Planet Money - PM does a pop culture draft: 1999 edition

Episode Date: December 17, 2025

Welcome to the inaugural Planet Money Pop Culture Draft! In today's episode (a Planet Money+ episode we’re releasing into the main feed) we're gonna go back to the year 1999. Three hosts, Kenny Malone, Wailin Wong, and Jeff Guo, go head to head and each drafts a “team” of economic pop culture. So a movie, a song, and a wild card pick that best represents the Planet Money spirit!It could be a movie related to business or maybe a song about money … as long as it came out in 1999! Listen to hear each of them make the case for why their team should be crowned the winner!If you want more bonus episodes like this one and to support our work, sign up for Planet Money+.Listen free: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the NPR app or anywhere you get podcasts.Facebook / Instagram / TikTok / Our weekly Newsletter.This episode was hosted by Kenny Malone, Wailin Wong, and Jeff Guo. It was produced by Viet Le and edited by Planet Money’s executive producer Alex Goldmark.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This is Planet Money from NPR. Hey, Kenny Malone here, interrupting, to some degree your regularly scheduled Planet Money programming, because what we have today is a special episode. It's a sample of one of our recent bonus episodes. You can think of this as a fun little holiday treat made up of some economic insights, sprinkles of pop culture, nostalgia, and everyone's favorite holiday time competition. a little good-natured elbowing between Planet Money hosts. But look, this is the kind of bonus content that you can get when you join Planet Money Plus.

If you're already signed up, thank you, truly. But if you haven't joined, here is how you can get more content like this. Just check out the link below in the episode notes. And with that, here you go. Enjoy. Here, dear listener, Planet Money Plus listener, is a short list. of movies that came out in the year 1999. All kinds of movies

that people still talk about today. We're talking, The Matrix. The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. The Sixth Sense. I want to tell you my secret now. The Blair Witch Project, Fight Club. You do not talk about Fight Club.

The fame thing isn't really real. Notting Hill, Star Wars the Phantom Menace. Now this is Pod Racing. Being John Malkovich. Malkovich. Malkovich. is widely considered to be one of the best, possibly the best year ever for movies.

But, but was 1999 also the greatest year in economic movies and pop culture? That's what we're here to settle today. Hello and welcome Planet Money Plus listeners to the first inaugural Planet Money Pop Culture Draft. Joining me today on Draft Day are my colleagues, Jeff Gwell, And Whalen Wong, are you ready for this, Whelan and Jeff?

Oh my gosh. I've been training. Absolutely not. Cue the training, the training montage. We just did a movie montage. We don't have time for another montage. Whalen's ready. You can just picture it then.

It happened off screen. All right. Now, we are trying something new for us in today's bonus episode. We're going to go back to the year 1999, and each of us is going to draft a team of pop culture, like, you know, how an NBA team drafts players. We're going to be doing this with a planet money lens, though. Who can draft the most planet money team of pop culture artifacts from the year 1999?

Now, what does it mean to draft the planet money team? Well, that is kind of for each of us to argue in our case. Like, have we drafted a movie that is obviously about economics? Or maybe we've drafted a song that is emblematic of a much bigger, business trend. Each of us will have to make our cases to each other, but more importantly, to you, Planet Money Plus listeners, and you will ultimately decide. You will vote on which of us has assembled the ultimate Planet Money 1999 pop culture team. This is the sportiest I've ever been. I've never done such a sports adjacent thing. Kenny, I have to say this is like

the third time you've tried to explain the rules to me. I still don't get what we're doing here? Well, we have tried to explain the rules to Jeff a lot. And luckily, we're going to do it again. I have so many questions. I feel like this is Jeff being purposefully naive so he can wipe the floor with us. I'm suspicious. This strategy is beginning. I just want to understand the rules. You can't play the game until you understand the rules. The mind games have started long before we hit record today, I will say. Let's get the rules out of the way then. In case any of you listeners have not heard a podcast using the draft format, we did not invent this. This is a widely used thing. It's kind of a way to like dive back into a specific year and look for specific stories revel in the nostalgia a little bit but also you know go deep and compete with each other in a loving friendly way no hitting

no biting just making sure those rules are clear that is rule number one do we understand silence i'm going to take as a year okay great here here are the basic rules of the draft all right so the draft is made up of three rounds and over the course of those three rounds in any order you want, you must select a 1999 movie, a 1999 song, or a 1999 wild card, which is anything in pop culture. And again, it doesn't matter in which round you do it. You just must select one of those things over the course of the draft. Okay. Once a pick is made, that is taken off the board. No one else is allowed to draft it. So choose carefully. Exciting things that are obvious. You probably want to choose those first because someone else might get them. And then

there are limitations. So for the movie, we each have to choose from the top 100 domestic grossing movies in 1999. These are movies that I suspect a lot of people will have heard of. We've mentioned some already. You got your Star Wars. You got your Matrix. You got your fight club. And then 97 more. For songs, we can only pick from the Billboard Hot 100 singles of the year. And just to give listeners a taste, let me like put on my Casey Kasem hat here. Counting down the the top five Hot 100 songs from 1999. Baby one more time, Britney Spears. Number four, Heartbreak Hotel, Whitney Houston, and Collaborators.

Number three, Angel of Mine by Monica. Number two, No Scrubs by TLC, and the number one song. On the Billboard Hot 100 in 1999, Do you believe in love, that's in love? Believe by Cher. I have such a clear memory of it from that time period and just how it played absolutely everywhere. It was everywhere.

Okay, so that's movie, song, and then Wildcard, again, is anything? Like, it can be a book, it can be a TV show. It could be another movie, another song. It just needs to be pop culture in 1999, and it needs to be Planet Money in some way, shape, or form. Okay. Can it be an object? Well, you better make the argument that it's pop culture if you're going to do that.

Phenomenon. A meme? A child? A judge of that. Jeff, if you want to draft a child, we're going to have a conversation about how that will work. But listen. We'll check with legal. Do you mostly understand those basic rules? I know Whalen does. I'll just ask you.

Do you basically get that? We're going to pick things. Yes. That's what I heard. Okay. I cannot wait to see what Jeff's picks are. Because I'm like, did you come into this totally cold? No, look, guys, I barely had a childhood, so I don't even remember.

for 1999, to be honest. Like, it was before I was reconstituted. Jeff was already in the law school. Before you were reconstituted, you said? Yeah. You were conceived in powder form or something? Yeah. So I wasn't even, like, fully hydrated at that point.

Instaguo. Instaguo, poor, and mix. Can I just ask how old were you all? Are we allowed to say this? Is this like not kosher? Like, what, like, I just want to get a sense of where you all were in your lives. In 1999, yes. In 1999, I would have been 15 years old.

I was not allowed to see rated R movies yet. I was very excited to see the new Star Wars movie. I had bought all of the Darth Mall action figures ahead of time. It was very on brand for you. And that's kind of where I was. I definitely was hearing Cher. What about you, Whalen? I was 17.

I was a senior in high school. So I remember playing that Britney Spears album on a girls' road trip to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. What? So fun. Yeah, and I, so I remember that very clearly. I was watching Total Request Live on MTV every day after school. And I remember also I was in my community youth orchestra, and we got to play Star Wars for

my, like, senior year spring concert, like the original music. And that was so much fun. Not dual of the face, but. The absolute drop dead banger from. Yes, but, you know, like the main title theme and Imperial March and everything. And so that was like a real kind of career highlight for my high school music career, I will say. Sounds like both Whalen and I were super cool in 1999. Hello, you have no one.

I got to say this is giving me a lot of insight into what your potential picks might be. Very helpful information, guys. Thank you very much. What if this is an elaborate mislead, Jeff? You don't know. Yeah, I don't know. This is some Jeff. All right, Jeff, where were you in 1999?

Share, please. Share, I believe. I was 10. I don't know. I honestly have no memory of being 10. I don't know where I was. I was in school. Were you learning fractions?

I feel like I learned fractions at 10. I don't remember. I don't, I truly don't remember. Did you read? Jeff was learning what fraction of a single star to give Star Wars Phantom Men's and we were all super cool. I think that's what we just learned. Before we can draft, we do need an order to the draft.

Viet Le is going to, our producer Viet Le is going to jump in now and give us the draft order. This feels very high stakes to me. No whammies, no whamies, Viet. Can you see the screen? Nope. No screen.

Not see the screen. Let's see, here we go. Okay. All right, Viet has pulled up a very fun color wheel. Right. So we have all of our names on this wheel. This will determine the draft order. Yeah, this is going to make or break my strategy.

So let's, um... Let's see how this goes. I'm so nervous. Oh, my God. All right, I'm going to do a first spin of the wheel. Let's see. No, no, no, no, that's my worst fear. That is my worst fear.

Okay, whalen is the first pick. Okay, next, next spin. Okay. Now we're just left with Kenny and Jeff. 50. Okay. Oh, there you go. Oh, Kenny.

No. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Okay, okay. All right. Kenny is next. and then Jeff is third. And just to be clear, a traditional way to do the order is it will go

Whalen, then Kenny, then Jeff, then Kenney, then Whalen. It sort of snakes back and forth so that even though Jeff is last, you will get to make two picks in a row so that you are not perpetually last, okay? Okay. So, with all of that out of the way, do you have any final questions before Whelan Wong

makes the first draft of the first ever Planet Money Pop Culture Draft? Let's do it. No, I'm ready. My body is ready. My mind is ready. You're up. You're on the clock.

Okay. I'm going to draft a movie first. And I'm going to draft a movie. You're you breathing a sigh of it. No, I'm not. This is my fear. And I'm drafting a movie first because my favorite movie of all time came out in 1999. And it is on the list of the top 100 domestic racing movies.

It is The Insider, directed by Michael Mann. And this is, I will admit, kind of an obvious choice because it's very clearly about business. But it is my favorite, favorite movie of all time. For those of you who don't know, this is a journalism movie. Russell Crow plays a research chemist at a tobacco company. This is based on a true story. He is a corporate whistleblower or he becomes a corporate whistleblower. And he goes and gives an interview to 60 Minutes about how the tobacco company,

works for, knowingly added chemicals to cigarettes that were carcinogenic or addictive. And what's interesting to me about this and why I've been thinking about it actually a lot recently is because at that time, CVS pulled the interview from 60 minutes because it was afraid of a lawsuit from the tobacco company. And they were afraid that the lawsuit would tank the impending sale of CBS to Westinghouse. So this is actually, you know, it's like everything old is new again, because Because we now, with the Colbert Show and the Skydance deal, we have CVS caving, seemingly, seemingly caving once again to in the face of corporate pressures.

And it's dramatized really well in The Insider. And there's one of my favorite scenes from any movie of all time, which is Christopher Plummer, RIP, as Mike Wallace, the anchor of 60 Minutes. And he, like, reads the CBS corporate lawyer, the riot act, because he's so mad. dim to... Mike. Mike? Try Mr. Wallace.

We work in the same corporation doesn't mean we work in the same profession. What are you going to do now? You're going to finesse me, lawyer me some more? I've been in this profession in 50 years. You and the people you work for are destroying the most respected the highest rate of the most profitable

show on this network. Every once in a while I just like to yell this at my husband. Lawyer me! Are you going to Fines me. It's like so good. And anyway, I'm obsessed with this movie. Bonus thing I will say is that Lil Bergman, as played by Al Pacino, has this line I love, which I think about also all the time as a journalist where he says to a source on the phone, he's like, I'm two things. He's like, I'm mad and I'm curious. And he's like getting really annoyed with the stories. And I think about that all the time because I, well, I don't get mad that often. But I am actually kind of this like seething

like pot of rage. But like, it's like, yeah, if you get mad and you get curious, that's actually a very potent recipe for doing some journalism. That's what happens in this movie, my favorite movie, The Insider. I'm passive aggressive and I'm curious. Don't worry about it. All right, Waylon Wong selects The Insider starring Russell Crow and Al Pacino. I am hugely relieved. I'm up next because what seemed to me to be the obvious pick for Waylon is the movie. The movie. that terrified me so much that I would not go camping. And it is the Blair Witch Project. This was like my second choice.

I was really worried. Okay. Now, the Blair Witch Project is, of course, a movie that is shot on really cheap cameras, and we are witnessing the, like, recovered tapes from these, I believe, three kids who went hunting for an urban legend witch. They disappear, and it's way scarier

than it has any right to be. Very meta-textual. I'm sorry to everyone. There's a famous shot with, like, heavy breathing and snot dripping down the lead actress's nose. It's all because of me that we're here now. Hungry and cold and hunted. And the reason that this is, just to me, slam dunk Planet Money Pick, is because, A, this is still one of the most profit. movies ever made.

You'll see different, like, numbers on this, but it was maybe cost, like, between 30K and 70K to, like, shoot it. And then there was, like, a really viral ad campaign, which was, like, really prescient at the time. So it looks like with the shooting, the production, the post-production, and the advertising, we're talking about, like, a million dollars in. And it has made $248 million, a $250-X return. And that is extraordinary.

And do you know who cites it as a critical influence? One Jason F. Blum. Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it was like the OG kind of found footage, you know, with like a marketing campaign that, like, like, was viral kind of before we had like a word for that, before we really had a concept of virality. Because I remember, this will go back to like how cool I was in 1999. I remember reading about this movie in Time magazine, which is where I see. all of my information because my parents said a subscription to Time Magazine.

And I was like, I'm not a scary movie person, but I was like, oh, I want to see this because it looks so interesting from when I'm reading about it in Time Magazine. So my brother and I went to see it. And then I kid you not, I mean, we were scared out of my, scared out of our minds. To this day, I cannot look at a child's handprint without like needing to like fall down and fear. There is a handprint on the wall. I don't think Waylon has a specific thing against children's thing.

Yeah, yeah, no. I think it might be a children's. In a child's yet, because the witch makes you, like, makes you turn away. I know, and, like, face the corner. It's awful. It's so scary. It gives me such a chill. But I remember we got home from the movie, and my brother pulled the car into the garage

and then immediately ran into the house and threw up because of all the jittery cam. It was like, it made him, it made us, like, both really sick, yeah. Oh, right, okay. Now, I will say I didn't see this movie in 1999 because I wasn't allowed to see R-rated movies yet. So it was like the idea of it was so scary to me that I wouldn't go camping. I mentioned Jason Blum, founder of Blumhouse. Jason Blum is, has created this business model, or so we think he created it, where he invests

a relatively very small amount of money on horror movies, hoping that they can have giant returns. You place a lot of bets and hope that one hits. And there's just, like, you can trace all of this to Blair Witch. He has even cited it as like, if there wasn't this, there would be no paranormal activity, which is really the movie that kind of shot Blum to the public eye. And it has changed the business model of horror so much that we literally did, Planet Money episode about Jason Blum.

So there, if the movie that directly traces to Blum and the episode that we did, like, how is Blair Witch Project, not a Planet Money? It is very, movie. You know, Kenny, I sometimes think of what we do as journalists on Planet Money, kind of like the Blair Witch Project. Like, aren't we just assembling, found quotes and things, stitching them together into some kind of narrative? It's like we wander into the words and end up facing a wall and terrified.

I mean, also that. But just to be clear, I have a little fact check here. Just to be clear, the whole found footage idea, right, of course, was not invented by Blair Witch. It goes back to Henry James. It goes back to the three musketeers. And so I feel like, you know, we should pay credit to. Sure. Of course.

I'm just saying the thing Jason Blum has mentioned is not, is this. The business model part of it. Okay. Okay. So the Blair Witch Project, my number one pick. Jeff, you're on the clock. Let's hear it. And again, Justice to Club, Whalen and I have both chosen movies.

You do not have to choose a movie. You can choose anything. You know, if you chose movies, I'll choose movies. I'll join the club. Let me see. Hold on. It's like top 100 grossing movies. Are you Googling this right now?

Or like total profit. Wow, Jeff. I just want to say, for the record, for the record, when the rules were posted in a Slack channel, Jeff was the first one to reply, like, I've already got it. Like, I have already figured out my team, my draft picks. And, like, so I don't know what is happening right now. Well, no, you told me a thing. And then I went and looked for things.

And then you're like, oh, no, no, no, there are rules. And I was like, what rules? And then I had to go back. All right. Okay. All right. We didn't convey the rules. Just me one second.

Just me one second. Okay. I, the movie that I'm going to pick, which I'm glad neither of you picked it because it was a really popular movie. It was really big. It was the start of a huge franchise or rather. a continuation of a huge franchise. It's a movie. I'm certain every one of you has watched, okay?

Huge. And it is Pokemon the movie, Mutu strikes back. I was just thinking about that this one. I thought about that. That's a really pick. That is a good pick. An unstoppable new enemy.

We dreamed of creating the world's strongest Pokemon, and we succeeded. Is it in fact the start? It's the first Pokemon movie. It debuted earlier in Japan, but in 1999, it hit the shores of America. And by that time, we were already just ripped by Pokemon fever. The games had come out. The anime television show had come out.

And I guess the reason I think it's a Planet Money thing is this was the gateway drug for a lot of people for, like, anime and Japanese culture. And did you guys know that the New Yorker actually had. Pikachu on the cover. Pikachu was on the cover. We got, you got to see it. If anybody listening has that frame on the wall, please send us a picture. Or send it to us, we'll take it. There are two things that I think are really interesting about it.

I would also say really quickly. One is that this movie was shockingly successful at the box office. Like, if you look at, okay, boxoffice mojo.com, if you just look at the movies that grossed less than Pokemon the movie, okay? See, Pokemon the movie is number 24, right? It did better than American Beauty. Yeah. It did better than eyes wide shut. So that's one thing, right?

And then the other thing really quick is, you know, obviously this was like the crystallization of something that was really important, which is culture as an economic export, right? And we're all familiar with that today, right, of all the K-pop exports that we're getting or whatever. But culture, intellectual property, a big deal, a big economic deal. and it comes from all over. Yeah. And the Pokemon Juggernaut is still thriving. It's like people are going nuts for Pokemon again, like all over again these days. Pokemon cards, Pokemon games?

Yeah. Do you think that the Matrix came out in 1999 and also launched a franchise? It seems like, it seems like Pokemon is way more sustainable at this point than the Matrix. You know why? You know why? Because they embraced omnimedes. They were a video game. They were a trading card game.

They were all kinds of different video games. Matrix was Omn Media famously. It was a comic book. It was a video game. Yeah, yeah, but Pokemon, they really embraced all of their diffusion products. I think they were for kids who have time for them. Pokemon Go. Pokemon Go! Remember people were like tripping over curbs playing Pokemon Goh.

It was like a real public health hazard. I freaking love Pokemon Go. By the way, just a rip off of geocaching, frankly. and geocaching, I believe, is turning, like, is having an anniversary this year. Shout out to geocashing. We don't have time to go into it. That's another podcast. All right.

So with the third pick of the draft, Jeff's first pick is the first Pokemon movie. What's its official title, Jeff? Pokemon, colon, the first movie, hyphen, mu2 strikes back. So this is like Mission Impossible. Or Fasten the Furious or like, yeah. It was ahead of the time on that, too. Great use of punctuation, extra points. Okay, that was the first round of our 1999 Planet Money pop culture draft.

Again, this bonus episode came out a couple months ago for our Planet Money Plus supporters, which means that at the end of this show, we can reveal who got the most votes in Emerged Victorious. Keep listening and find out if you agree. Round two coming up after the break. The order of the draft is now we reverse the order. We snake back on ourselves. Jeff, you are now the first pick of our second round. And then I will go next and Whalen will go next.

Got it. Okay. So you still need to pick a song and a wild card. Okay. I'm going to pick a song. Okay. I will say. I'm very nervous about. I'm less nervous about song, but I'm pretty nervous about song.

I'm like, I'm sweating. I'm so nervous. I have three options for song. But I feel so much more strongly about one of these three. Okay. And I hope Jeff doesn't take it. Go ahead, Jeff. Okay.

Okay. I'm like, I'm dying. The song of 1999 that I think most epitomizes both 1999 and Planet Money and economics is, I want it that way by the Backstreet Boys. Yes. Okay. Great choice. Love it. You are my fire, the one.

Desireably When I say I want it that way Great song Just listened to the alternate version Today in the car Like randomly I didn't know it existed

Is it even real? I don't know but it seems a little dirtier I will say And I didn't mean to play it We can talk about that later Tell me why. Is it the affirmative? Is it the affirmative?

I don't know. Well, so it just It just, it seems to be more explicitly about a, I don't know. Something seems dirty. I don't know. Go listen to it. Ten-year-old Jeff doesn't know anything about it. I had my children in the car and my, like, my sort of prudish, my prudish censors were

up. I don't know why. It just seemed ickier, but it's still a banger, I got to say. Okay. Tell me why, Jeff. I have two reasons. I can tell you why. One of them is that, of course, this was the height of the boy band economy.

And I think if you listen to this song, actually, if you watch the. music video, you can really see an illustration of the concept of comparative advantage. Because each of these, and I think there's a common misconception that comparative advantage just means that this person is just better at this thing than this other person. But what comparative advantage really means is that each person should tend to do the thing that they are best at compared to their own skills. So if you look at the song, AJ, one of the best singers in the band, but he also is one of the best dancers. And so there's these other guys, one of them, I'm going to call him that Brian,

who is also a great singer, but not as good as dancing. And so, by the theory of comparative advantage, AJ, you know, they're putting him central. He's dancing, right? He maybe is not singing all the time, but he's dancing because they need him to dance. Whereas Brian, poor Brian, he's amazing singer. He's always in the corner because they don't want you to look at him because he's dancing bad, not up to par. Yes, but his voice is beautiful. So he gets more of the voice parts. And they mix it up, obviously. But I think it's a really good illustration of we each do what we're best at. I love this. I love this. This is a great thesis. And someone, you know what, free PhD thesis right there for Jeff Well, if somebody wants to take it. Oh, I think it's already been

written. Surely. Okay. Surely it's already been written. You know what's interesting is like what you're describing is kind of the strategy of the corporation that's assembling this boy band as well, right? They kind of have to figure out how to slot in who wear. And I feel like this is now what you're You see with, like, every, like, K-pop band or, like, I'm kind of getting into Katzai and I watch that documentary on Netflix where they, like, put this girl band together. And, yeah, you can see which one is the strong dancer, which one is the strong singer, who's, like, a good all-around player. And they have to kind of think holistically about the unit. The lanes. But, okay, but really quick, let me tell you the second reason why I think this is very plant money.

And it's because, actually, let me ask you, what do you think this song means? oh well what is it you want it that way what is it what is it the relationship tell me why a relationship well ain't nothing ain't uh because they're saying i never want to hear you say i want it that way so it's kind of like is it about like i want us to want the same things in the relationship like i don't want to hear you say i want it like a different way than how i want it Yeah, like is it, is it, I only want it my way, not your way? Who knows? And here's the thing.

But doesn't he, doesn't the band articulate a series of ways that it could be? And then they say, I don't want to hear you say you want it. This is like a sad song. This is like a song about a relationship on the fritz, right? Or like it's like a long distance relationship and they're just like kind of falling apart. And then he says, I don't ever want to hear you say, I want it that way. And it's like, what? Is this a continuation of a fight or whatever?

And so there's been a lot of ink spills. on what I want it that way actually means, right? And I think famously, I think it was Chrissy Teigen, who, like, on Twitter was like, hey, guys, like, it's been 20 years. What the heck does this song mean? And they were like, we really don't know because, because this was co-written by Max Martin. And Max Martin famously does not really have a great grasp of what meanings are. So, yeah, but it like, it doesn't matter, you know what I mean?

Because it's like the, like, that's the beauty of pop music. It's like sometimes the lyrics, like, they don't totally make sense, but it's fine, right? But these lyrics really, really don't make sense. They're very semiotically open, right? It's like open textured and, you know, like epistemologically unstable. And I feel like that really describes the world that we live in right now and our jobs as journalists. Epistemologically unstable, that's true. Explain, do explain these things, right?

I want it that way because I won't need. that way. With the fourth pick in the Planet Money Pop Culture Draft, Jeff has selected I won it that way. A very good pick, Jeff. Really good pick. Especially good because you did not take what I was really hoping that you would not take.

I'm nervous all over again, because what if you take what I take? Well, I mean, yes, I can tank ears. All right, in the year, 1999, this is my pick, by the way. All four members of a now legendary R&B group turned 18 years old. And as adults, would the first single from their sophomore album be about independence or rebellion?

No, no, it would not. Becoming adults to this group meant that it was time to sing an ode to financial responsibility. Cue the song. With my second pick my bills. of the 1999 Planet Money Pop Culture Draft, I select Destiny's Child's Bills, Bills. Yes, excellent pick. I literally almost picked that.

Me too. I'm glad you didn't. I did not have a good backup to this. All right. So this is, in fact, Destiny's Child's first song to peak at number one. It ultimately wound up at 21 on 1999's year-end Hot 100 list. It is mostly about a boyfriend leaching off of a woman's success. It is mostly about phone bills, very 1999, and car bills, or as we say, automobiles. Best pun ever.

Best pun ever. But what this song did not need to do, but did, was to get this serious about personal finance. Here is the clip. Now you've been maxing on my car. Give me back credit, find me gives with my own name. I haven't played the first bill. So just say that I'm bad in the mall. Going on shop and sprees perpetrating to your friends like you be falling.

And then use myself. So just say that again. Gave me bad credit, buying me gifts with my own ends. These are some 18-year-olds. Most 18-year-olds are not thinking about FICO scores. This is amazing. It's true. You know who is thinking about FICO scores at 18 years old?

Destiny's Child. And that is why they are the greatest Planet Money song of 1999. Bill's amazing. And you know the best part about this is that like credit. cards really became a universal, democratized, everybody has one thing in the 1990s when they were writing the song, right? And so like, Bill's, bills, bills would not have made sense 10 years prior. I got my first credit card in 1999.

Because I went off to college and, you know, there's like some company that's like set up outside the union handing out frisbees if you sign up for a credit card. So I signed up for a credit card. That will sign up for enough of those free frisbee's. Also tank your credit. Bills, bills, bills. Maybe that, I don't know if that's in the alternate lyrics of the song or not. But, uh, all right. So yes, bills, bills, bills. That is my choice. Amazing. Waylon. Yes, it's my turn. I will also stick with song. My pick for song is no scrubs by TLC because this song, it, uh, reminds me of some stuff I was researching and thinking about

for an episode of It's Been a Minute that I got to be on. And this, it was all about like relationships and And, you know, in Scrubs, it describes this, like, broke, deadbeat guy and the TLC ladies don't want anything to do with this guy because he's like, you know, doesn't have a job and he's just, you know, hanging out of the passenger seat of his best friends ride and everything. So, okay. Trying to holler. Trying to holler. Trying to holler. And, like, they're not having it, right? And I think your guy that thinks he's flying And I don't want to meet you know where he wants And I think this song

And I don't want your number no I don't want to give you mine and no I don't want to meet you nowhere now. I don't want a little time and don't know And I think this song speaks to Broader dynamics we see in marriage rates, especially marriage rates across socioeconomic classes because it is this, like, well-documented, long-running thing where marriage rates have been going down as you go down the income ladder, right? That, and there's this notion that for, you know, like, straight women, the marriage pool in their economic class is perhaps less desirable than it was in the past. Like, if you look at, you know, like working class or lower income classes, you have a lot of men who are unemployed. Like, this is partially an effect of, like, the hollowing out of industrial jobs. In some communities, you have just fewer men because of mass incarceration. And when you have like very traditional gender roles still where women are doing more than 50% of the household labor, you get a situation where women would rather go it alone than pair up with someone who isn't pulling their weight, either income wise and or with the household labor, taking care of kids, helping out at home, all that kind of stuff.

So I think that this notion of like, I don't want no scrubs, it speaks to maybe the desirability of the available men that certain women are seeing out there in the world. And this is something we're still contending with 25 years later. It's kind of like how Courtney Kardashian didn't want to marry Scott Dissick. He was a scrub. Back then, he was a scrub. He was a scrub, and Courtney knew it, so she never married him. She's never married him. Once a scrub always a scrub?

No, you can change. Okay, okay, okay. Now, no scrubs. Waylon Wong's second pick. I will say that was my first backup to, or actually this is my third backup to Bills, Bill's Bills, because here's my argument and that I will give you for free if you want it. I don't know. It wasn't as good as your argument.

My argument was, Bills Bills, Bills is about someone getting into a relationship with a man who then is running up the credit card and rooting credit. No scrubs represents what we would in our industry call a total risk avoidance. where you are saying, oh, no, no, we're mitigating all risk by just saying, no, we're not getting into a relationship so that you can't then turn into Bills Bills Bills. So in some ways, no Scrubs is like a path, a path not taken, a better path. And Bills Bills Bills is what happens if you do end up in that relationship. Yeah, it's so funny because Bills Bills Bills was my backup choice.

And I was thinking about the relationship between these two songs, right? And how they describe like very similar experiences. But one is like, oh, you took the plunge, it worked out badly. One is like, I'm not even getting involved. Like, just keep driving. That's the risk avoidance strategy. That's where you go. All right.

So, no scrubs and bills, bills, a kind of pop culture couplet, if you will, there on the top 100. Okay, that was the second round of our 1999 Planet Money pop culture draft. And 1999, by the way, famously great for movies. But shockingly good gear for pop music. Yeah? Yeah.

All right. Final round. and winner reveal coming up after break. Waylon, you now get to make your final pick in the draft, a wild card pick is all that's left for any of us. Now, again, we didn't have to choose in this order, but wild card makes sense. No one's going to steal your wild card, probably.

Probably, but I was nervous about this too, because I was like, what if we all land on the same wild cards? I guarantee you are not landing on what I've got. I am not worried about wild card. My strategy was like, I was so nervous about Blair Witch and Bill's Bill's Bill's being gone that I was like, I must reduce the risk of anyone picking my wildcard. I will just go obscure. Okay, well, I can't wait to hear yours.

Mine is not that obscure, but I think it's a strong pick. Obviously, stand behind my pick because I want to win this draft. Okay. My wild card pick, I'm going television. And I am going with a show that debuted in 1999. and I think, you know, really changed our entire relationship as a culture with one of the most important sectors of the economy. I am talking about the premiere of House Hunters.

Well, this one looks real nice. Jane and Mitch Englander are playing Beat the Clock. With a new baby on the way, finding a larger home is their priority. House hunters got going in 1999. And if you think about our next... national obsession with real estate in all forms, right? Like, I think without house hunters, you might not get Zillow stocking. You might not get this obsession with, like, open floor plans and whatever the heck.

And kind of like, this, like, judgment we have over, like, what people can afford and, like, judging people's aesthetic choices. I mean, like, all of these. Might not have gotten the subprime crisis. I know, right? Because, like, I was like, what was happening in the housing market in 1999? I was like, everything was great. Like, we didn't know what was talking about. Mortgage, what I was trying to Google quickly what mortgage rates were in 1999.

Oh, yeah, yeah. No, that's a good Google to do. So in the 90s, it looks like we were between 6.9% was the lowest mortgage rate in the 90s, according to bank rate. Well, that's actually, that sounds high, but it's like, you know, but then we had like, whatever. That was like Preserve era, right? 2%. We must all erase 2% from our brains, I fear. Like, I don't think that was a realistic.

Yeah, we got like habituated in this, like, way that's like not very helpful. But, yeah. Okay. So perhaps we were seeing some relatively low mortgage rates, which. may have been spawning people. But also these shows were always really about like reinforcing

the American dream back to us. And so the idea that ownership is the only thing. Like there's no question at all in these shows. Like that, it's a game.

It's a game of ownership. Like you must, you get to pick which house you would like. Which of these three would you like? There won't be any problems. An embarrassment of riches. Just choose. Just choose which house.

And like, yeah, now you think about the entire HGTV empire and you have house hunters international. I mean, it's just, and it all started in 1999 with the launch of house hunters. That's a great pick, Waylon. Thank you. So that rounds out Waylon's team of 1999 Planet Money pop culture. I will make my final pick. I regret going this obscure now that I saw how good that pick could be. All right. Well, so I figured you're not going to let me argue that I can just draft the entire dot-com bubble as a piece of pop culture. Uh, or if you're

You will, I'll just take that. I'm going to say no. I'm like, that's too broad. So in the 1990s, if you're unaware, lucky you, there were lots of these newfangled internet companies popping up and, man, was there money rushing in? And boy, was it a bubble. And did it ever cause a recession later in about 2001? But we're not in 2001 yet.

We're still in 1999, arguably the peak of the bubble. And so what I will draft is a commercial for a company that I think you could argue just sort of is the dot-com bubble. We're going to play a little bit of the commercial. You're going to hear Whoopi Goldberg. Oh, my gosh. Got to get a gift for a kid, and you don't know what they want because you're old.

Old, honey. Give them Flues, online gift currency. It's just like money. You send it by email. They spend it at some of the web's coolest stores, and you come out hip and small. It's graduation day. Duh.

Flues. That is F-L-O-O-Z. Flues. I forgot to say. Flus was founded in 1999 and the commercial debuted in 1999. That's the 1999 connection. I don't remember this company. I thought you were going to say like Pets.com or something.

No, I've never heard of Flues. Well, pets.com is the obvious dot com bubble. Of course. But Flues.com, man, are there echoes of what we have seen over the last five years. So flus.com's business model was, hey, we have all these new like retailers, like Barnes & Noble, Tower Records, like doing business online. What if our company like takes your real money and turns it into fake internet money that only works on the internet. and can't be converted back, you can just spend it at these

online retailers who agree to take it. So some of those retailers that they got to sign up, so it's digital currency. So you have a digital wallet? It's not crypto, right? It's not blockchain. It's been invented yet. Money.

But it is just like, great. Well, we're going to get to that. So some of the companies that took this was like Tower Records, Godiva Chocolates. Fog Dog would accept Flues money. That's another company I haven't heard of. But it also reminds me, I believe that is also, I don't know, whatever, it's a very 90s

company in my head. I don't remember at all what they do. So Whoopi Goldberg became their spokesperson. She became, she got paid in, I believe she got paid in Flu's money. Oh my gosh. And then also became the largest shareholder outside of the founders. I wonder how that worked out for her.

Within like a few years, Flues announced bankruptcy. What had happened was a Russian Filipino scam whereby a bunch of stolen credit card numbers were then quickly used to buy a bunch of flus, like $300,000 in flus, was found out by the credit card companies. And they, of course, canceled the orders. And that just left flus with like, oh, no, we just have $300,000 of like e-money floating around that we don't get our money back for.

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

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

Can I read one final quote? So this was in an interview with the CEO when the partnership with Whoopi Goldberg was announced. He thought it was a good partnership because, quote, we're both irreverent, hip and fun, but also trusted and respectable brands. And I don't know. And we both starred in Sister Eck too. Yeah, like, I don't, would be, that may all be true for Whoopi, I suppose. But it didn't end up being true for flus as the company declared bankruptcy and was an easy target of fraud and a canary and Nicole. You flus, you lose.

That's what happened. Oh, flus. Flus.com. All right. The final pick in the 1999 Planet Money Pop Culture Draft goes to, Jeff,

Gwo. Jeff, your wild card pick. Okay. And you said I could pick anything. You got to argue. We're still talking about metaphysical. Object.

Like, give it a try. We'll make a judgment. Vegetable, mineral. Okay. Okay. So we've been talking about songs, right? We've talked about bills, bills, bills.

scrubs or the absence thereof. And what is the thing where we were getting all the songs from? Napster. At that time, Napster, which debuted in 1999. So in a way, I'm picking all of the songs, the sum total of songery in 1999, was on Napster. And why does this epitomize planet money? Well, number one, this was, of course, a huge economic story without Napster. we would not have the iPod.

Without Napster, we wouldn't have Spotify. Napster completely changed how the music industry constitutes itself, right? And now everybody's touring because there's no money to be made in music because music is free and everywhere. And Napster was the start of all that. That's, of course. I don't know if it's free now. Do you still think it's free now? Like I pay for a Spotify subscription, which I guess gives pennies back to.

It's functionally, it's free and the lava chicken song that we keep listening to. It feels free. It feels free. This is a banger. But here's the other thing about Navi's. right? Eventually, these file-sharing programs led to more than just pirated music. People started pirating all kinds of stuff. And a lot of what they shared was pirated software, like Photoshop, but especially like music production software. And so if you go back into

like the histories of all the big DJs or whatever, they almost all of them have a teenage basement phase where they were making beats using pirated software, pirated able to Pilated, you know, FL loops or whatever, making beats, that's how they got their reps in. That's how they developed the music, the sound of the next generation. It was all because of piracy. That's so interesting. So it's like the democratization of that software allowed, like lower the barriers to entry for this generation. Democratization is kind.

I would say that's more like kleptocratization or something. Napster allowed us to seize the means both of production and reproduction. NAPSTER is a great choice. That's a great choice. These actually make me... House Hunters and Napster now make me regret picking something. No, but I really like learning about flus.

I didn't know that was a thing. Okay. We've done it. We did it. Wow. Waylon and Jeff, any final thoughts on things that you wanted to draft that you didn't super quickly while we wrap this up?

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

bad backup for movie was Doug's first movie. My argument was going to be. That it really, like, so Doug, Doug's first movie was put out by Disney. You may, if you're a child of the 90s, you will remember there was a weird switch from like, Doug was on Nickelodeon and then he was on like ABC all of a sudden. That's because Disney had started to do this thing

that we just, they're like super famous for now. But before they had acquired Pixar and Marvel and Lucas films, like they had bought this little production studio called Jumbo Entertainment or Jumbo Films or whatever that was making Doug. And they're like, I don't know, it'd be useful to have Doug.

And so I, I was going to argue that, like, this was the beginning of the modern IP vacuum cleaner. Oh, that's interesting. Sucks up IP and produces it. That is good. That's good. Yeah. I had, like, a spare wild card pick, which was, who wants to be a millionaire debuted in the U.S. in 1999?

And I don't know if you guys remember that it was on, like, every single day. Like, it was just the – Once it premiered and became a hit, it just, like, it was on all the time, seemingly. And it was like, you know, one of the highest rated game shows in US TV history. And I feel like it almost presents this alternative history where there's another pop culture timeline where instead of getting a huge glut of reality shows that are based on dating and stuff, we actually went the game show round. We just had a bazillion game shows. But somehow, like, game shows didn't really take despite the huge success of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Yeah, sure.

Yeah. Yep. My backup pick probably would have been Fight Club. But I thought it was too popular. But to me, Fight Club really represents the pinnacle of Gen X culture where, oh, my God, the worst thing that could happen to me in life is that I have a regular, regular job. Oh, my God, Jeff. Oh, so terrible.

Now I have to go punch people. I almost picked American Beauty for that same reason with this, like, rant where it's like, oh, like, oh, look at the unwee of like the upper middle class, like suburban white man. Like, oh, I have this white collar job that's so boring. whatever shall I do. And, like, Fight Club was the same. It was like, oh, no, like, look at me buying IKEA furniture.

And it's like, get over it, you know? It's like, I would kill for IKEA furniture. Oh, no, we ended up, despite our best efforts, we ended up in the fight club, like, vortex. No, I mean, that's why. But wasn't that the point? This is why we don't talk about it. I didn't even want to go there.

I didn't even want to go there, you know, because, like, I only had a rant, right? And I was like, I don't, that's not the energy I want to bring to the draft. So, so let's recap for the listeners. A, thank you for sticking with us through this bizarre. our journey through the upsie-downsy-downsy-turvy world of 1999. Jeff, would you like to recap your team? Okay.

The movie I picked was Pokemon, the movie colon, the first movie slash dash, Mutu Strikes Back, which introduced anime and globalized culture to everybody. The song I picked was, I want it that way, right? because of comparative advantage, because it's sort of a mystery-wrapping enigma. AJ Dancin, Brian Singing. That's what I read, that's exactly right. Yes, also, also, what is the meaning of it? It has an unstable meaning.

And then the object thing, other thing I picked was Napster, the files here. Yeah, okay. Waylon, we want to recap your team? Yes, for movie, I picked The Insider, directed by Michael Mann, classic corporate whistleblowing tale with strange relevance to today. Also, shout out to Bruce McGill. Love his scene in The Insider. For Song, I picked No Scrubs by TLC,

looking at the state of marriage across socioeconomic classes. And then for Wallachard, I picked House Hunters, which debuted in 1999, and without which, maybe we wouldn't have so much shiplap in the world. Have you ever thought about that? I was thinking about the Gaines

is in their shiplap. What are they doing with that shipwap? I don't know. They love it. I can't get enough of it. Is it useful? Can you put pegs between the shiplap boards and hang stuff?

I think you can, yeah. Okay. I mean. All right. So my team consists of the movie the Blair Witch Project, which is still one of the most profitable movies of all time in terms of return on investment. And frankly, kickstarted an entire business model that we have done a Planet Money episode about the Blumhouse model.

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

Yeah, you obviously prepared really well. I don't know what's talking about. Does the winner get flus? Is that the prize? If we can find some flus. There's a lot of flus. Take it out for a spin. Go to Tower Records and buy a Destiny's Child album.

Okay. We can now give you this very, very important update. So back in September, we asked our Planet Money Plus supporters to vote on who they thought won, this draft, who had drafted the best, quote, unquote, Planet Money team of pop culture. The votes, and many opinions, came streaming into our inbox. I don't need to keep you in suspense because there was a very clear winner in a landslide. Waylon Wong. Here is a little bit of what Waylon said when we broke the news to her.

Thanks so much for believing in me and my picks and for, yeah, also voting because, you know, the insider I think I mentioned on the episode is my favorite movie ever. And I hope maybe I inspired some people to go watch him who haven't seen it before. Congrats, Waylon. And then Jeff Guo came in second. and I came in third. I do blame flus for that. I think I tanked it with flus.

Anyway, we hope you enjoyed that. We had a lot of fun doing this. And we have plans for another Planet Money Pop Culture draft next year. So if you have suggestions about the year we should do, send those to us. Planet Money at npr.org.

And of course, to be able to hear that episode and other bonus episodes, you're going to want to make sure that you have signed up for Planet Money Plus. Just go to plus.npr.org. slash planet money. That is plus.npr.org slash planet money. And if you've already joined, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. It really does. Been a lot.

Today's episode was produced by Viet Le and edited by Alex Goldmark. I'm Kenny Malone and this is Planet Money from NPR.