PM does a pop culture draft: 1999 edition

27:09But what comparative advantage really means is that each person should tend to do the thing that they are best at compared to their own skills. So if you look at the song, AJ, one of the best singers in the band, but he also is one of the best dancers. And so there's these other guys, one of them, I'm going to call him out, Brian, who is also a great singer, but not as good as dancing. And so by the theory of comparative advantage, AJ, you know, they're putting him central. He's dancing, right? He maybe is not singing all the time, but he's dancing because they need him to dance. Whereas Brian, poor Brian, he's an amazing singer.

27:44He's always in the corner because they don't want you to look at him because he's dancing bad, not up to par. Yes, but his voice is beautiful. So he gets more of the voice parts. And they mixed it up, obviously, but I think it's a really good illustration of we each do what we're best at. I love this. I love this. This is a great thesis. And someone, you know what? Free PhD thesis right there from Jeff Kuo. Oh, I think it's already been written. Surely. Surely it's already been written. You know what's interesting is like what you're describing is kind of the strategy of the corporation that's assembling this boy band as well, right?

28:17They kind of have to figure out how to slot in who where. And I feel like this is now what you see with like every like K-pop band or like I'm kind of getting into Cat's Eye. And I watched that documentary on Netflix where they like put this girl band together. And yeah, you can see which one is the strong dancer, which one is the strong singer, who's like a good all around player. And they have to kind of think holistically about the unit. The lanes. But OK, but really quick, let me tell you the second reason why I think this is very Planet Money. And it's because, actually, let me ask you, what do you think this song means?

28:51Oh. Well, what is it? You want it that way. What is it? What is it? The relationship? Tell me why. A relationship? Well, ain't nothing. Because they sing, I never want to hear you say, I want it that way. So it's kind of like, is it about, like, I want us to want the same things in the relationship? like I don't want to hear you say I want it like a different way than how I want it yeah like is it I only want it my way not your way who knows and here's the thing but doesn't he doesn't the band articulate a series of ways that it could be and then they say I don't want to hear you say you want it that way this is like a song about a relationship on the fritz right or like it's like a long distance relationship and they're just like kind of falling apart and then he says I don't ever want to hear you say I want it that way.

29:44And it's like, what? Is this a continuation of a fight or whatever? And so there's been a lot of ink spilled on what I want it that way actually means. Right. And I think famously, I think it was Chrissy Teigen who like on Twitter was like, hey, guys, like it's been 20 years. What the heck does this song mean? And they were like, we really don't know because this was co-written by Max Martin. And Max Martin famously does not really have a great grasp of what meanings are. Yeah, but it doesn't matter, you know what I mean? Because it's like the beauty of pop music. It's like sometimes the lyrics, like they don't totally make sense, but it's fine, right?

30:21But these lyrics really, really don't make sense. They're very semiotically open, right? It's like open textured and, you know, like epistemologically unstable. And I feel like that really describes the world that we live in right now and our jobs as journalists. Epistemologically unstable? That's true. Explain. Do explain these things, right? I want it that way Cause I want it that way With the fourth pick in the Planet Money Pop Culture Draft, Jeff has selected I want it that way. Very good pick, Jeff. Really good pick. Especially good because you did not take what I was really hoping you would not take.

31:02Now I'm nervous all over again because what if you take what I take? Well, I mean, yes, I can tank yours. All right. In the year 1999, this is my pick, by the way, all four members of a now legendary R &B group turned 18 years old. And as adults, would the first single from their sophomore album be about independence or rebellion? I know what this is. No, no, it would not. Becoming adults to this group meant that it was time to sing an ode to financial responsibility. Cue the song.

31:46With my second pick of the 1999 Planet Money Pop Culture Draft, I select Destiny's Child's Bills, Bills, Bills. Yes. Excellent pick. This was my backup pick. I literally almost picked that. Me too. I'm glad you didn't. Me too. I did not have a good backup to this. All right. So this is, in fact, Destiny's Child's first song to peak at number one. It ultimately wound up at 21 on 1999's year-end Hot 100 list. It is mostly about a boyfriend leeching off of a woman's success. It is mostly about phone bills, very 1999, and car bills, or as we say, automobills. Best pun ever. Best pun ever. But what this song did not need to do, but did, was to get this serious about personal finance.

32:36Here is the clip.

32:53So, just say that again. gave me bad credit buying me gifts with my own ends. These are some 18-year-olds. Most 18-year-olds are not thinking about FICO scores. This is amazing. It's true. You know who is thinking about FICO scores at 18 years old? Destiny's Child. And that is why they are the greatest Planet Money song of 1999. Bills, bills, bills. And you know the best part about this is that like credit cards really became a universal, democratized, everybody has one thing in the 1990s when they were writing the song, right? And so before, Bills, Bills, Bills would not have made sense 10 years prior.

33:32I got my first credit card in 1999. Because I went off to college, and there's some company that's set up outside the union handing out Frisbees if you sign up for a credit card. So I signed up for a credit card. That will sign up for enough of those free Frisbees. That will also take your credit. Bills, Bills, Bills. Maybe that, I don't know if that's in the alternate lyrics of the song or not. But all right, so yes. Bills, bills, bills. That is my choice. Amazing. Waylon? Yes, it's my turn. I will also stick with song. My pick for song is No Scrubs by TLC. Because this song, it reminds me of some stuff I was researching and thinking about for an episode of It's Been a Minute that I got to be on.

34:15And it was all about relationships and money. And in Scrubs, it describes this broke, deadbeat guy and the TLC ladies. don't want anything to do with this guy because he's like, you know, doesn't have a job and he's just, you know, hanging out of the passenger seat of his best friend's ride and everything. So, okay. Trying to holler, trying to holler at me. Trying to holler and like, they're not having it, right? I remember.

34:59And I think this song speaks to broader dynamics we see in marriage rates, especially marriage rates across socioeconomic classes, because it is this like well-documented, long-running thing where marriage rates have been going down as you go down the income ladder, right? And there's this notion that for straight women, the marriage pool in their economic class is perhaps less desirable than it was in the past. If you look at working class or lower income classes, you have a lot of men who are unemployed. This is partially an effect of the hollowing out of industrial jobs. In some communities, you have just fewer men because of mass incarceration.

35:41And when you have like very traditional gender roles still where women are doing more than 50 percent of the household labor, you get a situation where women would rather go it alone than pair up with someone who isn't pulling their weight, either income wise and or with the household labor, taking care of kids, helping out at home, all that kind of stuff. So I think that this notion of like, I don't want no scrubs, it speaks to maybe the desirability of the available men that certain women are seeing out there in the world. And this is something we're still contending with 25 years later. It's kind of like how Kourtney Kardashian didn't want to marry Scott Disick.

36:22He was a scrub. Back then, he was a scrub. He was a scrub and Kourtney knew it, so she never married him. She's never married him. Once a scrub, always a scrub? Or is there scrub redemption? No, you can change. Okay, okay, okay. Now, No Scrubs, Weyland Wong, second pick. I will say that was my first backup to, or actually this is my third backup to Bills, Bills, Bills, because here's my argument and that I will give you for free if you want it. I don't know. It wasn't as good as your argument. My argument was Bills, Bills, Bills is about someone getting into a relationship with a man who then is running up the credit card and ruining credit.

36:54No Scrubs represents what we would in our industry call a total risk avoidance, where you are saying, oh, no, no, no, we are mitigating all risk by just saying, no, we're not getting into a relationship so that you can't then turn into Bills, Bills, Bills. So in some ways, No Scrubs is like a path, a path not taken, a better path. And Bills, Bills, Bills is what happens if you do end up in that relationship. It's so funny because Bills, Bills, Bills was my backup choice. And I was thinking about the relationship between these two songs, right? And how they describe like very similar experiences.

37:27But one is like, Oh, you took the plunge. It worked out badly. One is like, I'm not even getting involved. Like, just keep driving. That's the risk avoidance strategy. That's where you go. All right. So no scrubs. And Bills, Bills, Bills, a kind of pop culture couplet, if you will, there on the top 100. Okay. That was the second round of our 1999 Planet Money pop culture draft. And 1999, by the way, famously great for movies, but shockingly good year for pop music. Yeah? Yeah. All right. Final round and winner reveal coming up after the break.

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39:34Waylon, you now get to make your final pick in the draft. A wildcard pick is all that's left for any of us. Now, again, we didn't have to choose in this order, but wildcard makes sense. no one's going to steal your wild card probably probably but i was nervous about this too because i was like what if we all land on the same i guarantee you are not landing on what i've got i am not worried about my strategy was like i was so nervous about blair witch and bills bills bills being gone that i was like i must i must reduce the risk of anyone picking my wild card i will just go obscure okay well i can't wait to hear yours mine is not that obscure but i think it's a strong pick obviously stand behind my pick because i want to win this draft okay my wild card pick.

40:13I'm going television. And I am going with a show that debuted in 1999 and I think, you know, really changed our entire relationship as a culture with one of the most important sectors of the economy. I am talking about the premiere of House Hunters. Well, this one looks real nice. Jane and Mitch Englander are playing Beat the Clock. With a new baby on the way, finding a larger home is their priority. House Hunters got going in 1999. And if you think about our national obsession with real estate in all forms, right? Like I think without House Hunters, you might not get Zillow stocking. You might not get this obsession with like open floor plans and whatever the heck and kind of like this like judgment we have over like what people can afford and like judging people's aesthetic choices.

41:08I mean, like all of these - Might not have gotten the subprime crisis. I know, right? Because I was like, what was happening in the housing market in 1999? I was like, everything was great. Like we didn't know what was going on. I was trying to Google quickly what mortgage rates were in 1999. Yeah, yeah, no, that's a good Google to do. So in the 90s, it looks like we were between 6.9 % was the lowest mortgage rate in the 90s, according to Bankrate.com. Well, that's actually, that sounds high, but it's like, you know, but then we had like - Back then it was - Whatever, that was like Preserve era, right?

41:36Two percent. We must all erase two percent from our brains, I fear. Like, I don't think that was a realistic. Yeah, we got like habituated in this like way that's like not very helpful. OK, so perhaps we are seeing some relatively low mortgage rates, which may have been spawning people. But also these shows were all always really about like reinforcing the American dream back to us. And so so the idea that ownership is the only thing like there's no question at all in these shows like that. It's a game. It's a game of ownership. Like you must, you get to pick which house you would like. Which of these three would you like?

42:10There won't be any problems. An embarrassment of riches. Just choose. Just choose which house. And like, yeah, now you think about the entire HGTV empire and you have House Hunters International. I mean, it's just, and it all started in 1999 with the launch of House Hunters. Wow. Great pick, Waylon. Thank you. So that rounds out Waylon's team of 1999 Planet Money pop culture. I will make my final pick. I regret going this obscure now that I saw how good that pick could be. All right. Well, so I figured you're not going to let me argue that I can just draft the entire dot-com bubble as a piece of pop culture.

42:47Or if you will, I'll just take that. I'm going to say no. I'm like, that's too broad. So in the 1990s, if you're unaware, lucky you, there were lots of these newfangled internet companies popping up. And man, was there money rushing in. And boy, was it a bubble. and did it ever cause a recession later in about 2001. But we're not in 2001 yet. We're still in 1999, arguably the peak of the bubble. And so what I will draft is a commercial for a company that I think you could argue just sort of is the dot-com bubble. We're going to play a little bit of the commercial. You're going to hear Whoopi Goldberg.

43:23Oh, my gosh. Got to get a gift for a kid, and you don't know what they want because you're old, honey. Give them flu's online gift cards. It's just like money. You send it by email. they spend it at some of the web's coolest stores and you come out hip and small. It's graduation day. Duh. Flooz. That is F-L-O-O-Z. Flooz. What? I forgot to say. Flooz was founded in 1999 and the commercial debuted in 1999. That's the 1999 connection. I don't remember this company. I thought you were going to say like Pets.com or something. No, I've never heard of Flooz. Well, Pets.com is the obvious dot-com bubble.

43:56Of course. But Flooz.com, man are there echoes of what we have seen over the last five years so flues.com's business model was hey we have all these new like retailers like barnes and noble tower records like doing business online what if our company like takes your real money and turns it into fake internet money that only works on the internet and can't be converted back you can just spend it at these online retailers who agreed to take it so some of those retailers that they got to sign up so it's digital currency um so you have a digital wallet it's not crypto right it's not blockchain that hasn't been invented yet money but it is just like great yeah well well we're we're gonna get to that uh so so some of the companies that took this was like tower records godiva chocolates uh fog dog would accept flues money that's another yeah i don't remember but it also reminds me i believe that is also i don't know whatever it's a very 90s company in my head i don't remember at all what they do.

44:56So Whoopi Goldberg became their spokesperson. She became, she got paid in, I believe she got paid in Flues money. Oh my gosh. And then also became the largest shareholder outside of the founders. I wonder how that worked out for her. Within like a few years, Flues announced bankruptcy. What had happened was a Russian-Filipino scam whereby a bunch of stolen credit card numbers were then quickly used to buy a bunch of Flues, like $300 ,000 in flus was found out by the credit card companies. And they, of course, canceled the orders. And that just left flus with like, oh, no, we just have$300 ,000 of like e-money floating around that we don't get our money back for.

45:39They declared bankruptcy. They became known in hindsight as a bit of a canary in the coal mine of the dot-com bubble busting. And but like Whoopi Goldberg out there promoting this digital currency. I just kept thinking about like, there's Larry David like promoting crypto. There's just like the last couple Super Bowls or whatever, where they were all these crypto commercials. It just seemed like such a beautiful little piece of pop culture. So I draft not the whole dot com bubble. Right. But I drew and not flues. I draft the Goldberg in a flues commercial telling people they're old and should buy digital currency.

46:15That's what I draw. You know what? I like this because I think they were on to something. Right. Because you think about 1999. We didn't have like PayPal. I mean, I think we did have PayPal, but PayPal probably wasn't integrated into all of these e-commerce sites the way it is today. For sure. There wasn't really a great way probably to shop a lot online or maybe it didn't feel trustworthy. So I respect this company for trying to get into the space because clearly there was a need there. And it was just like they had to work out the kinks and it didn't quite go as planned. You couldn't even pay your bills, bills, bills online.

46:46Can I read one final quote? So this was in an interview with the CEO when the partnership with Whoopi Goldberg was announced. he thought it was a good partnership because quote we're both irreverent, hip and fun but also trusted and respectable brands and I don't know and we both starred in Sister Act 2 yeah, like I don't, Whoopi that may all be true for Whoopi I suppose but it didn't end up being true for Flooz as the company declared bankruptcy and was an easy target of fraud and a canary in the coal mine you flooz you lose, that's what happened ow, flooz flooz.com All right. The final pick in the 1999 Planet Money Pop Culture draft goes to Jeff Guo.

47:26Jeff, your wild card pick. Okay. And you said I could pick anything, right? You could pick anything. You've got to argue. Well, you've got to argue. We're still going over the rules. Like, give it a try. We'll make a judgment. Vegetable, mineral. Okay. Okay. So we've been talking about songs, right? We've talked about bills, bills, bills, scrubs, or the absence thereof. And what is the thing where we were getting all the songs from? Napster. At that time, Napster, which debuted in 1999. So in a way, I'm picking all of the songs. The sum total of songery in 1999 was on Napster. And why does this epitomize Planet Money?

48:08Well, number one, this was, of course, a huge economic story. Without Napster, we would not have the iPod. Without Napster, we wouldn't have Spotify. Napster completely changed how the music industry constitutes itself, right? And now everybody's touring because there's no money to be made in music because music is free and everywhere. And Napster was the start of all that. I don't know if it's free now. Do you still think it's free now? Like I pay for a Spotify subscription, which I guess gives pennies back to Steve and the Lava Chicken song that we keep listening to. It feels free. This is a banger.

48:42But here's the other thing about Napster, right? Eventually, these file sharing programs led to more than just pirated music. People started pirating all kinds of stuff. And a lot of what they shared was pirated software like Photoshop, but especially like music production software. And so if you go back into like the histories of all the big DJs or whatever, they almost all of them have a teenage basement phase where they were making beats using pirated software, pirated Ableton. pirated, you know, FL loops or whatever, making beats. That's how they got their reps in. That's how they developed the music, the sound of the next generation.

49:24It was all because of piracy. That's so interesting. So it's like the democratization of that software allowed, like lower the barriers to entry for this generation. Democritization is kind. I would say that's more like kleptocratization or something. Napster allowed us to seize the means both of production and reproduction. Ooh. Napster is a great choice. That's a great choice. These actually make me, House Hunters and Napster now make me regret picking something. No, but I really liked learning about flus. I didn't know that was a thing. Okay. You guys, we did it. We did it. Wow. Waylon and Jeff, any final thoughts on things that you wanted to draft that you didn't?

50:02Very, super quickly while we wrap this up. I can give you one while you think. My song backup was Believe by Cher because it famously took this relatively new, dirty little secret tool called Auto-Tune that helped people sound like they were singing the right notes, but we weren't supposed to know about it, I guess. And it just like put it front and center and used it. And it's like, hey, there's this thing everybody's using. And so Cher is given credit for really establishing Auto-Tune as a sound, a kind of sound. And obviously that has shaped music for decades. I had that on my list for that reason.

50:36Yeah. And then the other, like my real bad backup for movie was Doug's first movie. My argument was going to be that it really like, so Doug, Doug's first movie was put out by Disney. You may, if you're a child of the nineties, you will remember there was a weird switch from like Doug was on Nickelodeon. Then he was on like ABC all of a sudden that's because Disney had started to do this thing that we just, they're like super famous for now, but before they had acquired Pixar and Marvel and Lucasfilms, Like they had bought this little production studio called Jumbo, Jumbo Entertainment or Jumbo Films or whatever that was making Doug.

51:11And they're like, I don't know, it'd be useful to have Doug. And, uh, and so I was going to argue that like, this was the beginning of the modern IP vacuum cleaner. Oh, that's interesting. Sucks up IP and produces it. That is good. That's good. Yeah. I had like a, um, spare wildcard pick, which was who wants to be a millionaire debuted in the U S in 1999. And I don't know if you guys remember that it was on like every single day. Like it was just once it premiered and became a hit, it just like it was on all the time seemingly. And it was like, you know, one of the highest to produce, highest rated game shows in US TV history.

51:49And I feel like it almost presents this alternative history where there's another pop culture timeline where instead of getting a huge glut of reality shows that are based on dating and stuff, we actually went the game show route. and we just had a bajillion game shows. But somehow, like, game shows didn't really take despite the huge success of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Yeah, sure. Yeah. My backup pick probably would have been Fight Club. Ooh, yeah. I thought it was too popular. But to me, Fight Club really represents the pinnacle of Gen X culture where, oh my God, the worst thing that could happen to me in life is that I have a regular, degular job.

52:26Like, oh my God, I'm employed. Oh, so terrible. Now I have to go punch people. I almost picked American Beauty for that same reason with this like rant where it's like, oh, like, oh, look at the ennui of like the upper middle class, like suburban white man. Like, oh, I have this white collar job. That's so boring. Whatever shall I do? And like Fight Club was the same. It was like, oh, no. Like, look at me buying IKEA furniture. And it's like, get over it. You know, it's like I would kill for IKEA. Oh, no. We ended up despite our best efforts. We ended up in the Fight Club, like, vortex. No, I mean, that's why.

52:57Wasn't that the point? We can't talk about it. I didn't even want to go there. I didn't even want to go there, you know, because like I only had a rant, right? And I was like, that's not the energy I want to bring to the draft, so. So let's recap for the listeners. A, thank you for sticking with us through this bizarre journey through the upsy-downsy, topsy-turvy world of 1999. Jeff, would you like to recap your team? Okay, the movie I picked was Pokemon, The movie colon, the first movie slash dash, which introduced anime and globalized culture to everybody. The song I picked was I Want It That Way, right?

53:41Because of comparative advantage, because it's sort of a mystery. AJ Danson, Brian singing. That's what I read. That's exactly right. Yes. Also, what is the meaning of it? It has an unstable meaning. And then the object thing, other thing I picked was Napster, the file share program. Okay. Waylon, want to recap your team? Yes. For movie, I picked The Insider, directed by Michael Mann. Classic corporate whistleblowing tale with strange relevance to today. Also, shout out to Bruce McGill. Love his scene in The Insider. For song, I picked No Scrubs by TLC, looking at the state of marriage across socioeconomic classes.

54:20and then for Wild Card I picked House Hunters which debuted in 1999 and without which maybe we wouldn't have so much shiplap in the world. Have you ever thought about that? I was thinking about the Gaineses and their shiplap. What are they doing with that shiplap? I don't know. They love it. They can't get enough of it. Is it useful? Can you put pegs between the shiplap boards and hang stuff? I think you can. Yeah. Yeah. I mean. All right. So my team consists of the movie The Blair Witch Project which is still one of the most profitable movies of all time in terms of return on investment. and frankly, kickstarted an entire business model that we have done a Planet Money episode about, the Blumhouse model.

54:58For my song, I chose Bills, Bills, Bills, which includes discussion about credit scores. Like, what do you want? And then finally, I chose a 1999 commercial with Whoopi Goldberg for Flu's fake internet. It's real money, I guess, whatever. Flu's internet money that was both quite a predictor of the way that crypto is being sold to us now, but also was emblematic of the dot-com bubble that was about to burst. Jeff, I still think this was all an act that you didn't know what you were doing. Yeah, you obviously prepared really well. I don't know what you're talking about. Does the winner get flues?

55:36Is that the prize? If we can find some flues. Yeah. There's a lot of flues. Take it out for a spin. Go to Tower Records and buy a Destiny's Child album. Okay, we can now give you this very, Very important update. So back in September, we asked our Planet Money Plus supporters to vote on who they thought won this draft, who had drafted the best, quote unquote, Planet Money team of pop culture. The votes and many opinions came streaming into our inbox. No need to keep you in suspense because there was a very clear winner in a landslide, Waylon Wong. Here is a little bit of what Waylon said when we broke the news to her.

56:14Thanks so much for believing in me and my picks. and for, yeah, also voting because, you know, The Insider, I think I mentioned on the episode, is my favorite movie ever. And I hope maybe I inspired some people to go watch it who haven't seen it before. Congrats, Waylon. And then Jeff Guo came in second, and I came in third. I do blame Floos for that. I think I tanked it with Floos. Anyway, we hope you enjoyed that. We had a lot of fun doing this, and we have plans for another Planet Money Pop Culture draft next year. So if you have suggestions about the year we should do, send those to us, planetmoneyatnpr.org.

56:53And of course, to be able to hear that episode and other bonus episodes, you're going to want to make sure that you have signed up for Planet Money Plus. Just go to plus.npr.org slash planetmoney. That is plus.npr.org slash planetmoney. And if you've already joined, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. It really does mean a lot. Today's episode was produced by Viet Le and edited by Alex Goldmark. I'm Kenny Malone, and this is Planet Money from NPR.

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