3/14 15: A Medium Message (Patreon)
Content
If I had a pi day video for you today, it would be the 15th annual pi day video. 3/14 #15.
The Pi Day tradition has been an important one for me, giving me a way to still check in with everyone and not fade away entirely, even when I'm otherwise not making videos or having an online presence. And I didn't want to completely break that tradition, so here I am trying to put some words to a thing I did that is relevant to you.
About a month ago I took down almost all of my videos from YouTube. The one exception is “On Gender”, which I posted in 2015, a full decade ago. After recent events here in the US I considered adding yet another statement to the internet, and I instead decided I kinda like what I said the first time. So I’m letting that statement stand, using the full medium of my YouTube channel as my canvas.
I know that for some of you, it has been painful to discover this change yourself, by going to watch a video only to find it missing. And those of you I've talked to mostly understand that that's kind of the point. This stuff hurts, and I refuse to carry on pretending as if everything is normal.
But if you are a teacher or patron, you can click this not-so-secret link to find all the classics. I haven't caught up to the most recent ones, but over a hundred videos are already there.
Every year on Pi Day I tell you that Pi is not important, and this year that tradition continues with emphasis.
People are important. You are important. Every one of you is more important to me than every video I’ve ever made.
And I’m showing my priorities by making what feels simultaneously like a big statement and a small one. It doesn't really do anything. It was very easy for me. Yet I know that to many, the idea of shutting down such a successful channel with its big engagement numbers would be unthinkable. Much easier and more normal to just add more content with up-to-date reactions, in this world where we're all trained to think more is more and newer is truer.
So maybe it's not a big or small statement, but a... medium message.
I do still hope you have a happy Pi Day, though. We all deserve some good pie today.
I will answer questions below, if you have them. Or just say "hi" and I will say "hi", that's good too!
🐌
P.S. I'm updating on May 25th 2025 to mention that Vimeo is pretty well stocked with the rest of my backlog now, and also that other reasons unrelated to this original post have come up that make me very glad I have Vimeo as an alternative host for my videos. Vimeo has been reliable for the past decade in making my videos available for free without ads or signups. Stay tuned for more updates.