Endless Thread - Encore: And... It's Good!

Episode Date: February 1, 2019

Hey football fans, ever heard of the Chicago Bears Principle? How about Winter Magic? Or the UFL? In this Super Bowl-themed episode, Redditors educate us on the stats, the halftime history books, and tackle football on wheels.

Support for endless thread comes from Mathworks, creator of MATLAB and Simulink Software, to design and develop engineered systems, accelerating the pace of discovery in engineering and science. Learn more at Mathworks.com. Support for WBUR comes from Is Business Broken, a podcast from the Mayrotra Institute at Boston University that explores questions like, why is innovation in healthcare so hard? Is ESG just greenwashing? And, of course, is business broken? Listen, wherever you get your podcasts. Produced by the I-Lab at WBUR, Boston. Hey, it's Amory, and Ben and I are back with more. But wait, you say, aren't you supposed to be working on super secret endless thread projects and not publishing episodes?

Good question. We are doing all those things. But this weekend is the Super Bowl, and we made a whole episode last year about football and the Super Bowl and Reddit. And it holds up, even though it's a different team playing the Patriots this year and in a much warmer city, thank goodness. But if you didn't catch that episode last year, or you just want to hear about the meaning of superb owl again, or about the amazing history of the halftime show, take a listen. We'll be back with some snacks real soon. But for now, go sports. Amory, name every football position you know in 2.727. seconds, ready, too bad, go? Quarterback.

Okay. All right, you're done. You're done. All right. It's tough, though, right? You want to do it to me? Yeah, yeah, obviously. Okay, ready, go. Blitz. Okay, full-back, halfback, back, back? Is that one? Why didn't we do this to each other? Because three seconds is around the time your average professional badass quarterback has to throw the ball on a given play before it's too late. to demonstrate our just really horrible knowledge of football.

Oh, yeah. I think it's fair to say that we are below average when it comes to sports knowledge. Definitely. But you know what? We're still probably going to watch the Super Bowl. At least I am. As is our custom in America. I know.

For me, it's a reason to make slamming nachos. For me, it's a reason to eat all the food and watch none of the football. Okay, today we're going to do the damn thing. We're going to do the Super Bowl. Do you have a favorite football fact hammer? My favorite football fact is that after the Super Bowl, the season is over. You? I think it's one I just learned about the Chicago Bears from a couple of the moderators of the NFL community or subreddit.

Yeah, the Bears principle wherein the Bears are the principal guiding force of who wins and who loses in the playoffs this year, which is really great for the Bears because now they're playoff relevant, which is not often for them. Ooh, what do we call that a sick burn? I think we call that a sick burn, Ben. Yep, and I'm going to explain the math behind that sick burn in a minute. Duh, bears do play a role in the Super Bowl. All right. Football it is.

What's the name of this episode? Well, you know, Emery, when a team kicks a field goal and the ref throws up his arms and he says, And it's good. I'm Ben Brock Johnson, and this is Endless Thread, a show featuring stories found in the vast ecosystem of online communities called Reddit. I am here with my producer, Amory Sieverts, and we are finding all kinds of stories. We're going to listen to Redditors tell their stories. We are going to wade into the comments.

It's going to be great and weird and fun and hopefully enlightening. One does not simply walk into our show without saying how it is made. We are coming to you from WBUR, Boston's NPR station, and we are making this show with a little bit of help from our friends at Reddit. So we've been bringing you some pretty in-depth stories from Reddit, posted by Redditors, told by Redditors, but today we wanted to mix it up a little bit. Do a football buffet, if you will, in honor of Super Bowl 52 happening in Minneapolis. Right, Amory? Yeah, you call it a buffet. I prefer to think of it as four quarters to this episode. Ooh, will there be overtime?

You know, you make your plays and we might see some overtime. Okay, here's the kickoff with help from two people who are volunteering as moderators of the NFL community, or as we sometimes call them, the NFL subreddit. By the way, that's not to be confused with the Super Bowl subreddit, which if you read it a different way, is the superb owl subreddit. It's just pictures of owls, that one. hilarious guys. The NFL subreddit has more than 700,000 subscribers.

I'm Matt Wend. That's Matt with one T. Not that that matters over audio. Matt moderates a bunch of the other football-related communities as well, like like the one for the Seattle Seahawks. Better luck next year, guys. And then there's Emily. Emily Humphrey.

My Reddit username is Napoleon BonnerParts. Yeah, I'm not sure if that's a, you know, podcast right here or whatever. But I also moderate, in addition to NFL, our LGBT. Along with moderating this diverse pair of subreddits, NFL and LGBT, Emily helps design their pages. She also pays a lot of attention to what is popular. I got to say green peppers baby was probably the most popular thread. What is that? So shortly after leaving the Bears, Julius Peppers signed with the Green Bay Packers.

And one of the users, he just wrote a post that, you know, said something about Julius Peppers going to the Green Bay Packers, and then the body was just Green Peppers baby. Green Peppers Baby, not the most intellectually stimulating conversation starter, but it does get pretty nerdy on there. One popular post compared the number of each team's fans to the number of things represented in the real world by their mascots. So like Seattle Seahawk fans versus how many real live Osprey were living in the wild, for instance. Here's the coup de grasse, though. The real stat for this season involving the aforementioned Chicago Bears. and a single user called Cranastic, a Bears fan, of course, who discovered an interesting correlation.

So basically what he discovered is you could use the last time each team faced the Bears to predict the outcomes of the playoffs so far. There was one slight aberration, but basically, starting with the Wild Card round, Titans and Chiefs, Titans played the Bears week 12, 2016, Titans won, Chiefs played the Bears week 5, 2015, and the Bears won. Translation for non-football-stat-playoff experts, pick any team in the playoffs. Look at their last game against the Bears. If it's a W, they're going to advance.

If they took a loss, get out your tissues, burly football fans, because your team is not going to be the bell of this Super Bowl ball. And it basically followed that entire pattern, minus the Bills and Jags games. And that's throughout the entire playoffs thus far. Once you get through that first wildcard round and even the divisional, the two. teams that won last are the teams that have advanced. It's not ironclad scientific data. I don't think there's much more than correlation here. For what it's worth, the Eagles beat the Bears in their last game, 31 to 3.

The Patriots did two a long time ago, though, technically in the preseason of 2016. But it was close, 23 to 22. By the way, Matt and Emily helped put together a big so-called mega thread on Super Bowl Sunday, and they say it's a big old live discussion of the big game, the good, the bad, the ads, it's all in there. Check out R-slash NFL for more. Pretty good first quarter, right, Amory? Not bad, Ben, not bad, so let's get ready for halftime. Already?

Yeah, the halftime show takes a lot of preparation. At least it has since Super Bowl 26, which is the last time the Super Bowl was held in Minneapolis. Ladies and gentlemen, the National Football League and Timberline Productions, Proudly presents the 1992 Super Bowl 26th, halftime, spectacular. Winter Magic! But was it Magic, Amory? Was it as advertised, spectacular? It was definitely a spectacle.

And it was described in great detail for us by a Redditor by the name of Jaguar Gator 9, or... Colin Giuliani, 20 years old, from Long Island, New York. He's from Long Island, but he goes to... school in North Carolina at High Point University. I love this guy because he really embodies the idea that the internet can help you become an expert in something there is no reason for you to be an expert in. For Colin, it all started back in middle school. There was like a period where I was like in eighth grade or something and I was really sick. I was like home for like a week and a half and I just saw a halftime show pop up on my YouTube feed on my suggestions and I was like, okay, this

looks cool, and might as well click on it. And then all of a sudden it just became me going down a rabbit hole. And one halftime show became two, and two became five, and five became ten. And then eventually, a few years ago, I went back and decided to knock out every halftime show from the 80s on. And here we are, like 30-something halftime shows later. And a halftime expert was born, a halftime critic, too, with a bit of a critics viewing ritual. For new halftime shows, Colin watches live, but says nothing. Then he watches it again in full.

And then only after about the third time do I really know whether or not this was like a great half-time show or an absolutely terrible half-time show? Because there have been times where the first time it turned out really well and then on repeat viewings it didn't have the same effect. How many times do you watch every halftime show now? It depends on the show. For some of the really bad ones, I really wish I could only watch it once. But the Lady Gaga won from this past Super Bowl. I watched about seven or eight. Katie Perry, I probably watched the most.

That one was one of my all-time favorites. That one I probably watched a solid once a day for about three weeks after the game. What? This is crazy. Is that because of the shark suits? That had something to do with it. But it was almost like going to a concert. It didn't feel like a halftime show.

It felt like a concert. I thought that was really impressive. Okay. You want Colin to break the litany of Super Bowl halftime shows into, say, specific eras? No problem. It starts off with the marching bands. Then you got to some very cheesy halftime shows produced by like Disney, up with people, basically whoever the highest bidder was.

Then there was a bit of a transitional period. 31 through 38 is what I like to call the multi-performer era, in sync and Aerosmith, Shania Twain and Sting. And then Super 38. And he goes on from there. But one of the inflection points for sure in the history of halftime, says Colin, was this Super Bowl 26 halftime show in Minneapolis. He wrote a pretty popular post on Reddit about it. And to be honest, one might ask Colin whether he loves it or hates it.

I don't know what they were trying to go for here. They were trying to do way too much. He had a winter theme. It's winter magic. We proudly salute the 1992 Winter Olympics. You had the send-off to the Olympics, but then you decide. at the very end to put Gloria Stephan, the lead singer of the Miami sound machine

on there, because nothing screams the winner like Gloria's Stefan. Basically, you had a production company based in, I believe it was New Mexico or Arizona. It was somewhere out there that even admitted a month or two before the Super Bowl in an article that they never saw snow before.

And then the song choices were absolutely terrible. There was not just Frost to the Snowman, but there was a rap version of Frosty the Snowman, of Frosty the Snowman. And some of the lyrics included Go Frosty Go, Go, Frosty Go, because they needed to rip off Go Ninja Go

by Vanilla Ice, of all people. Go Roste, yo, roste, yo. That was the first half of the show. So that after that's done, they decide to say, you know what, we're going to put everything we got on the field. So they bring out snowmobiles, people running in snowmobiles,

they bring out dancers with hockey sticks. They bring out the 1980 Olympic hockey team with no introduction whatsoever. They just show up on stage and then they leave. There are people on roller skates, doing tricks. There are people with ribbons flying around. So there's about eight different things going on at once

and you don't know where the focus is whatsoever. And then after that's done, Gloria Stephan comes out and sings about a minute of songs. She sings, live for loving you and get on your feet, which I like. I like both those. songs. I like Gloria Stephan. They did that the year before with Super 25. They had new kids on the block and didn't put them in the show until 11 minutes. Most 20-year-olds I know have no idea who new kids

on the block or Gloria Stefan is. I'm like an 80s, 90s music junkie. Why has the halftime show evolved in the way that it has? Yeah, oddly enough, winter magic was the reason that the halftime show evolved. Fox was just starting out as a network. They were pretty much in their infancy at this point. So Fox decided they're going to air counter programming during the halftime show. No one had never tried that before. So Fox decided to air a live episode of In Living Color, which was a fairly successful show. So Fox wanted people to watch their show and then go back to the Super Bowl. It was pretty much a blowout. Washington was beating Buffalo pretty badly at that point. So people turned to In Living Color and never turned back to the Super Bowl. So the NFL

The NFL lost about 20% of its viewership from the first half to the second half because people went to a different halftime show and then never flipped it back. Once that happened, the NFL decided to get serious with the halftime show, and the very next year they got Michael Jackson. And that was the moment that the halftime show stopped becoming this cheesy affair

like Super 26th Winter Magic was. Colin says things have gotten way better. We share one favor. Prince is top five for playing Purple Rain in the Rain. Colin, thank you so much for talking with us. We really appreciate it. It's been a pleasure. Thanks for having me on. Purple Rain. That's all right. And by the way, just in case you don't believe Colin about how bad that halftime show was,

one of our colleagues at WBUR Josh Swartz got another source on. this, a very reliable one from Minneapolis. My name's Jacob Fry. I'm the mayor of Minneapolis, and we're in mayor's office. Yeah, I mean, to say that it was cheesy would be the understatement of the century. Well, I think Justin Timberlake is going to take it up a notch and we'll see a little bit of redemption. I'm looking forward to it. All right, Ben, you ready for the real halftime? Ooh, will there be a show?

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Amory, it is third quarter time. I think there's another kickoff. Yep. And I hope everybody got their snack on because it's time to get serious now. So in the third quarter of this year's AFC championship game between the New England Patriots

and the Jacksonville Jaguars, Pat's fans were nervously waiting to hear about tight end Rob Grankowski. He suffered a helmet-on-helmet collision just two minutes before halftime. That's definitely a penalty. He hit him in the helmet. Yeah.

No question. Now it's going to be about the concussion aspect. I mean, look at, he's kind of walking. It's easy to forget in all of the hype around the Super Bowl that playing football is risky, which is how we get to a Texas-based redditor named Jason in his post titled, I should not allow my son to follow his passion and play tackle football.

Emphasis there on the word passion. I really don't remember a time when it wasn't a part of his life. You know, football was always on around the house, just like a lot of other sports. And then, believe it or not, we started Flagg in Texas at the age of four. So, you know, he's out there loving it, having the time of his life. But while Jason's son is having the time of his life, Jason's been keeping up with the headlines. Some of them are about research.

Some of them are about the NFL's congressional testimony regarding another three-letter abbreviation, CTE. CTE is a degenerative brain disease. And it's not unique to football. But because football is basically the process of banging people's heads together over and over, the NFL and CTE are most commonly associated. I was always telling him flags it. I'm not going to allow you to play tackle football.

It's just too dangerous. But as any parent knows, sticking to your guns is tough when you're talking about something that your kid loves. You know, please, I'll do anything, you know, begging and begging every day. and it really came down to us deciding, you know, you've got the sport, you've got the potential danger of the sport, but then you have this kid's just unrelenting passion talking about it, not just, you know, occasionally. Every day it was these kind of questions and this kind of discussion. Jason eventually caves. His son starts playing.

When I put the equipment on him for the first time, the pads of helmet, even just to practice. He said, this is the best day of my life. But Jason still doesn't feel good about it. So he goes to Reddit for a gut check. He posts in the community called Change My View, where people go to seek out other points on an issue that they're feeling pretty resolute about. Here's what he wrote.

My son is eight years old and has already played a season of tackle football. Yes, this is Texas. He's a great athlete, full of aggression, who loves a number of sports, but especially football. I have talked to him about the dangers of the sport, the recent NFL testimony in front of Congress, and the need to shift him away from football. His heart is broken, and he burst into tears during the discussion. He's simply too young, in my opinion, to make this potentially life-altering decision.

Rather than just taking a sport away, we have talked about substituting another sport. For example, lacrosse, still concussions, but not nearly the amount nor the repetitive head-to-head contact. I would appreciate any feedback. And he got feedback. Some people didn't even attempt to change his view. There's no way I'd let my kid play, one Redditor wrote. I suffered a traumatic brain injury two years ago, wrote another. I can't begin to explain to you how this has changed my life. I would probably do the same.

On the other side, there were a lot of people that posted, one about challenging the study itself. Selection bias, some said, noting that the brains examined in the study belonged to players who were already exhibiting symptoms of CTE before they died. Of course, that science is still pretty well established at this point. Science aside, plenty of people commented on the personal benefits to playing football. Redditor Rare Turtle played hockey and football in high school and college and said that despite the risks, they would, quote, without a doubt, play those sports again.

These sports are wonderful tools, which taught me the link between hard work and real tangible progress and away school and even other sports never managed to. And another person whose mom made him stop playing tackle football said this. I still resent my mom for taking it away from me. I love her and we are extremely close, but there is a tiny bit of my heart that will always resent it. Ah, long-lasting resentment, that thing that haunts all parents. And Jason is not immune.

He asked his son about it. What would you think if we just pulled out of football completely? and he said, I would hate you. And I know as a parent, you know, if that's what it takes to make the right decision, then so be it. But, yeah, that was his reaction. It's now been a little bit over a year since Jason made that post in Change My View. I think that the Redditors definitely brought me to a place to think of it differently. If I think about my own experience playing sports, I only played football for one year, but I didn't.

I did play basketball. And if I had those same risks knowing it now, then definitely I would have still played basketball, no doubt in my mind. It just meant that much to me, and it still does today. Jason's son is now 10 years old. He's been playing tackle for three years. I mean, we're really taking it year by year at this point. I think it's better off to see how he develops with the sport.

And I don't know what the effect is on my son if I just pulled his greatest. fashion away from him. What effect is that going to have? So at this point, it's, let's put you in the best helmet possible and with the best coaches that I know and keep on going. In a way, that's what changed my view

is all about. Some thoughtful discussion and reflection, even if it doesn't make someone pull a 180 yet. I'm not going to lie, Amory, that third quarter was tough. Oh, I know, but it's a good thing to acknowledge. A ton of people play football and it's violent,

and dangerous, and we should be straight up about that. So thanks to Jason for sharing that with us. We also have a lighter story for the fourth quarter, something to lift the spirits. We do, and this guy actually messaged us after we launched the show just a few weeks ago. Yep, and Rob Anderson is the perfect guy for the fourth quarter, because the fourth quarter is usually when people start sweating their bets. Rob created this thing called charitable bets on Reddit, and his story starts with a dispute and then a bet over the other kind of football.

Yeah, that's correct. I'm a big Liverpool soccer, as you would say, fan. Hey, better than a Chelsea fan. I won't argue with you on that one for a multitude of reasons. There had been a post by the club online saying that there was a big announcement coming in a few hours, and somebody commented on the thread on the soccer subreddit that they were 100% sure that it was a certain player that was going to be announced. as it happened, I disagreed with what he was saying. And he suggested, do you want to bet? Wasn't prepared to go high stakes, just five pounds.

He accepted, but made the suggestion, why not give the money to charity? So a few hours later, we found out that I was correct. He lost the bet. He made the donation to charity. And that just set my brain running. Why not try and get more people to do something similar? What sport to people bet on the most in the charitable bets community? It's absolutely by a country mile, the NFL.

You run a Super Bowl bet in the community every year. How does it go and how does it work? So with big events like the Super Bowl, we like to try and pit one team's subreddit against the other team's subreddit. So we'll communicate with each team's subreddit moderators as we're doing right now. The losers will be the ones who donate to one charity chosen by everybody else who took part for the winning team. What's the most someone has bet on the Super Bowl in past years?

It's actually our biggest bet ever, and it was for $1,000. Which team were they betting on? Actually, it was the Patriots to win to Super Bowl, and they lost. Well, you know, I guess that's good news for the charity, even if it's bad news for the Pats. Absolutely. Charitable bets has existed for about. five years now, you say.

That's right, yeah. Just tell me how much money the community is raised in total during that time? We've actually just tipped over $17,000. Do people ever pay up even though they've won? Yeah, that happens more often than I ever thought it would. I suppose it's also nice to be able to support your gambling habit for a good cause. Yeah, people with gambling habits shouldn't be betting on the subreddit. I would say that, and we have said that to people in the same.

the past. This is, like I say, it's a fun way to maybe add interest into a game that you don't have any stake in otherwise, and ultimately, a charity does well out of it. And for me, that's, that's ticking all the boxes. Is this legal? Yes, is my answer. It's purely the same as what I believe is called a bar bet in the USA. Well, with that kind of answer, I wouldn't put too much money on whether or not it's legal, but Rob Anderson doesn't seem to have been thrown into the clink just yet. Also, by the way, the charitable bets community he runs tries to verify all payments with screenshots. Rob says you can never be too sure your opponent has paid up, but most of the bets are small and wasting all of that time in Photoshop might be more tedious than to just pay out.

Time to call our last time out. Hey, Ben, do you know what time it is? Over time, yes, right? Has the clock run out on our regular gameplay? Are we going into overtime on this episode? We are. Okay, what do you got? I have a very serious matchup for you.

Hmm. Pats versus Eagles? No. Unicorns versus hot dogs. Okay. I don't think I could name every team in the NFL, but I'm pretty sure I can say these are not teams in the NFL. You are correct, but they're teams playing a kind of football in Texas. And this is definitely one of those only in Texas sort of things. Specifically San Marcus, Texas in this case, it's about 40 minutes southwest of Austin, and it's home of the world's only UFL. Unicycle Football League. Unicycle football is pretty much exactly what it sounds like.

It's football played on unicycles. And I learned about it in a community on Reddit called The Ocho. Have you heard of this one? Yeah, that's the place where you can see all those weird sports. I feel like I always see Scottish people in kiltz doing weird things, with logs? I don't know. Yeah, well, the name is a reference to the made-up sports network from the movie Dodgeball. You'll find you exclusively here on PSPN 8, the Ocho.

You'll find things in the Ocho community like slam ball, basketball played on trampolines, of course, or competitive grease pole climbing, and then, of course, unicycle football. Okay, so the unicorns and the hot dogs are teams in the UFL. Not just any teams in the UFL, Ben. and they're two of the best out of the seven teams in the league. Seven teams, low bar. Maybe so, but it was a competitive face-off that took place last Sunday at River Ridge Park in San Marcos. It's a little before 2 p.m., and spectators are setting up lawn chairs and cracking open beers.

One of the league's organizers is using one of those things you see at baseball games to make the lines on the field, or in this case a parking lot. Except instead of chalk, the UFL uses flour, like household baking flour. Members of the unicorns show up gradually, but the hot dogs, they're known for their grand entrances. Most beloved and hated team in the league. This is Lee Wallace, one of the league's organizers and players. So they come in, I think the last game that came in on a five-person tandem bicycle. They show up in limousines sometimes.

This time they're showing up on a truck with a, I'd lose. It looks like an eight-foot hot dog mounted onto the back, and they're riding the hot dog through the field. So just to clarify, Amory, are these unicyclists who play football or football players who unicycle? I just want to acknowledge that both of those options sound crazy. But in this case, it's the latter, as it was for Brad West, who plays for the unicorns. I just came to a game, and it's like, I want to try that, and then just happen to see a unicycle and a pawn shop about a week later. But there's at least one exception to this. So Larry, shoot him from the hip gun, the human chimera.

But you can call me Larry for short. And Larry isn't even his real name. It's Marcus Garland. Larry Gunn is his UFL name. Every player has one. Turbo Van Winkle pulling that ball in. That's going to be good for about four units. So bring up third down.

Follows pretty much the rules of the NFL. We punt from the unicycle. We kick field goals from the unicycle. You can catch the ball in the air off your unicycle, you're not touching the ground. Marcus is the perfect commentator for unicycle football because he's the OG. He started the UFL back in 2008. I used to be a street performer as a kid and every Christmas I got a new trick and

Unicycle was one of them and so I was a big Houston Oiler fan and I would pretend like I was on the Houston Oilers. I'd throw the football to myself and run and catch it on the unicycle. Usually you have to eat it. You have to dive and eat it if you're going to leave your unicycle. But we also have flat. so it's like flag football. You can pull somebody's flag,

but you can also just knock them off their wheel. Ooh. A bullet down the middle of the field, that ball nearly picked off by sausage fest of the hot dogs who's limping off field right now. Is Unicycle football as dangerous as it sounds? So it's funny. Everyone we asked about injuries

started by saying something like this. I got scrapes and bruises. But then a couple seconds later, they'd add something like that. this. And then I fell and fractured my tailbone in two places and split my head and had to go to the emergency room. So I've retired. That's 68-year-old Bill Bigadike, who holds the record for being the oldest player in the U.F. And Lee Wallace, who he heard from earlier, he's broken both of his legs. That's how much I love the game, and I'm still playing. And even though some of them only wear a

helmet when they play, a lot of them do wear padding. They've got elbow pads, knee pads. Some of them even wear full chest protectors and even spine pads. Falcon in motion. L.W. takes a snap. L.W. is going to carry himself and shoved out of bounds by Lady Bunn. I bet I know who Lady Bun plays for. Yep, the hot dogs. But off the field, she's Kirsten Doriere.

And for her, unicycle football is like a religious experience. I call it church because I'm here every Sunday. It's like my people. We all come together for the same reason, and it's like you can't find a person here who's not having a good time. This is a good game today. You know, the unicorns have never beat the hot dogs in their entire existence as a unicycle football team. Is that a. That's player Matt Barnes, aka Cupcake, talking to Marcus Garland.

Another statistic is the hot dogs have never lost a Super Bowl they've played in. Super Bowl? Yep, that's the Unicycle Football League Super Bowl. There's also the guy who grills hot dogs on the sidelines. There's the Unabrods who are what they call jeerleaders instead of cheerleaders because they heckled teams throughout the game. So fast forward to the fourth quarter. Hot dogs lead 2920.

And the unicorns? I can't lose. Nobody caught that. Can't catch them. Final score, 3520. Good game, man. Everyone high fives and heads home. Until next Sunday, when they'll come back together, set up their chairs,

grill their hot dogs, and strap on the elbow pads for another game of unicycle football. Amazing. I love those cheerleaders. Do you think they're for higher, Amory? As long as it's not game day, Ben. Fair enough. Well, we've reached the end of our episode. Good game, Amory.

Good game, Ben. High five? Yeah. Oh, too slow. Sorry, had to. I always hated it when people did that after games. I have become the thing I hate. And on that note.

Yeah, I think we're officially done. Endless Thread is a production of WBUR, Boston's NPR station, in partnership with Reddit. Big thanks to Audrey McGlinchie for braving the Unicycle Football League in Texas. And to WBURR producer Josh Swartz, who brought us tape for. from a Minneapolis mayor who is hoping for a brighter half-time future. Our show is a dream realized by Jessica Alpert, who, when we ask if she likes the episode we've put together, she always says... No, no, no, no, no, yes!

Iris Adler is our executive producer and human proof that we are... Totally not robots. Mix and sound design by John Parati and Paul Vikis, who liked to make the show sound... Interesting as... Our web producer is Megan Kelly, who looks at our attempts at writing webcom. copy and goes,

Aw. Michael Pope is our advisor at Reddit, and whenever we have our weekly meeting with him, we can all agree. It was. Probably satisfying. Our theme music is by Squelcher. This was a bye week for Redditor art folks.

Turns out there's not a lot of Super Bowl-related artwork on Reddit. Guys, there's an opportunity there, me, thanks. And Redditors, if you want to make art for an upcoming episode, you can hit us up at Endless Thread at WBUR.org. Find us on Twitter at Endless underscore Thread. If you want to reach out to us about a story or give us feedback on the show, you can find us on Reddit at Reddit.com slash U slash EndlessU-Thread. You're already sending us some amazing stories and ideas, so thank you. Holy moly, good stuff coming.

We are also online at wbUR.org slash endless thread. You can subscribe to the show on your podcast app of choice. And by the way, please do subscribe. It helps us reach you every week with the goods, helps us stay in touch. We promise if you make this relationship, official and just go podcast steady with us. You won't regret it. Also, if you love the show, write us a review and helps other people find us. Today you learned the show is produced by Amory Sievertson. I am senior producer and host Ben Brock Johnson. I'll let myself out.