How to Lie While Telling the Truth

Once I started thinking about this video, I saw more of these lies at every turn. They're common in political speech, and insidious in their usefulness. Often, once you click on the headline or watch the video, you even find out that you had taken the wrong message from the headline. And then, in that case, you feel like it's your fault that you misunderstood...but let me tell you, no one things as much about headlines and titles as the people who write them. They know /exactly/ what they're doing.

And you might think, "But if it's explained in the article...no one got hurt, right?" Except that the vast majority of people who see a headline do not read the article...the headline IS CONTENT and needs to be treated that way.

The innocuous headlie is REALLY common on YouTube. Video titles like, "We need to talk..." or "I'm done with this!" create the lie that a big deal is happening, which makes you click...and find out that, like, their swimming pool has a leak. Like, I've done that, and I feel less bad about it when the lie someone might walk away with isn't about, like, global warming or the future of America.

I just think we need more precise language than "clickbait" because sometimes, clickbait isn't bad...and there are lots of different ways clickbait works. The headlie is only one of them.

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[pcandrsn]

The mitochondria in a single kitten's body burn more fuel than all the hoverboards on Jupiter COMBINED. Just let that sink in.

[checkmateii]

"It's sneaky it's tricky and we are getting good at it!"
-Hank Green 2019

[Blabla]

The birth rate for people over the age of 25 has been increasing?!


That's... a long time in the womb...

[jessrose]

As a former journalist, this was something I took extremely seriously: not lying when conveying information. I had a lot of mentors and coworkers that felt passionately about that as well. Unfortunately, most of them don't work in journalism anymore because they couldn't afford to.

[austinmcconnell]

"Good morning, John. So... LIES."
*grabs popcorn*

[sanitysquota]

Hank, we need more of these. People are forgetting how to be critical thinkers. Please never stop reminding us to question

[ninaude]

YAY! FEWER TEEN MOMS!

Headlines: Don't tell them that....

[imaginationlord]

'No-one cares about good news' is scarily true.

[BEM]

A few months ago I started listening to podcasts on 1.25-1.75 speed while working. But for Hank's videos 1.0 is the max I can handle lol.

[kcwidman]

“There are three types of lies -- lies, damn lies, and statistics.”
― Benjamin Disraeli

[sophiepoyser]

Thank you for the deer. From a UK viewer who cant afford to fly over the pond

[scpg]

It feels like Hank heard the lecture my sociology professor just gave on “facts vs truth”.

[lindahoekstra]

Yes, I love that you're showing people how to think critically for themselves. Correlation does not equal causation.

[shakibzz]

I'm taking stats and a psychology research methods course right now, both courses, at the same time, and this is basically what I'm learning. The world is full of BS and you need to check the facts for yourself looking at the specific data, the scales of the graphs...
It's all very fascinating to me.

[grill-surf-bust]

We really needed a word for these lies. They're a big gateway into almost every conspiracy theory.

(Not only can you use truth to imply a lie, you can also use the truth to imply an unfalsifiable idea.)

I've usually called them "lies by implication". But head lie is way more colorful. Hope it sticks. : )

[PierceArner]

3:01 – *_1000x this for anywhere that publishes something even remotely resembling news._*

[fenja__]

Wow. I'm from Germany. I am learning English at school for 5 years now. I was not prepared for this super fast rabbit sentence in the first 10 seconds!
Thank you for teaching me things I used in English essays Hank :)
(You are literally 90% of my vocabulary)
Have a lovely day :)

[ElizabethTheJedi]

"No one cares about good news!"

It's sad, but it's accurate.

[ash-bob]

I love the deers! I’ve been *fawning* over them on twitter.

[abbiegibbs]

Can we have four minutes of baby deer footage? (Also this was a great video and I really liked it)