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423: Everything Old Is New Again episode artwork

Sep 10, 2025 43 min

423: Everything Old Is New Again

from Dear Hank & John

What is a nerdfighter? How do scabs work? How do I make my house feel like my home? Did John soft launch Keats & Co.? How much does the surface of the moon change over time? Do snakes take more time to digest their food if they’re bigger? How long is an era? …Hank and John Green have answers! If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [email protected]. Join us for monthly livestreams at patreon.com/dearhankandjohn.

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423: Everything Old Is New Again

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Hey, so something worth knowing is a benefit for the nonprofit organization that makes Crash Course and SciShow Complexly. It's September 16th, 2026 in Los Angeles, California at the Wilshire Ebell Theater. Please join us. It's going to be incredible.

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Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you advice and bring you news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon sometimes. And today I wanted to tell John the new goal of mine which is to become a bouillon air. Ooh, where you have a billion billions?

I've been investing in a lot of stocks. Chicken, beef, vegetable, all the major stocks. Yeah. Yeah.

You're becoming a bouillon air. I like it. Now the idea of this particular podcast, Hank, this particular episode, we're just going to let you peek behind the curtain everybody. Yeah.

I do hear is that this is a podcast that we now that we're going to be a weekly podcast again, we need to bank some episodes because Hank and I travel a lot. We get overwhelmed by work. We're easily overwhelmed people. And so the concept here is that this is one of those bonus episodes, but we're not supposed to reveal that.

The producers went to all these extravagant lengths to make it look like this is a regular episode. They were like, hey, just don't do news for Mars and AFC Wimbledon. But no, I'm going to do some evergreen news for AFC Wimbledon. I'm sure there's some evergreen news from Mars.

I mean, Mars literally never changes. You can just be like, Mars continues to not have much of an atmosphere. One thing I'm confident of is that no one's heard this week's news from Mars or AFC Wimbledon until they listen to the podcast. So it's going to be news to them.

Exactly. It's not like people are like, well, it's Monday, time to check in on my favorite third-tier football club. Hank, I'm excited to do this one-off secret episode that nobody knows. We should have a term for it.

We should have a term for it. Because we're going to have to do it a bunch. Now that we're going to have to do it a podcast episode, it's just that we can't do timely things. I can't tell you what's going on in the news today because that would be weird.

Yeah, yeah. Well, also because I'm not in that mood right now. I've thought about it enough. How about the timeless episodes?

I'm feeling timeless today, John. I'm feeling like someone didn't just say to me this morning. I saw a picture of you, but it was it was such a young picture of you that I was a little thrown off. And then I looked at it and it was me as a 35-year-old.

Yeah, well, you're not 35 anymore. You were 35. You had never had cancer. No, he was a he was I still have that jacket.

Some questions about that jacket. So you can say I stopped that jacket. Yeah, I'm still that guy. I've got the same clothes that he had.

We got an important question from Felix. Felix writes Dear John and Hank, I've heard you mentioned the term nerd fighter on the pod more times than I can count. Wow. He is a nerd fighter.

And if I wish to, how do I become one? Memento Vivomus Felix. I believe that means live in the moment. We live in a moment.

Felix. I assume that Memento Mora means like remember you must die. Memento Vivomus would mean remember you are alive or some some some. No, no, no, I think it means I think it means we live in a moment.

Okay. No, it doesn't means remember you must live. Oh, that's nice. That's basically like saying a Yolo, but in Latin.

Okay. A nerd fighter is not one who fights nerds, but a nerd who fights. And if you would like to be one, then you are one. These are the things that we would say in 2009 and 10 when nerd fighter was just becoming a thing.

Yeah. So the long backstory Felix is that in 2007, I was playing a video game at an arcade inside of an airport because there were arcades inside of airports in 2007. And I played a video game called aerofighters, but the thought made it look like nerd fighters. And I made a little joke about that.

And then people who watched our video started calling themselves nerd fighters. And so if you came to this podcast via your podcast app instead of via the Vlogbrothers YouTube channel, you have no idea what a nerd fighter is just like you don't have any idea what we look like. Like we're just voices to you. And to that I would say stay golden, Ponyboy.

You know, dawn goes down today and nothing gold can stay except for you, Felix. You can stay golden. Do not get on the social internet. Do not find out about our YouTube channel.

Do not do not follow Hank on Twitter. Well, that's not going to do any good. But we also got to recognize that watch people who watch Vlogbrothers probably don't know what nerd fighters are because it's not like we was not like we redefined the terms all the time. That's true.

It's a mess. It's a mess out here. They figured out from context, but it is true that it is a mess. It is hard to manage old viewers and new viewers constantly intersecting and interacting.

And it's amazing to me that community can emerge out of such weirdness, but community nonetheless does emerge. Indeed. This next question comes from L who asks, dear Janken Han, how do scabs work? Is that something I'm supposed to know by now?

I never watched them close enough to understand how it turns back into skin. Like, am I layers? Not M-N-O-P-L is from L. John, do you know what a scab is?

It's layers, man. My skin has layers. It actually is like a pretty specific thing, which is just like a dried up blood clot. Yeah, which is gross.

But that's what it is. I wanted to talk about this question because I have a theory that I don't want to rely on. Oh, great. I love it when you have theories about biology.

Well, I have a hypothesis that I don't know how to test. It goes like this. You know how you like to pick scabs? I love it.

But they tell you not to pick scabs. They do, but they're full of it. They also tell you all kinds of things that don't make any sense. Well, sometimes I've done it before, like where I pick a cap that's scab too soon, and then I'm like, oh, now I have to grow into a scab.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, but like, why did I want to do that? Why am I compelled to do this thing? That is, I think, not advantageous.

Right. Well, I mean, buddy, when you find out that humans behave in ways that aren't always advantageous to them, your mind is going to be blown. Yeah, but like, there's some reason, right? There's like a reason why we act in all these unadvantaged ways.

No, no, I don't know that there's always a reason. Could be a blackjack table and there's not always a reason. Sure, there's not always a reason. Oh, man, that reminds me of a video I want to do in another hypothesis I have about how gambling hacks masculinity, but we're not going to get into that.

We're not going to go there right now. This is another one. This is I was hanging out with Dr. Pimple Popper at VidCon.

Wait, you hung out with Dr. Pimple Popper? I hung out with the real Dr. Pimple Popper.

Sarah Hank met Dr. Pimple Popper. What is she popping pimples? Sarah wants to know if she was popping pimples.

She was not Dr. Sandra Lee was not currently popping pimples, but we're talking about being on YouTube for a very long time. She took a break from popping pimples to talk to Hank about being on YouTube for a very long time. I can't just keep repeating the conversation.

So we'll catch up on this later. Yeah, Sarah is very impressed that you met the actual real life IRL, Dr. Pimple Popper. Yeah, she was fun to hang out with.

I was like, why do you think people like the Pimple Popper? It's just satisfying. It's just a satisfying thing. I was like, why?

Why is it so satisfying? She was like, I don't know. I found this thing and people like it. I get to do my job and I get to, I'm still a dermatologist.

It's my main gig. And there's a weird side thing. And here's my theory though. Pimple Popping is scab picking.

I think that even booger picking the numbers of your children, some people find that very satisfying. I think that this all comes down to parasites. So parasites, traditionally, like skin parasites, four primates, very big deal, very big part of your life, trying to get them off. This is why we have itch.

Like, itches such a huge thing. You don't think about it. But we have like a whole system for pain, which makes sense. Because you have a whole system for itch that doesn't do any good except maybe for parasites.

Yeah. And so I think like all of it exists to help you with parasites. And I think that also the scab picking reflex and the satisfaction of pulling out a big booger or picking off a piece of scab or popping a pimple is all deeply tied back into the sort of evolutionary imperative to remove parasites from yourself and others. Like hookworms.

Well, mostly I think bugs. Yeah. Sure, sure. Sure.

Like it's about nitpicking. Yeah. We pick each other's nits. It brings us joy.

Yeah. And other primates do it too. I'm going to ask you a follow up question, which is does this perhaps explain why every night around 10 30 p.m. When I should be like getting ready for bed.

The Instagram, because I don't use TikTok anymore. It's too. It's too hard of a drug. I use the slightly softer drug of Instagram.

The Instagram algorithm is like, hey, it's 10 30 time to show you some ear wax removal videos. Absolutely. Absolutely. Because that's what you'd be doing normally at 10 30 rip before bed is you'd be like making sure that your partner doesn't have any bugs on them.

And they'd be doing the same to you. And I think this is also why when we're falling asleep, it's like suddenly itch. I have an itch. I have a niche.

Mm. Because you're very sensitive to itch when you're falling asleep because you don't want to bug to be in there. I mean, it's a good theory. Again, I do not know how to test the site officers, but in my quality.

This question comes from Anon who writes Dear John and Hank, in two weeks, we'll be moving into the house. My boyfriend inherited from his father. We've done some renovations, but it's still the same house as dad died in more. Even than that, it's the house his dad lived in.

There are so many memories and feelings. Do you have any advice from moving into our house, not the ghost of his dad's house? Thanks for getting me through this hard time. Anonymous hit me with this, John.

I think that it's time for wallpaper to come back big. Oh, wallpaper is back. I mean, among the, among the whatever the interior design version of Litterati is wallpaper is all the way back. I was just visiting our cousin Grace, who is a brilliant designer and Grace had all kinds of wallpaper and it looked great.

And I commented to Grace. I was like, you know, when I was a kid wallpaper was on its way out. Now wallpaper is coming back in and she said everything old is new again. Everything.

So yes. So go old. You think you want to make this place look new? No, shag carpet.

You need you need one of those like living rooms that you have to step down into for some reason. I do love those sunken living rooms. Sunken living room. You what?

You need some some some some wood panel walls with a vertical panels, not the horizontal panels. That was cool in 2000. No, no, we're going back to vertical panels. I'm going to push back on all of those recommendations.

And I'm going to say white walls gallery style, like your in a museum with lots and lots of art. Now doesn't have to be expensive art. You can go to student art shows get art for $12. Yes.

But you still have to frame them. So you have to give a frame tip, John. And that frame tip is always by standard sized art. Do not ever need to get someone to frame something unless you got the budget for it, because you do not know how expensive that is until the first time you walk into a frame shop and you walk out with a look in your eyes, like you just saw God, like it's it's intense.

It's true. You don't have to frame all your art. If you get a painting a lot of times, you don't frame that. So you know, you don't have to frame everything.

You get your handquifish painting at the project for awesome every year. And then you don't have to frame that necessarily because that's a painting. It looks good. Just hanging on the wall.

It is good to get standard art sized frames. However, you can also have some matte, you know, like if it's not a standard size, you can just have a frame that's bigger than the artwork and has some some background paper. Anyway, I think that you should like, because once you put up your own art, the wall stop being your boyfriend's dance walls and they start being your walls. This is this is what I believe.

Also, you can frame things that aren't art. You do this. Like records inspired by this. You have records you have like old notes from people that mean a lot to you.

You have just photographs of things that happened, like not necessarily like beautiful artistic photographs, but like things that mean something. Yeah, we're photographing. We have like a billion pictures on our phones. And it turns out that turning those into physical objects is not that hard.

No. So this is what I would invest in if I were you. It's like stuff on the walls, because stuff on the walls changes the walls in a way that like changing the walls doesn't. How do you lay it out?

Do you just like put one up and then start building around it or do you lay it out on the floor? Because Catherine's a big layer out around the floor person and she doesn't like my vibe of being like, I don't know, let's just see what happens. If we have to do a second nail, we do a second nail. Yeah, I mean, my number one recommendation on that front anonymous is to marry a known American museum curator.

Yeah, that's worked out well for you. So I don't know if there's another way and Dr. Pimple Popper enthusiasts. I mean, Sarah contains multitudes.

I don't know if there's another way, but that's the way I do it. So like, I have very little say, I mean, sometimes Sarah will ask me like, do you think this looks good here? And I'll be like, yeah, it does. But I don't know how to do that stuff, but you can figure it out together.

You figure out what looks good to you or you could always like go watch old episodes of trading spaces because everything old is new again and those episodes are very old. And then you got to like watch this interior designer like spackle hay to the wall for some reason. Yeah, worst thing I've ever seen. But that's going to really not remind you of anything to do with anybody but like the own mistakes that you have made.

Some of the episodes of trading spaces where they're like, we have a budget of $1,200. So what we've done is we bought $1,200 worth of hay and we're now spackling it to the walls. And I'm like, well, I'm paid for the spackle. So like, I don't even trust the budget, let alone the anyway.

We're getting off track here. We got it. We got to get to this question from Emily. Okay.

Emily writes, Dear John and Hank, I like listening to old episodes of your podcast. Thank you, Emily. They're great. And we play new ads.

So everything goes in again. Everything old is new again. In fact, the episodes from 10 years ago, solid goal. I mean, some of those 10 years ago, back in the day, we were so funny, so much funnier than we are now.

Now we've become a chain. I got a reminder that he John's not on book tour for three straight months. He does not remember how to make a good podcast for getting back into it. Yeah, he's doing great.

How long ago was that? Who knows? It's a timeless episode. Wherever and whenever I am, I've been on book tour for three straight months.

I've probably got to put this like next week. Like that's how I'm going to need a break. I'm going to need a break. I'm going to need a break.

I'm going to be honest with you. Just halfway through this episode, I feel like I don't know if I can do another. All right. I was listening to what that says the podcast.

And in it, John pitches a a million dollar idea for a T subscription service. One is Geezenko, a million dollar idea yet. And two, was it already in the works? And this was some kind of soft launch or a subtle wage wage community interest.

The episode came out February 17th, 2020. Now, on February 17th, 2020, there was a lot we didn't know that we were about to find out. But one of the things that we definitely in my opinion did not know is that we were going to watch a T company, right? No, no, no, we did not.

So I just had that idea. You just had that idea. And is it a million dollars? If you count all of Keats and Co, if you count the coffee, it's definitely a million dollar idea.

It's a million dollar idea in sales. It's not yet a million dollar idea in donations. No, no, just the T. The coffee team.

It's important to recognize the difference between gross and net, which I always forget the difference between even though I'm a 45 year old businessman. I'll grant you that you're a 45 year old men, but I don't know that you're a 45 year old businessman. I'm really glad you picked up on the schwa there. Yeah, I love a good schwa.

For whatever reason, businessman sounds wrong to me, but businessman since correct. Yeah, it reminds me of one of the all time great Jay Z lines. I'm not a businessman. I'm a businessman.

I could have, but I didn't. I'm not a businessman. I'm a businessman. Ever since you said that I don't know how to pod anymore, I've decided to get funny again.

Okay. I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings. I didn't hurt my I don't have any feelings left after three months on book tour. There's nothing.

There's nothing in me. I was at VidCon at some point in the past. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Could have been six months ago.

Who knows? Really, we always make the podcast in the past. That is the nature of time. It's true.

It's true. It's true. We don't we're starting to be up with the day after we record and everybody was like, where's John? Why aren't you doing a hot during the John and VidCon?

And luckily we had the book tour as a very good excuse. And the first time I was like, I don't know, I don't think he wanted to go. I would love to go. I'm just tired.

The second time I was like, oh, right. He did just finish the book tour. So I can say, oh, he just finished his book tour. He's so tired.

And then they're all like, was it like two weeks? And I'm like, no, John is at the U.N. on his book tour. He was in, he was in Lima, Peru touring tuberculosis hospitals on his book tour.

Like it was a weird book tour. It was a multi-conic book tour. And usually when you have one of those, you don't have a book about tuberculosis. But yeah, it was cool.

I mean, it was a really cool experience. I'm really grateful for it. But I'm mostly grateful for the fact that I actually came up with the idea for Pete's and Co. T subscription.

Not good for you. Good as soon as it was you. I think at this point in our brotherhood, there's no idea that isn't both of us. That's so true.

We probably had like talked about it the week before as like a vague concept to go along with the awesome socks club. And then, you know, then I pitched it or something. Who knows? Point being Keats and Co makes the world's best tea.

And you can get it right now by Googling Keats and Co. Now, if you're driving, pull over. Okay, don't look at your phone right now. Okay.

It's so good. It's crazy. But it is really good tea. Like it's worth pulling over for.

I always forget until I have to have like the kind of tea that they saw with the grocery store, because it's like at the hotel or it's at a friend's house. I always forget how good Keats and Co is. And I'm like, oh man, I'm drinking this. Yeah, it's pretty good.

It reminds me actually that today's podcast is in fact brought to you by Keats and Co. Keats and Co. 100% of profits to charity and 100% of tea into your mouth. This feels like a podcast.

It's also brought to you by haywalls. Hey, walls. Where do they get that spackle? And today's podcast is additionally brought to you by nerd fighters, nerd fighters.

You look just for future reference, it's all one word. And finally, this podcast is brought to you by the scab, the humble scab upon your arm, flaky and brown, reminding your ancient brain of some kind of infectious parasite that you must remove. It's beautiful. Beautiful.

Beautiful. This is a sponsor read there, Hank. That's, well, that's how they wrote it. So just doing what I was told to do.

You have to read parts of the ads verbatim and that was one of the verbatim parts. So yeah, they asked that you trail off in the middle of your sentence and then recover. It's written there in italics, trail off and then in italics recover. This episode of your Hank and John's Bronte is brought to you by Shopify.

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Quince.com slash deerhank. For more details. Alright, we got another question from Kieran. Dear John and Hank, how much does the moon's surface change over human timescale since there's no atmosphere and no wind on the moon?

Alright, when there's no atmosphere, there's no wind. That's right. I was just outside today. It's like, well, I can't tell you what the temperature is because this could be an...

Hey, about a temperature outside, how'd a temperature? Outside, how'd a temperature? Outside, how'd a temperature. The temperature was improved by the wind and I thought to myself, man, without the wind, life would be unbearable.

Anyway, life would be unbearable on the moon. I think we'll all already know it. Well, this part is brought to you by the wind. Without the wind, life would be unbearable.

How much would you pay for the wind? Exactly. If wind were commodified, we would all pay taxes for wind. We'd all agree that wind is worth investing in.

Anyway, I figure the surface must stay basically static. When I look at the moon, am I seeing mostly the same exact atoms up there as people did a thousand years ago, Kieran? Yeah, a thousand years ago, yeah. I mean, things move around.

Addams change. Things get... It's like the solar wind hits the moon and that can ionize stuff. But that's mostly already happened to the top layers.

It's pretty static situation. Now, things have changed, of course. The first time we... We changed the moon, so we crashed stuff into it very regularly.

The first human-made crater on the moon is from the 50s. Oh, wow. And we've crashed a number of rovers on the moon in an attempt to not crash them. Yeah, it's always a little bit delightful to watch those moon buggy videos.

Is that what you're talking about? Are you talking about the most recent rover? Yeah, the actual rover. So certainly, if we land something on the moon, it changes the moon.

We will occasionally be like, well, we don't want this thing sort of hanging around in space forever. And also, if we can just toss some dust up, we can do spectroscopy on that dust and then we can learn something about the moon that way. So we intentionally crash stuff into the moon. Yeah.

Wow. Humans are wild, man. I know. That's...

But then also other things crash into the moon. So just like, like meteors hit Earth, they hit the moon. Sure, but it's mostly the same atoms as it was about. Mostly, yeah, yeah.

Very little change. This is something I think about a lot because I live in a part of Indianapolis that's near a floodplain and as a result has a small forest that has been around for 12,000 consecutive years since the last glacier retreated from this part of the world in the last ice age. And I think about it because there's a continuous story of trees and shrubs going back 12,000 years, which of course is a blink of time in the history of life on Earth, but it's a very long time in the context of the United States, right? Like, it's 60 times longer than the United States has been around or something like that.

Yeah, no, it's about half the time maybe that humans have been in North America. Yeah, there have been trees on this land for a very, very long time, including like oaks and maples and similar trees to the trees that are around now. And that just blows my mind. I am a very temporary visitor to a very old forest that hopefully, and probably because of just geographic realities, will be around for a very long time after I'm gone.

And so really, I'm not the like, and I realize this is a comedy podcast. I apologize for going in an existential direction, but like, it is me. I'm not really the like owner of those trees. I am the like, I am a temporary participant in their very long story.

Yeah, yeah, especially because they're not going anywhere because it's all floodplain. Yeah, they're not going anywhere. I mean, you could cut them down, but like, why would you do that? Yeah, nobody's gonna want to.

Yeah, hopefully. That'll be a weird thing to do. So yeah, it's beautiful, it's beautiful, man. It makes me so happy to know that there are forests that have been around for 12,000 straight years.

But also like, there's something crazy about that in that, you know, we think about the moon as being very stable and the earth is being very dynamic, both because of wind and water and plate tectonics and also because of life, like life changes earth a lot. Right. But there's also something very stable, like wildly stable about life as a system that has just sort of like been perpetuating itself for billions of years, for three or four billion years. I don't know, man.

I just feel like nobody thinks about it. This is a hand cream mind-blower. Like really, the story of life is one continuous story that goes back, you know, billions of years. Yeah, so like a substantial portion of the life of the universe.

Right. And that there's this like, sort of film on earth, on near the surface of earth that is that is life. And we are part of that film, but like a relatively insignificant part. And I would make the case that life is going to outlast like you can, it may, it may not, but you could make the case that life will outlast the sun.

Shut the front door. I'm looking forward to making that video. No. Yeah.

Respectfully, how can life outlast the sun? Well, hit me with why I can't because the sun is going to consume the earth. It might not. It probably will.

We're not sure how big the red dwarf is going to get. Now, if it does actually, like if we're inside of the photosphere of the sun, that's going to sterilize the planet. Thank you. Thank you for that basic.

You're like, I mean, the oceans are going to boil, for sure. But like, I guess if we're inside the sun, that will be bad for life. That is literally my position. So I think the oceans could boil and there be no water left on the surface and there's still be life on the planet because we keep finding life deeper in the earth.

And that life feeds on radioactive decay that is going to be continuing to happen for many more billions of years than the lifetime of the sun. Is it possible that Edmund Hailey was right when he thought that there were little people in an earth inside of the earth? No. We just haven't dug down deep enough.

But bacteria, for sure. Yeah. I mean, I have to say, and I was going to say no disrespect to bacteria, but actually lots of disrespect to them. I know that.

And what about the helpful bacteria? Well, also, like what about, you know, everything is descended from single celled organisms. So come on, play. Yeah.

Yeah. But point being everything is everything interesting is descended from uninteresting life. And bacteria aren't uninteresting. They are kind of uninteresting.

There was actually these ones, like these bacteria like replicate like once every 200 years. They're very slow livers. Wow. That's kind of mind blowing.

Anyway, point being, I didn't mean all the bacteria on just are going to write in and say actually bacteria are very, very unsure that they are. And listen, I wrote a whole book about a bacteria called everything is tuberculosis. I can't tell you when it came out, but it came out in the past. It's still out, presumably, depending on when this is uploaded.

Maybe this is being uploaded in the distant, distant future and all the oceans have boiled. And tuberculosis is no longer a relevant fact. I have definitely made banked vlogbrothers videos that have never been released where I was like, I'll just have this one just in case. And then I forget about it.

There's videos on the vlogbrothers channel unlisted that will never be released. And I will never remember. You make so many videos, like I make a video on Tuesday, every Tuesday, and just barely get it out. And you make so many videos.

I've recorded eight videos this week, and it's Wednesday. Jesus, man. Which Wednesday? Who knows?

So point being a bunch of more sideshows, just over videos, but that's a relief point. The interesting thing about life. I mean, there's a lot that's interesting about life, but one of the interesting things about life is life finding a way to make itself known to itself through analysis, through scientific method, through consciousness, whatever. And that won't survive the oceans, boy, no, I don't think.

I think that it's really important for me to help spread the word, as they say, that life isn't only one kind of thing. One, that life isn't only one kind of thing, and two, that life has proved extraordinarily adaptive over billions of years. And I think that we are probably quite temporary. We are a brand new species.

There's no evidence that we will have to become an old one. But we're a tiny part of the story of life. The idea that life itself is going to collapse as a concept due to human intervention is just wrong. It gives us too much power.

And I think we need to acknowledge that we are very, very powerful, but also acknowledge the many, many ways in which we just aren't that powerful. There should be the last chapter of our book, but also because this is a thing we disagree on, where you think that we are going to be pretty temporary, and I think that we're going to be pretty long-lived. Oh, man. I wish there was a way to make money on that bet.

Like I can get this podcast and we named it Dear John and Hank. And there really isn't. No, no. It only pays out if I win.

It only pays out if you win. And it doesn't pay out to either of us, but to our distant descendants. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

I love that idea, though, that like, it's like, all right, well, it's 100 bucks and people will be like, what's 100 bucks? Totally. Totally. If we last a while money definitely won't be a thing anymore.

No. I can't wait for money to not be a thing, but I know that it won't happen in my life. Well, we don't know what's going to replace it. We don't know.

The Star Trek predictions for how life is going to go have not all proved correct so far. No, Irish reunification was supposed to happen last year. Oh, really? Yeah.

Well, let's say out of that one. In Ireland, you know what I learned about Irish reunification? I don't want to participate in this conversation. Here's...

Well, everybody's got an opinion and nobody has the same one. Okay. Let's answer another question from our listeners before my... Our dad calls us.

This next question comes from Kallie who asks Dear Hank and John, my partner is getting a snake soon. And there's one question he has to have an able answer for me. Do snakes take more time to digest their food if they are bigger and longer? Does it take a longer to move through or does the tummy just get faster?

This is dire, Kallie. It is dire because if this person is buying a snake, they should be able to answer this question. Well, I don't know. I mean, I could...

We have a snake when we were kids, blue, green, and I don't know if you should answer this. Take it better care of it. No, you lived a good life. Not a long life, but a good life.

Yeah. Well, possibly because we were feeding it too much. Snakes are wild and indeed they... It's, I think, probably less a function of the length of the snake than it is the size of the meal, but in general longer snakes.

Jesus Christ. I mean, it's almost impossible not to. That's what she said. Just what you said.

You're doing great, John. I had no idea I was doing it. It's just for clarity. The size of the meal.

It's a large meal. It will take a very long time to digest. And it's usually consumed by a bigger, longer snake. So bigger, longer snakes tend to eat far less.

In fact, they can eat like a large female anaconda and eat as little as like two or three meals a year, which is wild, because I mean, that sounds miserable. I love eating meals. Yeah. I mean, there's also a lot of other things about being an anaconda that I don't understand how I would feel about, right?

Like slithering. When I try to slither, I mean, you should see it's a catastrophe. That sounds awesome. Through the swappy swaps?

That's amazing. I love that. That sounds like a just a contamination nightmare. Yeah.

I don't know. I mean, but if I was a snake, I wouldn't be myself. Instead of having all that anxiety, I would just be like a snake. Yeah.

I think they probably get worried. Probably around like month five of between meals. Yeah. Listen, man, I do not like just in case God is listening.

I do not wish to be reborn as a snake. Is that how God works? Oh, yeah. No.

God's a huge reincarnation nerd. Okay. That's great. I love the idea that you get reincarnated as a snake and then you like do a good enough job and then you go to heaven and then you're just like, I'm a snake for a turn.

Why did I do such a bad job as a person and such a good job as a snake? You can invite it up to heaven and like at the pearly gates instead of St. Peter's just a bunch of rats and they're like, it does. Or it's like, Snake St Peter and Snake St Peter is like, you did such a good job.

Which is all we want to hear in the end. That's, you know, like all I want to, I actually, that's heaven. Heaven is just an authority figure saying good work. Heaven is hearing that you did a good job.

I don't even need it to be from an authority figure. I just need somebody to tell me I did a good job. Isn't that what Peyton told you when you had told her that you had cancer and everything? She was like, you're doing a really good job with this.

And that's all you needed to hear. Uh huh. Yeah. Now broke me in half.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Let's not, let's not do that again. Okay.

This next question comes from Harriet who writes, Dear John and Hank, I'm listening to the radio while driving and the presenters are having a very long chat about what era they are in. Colours are phoning in to share their errors. One caller is in a short era and another is in a mushroom era. My question is how long is an era?

How long will the shorts wearing in the mushroom you have to last to qualify? And what era are you both currently in? SwiGlo, sweet Harriet. Minimum length of era is say on three.

One, two, three, three months. Okay. You said six months? I said six.

I think that's not that different for me. Yeah. I think like as long as my era lasts a full season, because I don't want to be in my shorts wearing era in January. Yeah.

Although I know some kids who are. Do you remember? Did you have a kid like that at your school? We had a kid always wore shorts no matter how cold it was.

There's a whole vibe in Montana where it's like which kid can handle the cold best. Yeah. And there are always some of them I feel like are trying to brag and be strong and just green and bare it. And some of them I think are just snakes.

They just just cold and they don't like I was like like a bring a bunch of kids over to the house and there's this kid. He's got all of his coat and his gloves with him. It's cold. It's middle of winter.

He could put it on. He just is not. Yeah. We're on crocs.

Yeah. I'm in my crocs era by the way. Wow. That that's an era.

Yeah. It's gone on at least for six months. It has. It has.

It may be approaching a year now. Don't you have a sponsored relationship with crocs? Well sponsored by crocs. I no longer am.

Okay. It stuck. It stuck. I got him on right now.

I try not to have any of those brand relationships. But then sometimes I do. I do eventually have. Yeah.

You never want to have a Dr. Pepper brand deal. That would be for you. In fact, right now I'm wearing a this is not actually a whole plumbing or local plumbing company.

I'm wearing a shirt that says, Oh, plumbing on it. So obviously I'm going to be sponsored for nothing. I'm going to support hope plumbing just because I know one of the plumbers there. You like to be plumbed.

Wait, no. Hey, it's like a word for like having someone ask you a lot of questions and learn a lot about you. I understand what the word means. Okay.

What era are you in John? I'm in my Hank's channel era. That's for sure. Oh my God.

You love making a video right now. You're in your YouTube era. Yeah. I'm left my TikTok era.

Yes. I'm leaving behind my Twitter era. I'm leaving behind my microblogging era in total. That's great.

And entering back into your YouTube era. It's 2007 all over again when you did in microblog or post on Instagram. I went to VidCon. I hung out with Tyler Oakley.

I'm in my YouTube era. You're in your YouTube era. I like it. I am in my fiction writing era where after years and years of writing nonfiction, I am writing stories again.

And it's just like I'm making YouTube again. Exactly. Everything old is new again. Everything old is new again.

Title of the timeless episode. Well, that's weird. That actually is about timelessness. It is about timelessness.

We just we intentionally created a beautiful arc in this podcast that we knew about from the beginning. Nothing was improvised and everything was building toward this moment where we transitioned to the news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon. Hank, the news from AFC Wimbledon is that AFC Wimbledon is fundraising. You'll be surprised to learn because as a fan owned club, we have no other way to pay for players.

So AFC Wimbledon has released a video and a series of other things that say we are fundraising and we need to come together to become members of the Don's Trust to support AFC Wimbledon in any way possible. And if you're in a position to co-own this football club with me, you should go to AFC Wimbledon.co.uk slash membership and learn more. All right. Well, in timeless news from Mars, everybody always is like, this isn't so much of a thing anymore.

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This episode is 43 minutes long.

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This episode was published on September 10, 2025.

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