Endless Thread - Encore: Dear Anon

Episode Date: December 26, 2019

What do Bill Gates, finding your soul mate, and charting a new life path have in common? Reddit Gifts! The world's largest anonymous gift exchange has led to some unexpected outcomes.

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 health care so hard? Is ESG just greenwashing? And, of course, is business broken? Listen, wherever you get your podcasts.

Produced by the ILAB at WBUR, Boston. Merry happy everything, endless thread listeners. Yeah. We are off this week enjoying some much-needed family time. Yeah, right. Away from Ben Brock Johnson. Away from Amory Seberton. I kid.

I don't. Believe me. believe it or not, we do have family other than you wonderful people. That includes you, Amory. We'll be back with new episodes in 2020. But we are not abandoning you completely. We would never. We've decided to spin an old hit from last holiday season.

It's called Dear Anon, and it tells three truly incredible stories from the world's largest secret Santa gift exchange. Enjoy. A few weeks back, Amory and I were deborting a plane in Washington, D.C. at Ronald Reagan International Airport to meet a Reddit user who runs a very specialized business. We thought we knew what we were getting into. And then something happened. Okay, we literally just walked out that part of the airport where it says,

if you go past this point, it's the point of no return, you have to exit. Yes. And some guy, who I've never seen before. I've never seen before, walked up through us and was like, are you Amory? Are you Ben? Yes. And then he handed us a beautiful, envelope. Yeah. Hand calligraphy. Hand calligraphy. Hand-done calligraphy. And on the back,

there's a beautiful seal. A wax seal. That says constructed adventures. Probably stamped by a ring of like an emperor or something. I hope so. I sure hope so. Should we open it? Yes, let's open it right now. I can't believe this happened, right? I was not expecting that. What we were expecting was an adventure. We just didn't expect it to be this specialized and to start at the airport. Dear Ben and Amory, you're going to die in two minutes if you don't. Just kidding. You want to read it? Yeah, because you're doing, you're already, too slow. Dear Ben and Amory, if you want an interview, you'll have to find me first. Tomorrow morning, arrive at Fontaine Cafe and Craperie. You were just talking about crepeories.

I think it's pronounced crepeere. Crepeere. At exactly 10 a.m. 10 o'clock a.m. Tell the hostess, we're trying to unravel the thread. She's expecting you. Sincerely, the architect. D-Din-Din-D-D-D-D.

Emery and I were about to embark on this awesome adventure, but the origin of the adventure and our ability to go on it is a surprising story in and of itself. Every year, one of Reddit's communities conducts the largest anonymous gift exchange in the world. A hundred thousand people participate in the space of just a few months. And as you're about to hear, this Secret Santa program on Reddit has lasting effects. It can launch a business, connect a celebrity to a regular person, and even spark a love story.

But at its core, this exchange is all about the kindness of strangers, people who are anonymous. Today's episode, Dear Anon. I'm Ben Brock Johnson, and you're a lot of. were listening to Endless Thread, the show featuring stories found on Reddit. I'm coming to you from WBUR, Boston's NPR station. Have no fear, we're going to get back to our crazy adventure. But first, we should talk about how this whole thing works. It's pretty straightforward. You sign up for this Secret Santa Exchange on Reddit, you give some information about yourself, and you get matched with someone else on Reddit who has also provided information. There's a spending minimum, 20 bucks, and you're off to

the races. Every once in a while, though, somebody gets a match that is pretty unique. A few years ago, that person was Reddit user Erics. Alicia. Alicia is from Texas. She came back from Aaron's one morning to see the hated, sorry we missed you sticker from FedEx on her door. You know, that kind of note that often appears like magic and never really seems to guarantee your package will actually get delivered. But this package was special because the FedEx guy came back without prompting, carrying a big box. So I get it inside and take off, you know, open with a box cutter and then there's this huge cardboard piece over the top after I already get it open and then a giant layer of bubble wrap.

Did you pop the bubble wrap or no eventually? I did not. But after I take off that top cardboard piece, I just kind of stand there and stare at it for a second because there's a picture right under the top layer of see-through green bubble wrapper. Who's in the picture? It's Bill Gates. I just sat there and staring at it for a second. I didn't know what to do.

Bill Gates is my freaking Santa. Alicia did not wait for her husband, who was at work, to open the other presents. One of which had her Reddit handle, Erick's on it. It said Erick's mittens on the box. And then the other one said, Clarex. Come on now. That's so cute. My dog's name is Claire.

The box had a ton of stuff inside. Lots of it, admittedly, made by Microsoft. of course, but it was obvious Bill Gates or his people had looked at Alicia's Reddit history. They did their research. I guess, man. Alicia is a big video gamer. So she got wireless Xbox controllers, a special edition Minecraft-themed Xbox, and those mittens. They had a theme, the classic Nintendo video game Zelda, which Alicia used to play with her older brother.

Oh, yes. Oh, I have a triforce tattoo. It's bad. Wait, what is TriForce again? Is that the, like, different, the things that you have to collect? Oh, my goodness. You said you were a Zelda fan. It's been a little while. It's been a little while. The best gift in the box might have been a Cajun cookbook.

There was also a note. It says, Eric's, since you're originally from Louisiana and miss your uncle's Cajun cooking, I thought you might enjoy trying some of the recipes from this cookbook. Merry Christmas, Bill Gates. Is there a message that you would like him to hear if you could tell him? A freaking thank you, and everything was perfect. I want to send him a thank you card, but I don't think if I send it to the address, that's the return address. I feel like it wouldn't get to him, but I still have that on my to-do list.

Alicia's favorite video game of all-time, Zelda, the theme music of which you are hearing right now, is all about going on a quest. So time to get back to my quest with Amory, a quest that another Redditor designed for us so that we could find him for an interview about his job, which has. happens to be setting up quests. It started in historic Alexandria, Virginia, near the Potomac River, which is kind of perfect, because the Redditor we were chasing after has a favorite movie, some of which also takes place around our nation's capital. I'm going to steal the Declaration of Independence. National Treasure starring Nicholas Cage.

Think Secret Codes, Freemasons, U.S. history, and a whole lot of Cage. One of those movies that is bad enough, it's kind of good. It's kind of good because, well, Nicholas Cage, and also it is full of questing. Our questing, like any great questing, started at a crapery. Hey, how's it going? Good. Good. We're here to unravel the thread. Okay.

She knows what it means. I'm going to seat you. Oh, we're going to get seated. Okay. Thank you. All right, cool. What is happening? Okay.

What has been handed to us is a special. small treasure chest. And with a purple master lock. That is a letter lock. It's a letter lock. We have to somehow determine what the code. What the letters are. Oh, and we get an envelope.

Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much. The message that has just been handed to us reads, as you're well aware, you must find me if you want to interview me. Okay. Step one. Have a crepe, drink some coffee, pop the.

the lock. There's a second page. Oh, we got a cipher. Oh, I see something. Okay. Oh, shit. It says locate the green book behind you. Turn to page 192. Oh, my God. Use this page to decode the message. Oh, my God.

X is line, Y is word, Z is letter. Oh, my God. Let me see it. We find the green book, position. conveniently on a ledge behind Amory's chair, turn to page 192 and get to work. So let's start with one to seven. So line one, word two,

and the seventh letter in that word. Eventually we spell out, you are holding one. We are holding a book. So we enter book on the letter lock and... Are you ready for me to open this? Yeah, I'm just so relieved we haven't screwed up on the first. Oh, no.

We got one of these things. What are these things even called? I think it's a cipher? A cryptex. It is called a cryptex. We also got a map, and of course, another clue. My location is inside this cryptex. You'll get the password eventually, but first you need a key.

Find the statue at Market Square. You'll find your next instructions. Next stop. which, according to the map, was just a few blocks away. Home to Alexandria's City Hall, a lovely fountain, and a statue. Yeah, this statue is a little bit raised off the ground. Yeah, and it's a man. It's a man in a very daincy pose here.

Yeah, he's in Releve, you might say. Ooh! He's got a tiny little envelope stuck to his booty. This clue sent us to Gadsby's Tavern, where there was another envelope tucked in between two pieces of stone outside. In that envelope, yet another clue, which sent us to a gazebo behind a historic home. Oh, I see the red thread. Oh, we have to pull the red thread to get the key. To get the key. One, two, three. Oh, look at this key. It's a big key. This is a substantial key. This key is not a joke. This is the key to Alexandria.

According to this map, we got to go to the torpedoes. factory. So we have to keep walking this way. Down the hill. All right, there's some art on the walls. We're walking through. Oh, the torpedo! That is a silver torpedo. That's most deaf a silver torpedo. The torpedo gave us a clue that sent us towards the docks. Oh, we're looking for Doc H. Let me stop out here. Sure. You're the dockmaster? No.

He's on vacation. But you go down there and the treasure is out there on that dock. Oh, you know about the treasure. He knows. Wait, who are you? Yeah, what's your name? No, no. I don't, I don't.

I got to take care of my dog here. You prefer to remain anonymous. Okay, he prefers to remain anonymous. The anonymous. Okay. Thank you. All right. Very mysterious.

Very mysterious. I have to take care of my dog. A likely story. Turns out it was a more likely story than we initially gave him credit for. As we later confirmed, that guy was not in on the treasure hunt. But he really should be. He was great. And he was also right.

Out there on the dock, we found another long thread. And the thread is attached to a thing. There's something floating. It's floating in the water and there's a burlap sack inside of the thing that's floating in the water. We pulled up the package, opened the box, and pulled out what looked like a vape pen crossed with a flashlight. The instructions read, use on the map. So we did. And sure enough, there were words written on it that had been invisible in normal light.

Board the trolley and a weight. Wait. Instructions. What? We're getting on the trolley, dude. The trolley. Isn't that the big boat that we... Trolley time.

Trolley time. Oh my God. Are one of these people are going to give us mysterious instructions? I don't know. Are you scared? It's Raven.

Yes. Which one? Asap Street. A-S-A-P-H. Okay. Who are you? I don't need a name. We can't tell.

We're not allowed to say. Finn. Thank you. Thank you. It says Finn. This is the end. Fin. Fim.

Arando walked up to us, handed us an envelope, and walked away. That letter contained some strange but familiar lyrics. Oh, sometimes I do things that could either win me a medal or land me in jail. Oh, my God. What is that? What? It's one of my song lyrics. He looked you up and he knows your story.

song lyrics, dude. Sometimes I do things better. Could either win me a mare or land me in jail. Didn't you know Amory is a singer-songwriter in her spare time? Well, now you do. We got off the trolley at the stop indicated and tried to figure out what this lyrical clue could possibly mean with the cryptic cylinder thingy that we had received in the beginning.

What's the name of this song? Human. Oh, spell out human. Right? Yeah. Oh, stop! I am so delighted right now. I know.

It's an amory song. Was the key? Go to Columbia Firehouse, walk to the back, down the stairs. Use the key to get into the interview. See you see you. Oh, okay. Columbia Firehouse. Where are you?

Finally, finally, we made it to the Firehouse, walked down the stairs and saw the light at the end of our treasure hunt tunnel. That light was the Redditor who set us on this adventure. He was holding three beers and our big brass key, it was just a bottle opener. This is like the most clever thing that's ever happened in my life. Oh my gosh. Wow. Cheers. Well played, sir.

Well played. Thank you for all of this. The man behind the treasure hunt in a minute. At Radio Lab, we love nothing more than nerding out about science. Neuroscience, chemistry. But we do also like to get into other kinds of stories. Stories about policing. Or politics.

Country music. Hockey. Sex. Of bugs. Regardless of whether we're looking at science or not science, we bring a rigorous curiosity to get you the answers. And hopefully make you see the world anew. Radio Lab, adventures on the edge of what we think we know.

wherever you get your podcast. There is something powerful about the sound of the human voice. Beautifully produced audio has the unique power to connect and inspire. Tell your organization's story with a custom podcast from CitySpace Productions, the creative studio from WBUR's business partnerships team. Become a thought leader. Recruit new talent. Reach new audiences.

Whatever your goal, we can help. Discover how the magic is made at WBUR.org. slash creative studio. Do us a favor? Tell us your name. And who you are, what you do, how old are you are, where you're from? My name is Chris Waters,

and I am the architect. I'm 32 years old. I have a company that was built by Reddit. Most people that hire me are from Reddit, most people that I hire are from Reddit, and pretty much all of my marketing is also kind of on Reddit. And what is the company?

The company is called Constructed Adventures. And I create extraordinary experiences for people. A lot of treasure hunt type things, but it doesn't just stop there. Would you call this like live gaming? What's the sort of technical term for this? Treasure hunt could work, but I've had a lot of people that participate in these say that those terms don't quite do it justice. So I think an alternate reality game, the goal is to kind of give them a day where the whole world seems to revolve around them. Where did the idea come from to design a treasure hunt for your Secret Santa? It just kind of came to this like, I have this

opportunity to do something really, really cool for an internet stranger. And I'll never get this opportunity again. The reason Chris is saying this was a unique opportunity is that out of a handful of times he's participated in this global gift exchange, this one time he got someone who lived close to him in Arizona, which meant that Chris could actually give his Secret Santa, and his Secret Santa's girlfriend, a real life adventure. I just kind of started talking to him, to feel out if he would be up for something like this. I didn't outwardly say, you're going on a treasure hunt adventure thing.

It really was just like, okay, I need you to give me a day in the next two weekends, Saturday or Sunday, where both of you are completely available. And he said, okay, I can try to swing it. And I had to talk him kind of off the ledge one time where he said, you know, how do I know I'm not going to get murdered in the desert? His girlfriend thought I was Ellen, which is already disappointed, you know. Let's talk about the inspiration. So National Treasure is a bad movie that you really think is a great movie. Okay, first of all, National Treasure is the best movie ever. It is the perfect family movie because there is action and intrigue.

You learn American history. Humor. And there is zero violence. That's true. There is never a moment. It's literally the perfect family movie. It's a threat of violence but no violence. Exactly.

That's true. Chris's first constructed adventure had a national treasure vibe to it. It started with a stranger knocking on the couple's door and giving them a mysterious briefcase filled with clues and information, and it ended with Chris handing them their gift. And then it ended at this cool little underground speakeasy bar where I sat next to them and slid them this bottle of champagne in a box that was wrapped as their final gift and said, congratulations, you did it. Here's your gift.

Not surprisingly, this whole adventure blew up on Reddit. It got posted on R. Picks, the photo community, where it really took off. Chris and a friend had built a rudimentary website, which was immediately inundated with requests. All of a sudden, these two guys had a budding business. Like, what part of your personality led you to doing this? People wake up and they go to work, and although there might be some deviations, they know exactly what's going to happen. They're going to go to work 9 to 5, Monday through Friday, and the weekends, they're going to relax and binge watch Netflix, and then two weeks out of the year, they're going to go on some vacation if they're lucky. And that's exactly what's going to happen, and they know.

And it gets kind of depressing. And so my goal was always to kind of create that, like, I'm going to go into the office, and I don't know. Maybe there's something weird that happened, right? And that's something that the world kind of needs. At first, it was just a side hustle. But eventually Chris had a moment where things came to a head. He was working for this tech company doing his own grind in California. One day, after a horrible day at work, he went surfing to clear his head.

And the water was choppy. There was too many people. I tried to catch a wave. I biffed it. My leash, which is what connects your board to your ankle, snapped. And my board just tumbled in, and I had to swim back in shore. And so I'm sitting on the beach just, I can't even surf. And that was kind of that rom-com moment where, like, the guy's fiancé leaves him.

and he's sitting in the rain and then like a car splashes him, where I was like, okay, this, something needs to change. He had to get out and lean into this new thing that he cared much more about. So he called this buddy who had become his side hustle business partner. And so he said, I'm going to give you my half of this business. Because he had his own business. He was doing great. He's still doing great.

Someday he's going to get the greatest fucking adventure of his life. I can tell you that. Because I still, like, and you can hear me get. kind of emotional about it. I owe him big time. So, I had money saved, talked to my mom, who basically said, worst case scenario, come move back home. Talked to my brother, who was like, worst case scenario, come crash my sofa. Now Chris is effectively homeless, but he's constantly traveling around the country to set up adventures. He's doing wedding proposals, corporate events, other kinds of parties. He's been to Costa Rica, Miami. Soon he's

headed to Milan for a marriage proposal. Right now, he's booked through June of 2019. He even has a big spreadsheet of other Redditors in different cities who have offered to help him with his adventures. He says he always pays them for their time, even if it means less profit. He charges a flat rate right now. He says he's just trying to grow his business. I never traveled before this, and now I'm in a new city every week.

And that's kind of cool. And it's something that I'll, you know, be able to treasure no matter what happens with this. What does it mean to you to send someone on a treasure hunt? And what do you hope that they kind of take away from the experience? The world's gotten safer since the 70s, statistically, but the information spread is so frequent that you hear about every shooting, you hear about every bombing, you hear about every horrible thing that happened in this world, and you kind of have this immediate reaction where if someone's going to approach you,

you're like, I don't want to talk to you, like headphones on, like, I don't want this. And so this business was kind of trying to swing. that world in the other direction where people embrace spontaneity and fun and intrigue. And if I can be a piece of that, that's spectacular. And if I can be kind of the vehicle for that, it'd be great. And then there's a great Reddit thread a long time ago that said, you know, at one point in time, we all went outside to play with our friends for the last time and we never noticed. And this is a way to go outside and play with your friends again. Chris's existence, even if he gets to meet new people in every city, might be a little lonely.

That is a price he is willing to pay to put a little more adventure into the world. But we have one more story for you that has made two strangers using Reddit gifts into life partners. So my name is Lisa on Reddit. I am Iriandril and I'm currently living in Dubai. My name is Josh. On Reddit, I am Fignacius and I'm also a current person. living in Dubai. Do you want us to tell you the story? Yeah, please. Tell us the story. Start from the beginning.

Yeah, so... Lisa is from Belgium. Josh is from the UK. And a few years back, they each signed up for Reddit gifts. Lisa was assigned to Josh, so she sent him some presents. Some books about role-playing games or RPGs because they both liked some of the same games. On Christmas Day of 2015, Josh and Lisa began trading messages.

They were using the chat software for Reddit's gift exchange, which is meant for anonymous messages between users who want to figure out what to send each other and get pumped up about the gift. For Josh and Lisa, a quick back and forth turned into a deluge. We sort of tested the limits of that messaging software to the point where I think it basically was like almost unreadable. It had sort of created such a long chain of messages,

and we ultimately swapped numbers and sort of it went on from there. And you know that, that incite. when you're in love or when you are talking to someone really nice. That was the kind of anxiety I was feeling from the first second I messaged, well, basically the second message I got from Josh. Yeah, and same for me. It was quite strange because obviously like this was like not the context you'd expect to meet anyone.

And we were talking about being together for like forever basically like within within like the third day or second day. Within like a few days of seeing each other like. I can't remember very specific messages. That is fast. It was super fun. Both of us had this just really weird magnet attraction to each other. Like, just from just talking.

We weren't even like, yeah, we didn't really know anything about each other, but we just sort of had this stranger attraction. One of the crazy things here is that these new lovebirds were sticking to the Reddit rules because anonymity is at the center of how the gift exchange works.

So for the first two and a half weeks or three weeks of us actually talking and really in the period where we really fell for each other, I heard Lisa's voice, but I never saw her or knew her actual name. There was a lot of talk about with my friends at the time about how she could be, you know, I could be just being catfished, basically, like she could be anyone. I just sort of had a lot of faith in the fact that she was being genuine. There was sort of a point where things sort of got a little bit strange,

and Lisa said, oh, I see you as such a good friend, basically. kind of thing trying to... I tried to friend zone him basically. Yeah, you got to put me off the friend zone. Oof, that's rough. Yeah. And she, but she, you know, I kind of sense that this was, there was more to this and sort of after talking about it a bit more, like, you know, it turned out that she was sort of... I was trying to hide my feelings. So, so when did you two meet? How quickly did this escalate? We called each other on New Year's Eve and basically, I can't remember who exactly proposed it. I was really drunk and I apologize.

It was, yeah, yeah. Lisa was, she said we should meet her on Valentine's Day in Paris. And that became our plan. Okay, so that was the drunk plan, meet in Paris on Valentine's Day. The sober plan was there is no way they were going to wait that long for a big romantic gesture. So they decided to meet even sooner in Antwerp, where Lisa lived. Big moves. What was that like seeing each other for the first?

first time. Well, Lisa, on the day I arrived, had to work, basically. So I had to get to her apartment. And she'd left the key for me in like a bag in the mailbox. So I sort of had to reach into the mailbox and get the key out. And I went into her apartment and I was kind of blown away because she'd stuck like 150 post-its all on the wall saying lots of really nice things, basically, about how she was really looking forward to seeing me, about how, you know, she, you know, really, really I thought I was nice, how she loved me. And she'd left some, like, Belgian food for me. And I literally had to sit then for, like, four hours, just waiting.

And it was, it's the longest way of my life. And eventually I went to pick her up from where she got off the tram from work. And our eyes sort of locked, and we just sort of were, like, smiling. And we were sort of just bumping into each other as we walked as we went back to the apartment. It felt really surreal. It was surreal. I actually got off a stop earlier because I just couldn't grasp at the anticipation. And I was literally, I was crying.

I was so nervous. What if he didn't like me? What if he just wanted to go back to the UK? But everything was fine. Everything was amazing. From the moment, I saw Josh. I just knew everything was all right. So they did the long distance thing.

every three weeks one would go see the other for a while. Then they moved in together. Had to. We sort of secretly kind of said to each other, look, you know, this is going to go the distance. But we didn't do anything really formal until the following February. Lisa knew, I think, 100% that it was coming. But I proposed to her in Paris on Valentine's Day the following February. Honestly, I never thought I would be married.

I thought I would be the kind of woman that lives on a farm with 20 golden retrievers and that just hates the world. I personally still think you can have all the golden retrievers. Why not combine those two visions? That is very true. Very true. Yeah, I'm not going to stand in a way. Endless Thread is a production of WBUR, Boston's NPR station, in partnership with Reddit. Our show is a dream realized by Jessica Alpert, who,

is the architect of bread stapled to trees. Iris Adler is our executive producer and she loves random acts of sub-reddit drama. Mix and sound design by Paul Vicus and John Parati and when a rando walks up to them on the street, they always say, Hold my beer. Our web producer is Megan Kelly, and if Bill Gates showed up to her house, she would say, Have we met?

Michael Pope is our advisor at Reddit, which is where he fell in love with retrofuturism. Josh Swartz is our producer, and at this year's WBUR Gift Exchange, bringing dank memes. Extra production assistance from James Lindberg. Our intern is

Candice Lim. Oh my God. Our theme music is by Squelcher. Thanks to Redditor Knits Art for this week's artwork. It is called

Christmas Art. On Reddit, we are endless underscore thread. If you want to contribute art for an upcoming episode or give us a

juicy story tip so we can tell it like we did today, hit us up there. Also, by the way, follow us when you get there so that we can

stay in touch. That would be awesome. My co-host and producer is Amory Sievertson. I'm Senior Producer and host Ben Brock Johnson. I'll let myself out. There's only three of them.

Dan, Dan, Dan. No, just lose one and you're good. Okay. Dun, Dan. Dan. Like that? That was three. Nobody agrees with me. How does it go?

That was three. It's either Dun, dun, dun, or Dun, dun, or dun, or dun, dun, or dun,

dun, It's not that. You can choose any of those three.