If you're a fan worried I might ruin the Vi Hart Brandsperience this video is especially

for you.

Now, a youtuber's brand is this delicate thing sustained through collaboration between

the artist and audience.

If I started younger I probably would have been more into the social vloggy youtubery

aspect where we have a community with a name and we do tags and form an identity, not because

that's what younger people do but because that's the norm, that's the top ten tips

for success on youtube, and at that point I wouldn't have known what I want from life

well enough to know that's not the direction I want to go in.

Some of our inside jokes and vihart lingo would be purposefully created, but some of

it would just kinda happen, like, we've all got our hands on the little ouija board

triangle thingy but no one feels like they're directing it when all of a sudden we all agree

that cats are the waste product of a particularly complicated multidimensional robot.

hmm, kinda makes sense when you think about it.

And now that's the truth, or at least its canon, and after a while what's the difference.

We would be such a good cult.

We have so much amazing cult potential, it takes effort to not accidentally become a

cult.

Anyway.

Suspension of disbelief is an interesting thing with many varieties.

Take the doodling in math class series.

"Say you're me and you're in math class and…”

This is standard suspension of disbelief where I write straight up fiction and you enjoy

the story.

You don't have to think about it very long to realize I'm not talking to myself in

a real math class as I draw in real time.

It has scripted narration on top of heavily edited film.

However, youtube has some features that traditional film did not, which can lead to a sort of

communal extended suspension of disbelief.

Sometimes I get comments asking about what my math teacher thought or did I get in trouble,

responding to the character I play in the video rather than to actual me.

I assume a lot of these comments are from folks consciously enjoying taking part in

the fiction.

And some are probably from folks in that fuzzy suspension of disbelief state where you're

going along with a story without really thinking about it, I mean if they stopped to think

about it they'd know I'm not really in my math class but they're enjoying a youtube

binge in an extended suspension of disbelief state so they don't stop to think about

it, that would ruin the experience.

Overactive suspension-of-disbelief is common and encouraged in children but even as adults

its normal to have knee-jerk emotions based on fiction.

Like, you have a gut reaction against a stranger on the street and then you realize they look

just like the actor who played the villain in a show you used to watch.

Our brains are just really good at giving us fast first impressions based on fictional

depictions of people, and then logic catches up and we either set ourselves straight or

rationalize.

Sometimes our instinct is to idolize someone that we know we don't actually know, and

sometimes there's a bit of a blurred line, say with vloggers with branded personalities

where you feel a bit like you know them even though you know you're getting a highly

curated view of their life, and there can be some beautiful and worthwhile things in

that connection if it isn't abused.

See, YouTube is a giant cross-temporal ouija board with an algorithmic triangly thingy

that collaborates with viewers to create the stories you want to hear without you feeling

like you're moving the triangle thingy even though of course you are, along with a million

other people.

So the triangly thingy, ok let's actually look this up because I'm sure there's

a word for it, the Planchette.

Recommendation Algorithms are a giant Million-person Cross-temporal Planchette.

Yeah I was hoping for a funner word.

Maybe we could use the English translation which is…

Planky.

The internet is a universal planky that points us to what we want to believe without us feeling

like it's our fault.

The intended use case of the algorithmic planky is a smooth user experience, I can keep on

being a pair of hands doodling in real time in my gradeschool math class for as long as

you want and you never have to see my other kinds of videos or think about the fact that

these things take me weeks and I'm a professional in my 30s with a face before off you go to

some other story, hopefully one with advertisements cuz planky is hungry.

So.

I've been making videos where the story is that I hate Pi for 8 years, starting with

the viral success “Pi is (still) Wrong” and most recently with “Alternative Pi”.

But I don't hate Pi.

I mean, I do honestly think the circle constant should have been Tau, but I think pi is fine,

there's plenty of unfortunate notational choices that make math confusing and pi certainly

isn't the worst of them, I think celebrating pi day is a good thing to do even if Tau day

is twice as good, and so I celebrate Pi day loudly and publicly every year with another

installment in this manufactured controversy.

Anyone who stops to think about it, who stops suspending their disbelief, will realize I'm

not a student in algebra class who hates Pi, I'm an artist enjoying engaging an audience

with a passionate mathematical experience, but if you're just browsing around you might

not think about it much and move on to something else thinking “wow there's some chick

who really hates pi” instead of applying your media literacy skills to every single

youtube video you consume ever.

I mean, if you're not continuously suspending your disbelief while you watch youtube it

kind of ruins the experience as you realize how much of it is just product placement and

sponsorships and shallow clickbait meant to take advantage of the stories we're collaborating

with the algorithms to tell.

What I mean is: we're not just listening to the stories already there, we're telling

stories to ourselves through our searches and clicks and views, and the more shallow

the content, the easier we can fit it into our story instead of listening to someone

else's.

Which is why I try to not be shallow so you can't take my story from me,

Anyway I'd originally heard that pi is wrong from the mathematician John Conway through

word of mouth and I found some other things people had written about it through the years

but there just wasn't enough righteous anger in these math facts to make a good story,

so that was my contribution to humanity, and others joined in, first people I knew and

then people I didn't, and now instead of me telling the story planky can help you do it

in whichever way best serves all our secret desires.

Our secret desire to be told we're smart and know better than those Pi people, if you're

on the Tau side, or better than those Tau people, if you start on the Pi side, or better

because we accept both or don't care.

Same story.

We all want to suspend our disbelief and take part in a fiction where we're better than

other people, what safer, better outlet for that than this fun little controversy about

Tau vs Pi?

We enjoy arguing and engaging with mathematical discourse in a way that harms no one and that

I hope makes people a bit more conscious of the mechanisms of manufactured controversy.

BUT IF I WERE EVIL.

Or maybe just if I got too wrapped up in myself and didn't know better.

Here's how to ruin everything.

Step 1: create a group identity around a shared belief.

For us of course it's that Tau rules Pi drools, we got that down, but it doesn't

really matter what it is.

It can start as something simple, innocent, enjoyable to argue about without it really

mattering.

It can even start as an opinion.

We'll pivot to bigger and stronger beliefs in phase 2.

But first:

Step 2: create a body of rhetoric that the group can repeat to defend their belief.

We know our talking points.

Simpler equations, easier to understand, we've got rebuttals to their talking points too.

As the group evolves beyond just being about Tau vs Pi we will expand our talking points

to be that it was never really about pi vs tau, it's about revolutionizing education,

or maybe it's about how only truly smart triangles are reasonable and open minded enough

to accept new truths like Tau but also including the bigger beliefs of phase 2.

Having multiple layers of rhetoric is good because you can switch whenever one isn't

working.

Whatabouts and its-really-abouts are such good friends.

Step 3: spread the word / start beef

It's all in good fun, at least, in phase 1, the phase 2 version is start beef.

But you've got to send your people out there to argue and act independently of you.

First I'll send out the Tauists to merely inform and link Pi people to some Tau information.

It's educational and just sharing something we love.

In this step we'll even recruit more tauists who want to join the fun and who think the

math is interesting, and successful conversions make us look legit.

As we get into the habit of taubombing people it's inevitable that at some point someone

will go a little over the line.

At this point one might realize that being a leader comes with some responsibility, but

you must resist that urge, you can't control other people's actions, and anyway if some

random person is upset about being called a loser for liking Pi, it's just because

they don't get the joke, they should come join us, not get mad about it.

We'll all share a laugh over it so that everyone knows they have permission within

the group to make mistakes and go a little overboard, it's not a big deal.

You might recruit some folks but the goal of this step is to gain enemies, eventually

someone is bound to overreact even to the lightest teasing.

But in stage 1, even someone pretending to be an enemy for fun will do, because we'll

pressure them to either admit they're not really against us, which is a win for us,

or to become a true enemy, which is a win for me, because now I can move on to:

Step 4: Make your group members feel like the scum of the earth and that everyone hates

them.

It might seem counterintuitive, also unethical, but this step is so important.

I need to constantly put my followers down by using other people's worst words about

them, and luckily we've manufactured some enemies, don't worry about whether your

enemies are actually causing real world harm to anyone, that's not the point.

You just want to make your followers feel attacked and disrespected.

Think of it as if your enemies words are swords, and its not your fault if it hurts your followers

when you show them those swords.

In the face.

Don't get distracted by wondering if those swords were actually hurting anyone before

you picked them up.

Yeah, this metaphor is really working.

As our actions escalate in phase 2 the responses will too so I can play on my followers' insecurities

and wear down their self-worth until they actually feel hated.

I mean we're talking about humans here, we can convince ourselves someone's mad

at us if we send a message and don't get a reply in 5 minutes, so this step is easy.

To ruin everything, first I must ruin my follower's lives by making sure they know they are scum.

At least, outside of our little group.

I understand them.

I love them.

I need them.

And I'm the only one who ever will.

I've got to get them feeling really and truly hurt by everyone but us because that's

when we can:

Step 5: Escalate.

We've got to get our group in a story where they are so wrapped up in the fun idea of

righteous retaliation that they suspend their disbelief well past when they start to actually

cause harm to other people and real actions feel rhetorical.

Of course, it's not my fault if someone I've radicalized goes overboard and does

something radical, but when the pi people unfairly blame me that just gives my followers

more reasons to righteously defend me.

They have to defend me, I'm all they got.

As our actions escalate our fake enemies become real enemies, confirming everything I drilled

into my follower's heads about how universally hated they are while still keeping the flavor

that we are unfairly prosecuted.

Step 6: The enemy's beliefs and feelings can be completely dismissed.

Make up a catchy story about how the outsiders don't actually even really believe their

own beliefs.

Fake intellectuals pretend to like pi to sound smart.

They're just copying what they're told, or are just being Pi-litically correct, and

if they stopped being lazy and learned some math they'd agree with us.

The extreme of this is to make your followers believe that others don't even feel what

they claim to feel.

They are just pretending to feel wronged for sympathy, they're trying to look good to

other Pi people, or feel pressured to conform, they might be paid actors, but they definitely

don't feel what they say they do.

Shed some crocodile tears of your own just to make it clear that we don't have to believe