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Oscar the Grouch and Jumping Spiders
Payton Mitchell & Hank Green
May 23, 2025
Hello!
Every year for the last five years, we have done a fundraiser for Crash Course where we sell very pretty artisanal coins (real coins...not crypto). This is a REALLY lovely time of year for the Crash Course team because they get to see how many people appreciate their work and how MUCH people appreciate their work. I get this regularly because my face is on a number of Crash Courses, so people actually recognize me and say thanks. But the vast majority of the people who work on Crash Course do /not/ have their faces on it.
Being able to say, "Hey, do you think this is important enough for you to buy a symbol of your appreciation and support?" and then have millions of people take that request seriously is really special. Of course, most people can't buy coins, but enough people do that Crash Course gets to keep making free stuff that is helping people all over the world.
Because it's free, we don't have to worry about having our contract cancelled because we're too woke, or whatever. We can do Sex Ed and Native American History without worrying about our business model. That freedom... Well, I didn't realize how important it might be.
Crash Course Coins are beautiful, but they are also powerful. Just a few thousand people buying these coins allows us to reach literally tens of millions of learners. It's a tremendous bang for your buck.
The $100 coin allows us to reach 2,000 learners, while the $500 coin allows us to reach TEN THOUSAND! And yes, the denominations do go up even further from there if you think you can help, all the way up to a $5000 coin that sponsors an entire week of Crash Course (and comes with a video just for you showing off the work you helped enable).
Thanks so much to everyone who considers getting a coin! As I said in my video today, that's the real work. Some people can and some people can't, but if everyone considers it, that's enough to continue and even expand Crash Course's work. If you think you can get a coin, here's the link!
THANK YOU!!
Hank
You can always email us at [email protected]
This Week in Stuff
Alex Schmidt shocked the internet by telling us that Oscar the Grouch is actually orange. (Instagram)
A man named Oliver is documenting his journey sailing from Oregon to Hawaii with his cat, Phoenix. (Instagram)
Someone befriended a jumping spider named Norma that lives in their mailbox. (TikTok)
Hank gave a presentation about how we can fix grocery stores on Dropout’s Smartypants. (YouTube)
Friends of Big Bear Valley are hosting a livestream of bald eagle eaglets Sunny and Gizmo during their fledge window. (YouTube)
Please send us stuff you think we should feature to [email protected]
Over a hundred million infants receive measles vaccines annually, protecting them and communities against a deadly disease
Saloni Dattani
Over 100 million infants are vaccinated against measles every year, which means more than 80% of one-year-olds are protected from this potentially life-threatening disease. This global effort has saved millions of lives.
That scale should be reassuring. Measles vaccines are safe and reduce the risk of infection by over 95%, making them one of our most powerful tools to prevent childhood deaths. Outbreaks have become increasingly rare in many countries, global infant mortality has fallen, and measles vaccination alone is estimated to have saved more than 94 million lives.
But that progress is under threat: vaccination rates have fallen in recent years, as the chart shows, and fewer children are getting the protection they need. When coverage slips, measles spreads rapidly; more children suffer and die from a disease we can easily prevent.
Our World in Data is a UK-based non-profit organization that publishes research and data to make progress against the world’s largest problems. You can find more of their data insights here.
This Week at Complexly
The 2025 Crash Course Coin is here! This year's design celebrates sharing knowledge and the technologies that have allowed information to proliferate, from the printing press to the world wide web and, of course, Crash Course.
We’re committed to a couple of things: Our videos are free and high-quality, meaning accurate and fact-checked, but also engaging and fun. We’re trying to make the best version of information on the Internet, and that means welcoming in as many people as we can.
It’s an ambitious goal and, to be honest, an expensive one. Each coin that people like you purchase helps us reach thousands of learners. Help us keep Crash Course free for everyone forever at crashcoursecoin.com.
Are you old enough for your childhood to be filled with the threat of acid rain? Are you now thinking, "Wait, why haven't I heard about the threat of acid rain in forever?" Well, it's because scientists and policymakers around the world got together and did something about it.
Some Games to Play!
SpellCheck.xyc (by Answer in Progress)
This Gubbins postcard was made by Rachel. Send yours to [email protected]
If you post your results on social media, we’d love it if you post a link for folks to subscribe to “We’re Here” (https://werehere.beehiiv.com/subscribe)
Mystery socks are back!
The mystery pack is back for a limited time! Did you miss out on an old Awesome Socks Club design? Maybe you need a fun gift to pass out throughout the year. Or maybe you just want to buy all your socks at once instead of on a monthly schedule. Our Mystery Sock 6-Pack is for you! Just choose your size and we'll load up a box with different styles and designs from the past months. (And no, you can't request style or design, it's a true mystery product - adult sizes only).
The tragedy of prevention
Last week, Hank talked about something he is calling “the tragedy of prevention.” This is when we don’t notice ways our lives have been saved because they’re preventative. We asked you for examples of this phenomenon! Thank you to everyone who told us about a boring way their life has been saved.
My smoke alarm in my kitchen keeps saving my life. Mostly from burnt toast. They’re a little confused but they’re doing their best. I believe in you, overly sensitive smoke alarm.
My life is saved every 4 weeks by an infusion of IVIG, an infusible medication that replaces antibodies that my body doesn't produce! Not only that, but I'm prevented from dying of sicknesses by herd immunity because of vaccines. It's part of the reason why vaccines are so important not just for the person receiving the vaccine, but for the immunocompromised people like me!
I developed severe asthma in the last couple of years following Covid and bronchitis and flu in a short space of time :(
I think all the time about how my life has been saved by the preventative medicine I take every morning and the puffers I take as needed and the vaccines I was lucky enough to have access to. A hundred years ago I would have just slowly stopped being able to breathe, and I’m so grateful to be alive now with my dodgy lungs.
When I was in high school i was terminally ill and we didn't know why, my red blood cells were kinda just going poof for no reason... My doc at the time encouraged me to start medical transition even though I hadn't been prioritising that and I was like eh sure why not. Turns out I was having almost constant allergic reactions to my own hormones and starting HRT fixed the problem in literally a few days! When I started going back to things and people were like "omg you're alive!" I didn't really have a good interesting story to tell so it felt weirdly un-dramatic in a way that is honestly still weird for my brain to process.
When you and I were kids (assuming you're around my age?) you might have remembered all the warnings about Acid Rain coming from car pollution sticking around and binding to clouds ( 'smog' ) which then caused the rainfall to be hazardous to plantlife, among other things.
We don't really hear about it now, not because the fear of it happening not existing, but because we prevented the problem (mostly) through regulating emissions with policies like cap and trade, and mandating desulfurization tech like catalytic converters on our cars.
A few months ago I was in a car wreck and my life was saved by an air bag, a harm reduction barrier. But regularly my life is saved by mine and others blind spot indicators, a risk prevention barrier. The invisible thing to note is this: risk management can be thought of as a Swiss cheese model. One piece of swiss cheese may have holes in it to be poked thru, but stack them? The holes get covered by other pieces of cheese! And who doesn’t like cheese?
Water treatment facilities are amazing!! I can just trust whatever comes out of my tap, no boiling, no purification needed. It’s amazing, and I’m so glad I don't need to worry about this.
People don’t realize how much work goes into not getting sick from contaminated food or being exposed to a contagious illness. I think that’s why it’s easy to cut public health funding and programs- people don’t realize how much they benefit from it because it’s mostly passive.
My great grandmother worked in a cannery and lost her thumb in an industrial accident. I worked in a cannery for the same company as a summer job in college and I did not suffer any horrifically injuries and that's probably down to the worker's rights movements that happened in between.
Antibiotics! I have had strep, and infected cuts, and infected bug bites, and sinus infections that probably would have killed me just a couple hundred years ago - but instead I got a quick trip to the doctor and a prescription. Seemed so boring when I was a kid, but wow, what an impressive thing we did as humans.
My third guide dog, a German shepherd named Petey, saved me from being hit by cars no less than three times. And for her it was just all part of the job. We had the right of way, I told her "forward" and halfway across the street she stopped and backed up very fast, then she pulled me forward again. She didn't even want any special thanks when we got to the other side, she just wanted to keep walking! Good dog, best friend, I miss her bunches but I know she loved her job every day of her life.
What’s a skill you’d love to learn? Tell us about it!
Send your dream skill to [email protected].
PS: There will be no new We’re Here next Friday, May 30th. We’ll see you in June!
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