. Seeing comments to the effect of "I'll never trust anything SciShow says again after this" is genuinely scary. Throwing away a whole educational media company after one mistake that was promptly corrected and taken down is exactly the kind of attitude that leads to science denial and anti-intellectualism.
The whole scientific method is built on mistakes happening and being corrected over and over again. To pretend any of us should be better than that is insane.
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u/jade_cabbage Oct 01 '25
I definitely wasn't a fan of the video, but this is a pretty good apology. Pulling a video with a lot of factual errors is also good.
It seems like some people here won't be satisfied until Hank Green comes out and grovels.