OOM3:  REMEMBER TO “BE YOURSELF” - WITH HANK GREEN AND POET JOY HARJO

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TYLER: From PBS NewsHour Student Reporting Labs.

ASHLEY: and WETA,

TYLER: This is On Our Minds

ASHLEY: with Ashley

TYLER: and Tyler:

ASHLEY: a podcast about the teenage experience made by teenagers for teenagers.

TYLER: because we all need a place to feel heard.

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TYLER: Hey, Ashley.

ASHLEY: Hi!

TYLER: Okay, so I have kind of an interview question for you.  

ASHLEY [00:00:46]Great. I love interview questions. [laughter]

TYLER: So, you know, we've been doing a lot of episodes of On Our Minds. But what would you say has been the highlight of your experience as a host for the podcast so far?

ASHLEY: Oh, there's so much I, I feel like I've loved every part of being a host, but if I were to pick one experience, I would definitely say us going to South by Southwest EDU!

TYLER: Yes, SXSW that was like really just an out of this world experience.Basically a lot of different educators and professionals in the education field come together and they hear panels and discussions from all these different leaders in Austin, Texas.

ASHLEY: It was such a cool experience like, there was really nothing like it, honestly. Like getting to meet Hank Green.

TYLER: That experience was so crazy just because that was like my first in-person interview. So a lot of you probably have heard of Hank Green already. But for those of you who haven't, he is a part of starting this YouTube channel called Crash Course.

        HANK GREEN: [excerpt from Crash Course Chemistry]

TYLER: I'm sure that if you don't know it, somebody around you knows it because it has so many videos and they have like what, 14 or 15 million subscribers on YouTube. His brother is John Green, who's like really books, Hank Green has also written books he’s started other YouTube channel called the Vlog Brothers and Sci Show, and now he's got this college program with YouTube and Arizona State University. And he's a really interesting person, and I'm so glad that I got to talk with him.

ASHLEY: Absolutely. So let's play an excerpt from your conversation with Hank.

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Tyler: Hello, Hank Green. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Hank Green: Thank you. It's a really pleasure to be here

Tyler: I've watched so many Crash Course videos and SciShow videos, and it really has had an impact on my education from like middle school to high school. How does it feel to know that something that just started as an idea in your brain becomes so successful and is used in so many classrooms?

Hank Green: Honestly, it's like a dream world. It doesn't seem real.  For a long time we had no idea how utilized Crash Course was in schools. And I was like, one day we woke up and was like, “Oh, it's like every school in America uses this” and like, but we have no idea how to prove that. All I know is if I go to any university in America, people stop me. And like everybody has seen my face in their biology class. It's the best thing I'll ever do. I'm sorry to my son. He's also the best thing I'll ever do. [laugh]

Tyler: So with more and more teenagers and young people spending more and more time on the Internet, mental health has become a serious topic surrounding social media and technology. How do you think social media and platforms like YouTube impact mental health of young people?

Hank Green: I mean, I don't think that the Internet is great for people's mental health. I think that the Internet is a bad coping strategy. I don't think that it's bad overall. But I think that if you're going through something, if you are feeling like you can't get out of a rut, if you are if you're depressed, if you're anxious, it's really easy to find a basically this like a coping strategy that is designed by some of the smartest people on earth to keep you stuck in it. It's designed to be a rut. It's often not providing like true social connection, which is I think a lot of what folks need when they're in that situation.

Tyler: Do you have any advice for people who are trying to navigate their mental health while also acknowledging that they spend too much time on the Internet?

Hank Green: I force my phone to stop me. There’s ways to say I can't use this app after a certain time. It's almost like I'm afraid sometimes to stop looking at the phone because I don't know what's going to happen in my brain. And so I want to use my phone until I'm asleep to protect myself from that. And that's no good. [laughter] So I have rules for when I can use it at night specifically and I think that's really important.

Tyler: What advice do you have for any aspiring content creators?

Hank Green: Oh, don't do it. [laughter] No, I mean, I. I love seeing people coming up on TikTok. But it's also always terrifying to me to watch these, you know, 15 to 22 year olds just opening themselves up to the whole Internet, which is – it's as it's very scary. I've watched as these people have gained like fairly large audiences and, you know, they walk around their college campuses and everybody knows who they are, but they make like an extra $500 a year. It's not like a great way to make money. How I have started to think of it is like it's kind of like being a musician. Very few people who can play guitar well do it professionally. They do it because they like it and because it feels good and because it's a process and because it connects them to something. And so I think that it's it's best when it is about creation and community.

Tyler: I have one final question. What advice would you give to a teenager or a young person getting ready to embark on adulthood?

Hank Green: Oh, man, that transition for me was like both the best and worst part of my life. I’m always worried about the 23 year olds, people who just graduated from college. I moved to Montana for a girl and I quit my job, which was pretty good to go live in Montana. I was like I can get a job at at lab, there’s no labs in Montana. You know, and I have like eight jobs at the same time. And they all you know, they were all like 5 hours a week. It was a lot of fun, but it was also miserable, but like, it's not supposed to work immediately and you're not supposed to know who you are. Everybody is like, just be yourself. And I'm like, Who the heck is that? I don't know who I am. Stop. I'm 42 years old. I still don't know who I am. Try and stay connected with friends. Try and spend time with people that you like and who like you. Listen to listen to what works, not what your brain is telling you works, if that makes sense at all. Try and pay attention to it, to the good moments. Write them down because there's going to be hard times and they're going to outweigh they're going to seem like much bigger than they are, I think.

Tyler: That was really great advice. I'm going to take a lot of that away with me personally. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Hank Green: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Yeah.

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TYLER: One thing that Hank talked about was that everyone said to him, “be yourself.” Strangely enough, that phrase came up the following day in another interview at the conference.

ASHLEY: Yeah. We were joined by a number of Austin area student reporting lab students and Ingrid Smith, who goes to McCallum High School, interviewed former U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo and illustrator Michela Goads about their new children's book called Remember.

TYLER: Before we play an excerpt from that interview, first here is Joy Harjo reading her poem “Remember,” which is the text of the new children's book. 

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        Joy Harjo reading “Remember”

Remember the sky that you were born under,

know each of the star’s stories.

Remember the moon, know who she is.

Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the

strongest point of time. Remember sundown

and the giving away to night.

Remember your birth, how your mother struggled

to give you form and breath. You are evidence of

her life, and her mother’s, and hers.

Remember your father. He is your life, also.

Remember the earth whose skin you are:

red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth

brown earth, we are earth.

Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their

tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,

listen to them. They are alive poems.

Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the

origin of this universe.

Remember you are all people and all people

are you.

Remember you are this universe and this

universe is you.

Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.

Remember language comes from this.

Remember the dance language is, that life is.

Remember.

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Ingrid: Miss Harjo, How have the themes and messages conveyed through your poetry changed?

Joy Harjo: It was first published in 81 in She Had Some Horses. But I wrote that poem, I think I was still an undergrad at the University of New Mexico. And somebody asked me because I was becoming visible as a poet, even though I was a student, and just beginning, but  what would I say to a younger native poet? And that poem came, came. And I've come to realize that often what comes through in our arts and poetry and and all of our arts is it's often beyond us. We grow into it. So I felt and I feel that that poem as it had a larger mission than me, and I just helped bring it in. I had to finesse it like you do, like the spirit of the poem came in and then I had to make a little place for it to live. That poem has gone all kinds of places without me, you know? [laughs] And it's it's even on the Lucy Spacecraft right now, going heading towards Jupiter's moons. And so what I've learned through the years is that I'm a I'm kind of a I wouldn't call it necessarily a messenger, but I stay open to what it is. I listen and I help bring stuff through. It often, it teaches me. It's often things I've not heard before in a certain way. But that's what's so compelling about being an artist, is that you're listening in new fresh places and going fresh places in your expression.

Ingrid: As a student journalist, is there any advice for American teenagers or young natives who are interested in getting involved with the arts?

Joy Harjo: That's my next book is advice for young people coming up, [laughter] How I, how I failed, how I've, how I'm alive now. But you know, somebody gave me advice. It was one of these wise teachers from Pueblo Indian Mexico, an older woman. And she she looked at me and I was going through my dramas and she looked at me, she said Be yourself. And of course, I thought, Wow, that's easy. You know, that's simple is too simple. But it was turned out to be the most profound found advice, because I remember being a teenager. I still have PTSD from being a teenager. And that's, it's so profound. If I could just be, you just be yourself. Well, what does that mean? But that's an incredible journey. But ultimately, you have to honor who you are. Doesn't matter what your story. Who did what or shame or. We all go through stuff. Some of us go through more than others. Sometimes, you know, I remember being suicidal and and and cutting and all of that kind of thing. But I think if I had really taken in Be Yourself, then I would know that whatever happened, it's part of the story. And it depends on what you do with the story. You can use the story to destroy yourself or you can use the story to to grow into the most magnificent person that you were meant to be. Because we all were. We were all put here as part of this story and we were all given gifts. And they may not look, they're not going to look like the person next to you, even if you have five young journalists wanting to be journalists. Everybody is different. Every poet is different. And every artist, we all have, everybody has their gifts. So it's important to honor that. And there are things you don't understand. Maybe you will someday. There are some things we might never understand, and sometimes it's hard to make peace with that.

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ASHLEY: Joy Harjo mentioned suicidal ideation and cutting. If you – or someone who know – needs help, text 988 to get free and confidential support from the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.

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TYLER: I love that Joy Harjo talked about what it means to be her, to be yourself. For me, personally, I'm about to go to college. Something that's really been on my mind is like how I'm going to reinvent myself like the kind of clothes I want to wear, the kind of hairstyle that I want to have or whatever, or what I want to look like, the kind of personality I kind of want to shape into or something like that, or my friend groups and all that stuff. But also at the same time, like it kind of can get easy to like begin to align yourself with what you think that other people would like about yourself versus what you like most about yourself, you know?

ASHLEY: I definitely agree. And I think it says something that two of these massively successful, inspirational people kind of give the same advice of "be yourself" because no matter what place of life I'm in, I never want to lose my authenticity. I never want to lose who I am.

TYLER: Like even these, you know, people who we consider like, you know, big celebrities and, you know, it may seem like they have their lives all together or whatever, but like, everybody's still working on themselves and figuring themselves out. And I just want to say, Ashley, you know, we met each other for the first time in person at SXSW. You are so talented and smart and kind and you're amazing. 

ASHLEY: Tyler, that's so sweet! And thank you so much. I want you to know that I feel like the exact same thing applies to you. Like I so, so, so enjoyed being able to talk to you in person.

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ASHLEY: Up next, the episode we recorded in front of a live audience at SXSW EDU podcast stage. 

TYLER: I love this episode!

ASHLEY: Woo! Credits.

TYLER: Today’s episode was produced by Lead Podcast Producer Briget Ganske.

ASHLEY: Editorial director Marie Cusick and Executive Producer Leah Clapman.

TYLER: Theme Music by Jackson Tiedens.

ASHLEY: Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions.

TYLER: On Our Minds is supported by the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations.

ASHLEY: If you or someone you know needs help, we have a list of resources at studentreportinglabs.org/mentalhealthresources.

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