This is the first time in Vlogbrothers history (with today's video, anyway) that Hank Green mentioned that he lives with ulcerative colitis (UC). It's not the last time he talks about it, and he definitely goes into more detail about it in later videos (and, yes, even a song). But he mentions it briefly here and then moves on -- although still acknowledging its severity in the context of discussing punishments.
I promise that inflammatory bowel diseases are not something commonly discussed in detail on Vlogbrothers Rewatch -- an ongoing series following my journey through the entire collection of public Vlogbrothers videos. Using this playlist, I'm rewatching everything on the channel in chronological order from the beginning. This will go on for a while. I'll be here all year (and longer).
If you, like I, were wondering why Hank is receiving a punishment here, the current top comment on the video helpfully clarifies that in yesterday's video, he communicated directly to John in text form as part of the picture book. One of the Brotherhood 2.0 rules, as a reminder, is that they're only allowed to communicate through video, not through email or similar forms of communication.
This, I believe, is where the Peeps come in. I remember the Peeps. This stood out to me the first time I watched these videos (featuring the Peeps) because I have never particularly liked them, and the idea of having to stuff a dangerous amount of them into my mouth all at once absolutely revolted me in that way that makes you unable to stop looking at something terrible.
I can't say I was following politics all that closely in 2007, but it's good to have context for what the US government sort of looked like when these videos were being made. I also can't say we're in better shape now than we were then. It's probably fine. It isn't.