Consider This from NPR - Was That This Year?

Episode Date: December 31, 2021

We take a look back on the year in news and pop culture... in quotes. Audie Cornish and Ari Shapiro join Sam Sanders for a special episode of NPR's It's Been a Minute to play a deluxe version of their favorite game, Who Said That. Listen to It's Been A Minute on NPR One, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment that will help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

If you listen to NPR's It's Been a Minute with Sam Sanders, then you know the game Who Said That? Sam reads quotes from the news and asks his guests, who said that? Well, for a special year-end edition, I joined him along with my co-host, Audie Cornish. I will say there's no Fauci in this game. Wow. Okay. Sorry to all the, was it Fauci-sexuals, Anthony? What was the word for them? Remember? Yeah. Sorry to all the, was it Fauci sexuals, Anthony? What was the word

for them? Remember? Yeah, that wasn't the word. Yeah, that wasn't the word. Coming up, an omnibus version

of Who Said That rounding up another surprising and strange year of news. I'm Ari Shapiro. You're listening to Consider This from NPR. It's Friday,

December 31st. Happy New Year's Eve. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies. Send, spend, or receive money internationally, and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the WISE app today or visit wise.com. T's and C's apply. It's Consider This from NPR. Okay, I'm going to let Sam Sanders, host of It's Been a Minute, take it from here for this special 2021 edition of Who Said That? Today, I'll be reading five quotes from the year of important stories from the news, and my guests will try to guess. Here to play the game with me are, honestly,

my favorite dynamic duo to have on this show, maybe ever, all the time. NPR co-hosts of All Things Considered, Audie Cornish and Ari Shapiro. Hello, hello, hello. Hi, let's get on this omnibus, Audie. Yeah, you don't have, like, theme music for us, or, like, the, like, applause special effects?

Come on! Oh, okay. You are in the studio. You could have all of the NPR employees there clap for you right now. All 30 of them. On the other side of the soundproof booth so you wouldn't actually hear them. Here's the first quote. My life now reflects not just the person that I want to be, but the person that I really feel like I am.

Yeah. but the person that I really feel like I am. Which is not perfect, but somebody who tries very hard and cares very much about being honest and authentic and accountable. Any guesses? I can keep going. Wait, there's more to this statement? A celebrity who rekindled an old flame this year. Oh, what is it?

Go ahead. Is it Ben Affleck? Yes, it is Ben Affleck. It's Ben Affleck. And let me finish the quote. Am I misremembering or was there a Bennifer moment in the last time we said that? There was. I can't believe it.

Audie, were you just giving me that? I feel like you should have been all over that. Well, I think also maybe I only pay attention to the Jennifer part of Bennifer. Yeah. No, so I will finish the quote from Ben. He says, it's harder to say who benefits more. Yes. Without going into gossipy detail. I could just say that I feel great about being very healthy and it is a good story. It's a great story. And, you know, maybe one day I'll tell it. I'll write it all out and then I'll light it on fire. That man is in love. So that was Ben Affleck talking to Wall Street Journal magazine about his relationship with J-Lo. The perfect venue for that conversation. Did it move the markets is the question.

Exactly. And as you both recalled, we talked about Bennifer 2.0 for about a month straight on this show when it happened because I was obsessed. It was a perfect bit of lovely nostalgia in this year of darkness. I liked it. Also this year of darkness. I liked it. Also this year of nostalgia, let's face it. I mean, so much of what we took in, A, so much of what we took in in general, right? We're getting towards the end of streaming options. But what they're starting to feed us now are more nostalgia-based items, whether that's friends or, in way, dude, right? Like it's just a lot of reliving certain.

Sex and the city. Ideas, sex and the city. Oh, you're right. Here's the next quote. Vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, vaccine. Oh, I know. I'm begging of you. Please don't hesitate.

Who? Well, I feel like I should give you this one. Yeah, she recorded that Instagram video. She was getting her shot. Yeah, Dolly Parton. That was her singing about getting her vaccine. She sung it to the tune of her classic, Jolene. Vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, vaccine.

I'm begging of you, please don't hesitate. This happened in March when the vaccines were starting to get rolled out and everyone was really excited about them. She was getting her first dose of the Moderna vaccine, a vaccine that she helped create. Which she gave a million dollars to help fund. Yeah. Yeah, she gave a million dollars to Vanderbilt University Medical Center,

which worked with Moderna to develop the vaccine. With a public radio connection. Yeah, because she is cool with Jad Abumrad's dad, who's a doctor. Jad Ab radio connection. Yeah, because she is cool with Jad Abumrad's dad, who's a doctor. She also said at the time, quote, I mean, this really

was her year. This was Dolly's year. Isn't every year her year? No, this is significant. I mean, people, I think just the other day, Jennifer Aniston was kind of complaining a little bit about people reacting to her being pro vaccine and Nashville country music. Despite her legend status, it can be quite inhospitable if you kind of go in the opposite direction of whichever way the audience winds are blowing. So it's actually no small thing that she's done what she's done and become essentially the country's fairy godmother in the process. So to me, there's a little bit of extra applause here

in underscoring what she's done. She's always been so judicious with where and when she takes a stand, and so the fact that she decided to do it in this case is significant. All right, who got that point? Wait, that was... Oh? Wait, that was – That was Audie. Oh, yeah, that was me. I was like, wait, are we still playing the game at this point?

I would say that this whole episode is the game. Oh, right, right, right. Per my last email, Audie. There's a format to this show, you call it. Interesting. A little bit. All right, here's the next quote. Then this is about a big story from the news this year,

so tell me what the story is about. We are all in our own little way. That ship. Oh, was that this year? The Suez Canal? Yeah, the Suez Canal ship. That feels like a lifetime ago. Within this calendar year?

Yo, it's crazy. This is more about 2021 than any analysis we could offer. That's true. The what is time joke. Yeah, for real. So that quote comes from cartoonist Chaz Hutton. He made a cartoon about this ship stuck in the Suez Canal that went viral on Twitter.

The ship is called the Ever Given. It blocked the Suez Canal for six days in March. It stopped worldwide shipping. And according to The New York Times, it froze nearly $10 billion in trade a day. The ship was one of the largest container ships ever built. And I don't know how no one predicted this. Like, come on, ship people. This is like your number one job. Well, what I remember is that that's also when we started talking about the supply chain in our news stories. But it was very vague.

It was like, this could affect the supply chain. And you could hear the listeners' eyes glaze over. You're like, what? Yeah, it was like, oh, this far-off concept that's never really going to affect us or might not affect us for many months. And now here we are just kind of with a greater understanding of that in general. Also, it was a good moment for Americans to realize that all this stuff isn't that easy. I think we got really used to telling Jeff Bezos to get it to our house the next day. And it's like, actually, a lot goes into these things.

Yeah, yeah. And also, I think that one thing that's been, I like to underscore in these stories, I don't hear enough, is that it's often not that you won't get what you want. It's that you won't get it in the exact way you want exactly the day you want, which is we're spoiled, like we're spoiled consumers. So it's kind of like, what, I'm not going to get that water bottle and teal? Like, that's not an empty shelf. Do you know what I'm saying? Like countries have really seen inflation and empty shelves, and we ain't seen it yet. But the dialogue is such because everyone's so used to getting what they want almost immediately. I just think it's so interesting to pull back the curtain and see how the sausage is made because we do take so much for granted that when you actually think about like, well, what happens when stuff

gets to the port of Los Angeles or the Suez Canal or like, it's actually really interesting. And there are a lot of good stories in there. And what happens is people, Soylent Green is people is the joke, right? The supply chain is people, and it's like people have to work at the warehouse, people have to drive the truck, people have to work the extra hours. And let's face it, we have all assumed that that stuff just kind of happened. It's like, oh, I don't know, automation? No, it's actual people who no longer want to work overtime without a mask with bosses that don't know automation no it's actual people who no longer want to work overtime without a mask with bosses that don't treat them well um so i wanted i'm super interested in 2022 like what that will the market respond to that i remember when the supply chain issues began

early in the pandemic when no one could get their hands on a Nintendo Switch. Well, I thought you were going to say toilet paper. It was toilet paper, yeah. And Clorox. Oh, you're right. Nintendo Switch. I still don't have a Nintendo Switch, but I have a lot of toilet paper. Just saying. You win.

You just won the game with that quote. That better make the edit. That was perfect. All right, here's the next quote the only thing i can see that's good about going to prison is that i'm going to be able to work out a lot and do a lot of yoga and detox i have no idea wait this person was part of a group of people fiction or non-fiction person oh non-fiction i have Oh, I have a guess. I have a guess.

Go ahead. Go ahead. Is it the January 6th insurrectionist? It is. Yes. This is Jenna Ryan. She was one of the people who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6th of this year.

And she was talking on her TikTok about what she was going to do for her only 60-day prison sentence. Hopefully they have like some protein shakes and some protein bars, I think, because you don't want to eat like green bologna. That's what they have to eat. So I'm going to end up losing weight in prison. She was sentenced on November 4th to 60 days in custody. And the judge, Christopher R. Cooper, he said, quote, you've been very upfront that you feel no sense of shame or guilt. You suggested Antifa was somehow involved.

And perhaps most famously, you said that because you had blonde hair and white skin, you wouldn't be going to jail. The judge said, think again. I'm feeling a little sheepish because I originally thought that quote was Tom from Succession. Oh, that's why you were like, is this fiction or not fiction? Yeah, I was like, I know this one. Also, while we're on it, best show of the year. My favorite visual consumption of this year is Succession. Was it?

Here's the thing. Are you sure? Succession works once you realize it's actually a sitcom. It is a sitcom because the stakes actually never change. No one wins or loses. They stay there and they just kind of perform comedy for you. Yeah, Jeremy Strong would disagree. But it's kind of like Arrested Development, just with better cinematography.

Fun fact, I actually went to college with Jeremy Strong. My husband and I did plays with him. Was he crazy back then too? Well, it's funny. I went to that Al Pacino master class that is mentioned in the profile. This is the New Yorker profile that got all the attention and everybody in Hollywood rushing to Jeremy Strong's defense. So it talks about this Al Pacino master class. This was at Yale in like the late nineties. But I didn't know the backstory,

which you're going to have to read the New Yorker profile. But when I saw that, I was like, oh, I had no idea that that's what this was about. So when you were there, you weren't like, why is Al Pacino here? That never occurred to you in your brain? Or were you like, I'm at Yale. Everyone at Yale was a little bit like, who wouldn't want to come talk to us? Wow. The school has an inflated sense of self.

I think that says more about Yale than it does about Jeremy Strong or Al Pacino. I will say, seeing celebrities come to Jeremy Strong's defense, I'm just like, there are better things for them to do with their time, power, and visibility. Oh, I don't think so. I mean, these are people who also are very into the, like, craft sentence caps of acting. Do you know what I mean? And I think the response on their part, and I'm not defending like super famous celebrities, but I think some people looked at this New Yorker profile and thought that it was actually poking fun at people who take craft seriously. Yeah, but here's the thing. It wasn't just taking the work seriously.

All of his co-stars said in so many words, we can't stand him and he makes it hard for us. That is not true. So there's a way to be a method. I spoke. I worry about his well-being. I spoke to J. Smith Cameron who plays Jerry Kelman on that show.

I asked her about this and she's like look he does what he needs to get there. We all have our process. But this idea that like people shouldn't just get along be collegial and respect each other but have to like love and like each other and hang out at each other's Italian villas or whatever

is I think a little bit childish. But I mean, whatever, it's Twitter. People are like, ha ha, Twitter comments on a New Yorker profile. Also, it's good for the record you're both invited to my Italian villa. And not just because you're my colleagues. Oh, okay. But I have to ask, do you actually have one? I feel like...

Of course I don't have one, Audie. Come on. I gotta ask. I mean, you dropped your Jeremy Strong story in a very casual way. So I feel like I should ask the Italian villa thing. Thank you for your support of public radio. I do not have an Italian villa. Don't call your congressman yet. We are going to get to the last quote. I don't know if this game is tight or not. It doesn't matter. Here's the last quote.

Ready? And just tell me what I'm talking about. It was a meme stock that really blew up. Oh, yeah. Okay. Audie, should we say it on the count of three together? I have no idea what it is. No.

Whatever needs to win. It's GameStop. Oh, my goodness. Was that this year? GameStomp, as the kids called it. Yeah, it was this year. GameStomp. Again, whatever needs to win. It's GameStop. Oh my goodness. Was that this year? As the kids called it. Yeah, it was this year. Again, was that this year? That's the name of the episode. Was that this year? That is the name of this episode.

Totally. Was that this year? Okay. So that quote is all about GameStop stock, which came to be called GameStonk. Remember that? It was so annoying. Anywho, that quote comes from one of the moderators of the subreddit WallStreetBets. And you might recall that in January of this year, Reddit users discovered that the company

GameStop was in financial trouble. So then some of those users invested their own money to make GameStop's stock price go from $20 to $73. But because many analysts had suggested short-selling GameStop stocks to make a profit off their prices going down, a lot of other folks ended up losing money. I don't know what happened, but for a while, GameStop stock was really hot, and then it wasn't. And some folks made money, and some folks folks lost money and the stock market is imaginary. Sam, you reminded me of the worst part of this story, which was for journalists anyway,

the challenge of saying GameStop stock over and over again. Let's do it. GameStop stock. GameStop stock. It is a verbal road cone for sure. It's funny. It's like my brain can only hold so much news and that just sloshed right out funny it's like my brain can only hold so much news and that just sloshed right out it's like i know i spent many weeks talking about that and now you're

telling it to me i'm like interesting even though i bet if you google like my name is on the like interviews related to it i'm happy to announce the winner of this special year-end edition of Who Said That? is, drumroll, Ari Shapiro. Oh, it's such an honor. Happy New Year. Thank you. Adi, how are you feeling? It's good. I mean, I'm glad I could give him that gift.

You've given me so many gifts, Adi. This is just the latest. I have. I have. Thanks to Sam Sanders and the It's Been a Minute team for inviting us to play. You're listening to Consider This from NPR. I'm Ari Shapiro, your reigning Who Said That champion.