Stuff You Should Know | Chuck Bryant & Josh Clark

0:06Welcome to the Talks at Google Podcast, where great minds meet. I'm Emma, bringing you this episode with Chuck Bryant and Josh Clark, hosts of Stuff You Should Know. Talks at Google brings the world's most influential thinkers, creators, makers, and doers all to one place. You can watch every episode at youtube.com slash Talks at Google. Stuff You Should Know has been one of the top podcasts since it started in 2008. The podcast overviews and simplifies a truly extensive range of topics, from the history of refrigeration, to how Saturn works, to forensic dentistry, and peacocks. Chuck and Josh have released over 1 ,500 episodes.

0:49They've toured the world, and they even had a TV show that ran for one season on the Science Channel. They also have a Trivial Pursuit game, and they once had their own category on Jeopardy's National College Championship. Chuck and Josh join Google to give a behind-the-scenes look at how they've become experts in educating us about common things and how they work. Originally published in December 2016, here are Chuck Bryant and Josh Clark. Stuff you should know.

1:23Thank you for having us, everybody. It's quite an honor to be here. Thanks for taking time out of your day. Although I'm really surprised you guys brought your laptops. I'm just kidding. Totally expected that. And I'm Josh, and that's Chuck, by the way. Yeah, but Chuck is okay. We get that a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or Chosh. Chosh, yeah. So today is October 18th, and it's going to be something like 80 degrees outside. And I would just be curious, say you wanted to take that fact and turn it into an episode. Where would you start? Ooh. That's a good question. I guess climate change probably would be a good one.

2:05Yeah, maybe the difference between weather and climate. That'd be a pretty good one, I think. The urban heat island effect. Yeah, what else? Well, did we do sweating officially? Or did we just talk about it all the time because of me? No, we've done how can somebody sweat colors. Oh, right. Wait, how can someone sweat colors? Oh, man. I knew you were going to ask me that. Right when I said that, I was like, don't say it, Josh. He's going to have a follow-up question. We've done almost 900 episodes, so something kind of goes in, one thing goes out. Yeah, actually, it's like a club. We're walking evidence that there's a finite amount of space in the human brain for memory because old stuff is moving out as new stuff is moving in.

2:53Yeah, we'll just say if you're sweating colors, go to a doctor. and let them explain it to you. I think there's cases of it where people were eating a lot of curry and sweat colors. I think some people have their digestive tract. Actually, at this point, I'm just making a step up. I want to be right so bad. There was that senator who was silver. Remember that guy? Or blue? Blue from eating copper or silver, colloidal silver. He was a senator? I think it's Senator, Congressman. Anyone know? Remember that guy? See, this is total stuff you should know. We got one part right, and then we add some other weird aspect to it.

3:33It's totally wrong. There's no way that guy's a senator. It's a condition. He's a colonel. That's what it was. I was going to ask how you guys go about finding your topics, but I think I just witnessed it in action. It's about right. I start sweating, and then we just start talking. But once you've nailed down the subject for this upcoming Tuesday, How do you go about researching that topic? Well, typically we start with an article from the parent website that we are under, HowStuffWorks.com. And that's a good framework usually. And we don't script anything out or outline anything or go over it together, really.

4:12We just sort of start there, do our own research, and try and surprise and delight each other with what we find. And then we just have a conversation about it together. You do independent research and then you come together. and there's no you handle this part I'll handle this part we just sit down and start having a conversation and Jerry records it and every once in a while we'll misspeak or something like that and we go back and correct ourselves and to do that we'll say beep so that Jerry when she's editing it will hear that beep and cut it out right? Jerry over there by the way why don't you give a round of applause for Jerry famous Jerry some people think she doesn't exist but she does She does.

4:53Yeah, she's here with us. And so what are all sources open for business when you're going to research a topic? How rigorous are you with choosing the sources of your information? We've learned to be pretty rigorous. We can tell the difference. If there's one thing we do, it's research. We do that well. So we've just learned over time what's a legitimate source and what isn't. And some that seem like maybe they wouldn't be the most legitimate are actually well-researched. There's a site I like to go check out called Damn Interesting. And it's just this repository of really interesting articles, long-form articles.

5:37I don't know if you guys have ever heard of Damn Interesting, but you should go check it out. And they are really, really well-researched. So you can go to Damn Interesting and get some information and use that. What we've figured out is the best thing to do, though, is to go back and find somebody else to back it up as well. And we've also learned red flags over the years. Like if you run across an amazing fact and you go to find supporting evidence for it elsewhere and you find the same amazing fact and almost exactly the same wording, it's got kind of this copy paste quality to it. And it just kind of becomes dubious.

6:16So we shy away from that as well. What's an example of kind of a legendary famous fact that is embedded in everyone's brains that is deeply false? Oh, boy. That's a good one. Because you're kind of asking about urban legends in a way. Which we did a show on. We did do one on urban legends. About six or eight years ago. Yeah, I can't really think of one right now. I mean, we try to remember the true facts more. Right. We try. but yeah the research it always starts with Google for me.

6:56Well done. Which is true. And where else do you start? Bing for you? No it's Google for me. It's Google everybody. Try to move past page one just to be thorough. Sure yeah actually that's a good point Chuck because the deeper you go the the more you're going to avoid that copy paste stuff right. So So when you're like in page five or something of Google, it just starts to like the good stuff really starts. We see all those Easter eggs, by the way. Well done. Makes our job a lot of fun. Has there ever been a topic that you set out to research and you just couldn't really crack it enough to make an episode about it?

7:36We usually press on and do the episode anyway. Yeah. And one of the things about our show that I think has helped its popularity over the years is we don't claim to be experts or anything. And we all we our aim is to just provide a good overview of something in about 30 to 45 minutes. And a lot of the topics we do, people have full podcasts on that subject matter. So, you know, for years, though, we'll talk about the same thing that we try and give an overview on in 45 minutes. So we've gotten in over our heads before. The Sun podcast very famously among our listeners has been one that we always kind of still harp on as being not great because it was just so dense and hard and difficult to wrap our heads around.

8:27Just from a scientific perspective, it's just a lot more confusing than you would imagine. Yeah, we got a good sun fact, though. Oh, yeah, I do. I do. You guys ready for this? This is a knock your socks off fact. So it takes on the order of about 100 ,000 years for a photon to make its way from the center of the sun to the surface, and then eight minutes to make it from the surface to the earth. My bad. So that sunlight you see is 100 ,008 minutes old by the time that you see it outside. And I have to say, there is one episode that we're like, we can't release this. And it's sitting under glass right now.

9:08Oh, that's right. Just in case something happens to me or Chuck and we need an emergency backup episode. We actually have one. It's called How Pet Detectives Work. And it's about people who find lost pets. And we got to the end of this. And we look over. Jerry's just in there like this. We could make eye contact with each other. It was really kind of embarrassing. We were like, I don't think we can release this. So we're like, let's just hang on to this. This will be our emergency episode. Yeah, and we actually recently re-recorded an episode entirely that we didn't remember we had recorded before.

9:45Oh, yeah. And it's sort of been an inside joke, like, it's going to happen one day. And we got all the way through it. We released it. And the comments started rolling in. I kept waiting for you to reference the first version of this, and you guys never did. Yeah, it was customs, about how customs works. And I didn't remember it at all. No, me either. Like, there was no bell ringing. Nothing. Like, eh, it seems a little familiar. Just deadness. Yeah. We're just sitting there recording it a second time. Yeah. So we debated taking it down, but then we thought, you know what, we'll leave it and it'll be a nice little trivia for the listener base.

10:25Like, what's the one time? Hopefully just one time. Which one was better? I don't know. I think the second one probably was. I would hope so. Yeah. I would think so. Yeah, if we were better the first time, then we're doing something wrong. Yeah. We're declining. Yeah. So I'm curious to hear how you guys, do you imagine yourselves as educators or entertainers? Edu-tainers. Edu-tainers. Edu-tainers, yeah. I'm sorry. I just said that. I imagine myself as a cowboy. Right. An astronaut. Oh, sorry. I think, yeah, definitely. Pet detective. Definitely. but never. Yeah, edutainment is sort of a stupid word that we've been throwing around a lot over the years.

11:07It's accurate, though. I think there's a lot of people who have graduated school and gone out into the world and are living life and don't have access to a constant source of new stuff, like new stuff to learn. And we definitely give that to people. But I think one of the reasons the podcast has been successful is because it is presented in an entertaining, approachable way. You know, there's not any judgment because we don't know it any more than anyone else does. We just went out and researched something and now we're talking about it. And I think that's also kept a big target off of our backs over the years, too, is we've never been experts or purported to be experts.

11:50We're just a couple of guys who research stuff and then talk about it. Right. You're not getting. Although I do imagine you get a lot of fan feedback of finger wagging and saying, you got this right or you got this wrong. Yeah, a lot. What percentage of your fan interaction would you say that that kind of fact checking constitutes? It's hard to say because so many emails start with like, I love you guys. You're so great. This is a great. However, right. But there's this one thing I have to point out. Yeah, people are usually really nice about it. we found that some of the meaner ones are when we do something on something that's really someone's passion.

12:32Like, you would not believe how angry chess enthusiasts are. We did an episode on chess, and they were not nice people. So when you go by Washington Square Park and you see them, they look delightful out there playing on those tables with their little time clocks. Don't fall for it. They're animals. They'll cut you. And soccer. We got killed on the soccer episode. And, you know, they're nitpicky things a lot of times for the passionate ones about, you know, their life's passion. Right. So I get it. But it's a good point, though, too. Like, it's not like we can go out and become, like, devoted soccer fanatics and understand every single nuance before we go and record.

13:15So, of course, we're going to get it wrong. But on the other side, the flip side of that, like with the sun episode, we heard from straight up astrophysicists whose specialty is the sun. And they corrected us. And when we hear from people like that, it's usually couched in, you guys did a pretty good job, but you got this way, way wrong. And, you know, I just wanted to let you guys know. We'll read those on the air. That's been a big, corrections have been a big part of the show. Right. But just to hear from people who actually know what we were talking about is pretty neat. It's pretty gratifying.

13:52Yeah, yeah. So if you scroll through the list of the most recent episodes, one thing that's very refreshing is you're one of the few podcasts that has not turned your attention to Donald Trump. Wait, who? He's this guy. But you guys really don't stick to the news cycle, and you really tend to stay away from any kind of sensationalist story or clickbaity thing. Has that been an ongoing goal in the podcast? I think so. I mean, we've tried to remain fairly academic, and there's enough of that out there. Right. Like there's plenty of that if you want to seek that out. So we like to think we're a nice little...

14:43Oasis. Yeah, a little corner of the Internet where you can go learn about hibernation and not talking about politics. And we've gotten political here and there, but we try to keep it neutral. You know, our listeners kind of know where we lie on the spectrum politically because we are humans, and it's hard to not reveal that at all. But, you know, we will say things like, you should take care of homeless people. And then we'll get feedback from angry people who say, no, you should not take care of homeless people. Yeah, that was a surprise. They deserve to be where they are. And that was a very disheartening episode, actually, for that reason.

15:20But if we do get political, it's usually more like about the political process, like how the electoral college works or how presidential debates work or stuff like that. and then just in talking about the process you also talk about the contemporary take of it you know so we do kind of wade into it here or there but we're not trying to necessarily shove our viewpoints down someone's throat every once in a while it just can't be helped or we're like this is important enough to one or both of us that we will just say yeah this is my opinion and i'm pretty serious about it like the bullfighting episode yeah chuck was foaming at the mouth hated bullfighting.

15:59And I mean, a few people wrote in and said, you need to keep your opinions to yourself. But for the most part, I think most people saw it the same way you do. And every once in a while, it's just like, no, we feel like we should share our opinions on this. So it does come out, but we try to remain neutral for sure. And bullfighting, you believe it's cruel and bad that the bulls get killed. I didn't realize they got killed at the end. that's a big part of bullfighting that's what Chuck hates about it well that and the fighting part too I guess every once in a while the bull will get theirs though those are fun to watch I saw something recently there's a type of bullfighting that involves no swords and no death as far as I know there's no death it's basically avoiding the bull it's pretty awesome I think it's called a bull jumping or something like that I'm not kidding not kidding a bull social bull jumping I could get behind that I guess oh I saw it and I was like Chuck's gonna love this do they just make fun of him and tease them yeah bull's like not kidding I imagine when you guys go to parties or social events are people just constantly saying tell me this fact or tell me a crazy fact or using you guys as kind of a repository of of trivia I've learned not to go to parties Yeah.

17:23Not in my personal life. Nobody, none of my friends want to hear that stuff. That's true. That's very refreshing. And this is the same way for both of us. Yeah. Our families are like, shh. Right. This is your quiet. Fan events for sure. People, yeah, come up and want to know very specific things about specific episodes. And you say, let me, you can Google it. Right. I do, quite often actually. I want to go back to the beginning a little bit when you started in 2008, it was, correct? And that was a time when not a lot of people were podcasting the way that they are now. So what made you guys say this might be good as a podcast?

18:04Well, originally, Chuck said that we start our research out by selecting an article off of How Stuff Works. And that was the original idea for the podcast. It was a way to get this great amount of wonderful information that's on How Stuff Works, all these great nonfiction articles, out to people who don't sit around and read articles on the web all day. They'd rather listen to stuff when they commute or work out or whatever. So the guy who was running the show at the time said, you guys, let's go take these articles and make them into a podcast. And I was like, I don't know what a podcast is, but let's try it.

18:39So he put us with Jerry, and we tried it with a couple of different iterations before Chuck, and then they brought Chuck in, and it was like, okay, we got it figured out. So I think right after Chuck came in, it really started to take off, actually. Like, the addition of Chuck caused the podcast to skyrocket. Come on. It's true, though. It is true. But the whole thing started out as a way to repurpose these articles on the website into something else. And how do you guys develop reputations at the company or just in life as especially curious, curious, roving types of people? You know, that's kind of the company line, you know, how stuff works.

19:24Everyone, even before we did podcasts and we were all just writing articles, everyone that still works there really just has that curiosity at their core. that's sort of the brand, company brand, is just to be inquisitive about stuff and to not kind of sleep through life. And I imagine you guys are kind of all the same way, you know. Just sort of pay attention to the world around you, be interested in what's going on. So it was really kind of born out of that company ethos. And one thing we've learned over the years, too, is if we're researching something and we come across a question, we've got to go find the answer to that question because if we have that question, somebody else listening to the podcast is probably going to have the same question.

20:07We don't want them leaving the podcast going, well, wait a minute, what about this? So when we're doing that, it very frequently leads to more questions. But it's kind of fun to just chase question after question after question until you feel like you have a really good handle on a topic. And then those make for the best episodes, I think, where we both sit down and we both know what we're talking about just fully because you can just kind of let go and just have a lot more fun when you feel like you know what you're talking about. Yeah, and I imagine there are tons of topics that on the surface appear to be very dull or dry, and then you actually start researching them and they become really exciting.

20:46For sure, yeah. Like we did one on grass. Grass. I think the name of the episode was an episode on grass? Yes. Not marijuana grass. No, we've done marijuana. We just called that marijuana. Yeah, just like lawns. This is, yeah, grass. So yes, we have found some topics that seem dull on the surface. Now, does the inverse also work? That some topics that seem really sparkly and exciting on the surface turn out to be not that deep or complicated? I'm sure that happens. I've got one. You got one? We did this episode. It's one of my favorites on disembodied feet washing up around BC. Oh, yeah, yeah.

21:25You guys ever heard of that? Okay. Anyway, Chuck was reading the material, and he was like, man, I was so psyched about this. I thought this is so awesome. And then I figured out what it was. It turns out people are, like, falling over boats or off of bridges or something like that. Their bodies get trapped, and their feet just kind of get loose. And then all of a sudden, they float to the top, and they wash up on shore. He's like, I thought it was, like, something way cooler than that. I was like, what? That's pretty cool. he's like yeah their feet get loose yeah i think i think you didn't want that you didn't want the mystery to be solved is what it was yeah that was pretty much it i thought there was some like x files like reason behind it all not just loose feet loose feet that's a great episode i strongly recommend that one it is very i know i i remember listening to that episode and i kind of blinked and felt like i missed the answer i was like wait you didn't miss it right there was no real explanation it was just kind of they well it's the wave exactly yeah i think that's a top-notch explanation yeah i think that's neat um so i want to talk a little bit more about your fans and your audience and uh you've taken the show on the road quite a bit and it seems like you've been doing a lot of overseas shows in countries that are not the most advanced when it comes to podcasts and they'd...

22:47Ooh, which one? I don't know, maybe like in the UK, the podcasts are not quite that popular yet, so I'm surprised that you guys would have such an audience there. Yeah, we were kind of surprised too. We have a lot of support in the UK though. Yeah. Australia, New Zealand and the UK and Canada are sort of the big countries that follow us. Yeah, we sold out two shows in London. It was pretty neat. and we went to Dublin and Edinburgh and Manchester. And they're different over there. The audiences are much different. We weren't quite prepared for that. How so? They're just a little more staid. Reserved.

23:29Yeah, not quite as expressive. Especially in Manchester, which was our first show. Yeah, they were having a great time, they said, but it was just like, this is wonderful.

23:40And then they gave us a standing ovation at the end. We were like, what is wrong with you guys? Stop toying with us. They're kind of the people, instead of laughing at something, they say, it's very funny. We're sort of used to American audiences you can pander to, and they love it. Although, Dublin was definitely up our alley, too. Yeah, well, everyone was drinking a lot in Dublin. It was fun. It was a fun show. The whole tour was amazing, though. The fact that we were, I think it kind of hit us every night, too. The fact that we were overseas and people were paying to see us podcast live, it was like, oh, my God, this is actually happening, you know?

24:18Right. Well, how do you think those people were exposed to the podcast? I mean, I've always found the UK is pretty ahead of the curve technology wise. I mean, I remember the first cell phone I ever saw in my life was in London. So maybe I'm under the wrong impression, but I kind of thought they were sort of on the leading edge of stuff like that. am I wrong? They do have really fast Wi-Fi in London I will say. Alright well maybe that has something to do with it What do you think? I mean I was under the same impression actually to tell you the truth. If that's not the case then there are a select group of people who are super hip and in the know and those are the people who are at our shows.

24:58Right. Can you kind of sum up how podcasting has changed in the eight years since you started as kind of a fledgling little organization? Well, it's obviously grown a lot, not only in sheer number of podcasts out there, which is great. You can find anything. You can find a lot of anything that you're interested in and choose from that subsection. Subsection? Subsect? It works. I make up words a lot, by the way. and then you know as far as being a viable business it's companies are putting advertising dollars into it which is a big deal that I think that sort of has helped legitimize it in a lot of people's eyes and because of that then then you have people like Katie Couric starting her own podcast and you know some kind of people in other traditional media who were very very big are now kind of trying to dip their toe in the water.

25:59But, you know, that's been the case, though, for a lot of people, like Kevin Pollack is a longtime podcaster. Everybody knows him from The Usual Suspects, right? And I'm sure there's other examples, but Kevin Pollack's a great one. But there are plenty of people who have been into podcasting who have kind of kept it going. And then, yeah, now that it's a lot bigger, people like Katie Couric are getting into it. I think Shaq has one that's coming out or that is out. But one thing that seems to be surviving this transition into more of a mainstream form of media seems to be this DIY thing that podcasting has always had going on.

26:43that from the get-go, there's always been very low barriers to entry into podcasts. And there have been a lot of people who have just decided to make a podcast, sometimes in their basement or in their garage or wherever. And that's still going on. It's not being crowded out, which is really great. Because that would really stink for people to make this a passion project for years and years and years and then just get forced out does Shaq and Katie Couric come into the fold, you know? That just doesn't seem fair. I just picture her riding on his shoulders. Right. That would be a heck of a podcast.

27:19That'd be like the Snoop Dogg Martha Stewart show that I am psyched about seeing. I haven't heard of that. You haven't? Are they doing a show together? Yes. They're doing a show on, I think, Lifetime. It's like a dinner party show. Snoop and Martha Stewart. I'm not joking. Wow. Is it called The Dizzle Party? I don't know what it's called. Oh, they missed an opportunity. But it's coming out this November, I think. That was a little bit of buzz marketing, but it came from here. Yeah. Right. Totally. How do you feel about... So you guys have worked in the video format. And how do you feel about switching this trend?

27:56A lot of podcasters are turning their podcasts into television shows. We had a television show. Right, on the Science Channel. And what are the challenges of turning a sort of fast and loose audio format into a TV show? Challenges are great. Yes, myriad. As evidenced by the fact that our show was one season long. Hey, that was not our fault, man. That was a great show. Yeah, I think, I mean, there's a lot of ways to skin that cat from just setting up cameras in your studio, kind of Howard Stern style. to doing what we did, which was making a sitcom out of our show. A scripted comedy. Which was a little weird for the Science Channel.