This week on the channel +955K views this week

Hank Green's last normal year comes with an algorithmic catch

Two vlogbrothers uploads connect John's doubts about living in public with Hank's argument about feeds reshaping attention.

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vlogbrothers Story of October 31, 2026Trari Newsroom

Why this story? The channel's weekly summary: what went up this week, what is drawing views now, and where the channel stands among similar channels.

The Last Normal Year

Things we can learn from the video

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0:00Hank questions whether any year was normal, then proposes 2016 as an internet-cultural turning point.
2:08He connects the shift to mobile internet, online advertising and algorithmically ordered social feeds.
3:25He argues that attention incentives encourage creators and media to amplify fear and outrage.
5:35Hank links feed-driven outrage with declining societal trust over the following decade.
7:07He argues that machine learning shapes people's realities by deciding which online material reaches them.

Bottle flips, Pokémon GO crowds and the Cubs winning the World Series: Hank Green's trip through 2016 starts with recognizable cultural souvenirs. In "The Last Normal Year," they become the setup for a less nostalgic question: what happened when feeds started choosing more of what we saw?

Hank begins with a caveat: "I don't think that there have ever been any normal years." But he argues that 2016 marked a turning point, connecting the rise of algorithmic feeds with incentives to produce fear and outrage. His closing thought is more personal than technological: "We are made of and by the things we watch."

The upload reached roughly 235,000 views in its first ten hours, making it the week's most watched new video and the channel's strongest source of momentum right now. Viewers are debating which year deserves the title, remembering how disastrous 2016 felt at the time, and pointing out that they still choose the subscriptions page rather than a recommended feed.

John approached the attention economy from the other side in "Should I Salinger...": the perils and pleasures of making videos and living publicly. Together, the week's two uploads make a companionable pair, one asking what public life does to its makers, the other what online viewing does to everyone else.

Channel viewing is close to its usual daily level, with subscribers unchanged over the week. Nearby in size, Haley Pham is experiencing a much sharper viewing upswing. For vlogbrothers, the older "The Productivity Lie" also remains active beyond a million views, arguing that getting yourself making matters more than making efficiently.

Published on Trari

Where next?

Also in Vlogs and daily lifeViews jump 6.7x the channel's usual paceHaley Pham goes book shopping for the new ACOTARHer October upload has reached roughly 1.8 million views as daily viewing across the channel climbs sharply.Channel: Haley Pham · Story of October 31, 2026

A different discovery todayVideo taking off 47x its usual first dayDiane Sawyer's Patrick Stewart interview closes World News TonightThe October 29 edition also covers Alaska's Senate probes and a Pentagon firing, but its comment section belongs largely to the actor.Channel: ABC News · Story of October 31, 2026

What viewers say

If all that happened in 2016, then logically 2015 was the last normal year
@cornishphilosopherSee it on YouTube
When you mentioned a contributing factor to 1996 feeling like the last "normal" year being the fact you were 16, my first thought was about being 16 in 2016, and thinking that year wasn't normal at all. Immensely funny you proceed to immediately bring that up.
@nataliedluneSee it on YouTube
7:15 "AI is in charge of whether you saw this thumbnail."
Nope, Subscription Page Hank. I like to be in control of what I watch.
@Master_TherionSee it on YouTube

5 more comments

Glad Hank remembers that we all said 2016 was the worst year ever at the time. People now have a weird nostalgia for it this year
@nestoons4539See it on YouTube
cant wait for john's response video 😂
@juno.moonpodSee it on YouTube
As someone who was 17 in 2016 I look back on that year with nostalgia in the sense that it feels so innocent in retrospect that we thought it was so uniquely terrible at the time. Like aw! We knew nothing 🥰
@Dollypeg99See it on YouTube
When you said everybody thinks their teenage years were the normal years I was thinking "I'm in my 40s so I'm pretty well removed from my teenage years and I think the last "normal" years were around 2015 - early 2016". I'm glad I let the video play out before commenting. Great observations about "the switch".
@youruniquehandle2See it on YouTube
6:46 - the phrase "attention is all we have" is *remarkably close* to the title of the paper that started the current LLM revolution 😂 it's called "Attention Is All You Need" and it was published in - you guessed it - *2017*
@gcrannellSee it on YouTube