Stuff You Should Know - How TED Talks Work: Featuring Roman Mars

Episode Date: March 24, 2016

TED Talks have been around longer than you think. They became really popular once YouTube came along to bring their often inspirational messages to the world, 18 minutes at a time. In this episode, we interview an actual TED talker, the host of the 99% Invisible podcast, Roman Mars. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass

and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, ya everybody, about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say. Bye, bye, bye.

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Spring has sprung, everybody, this is Chuck. And we are hitting the road in April and May for some live shows. If you live in Seattle, Portland, Houston, or Denver, those are the ones we have so far. We're gonna add a couple more, though. The Neptune Theater on April 8th in Seattle, Revolution Hall in Portland on April 9th.

Then we're gonna take a little break and we're gonna go to Houston on May 28th at Warehouse Live and then Denver, Colorado, May 29th. It's a Sunday, I'm sorry, Memorial Day weekend at the Gothic Theater. And you can get all the information for tickets at sysklive.com, and that is powered by Squarespace, our buddies, and get this.

Seattle and Portland, you need to get on it because tickets are going fast, it's gonna sell out soon. Houston and Denver tickets are going on sale this Friday, that would be tomorrow. And I believe we're even having a presale for Denver today. So I don't have that password yet, but if you go to Facebook or Facebook page

or sysklive.com, we're gonna post the presale password for today for Denver. We hope to see you guys there. We love you, goodbye. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HouseStuffWorks.com. ["Stuff You Should Know"] Hey and welcome to the podcast, I'm Josh Clark.

I sounded like Jonathan Strickland just then. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry, Stuff You Should Know, in the house. Yes sir. So Chuck, before we get started, I think we should make a clarification here because we inadvertently offended some people on our makeup episode.

I mentioned that it was International Women's Day. So it's not really a happy occasion. I understand that, I realize that. And it's not like we said, hey, it's International Women's Day. What topic should we do? What topic screams women fresh, International Women's Day? Makeup, it wasn't like that at all. We selected makeup.

It was International Women's Day and I didn't want it to go by unmarked. Yeah, it was completely coincidental, so we didn't mean to offend anyone. And hopefully our track record as feminists stands up, but so may a couple to all those who were offended. And you know what, we're gonna do one on International Women's Day.

Yeah, and the Equal Rights Amendment. Yeah, next year for International Women's Day, about International Women's Day. Yeah, and maybe we'll do the ERA before then. Yeah, sounds great. Okay. Good job buddy. All right, so let's get started.

How you doing? Man, I was talking to Jerry before you came in about just life, there's a lot of life. Wow. Lots of stuff going on in every avenue. There's all this planning, like we're like working on dates for stuff. Yeah.

I mean, it's just like constant. What going on? You gonna melt down? No, I'm not, I'm hanging in there. And I'm doing so by saying, you got a pretty good brain, trust in your brain. Good. You got a good animal?

Oh boy. I've got Stan Minna. Perfect. Well, there it is. There's the crack in the dike, everybody. I have a crack in my brain today, because if you remember, we were sent, we mentioned the Crown Royal Rye Whiskey off-handedly.

Oh no, I know what your story is about. And they sent us six bottles of Crown Royal. Yeah. And I got into it last night. How many bottles? Oh, not, I didn't drink bottles, please. Which one did you start with? Did you start with the Northern Rye?

Well, I'd already tried it. Oh, okay. I still have not. What? No, I've been like really holding everything together. So I haven't had time to sit down and like really enjoy some rye. Yeah, I tried the rye,

but they also sent this single malt. Yeah, yeah, the XO. Well, we got two different ones. Oh, really? Yeah, we got the same rye and then the same regular and then each of us had a different. So you got a single malt whiskey? A single malt Canadian whiskey.

Nice. So I got into that a little bit last night because I've been stressed. And now I've got cobwebs. That's great, Chuck. I was Googling at my desk earlier, hangover, blurred vision. Oh, it's that bad, huh?

Just to make sure I wasn't like, didn't need to go to the hospital for some condition. And it said, hey, don't worry, you're just hungover. That's why you have blurred vision. She could listen to her hangover episode. I know, I couldn't remember if blurred vision was. I don't think it was. I think maybe if you have a turpentine hangover,

blurred vision is, but not from Crown Royal, it may be something else. All right, well, I'm hanging on by thread. Sure, well, I'll carry us both on this episode then. How about that? You just kick back and relax. Let's talk about Ted Turner, right? Ted Turner, that's right.

How do you remember the time when you realized that Ted wasn't someone's name? Yeah. Was it immediate or had you heard of Ted for a little while before you were like, oh, there's not actually a Ted? No, I think I caught on to the Ted talks when most everyone else did,

was when they became readily available and distributed on YouTube. That was like 2006. Yeah, that's when they really like launched. Oh, you were early. That's early. Yeah, and I wasn't like watching them all the time, but I knew what it was and I thought,

oh, well, this is certainly neat in a version of what we do. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I don't remember when I first saw the Ted talk, but I became aware of them as like a thing. Well, we weren't doing this in 2006, for sure. So I didn't think that at the time. See, cracks.

Yeah, cobwebs, right? So Ted, in fact, for those of you who don't know, the three of you, does not stand for, it's not a person's name, it stands for technology, entertainment, and design. And Ted talks originally about things that fell under those three general topics, but have since expanded tremendously

and have become this kind of global creativity thinker brand that falls very much in line with the idea and this feeling behind San Francisco and Silicon Valley. Sure. Uber, the building we work in, like this whole kind of new technocrat idealism is the, Ted is very much a foundation of that and help foster it, for sure.

Yeah, although it covers wide range of topics now. Anything a technocrat would be interested in. It is, well, not even technology at the incomes is all kinds of neat things. Right, yeah. Do you remember our long now episode, the one about the 10,000 year clock? Yeah, love that one.

That would, if you are at all interested in Ted talks or this episode, go listen to that one. That'll definitely be in your wheelhouse, too. Agreed, and they are 18 minutes long because supposedly that is the length of the human span of- Intention span. Attention span.

That's right. I love how everybody couches that and supposedly. Yeah, I mean, did you look up as their science behind that? I couldn't find anything behind it. I'm sure that there is some social science study about it that concluded that that's the case. Yeah.

That doesn't mean that's right. It's a neat construct and I think a selling point for Ted talks because this article points out they are tailor made for today because they're shortish and shareable and they're sort of perfect for our new social media age. Yeah, the guy who wrote this article, Dave Ruse, basically puts it like Ted is ready made

for the digital age. Like you said, they're 18 minutes long, they're shareable and Ted very presciently started sharing these things online for free in 2006. And that was a year after YouTube. And I remember when YouTube came around, it was like, it was not a given that YouTube was always gonna be here like it is today.

Right. And so to release all of your stuff, all of your videos online back in 2006. Yeah. That had a decent amount of foresight. Very teddy. So teddy. All right, well, let's go back in time a little bit

because this very much surprised me. Not back to 2004 or even 1994. Okay. 1984. Yeah, go ahead and jump. Yeah, like Van Halen is playing Panama on the radio. Yeah. And your TV.

Sure. The little angel kid smoking cigarettes. Yeah. And the very first Ted talk happened. Yeah. Isn't that crazy? Yeah, and it wasn't like Ray Kurzweil strutting the stage, just staccato releasing like different computer terms.

Nope. It was basically the ultimate dinner party is how it was put by a designer. And his name is Richard Saul Warman. And I looked up Richard Saul Warman and he is indeed a designer and publisher and author of 88 books. Wow.

And he decided that he wanted to put together something where anyone could come and listen to the luminaries in basically a dinner party like setting with the stage. Cool idea. Like if you have a dinner party and you put a stage in the corner, there's your first Ted conference.

That's right. And what he said was, you know, I want to sort of have an anti-conference. I don't want someone up here with a PowerPoint. I don't want someone up here lecturing for an hour. Right. The idea was to make them, just to get smart people together on stage

and in the audience and have them be kind of snappy and quick. And apparently he would even run you off the stage if you were going too long. Or if he became bored. Yeah. But that's so Richard Saul Warman. Oh yeah.

Well, I don't know. I'm just kidding. Because one of his books is called I'm Bored. Right. It's just like ho-hum. Right. At the very first Ted conference in 1984, that was very cute and adorable now.

They featured a demonstration of the Sony compact disc player. Yeah, but dude, that's in 84? Yeah. Yeah, man. I'm sure that was like, what is this sorcery? One of the, yeah. One of the first.

You don't have to rewind? Yeah. That was a big innovation with compact disc. So I'm not sure if you're aware of that. Sure. The eight track boy, they tried. Yeah. What was the eight tracks problem?

It was just too clunky? Well, I mean, the advantage of being able to skip ahead. Yeah, that's huge. Like four songs at a time though. You couldn't skip like to song number two or three. It would jump in like groups of four. Oh, I don't recall that.

Yeah, that's a big design flaw. Or at least mine did. Maybe I had it crappy. Richard Saul Wordman would never have released something with that kind of a design flaw. The very first, or one of the very first demonstrations of the Macintosh computer was at the 84 Ted.

That's huge. And a little mathematician by the name of Benoit Mandelbrot, famous for his set. Yeah. He spoke. There's a great Jonathan Colton song about him and his fractals. That's right.

Mr. Colton. Yeah. Who we've met. Oh yeah, and hung out with. He's a good dude. Yeah, he is. He's been to our shows before. That's right.

And so six years later, he took a little break because it was, it didn't make him any money. In fact, I think it even cost him money. Yeah, so think about this. You go to a conference where the compact disc is being shown about five, six years before its actual real release.

Yeah, digital witchcraft. E-book reader. Yep. And Benoit Mandelbrot. And no one wants to come. So financially it was a flop, but he put together a good conference. And like you said, he took six years,

something like that. Then he tried it again. And apparently this time it took. Yeah, that's when the 18 minute format came into play. And it became like a really big ticket. Like all of a sudden he had made a name for himself in his conference. Yeah.

And these were in Monterey, California at first. Because that's where he lived until 2009. They moved to Long Beach. And then in 2014, they moved ultimately to where they were bound to be in Vancouver. Yeah, for now, if you go on the Ted site and look up their conference schedule or whatever, it says that they hold it annually

on the west coast of North America. Oh, so they're not. They're not locking themselves into anything further than the west coast of North America. What they're definitely saying is we're not coming to New York. We're not leaving the Pacific time zone. Even though the staff is partially based in New York.

Yeah, did you read that Wait But Why article I sent you? Yep. Yeah. Well, we'll talk about it some more later. All right. So Richard Saul Werman, being the wander lustful designer that he is, decided that he'd made Ted a success and he was now bored with it.

So he sold it. Yeah, plus he was older. He was looking for a successor. Well, he found one in Chris Anderson, the bird man of the Miami Heat. Wouldn't that be funny? This weird foe hawk. No, Chris Anderson, he ran a non-profit or runs one

called the Sapling Foundation. And he ponied up a cool 4 million pounds to buy Ted. Dude, he has made that back and then some. Oh, I'm sure. Well, no, it's a non-profit, right? He's made some money off it. So Anderson took it over, started running it as a non-profit and kind of brought that sensibility to it.

But he took the 18 minute chunk idea, which is a huge cornerstone trait of Ted, you know? Yeah, and ran with it. He did. He was the one who said we need to release these online. He curates still to this day from what I understand, all of the speakers. Yeah, I think so.

And the audience members. Yeah. So we'll talk a little bit about making a Ted talk if you're ever invited to produce one and attending the Ted conference after this. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker

necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and nonstop references to the best decade ever.

Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper,

because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s, called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. OK, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation?

If you do, you've come to the right place, because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, god. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS, because I'll be there for you. Oh, man.

And so my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yeah, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life, step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general, can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life.

Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody, about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. So, Chuck, let's say that Ted came to you and said, hey, I'm Ted, and I want you to speak at me.

Yes. OK, so you just have signed up for a tremendous amount of work, actually. And a lot of stress and nervousness from what I understand. Of course. And actually, we'll go ahead and tease this. Coming up at the end of this episode,

we are going to interview the great Roman Mars of the great 99% invisible podcast. And radio topia. Part of the original cast of A Chorus Line. That's right. And Roman spoke at one of the legit Ted conferences. Not a Ted X. No, Ted.

But the real deal. Yeah, and we should say, so you may have seen if you're familiar with Ted, Ted X, Ted Global, that kind of thing. And Ted conferences are held once a year. And this is the one that is like the big Mamma Jama, where the guy who runs Ted, Chris Anderson, picked you to speak at it.

It's a big honor. It is. And then there's Ted X. And Ted X are basically like local versions of Ted. And they can either be huge, like San Diego Ted X is a bona fide legitimate conference. And then I'm quite sure that there's Toledo Ted X. You think?

I think so. I think we might have been invited to it once. No. I think so. I don't think we could make it. We were invited to a Ted X somewhere. It was either in Ohio or Indiana. Well, our old friend Joey Ciara, formerly of Henry Clay

People, and now of Fakers, he went to Harvard and was trying to get us to do a Ted X at Harvard at one point. I don't know if that's what you're thinking of. No. OK. Nope. This is in a Midwestern state. Harvard is not in the Midwest.

No. But is Joey still at Harvard right now? No, no, no. He finished. Oh, congratulations, Joey. Yeah, he graduated and then decided he wanted to go to film school. Dude, the guy's all over the place.

He's all over the place. Can I ask? It's not the Fakers. It's just Fakers. It's just Fakers. Where's the the? The the was a great band. OK.

Where is the the? What do you mean? The Fakers. It's like Edie Burkele and New Bohemians. They used to drive me crazy. Because they were always correct people. Indigo girls, same thing. They're not the Indigo girls.

Indigo girls doesn't strike me in the same way. And I get like Fakers. It doesn't have to be the Fakers. The makes it a band name, you know? But yeah, Fakers is it's a little more artistic. There's something different to it. But it's just when you leave off the in front of a band name, I notice it.

My antenna go up. What are you trying to pull? I think originally the Eagles were just Eagles. I think that's correct. Or did they remain that? And they are just mistakenly called the Eagles. I could see that. But I also see Glenn Fry and Joe Walsh and Don Henley not

being ones to correct somebody, you know? They're a little more easygoing than Edie Burkele. Well, I think it's just Eagles still. Sure. But Indigo girls sounds weird. Like what are you doing tomorrow? Oh, I'm going to see Indigo girls. For some reason, I know what you're saying, you know?

But that's never stuck out to me with them. Back to Ted. So Roman can count himself among some very distinguished people like Bill Clinton and Bono and Richard Dawkins and Jane Goodall and Al Gore. They've had lots of very famous people speak at Ted conferences. And Ted, yes. So that's what we were seeing when we were talking about TEDx,

TEDglobal, the difference. And Roman spoke at Ted, the big mamma jamma. The big mamma jamma. So if you are asked to speak at Ted and you do agree, you're basically, here's the thing I didn't know about Ted that I learned from researching this. You are creating an 18-minute presentation that when you give this speech, you're

speaking it verbatim, word for word. Yeah, it's a performance. It is. And so this thing is not like, oh, I've got an 18-minute speech I know pretty well. It's not what we do in other words. For the most part, it is someone who is an expert in their field, let's say robotics, for example.

And a robotics expert is not necessarily a gifted public speaker. In fact, they probably are not. So part of the TED process is to basically be matriculated and inculcated into this TED atmosphere where you are coached and prompted and harangued and ridden and maybe spanked on the bottom when you don't deliver a script on time, that kind of thing.

Yeah, it's very like the reason, if you've seen a bunch of TED talks, the reason they all seem the same is because of that reason. They want them to feel similar. Yeah, it's the format of a brand. Yeah, which is a Roman kind of buck convention a little bit. And so we'll talk to him about that. I can't wait.

Yeah, it's going to be great. But so what happens is, and this is, it surprised me, six to nine months before they give the talk, a speaker will start working with the staff and producers and editors to craft your story along with you. Which is really interesting. I had no idea. Yeah, I brought up Wait But Why earlier.

Tim Urban, the guy who I believe runs that site. And it's a pretty interesting site. He's got some good stuff on there. But he did a TED talk, the big one, in Vancouver, I guess last year, or in 2014 maybe. And he talked about how he kept putting off, you know, coming up with an idea even, let alone a script. And he finally had like a flash of inspiration and decided

procrastination would be a great one to do. Oh, that's so good. Yeah, and he, if you read this, it's called Doing a TED Talk, Colin, the full story. He goes in a great detail, created a comic strip. Really good article. Of like, and you really feel it with him where you're starting to get anxious, because when he showed up for

coaching a month or so out, he showed up to TED offices in New York, and he did his talk for the first time in front of TED staffers, it apparently wasn't very well received. I'm sure that's got to be the worst feeling in the world. Yeah, and apparently, up until the day he gave it, he was rehearsing constantly. Do you remember the time we did the thing at the Inventors Hall of Fame?

Yes. It was the one time we did a script. And there was a script where like, I had lines, and you had lines that responded to my lines, and there was no winging this. And you and I just pounded it into our heads, did it over and over and over again, and then we finished rehearsing. And right when we finished rehearsing that last time, we

walked right on the stage and did it. There was no downtime or anything like that. It was like we worked out our brain muscles, but we were hanging on by our fingernails. We wouldn't ask back if I remember correctly. It's not the way we prefer to work, because if you've seen us live, we have our notes, but we do like we do in the studio, and it's a general outline, but we are very much

more comfortable speaking in our own voice. Right. So with TED, it's not like that. It's like you have a script, and you know it line by line, and they apparently have a question, a couple of questions, like measuring sticks for whether you actually have something memorized. Did you catch those in the Wayputt-Wide post?

Yeah. In fact, he calls it, there's different levels of memorization he goes over, and the one that you need to get to for TED is called, he calls, Happy Birthday Level. Like when you know that song so well, you can do your taxes and sing it out loud. Right, exactly. So this just sends like, I got nervous just reading

this. He said, if you record yourself saying the talk and play it back at double speed, can you say it out loud while it's playing and stay ahead of the recording? That just gives me anxiety. Right. And number two, can you recite the talk with no problem while simultaneously doing an unrelated task that

requires attention like following a recipe and measuring out ingredients into a bowl? Yeah. I mean, imagine that's a great way to practice. Oh, yeah. It's known you have something cold. Yeah. But, boy, just don't even bother asking us, Ted.

Right, and I mean, that's the thing. It's like fear of public speaking is an awful thing. Yeah. And then it's exponentially amplified when you have a script that you have to remember word for word and line for line. And that's part of TED. And again, like you said, I don't think they're doing

this just to be mean. No. They're doing it because they have a brand and a format, and like you need to stick to the format when you're doing the talk, right? Yeah, what I'm curious about, and I couldn't find this anywhere, they probably don't like to talk about it, is I wonder if or how often they bail on people and are just

like, you know. This isn't working? Yeah, it's not working. From what I understand, the TED people would not be afraid to do that. Really? I didn't know if they did that or they took the other approach, which is like, no, we're going to keep banging

this out with you until you got it. Probably both. Yeah, I bet you are. I mean, probably both. I'm sure they give their full support and really try to work with you, but I'm sure people have turned in ideas and they're just like, that's actually not a good idea, and the person wants to stick with it, and they're like, OK,

we're going to go with somebody else or something. Well, there's a couple of hallmarks of a good TED talk that they work with you on that you'll notice, and one is that they want to frame your story as a personal journey of discovery. This I find is a little narrow. And a talk should feel like a quote, little miracle, end quote, and change your audience's perspective on the

world. Which, that's a problem that I have with it. Like, not everything is a little miracle, and I don't think you should force it into a little miracle box. Like, something can be interesting just on its face. Yeah, but if, you know, then start your own conference. Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, that's their thing.

Right, now I get it. That's why I don't like critics. Well, we'll get to the criticism. OK. And I'll go off then. OK. But they want it to be really focused on, like, one specific thing.

Obviously, in 18 minutes, you can't be too rambly, which is another reason why they would never ask us. Because we'd start talking about Coen Brothers movies. And they'd be like, they'd get the hook out. Have you seen Hail Caesar yet? No. I haven't either. Which is weird.

It is. I'm usually, like, right in that theater. Yeah. On the first week. I guess it's an allegory for Christ, Mary? Oh, really? I think so. Interesting.

Some of the other things that they will work with you. You're not going to use a teleprompter, like we said. It's got to be memorized. Yeah, we don't use teleprompters. Even when we're shooting videos, do you use teleprompters? I do for the what the stuff. I find it too difficult and distracting. I don't have enough confidence in just reading cold abilities.

Oh, I love it. Sure. I can read all day long. You can use note cards if you want to do that. Yeah, you're not a robot. No. You might be a robot scientist, but you're not a robot. Right.

They want you to make eye contact and be accessible. And they recommend picking out some friendly faces in the audience. That's big. And these actually do translate to just about any public speaking gig. Yeah. And what I think is funny is having done shows with you

is you tend to pick out the least friendly face. Well. And afterward, you're like, oh, is that guy on the second row? He just kept yawning. And he had his arms crossed. You look angry. Are you scowling or something? Yeah.

It's so funny. It's easy to obsess like, well, that person we've lost. Right. Yeah, that is good advice. So to find some friendly people, you want to find more than just like three. You definitely want to do like six, seven, eight, scattered all around the audience

so that you're looking around and you got your people that you're looking at. And they're thrilled and delighted that you're talking right to them for a second. But then they can also get very uncomfortable if you're talking to them for most of the show. So you want to kind of spread that thing around. And then also, it doesn't hurt to just kind of look in the air

too while you're talking or close your eyes and pretend you're not there on stage speaking in front of people. You don't really get that nervous anymore, I know. It depends. I have a member in New York at Town Hall. I almost had to tell you, you need to push me on stage. Yeah, some are a little more nervy than others, but that goes away pretty quickly

because our audiences and our listeners are super supportive. Like you can't ask for a better room to walk into. Well, plus we don't have to win the crowd over. There's probably five people who don't listen to stuff you should know at any one of our shows. Yeah, agreed. It's not like being a stand-up comedian.

Right. No one knows you, especially if you're an opener and you have to win the crowd over. Yeah, that sounds like a living nightmare to me. Yeah, that's why I've never tried stand-up, one of many reasons. And then they also say to not be too active. Like use your hands and stuff, but you want to be fairly still.

Yeah. You don't want to be running all over the stage. Yeah, remember when we were on Soledad O'Brien one morning and my knee was just going like 500 miles an hour and they did like a full shot of us for the whole interview? Yeah. Not good. Yeah, that was weird, because it was also like 6 AM.

It was. And you probably had like six cups of coffee or something. It was weird. It might as well just stay up. Oh, one thing they point out in this article I thought was interesting is that and maybe this answers my question about working with people, one of the most popular Ted's ever was from Susan Cain.

Did you see that one? Yeah, it was great. She wrote a book called Quiet, The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking. So she is a self-described, very famous introvert. She was able to do it. Yeah, hers is very endearing. It kind of gives you the idea that, and this was also mentioned

by Tim Urban on Wait But Why, that those people, they want you to succeed. They're not there to be like, I can't wait for you to fail. Of course. So there is a very encouraging crowd at her Ted talk. Yeah, that's very sweet. Yeah, I saw that because our old friend Bill, Bill Gates, he was on his list of 10 favorite Ted talks.

Oh, really? And I went and watched it before we interviewed him, because you know, I like the sound of it. Hey, you texted that to you, or you found it online? Check this out, Introverts, LOL. Poop emoji. And I was like sent from my iPhone. Oh, busted.

Yeah. Actually, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were very good friends. They were. Healthy competition. Well, in fact, Bill Gates could arm wrestle Steve Jobs under the table, and it drove Steve Jobs nuts. Very true. Did you know Bill Gates can jump over chairs, though?

That was like one of his things that he's known for. Sure. Did you know that? Well, I think you told me. OK. I didn't know it until you told me. He still does it once in a while. Really?

Wow. We should have had him do that. Yeah, I thought that might have been a bad idea. So I guess we should talk a little bit about the criticisms, since we teased it. Yeah, because there's plenty of it. It's basically a sporting pastime to take down Ted. I just don't get it.

These things are so enjoyable to read to me. Yeah. Like Frank Rich wrote one called Ted Talks Are Lying to You. And it was originally in Harper's, which I think is where I read it a few years ago. It's reprinted on Salon now, because Harper's is behind a paywall. And it's just beautiful.

It's not just about Ted Talks. It's about this whole idea of things like Ted, basically the commoditization of creativity, just being uncreative recycling of established tropes and stuff. Yeah, what did he call it? Was that him or Benjamin Bratton? Oh, it might have been Bratton. They called it a megachurch infotainment.

For middlebrow classes? For middlebrow masses. Right, OK. Yeah, that just. Well, the big criticisms. Ted Talks are great. Yes, they are. Like there are plenty of awesome Ted Talks.

I don't think anyone disputes that. I think a lot of people who criticize Ted believe that there's this unspoken sentiment that Ted is changing the world. OK. And the critics point to Ted's really not changing the world at all. It's basically saying, here's this really cool G-Wiz idea

that you too can understand and go tell your friends about it and let the whole idea die there. And that that's actually taking legitimate great ideas from this roboticist and then just spreading it out to the masses and fizzling out rather than going the opposite way. Now Ted, on the other hand, is like, are you crazy if you go to our conferences?

Most of the attendees are extraordinarily rich philanthropists or investors or entrepreneurs who might take that roboticist idea and actually manufacture it. But I think for the most part, if you did tit for tat, it compared things that panned out from a Ted Talk to things that just fizzled out or haven't panned out yet. The haven't panned out yet far and away exceeds the ones that have.

Yeah, I got no problem with that. I think Ted Talks and I think this is their mission is I think it's a conversation starter and should not be looked at as anything more than that is let me break down something you may not have heard of and try to inspire you in 18 minutes and start a conversation. I don't think their mission should be anything but that.

So I agree. The other big criticism is that it's an extremely elitist organization. And that it's not just elitist. Ted itself is not just elitist, but the people who really enjoy and get into Ted are also extremely elitist without even being aware of it, basically. Like if you read the Wait But Why post,

Tim is talking about going to Ted. And when you go to Ted, the whole thing is you're one speaker on stage and the whole conference is there. There's not multiple speakers speaking at once. There's like 70 speakers over the course of this week. And so everybody's there for you. But the people who aren't in the auditorium

might be out on some artificial turf under a fake tree watching it on TV or in a giant ball pit watching it on TV. And it's like, this is the antithesis of a hard life, even though a lot of the Ted ideas are talking about how to solve problems that have hard lives. So it's very much ensconced. And to get to Ted, you pay a minimum of $8,500 as an attendee.

Yes. Well, unless it's changed, I thought it was on a subscription model now. So I saw that $6,000 a year. You become a member, essentially. OK, I didn't see that. I saw it attend. It was $8,500.

Or you could double that and be considered a donor, which I'm sure comes with more perks or whatever. But if you take the mean between those two, the two prices you would pay for that week-long conference. And you have to be invited, too. We should point out. Well, that's another thing. You have to pay at least $8,500 and apply

on top of that. And of course, they're not going to charge you if you don't make the cut. But you have to apply and pay. And in the application, it's like, we want to know the real you. So sit down with a coffee and really think about who you are in explaining this to us

in the application. It says that on the tips for applying. Some fair trade coffee, too, probably. Quite sure. I think that's just insinuated there. But if you take the mean of $8,500 and $17,000 and you multiply that by the 1,400 attendees at a TED conference, the TED conference

takes in about $17,850,000 in a week. They don't pay their speakers. They put them up in hotels with roommates. And I saw this thing on Joe Rogan. Eddie Huang was on. He's a chef. And he did a TED talk. And he had this nightmare story about his TED experience.

So they're raking in a bunch of money. And the big thing that they put out is a $1 million TED prize every year. Yeah, which Bono got one year. And Jamie Oliver. So there's a lot of stuff to be criticized. But at the end of the day, I agree with you. The talks in and of themselves, I have no problem with.

Well, yeah, and there's a certain demographic that just doesn't want to hear Bono talk about starvation. Or he needs an extra million dollars for his foundation. That's who that million went to that year? Yeah, I think Bill Clinton won one year or two. Yeah, and Jamie Oliver. Again, these guys could just cough up a million dollars into their own foundations, you know?

Yeah, I'm sure they do. So I would strongly recommend go read the Wait But Why, doing a TED talk post. Read, we have to talk about TED, which is a Benjamin Bratton TED talk, which that's Cajones, if you ask me. He did a TED takedown at TEDx San Diego, which again is a big one.

And then read TED talks that are lying to you, which is that Frank Rich one. That's about way more than TED talks. Yeah, I think part of my defense here is tied to our own show. And like we got an email that we're not even gonna read, but we got an email a couple of weeks ago that, you know, and we get them from time to time

where you guys should do this, this and this. This is where your show stinks and it should be this. And I'm always like, go start your show then. Right, like this is what we do, and we're not claiming to do anything else. Right, yeah, and there's a definite difference between saying, hey, I think you guys should have guests on more.

Or whatever, constructive criticism. But you know, if somebody comes along and just does a drive by jerk move, which I wanna see Aaron Cooper make a photoshop of that, that doesn't help. So that's one of the things why I think the takedowns are enjoyable to read because they make real sense in a lot of ways.

I think. And also, Gary on Smarm, it was a Gawker post from a couple of years ago and it's very lengthy, but it really kind of lays the foundation that's like the antithesis of the TED Talk sentiment, you know? Yeah, I feel just, with social media, I feel like people are just sitting in wait

to take something down, and I'm just tired of it. I know what you mean, man. It's like a takedown fatigue. I know what you mean, but I don't have a takedown fatigue for thoughtful, sensible, reasonable takedowns. Agreed. But I think when the takedown is on something, it's not like they're exploiting anybody or, you know,

it's not like, I mean, takedown child labor, not like a TED Talk, that's my opinion. I'm with you. That's a t-shirt too. Coming up, after this break, we are going to, and now we got a lot of interesting stuff to talk about, with Roman Marz of 99% Invisible right after this. ["The Nineties Call David Lasher and Christine Taylor"]

On the podcast, Hey Dude, The Nineties, called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the nineties.

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blowing on it, and popping it back in as we take you back to the nineties. Listen to Hey Dude, the nineties, called on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart Podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to

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about my new podcast and make sure to listen, so we'll never, ever have to say, bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. All right. Well, we are back with a rare, interview, although we've been doing a more and more.

We had Bill Gates on, and now we have the great Roman Mars. Yeah. Of the wonderful, awesome, 99% invisible podcast and Radio Topia podcast network. Yeah. The guy is a podcast magnate. Oh, he is. Hi, Roman.

Hey, guys, how's it going? Great. How are you, sir? I am excellent. Thank you. Thanks for having me on. I'm so glad to be in the company of Bill Gates and yourselves. Well, you know, I wouldn't go that far, but.

So we did a podcast on TED Talks that we already recorded, and so you obviously came to mind, because you did your very own TED Talk, and not a TEDx or a TED XXX or whatever versions they have. Main stage. Yeah, you did the real deal. Yeah, it was something else. It was really fun.

I highly recommend you do it if you get asked. And that was like one year ago, right? Yeah, it was almost exactly a year ago. And Roman, what was your TED Talk on? My TED Talk was about the design of flags. How did you end up on that? Yeah, so a lot of times when you're asked to a TED Talk, you're a scientist or a social scientist or philosopher who

is really, when you're asked to a TED Talk, you know exactly what TED Talk you're going to give, because it's your life's work. Whereas I'm a journalist, I mean, I tell stories. So when they said, do a design story, I had a couple hundred, because I do the radio show about it. And so I just had to pick one that I was most passionate about. And I tried lots of different ideas.

And I had this grand unified theory of design that I was going to present at some point. And I tried it out in different live settings. And it just wasn't working. And I called them up and I said, I just don't know. I have this one. I think it's going OK. But I kind of want to talk about flags.

And they said to me, I can tell by the sound of your voice, you should do the flag one, because you sound excited about it. And so I did. And it was really fun. Well, yeah, I've seen it a couple of times. And it's one of my favorite ones. And partially because of your passion,

but partially because you can literally sense you winning over that audience as you watch it. Because they were a little stiff at first. And you could, as a viewer, I'm watching it and nervous for you at first, because you're a buddy. And then you feel the audience literally warming up to you. And then before you know it, they're like everyone's laughing at you.

And it ended up being one of the funnier, more amusing TED Talks I've seen. Well, thank you so much. Yeah, I felt that too. In fact, I felt that the whole week. Because I gave my talk on a Thursday. And so I was there from Saturday to Thursday. And the last day is a Friday.

And so all week, when they see that you're a speaker, you can see it on your badge. The first thing people ask you is what your talk is about. And I was just a little shy about talking about it. Because I know it's a little topic when people, I mean, the guy the next day, he won a Nobel Peace Prize for freeing 80,000 child slaves. You're like, I'm going to give my flag talk.

You know, I was so, oh my god. And so I was really sheepish about it. But one of the things I loved and my sense of accomplishment was really, I was just kind of proud that it was sort of a small topic that I was passionate about. And it still won them over. And I knew it would. It was fun to do.

Yeah, for those of you who haven't seen it, first of all, watch it. Because as all TED Talks, it's under 20 minutes. And it's about the design, about flag design, but even more specifically, city flags of the United States. Kind of all around the world. But you really, I mean, you did a great job for non-flag enthusiasts.

I mean, the first thing I did was look up the Atlanta flag afterward. And of course, ours is one of those with the state seal. You don't have a phoenix on it? It does have a phoenix. Yeah, I think there is a phoenix, but it's contained within the state seal, which Roman says is just bad design. I mean, the funny thing about the Atlanta flag, if you allow

me to digress, is that it also has a phoenix rising from flame, just like the San Francisco flag does. But actually, I think it's designed a lot better. So if one of us had to keep it, I would vote for Atlanta keeping it the way it is. Whereas I think that San Francisco is an abomination. But I think we both kind of need to step aside for the city of Phoenix, which has a phoenix on its flag, too.

OK, good. So but I think Atlanta, as much as it is, is still a seal. I think it's all right. I thought San Francisco's was tie dyed. It would be more appropriate, I think. So were you nervous while you were preparing for this? Like, this is part of a larger episode on TED Talks. And one of the things we ran across is that it's a very

long, nerve-wracking process. Yeah. I mean, is that your experience? Typical. Typically, you're contacted months and months ahead of time. So I was contacted in August of the year before and performed it in March. Wow.

So for a couple of months, you're just trying to figure out what you're going to do. And trying to do your best to write something early so that they have something to react against. And the whole process is really nerve-wracking. Even people who are really seasoned presenters run against this. It's surprising how the venue really, really

makes you nervous. One thing you probably can't see is that it's the most well-lit auditorium you've ever been in. So one of the things that makes performing in front of a lot of people really easy is you have those lights on your eyes, and you can't really see anybody. And you're kind of just performing to yourself. Well, here you can see every face.

And not only can you see every face, but you can see faces like Bill Gates and Al Gore. And it's super nerve-wracking. We've met 50% of the people you've met. One of the things, too, Roman, that was different about yours was that you defied convention by sitting down at your table and having audio and visual aids. And you make a crack about it at the beginning.

Like, who is this guy who can sit down? He said, well, this is radio. Did you have a hard time talking them into that approach? Not at all. That was something that I had psyched myself out. And a lot of people do psych themselves out when they deal with Ted because it's so prestigious and so cool to be a part of it.

But just like the flag talk itself, where I was, you know, I want to do a little small thing and not the big grand Ted talk, I had said, well, by the way, I kind of do these live presentations where I present it like a podcast, where I have sound clips, and review clips, music clips. And I sit down, and it's kind of like being an information DJ. And they were so excited about that, that I don't know why

I didn't talk to them about it sooner. It was kind of, you know, it was my fault, in a way. So they really want you to be yourself. They're trying to get you to be yourself. If you've never interesting, yeah. So like, you know, you see all the different things that they do, and there's like a lot of qualities that are shared across Ted talks.

And so you'd think that they sort of insist on that. But what they know how to do is, if you're like a plant biologist, and you've never given a talk before, they know how to get you to give a good talk. But if you've presented in lots of different ways before, you know, they're totally happy to let you defy convention. They want you to defy convention. That, see, that surprises me, because we figured, and I

understood why you were nervous, that they were really strict about what is Ted and what isn't. Yeah, they don't, they want to be, you know, a place of good ideas and understanding. And they have a certain way that they know to, they can make anyone get there, in a way, using their methods. And they're really smart about that. But if you have your own way, and as long as the result is

good, and they have confidence in that, and you have confidence in yourself, they're really happy for you to do it your own way. And they want to be surprised, too. They're really delightful. But again, my big problem was, I had psyched myself out in some way to think, I was like, God, if I asked them for the table and the sound stuff, they're going to be annoyed at

me, and I'm just a podcaster. And what am I doing here? And so, I was just really, but as soon as I brought it up, they were super happy to do it. And I didn't want to be any trouble and stuff, and I would talk to the different set people and sound people. And the stage manager of the thing has done the Academy Awards.

And they're like, don't worry. We can handle you sitting at a table. It's not a big deal. They just did Sound of Music Live last week. So that was the weird part, was getting over. And once you're inside the fold, you realize that they're all on the team with you, trying to make you be the best you can be.

So, Roman, one of the things we ran across in research was there's a definite undercurrent in popular culture that people love doing Ted takedowns. They love writing articles about how snooty Ted is and how elitist it is. What was your experience with that? Did you see what those people are talking about, and they just have it wrong?

Or did you not really encounter that? Because it sounds like your experience was altogether positive. Well, yeah, my experience was altogether positive. I must admit that before I was involved in it, I don't know if I was really part of Ted takedown. I didn't have that sentiment. But I was skeptical, because a lot of it

reeks of certain types of solutionism, where one technical fix or design fix will save the world in some way that is believable for 18 minutes. But then you get out in the real world, and it just seems hokey and not applicable to actual real lives of real people. And so I was skeptical in that way, too. And it's also just like, I'm not of the world where you

spend $8,500 to go to a conference. That is not my world, for sure. So I went with a little bit of that, thinking about that a lot when I was there. And what I left with was this real joy of being around 2,000 people who were really trying something and really wanted to think optimistically about the world, and wanted to learn and more curious.

And I just felt, I don't know, I was sold on it in so many ways, and there was very little hierarchy when you're there, which is pretty interesting. You'll be standing in line for something, and it'll be some CEO, billionaire, and they want to engage with you in lots of ways. Normal people don't go to TED, in a way. You don't have a lot of cause to spend that type of money.

And I'm one of those people that can't go unless they ask me to go. But in general, I would say that I'm happy that those folks are engaged in trying to think about the world in lots of different ways, and trying to be inspired. And if we don't live up to it all the time after we leave, at least there's some effort in the right direction. So I liked it.

Yeah, and I liked how you finished your episode in particular, because it was about the design of city flags, and you didn't say, this will change the world if you redesign your flag. But you did say, it can make a difference if the city has a great flag behind them to rally around, and it can be a unifying thing. And I just, I don't know, I appreciated that sentiment at

the end for sure. Yeah, and they're interested in that. They want people to take some action and do something, and that's something that they're really into. And there's like, this year I went to something where somebody was putting together a museum of lynching, actually, like a civil rights museum about the history of lynching in the United States.

And I don't know if this thing had been released yet, but they're raising money for it. And so as soon as the thing was over, everyone, there was like, OK, we're going to go upstairs and we're going to raise money for this. And they raised a lot of money for it that day. Wow. And it was just something, it was like something to watch the

power of that room to get stuff done was really incredible. And so I try not to overdo mine to the importance of it. I'm really cognizant of how small it was in a certain way. But I like people to think about it in a bigger way, that well-designed things and civic pride and having civic pride is a big part of how we get things done. And so it leaves people with a little bit to think about, but also just to be entertained.

That was my main goal. Cool. Was there like an after party? Do you get feedback from people afterward in the audience? Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, it's great. Ted is much better after you're done than before he started. Because I had all week of just being super nervous and thinking,

got him to some twerp with a flag talk. And then you're done. And people kind of know what you're about. And they want to talk to you. And it's fun because you're like an expert at that thing. And so it's really enjoyable. We had lots of good feedback, lots of fun stuff. That people liked the format change.

And I finally got a sense of my role in the week along with the really important kind of heavy hitters. They do like to have lighter and comic relief. I mean, don't get me wrong. I'm not a stand-up comedian. It was just enjoyable. It's Ted comedy. NPR comedy is really similar.

But it's super fun. So there's tons of parties and tons of like, there's a big social part of Ted. Awesome. What do you feel like, and you don't have to like get specific if somebody like stuffed a bunch of money in your pocket, but what do you feel like it did for 99% invisible and radio-topia? I mean, it exposed me to a bunch of new people.

They got to see the, I know a lot of people have started listening to this show after seeing the Ted talk. It's a little different for me, which was, it was kind of fascinating because I do have a public show and a public profile and a pretty popular show. It's not quite as popular as Ted, but, you know, we get several million downloads a month too. And so it wasn't that huge like catapult from, you know,

obscurity as a social scientist and out there in the world. But it was just nice. It was like a nice compliment to the things that we already do. Right. And it was just also fun to present stories in a new way because, you know, because we are podcasts, and we are podcast often about visual things because we cover design.

It was nice to have this other presentational format that had some pictures, you know. So it's kind of, it was just, it was just really fun. Like it was a great experience for me. Nice, man. Thank you for talking with us, Roman. We appreciate it. You are the Ted talkingist friend we have.

Actually, that's not true. Hodgman did one too as well. Yeah, he's done a couple. Yeah, he's done a couple. Oh, the only one I've seen of Hodgman is it was very sweet. He talked about meeting his wife. Oh, nice. Was that, that had to be a TEDx?

Maybe. Oh, no. He's a regular. But it was really fun. I went back this year as a Ted mentor. Oh, cool. So I worked with other speakers. And that was, that was pretty enjoyable too.

So are you practicing clapping your hands and going wrong, wrong, wrong for rehearsals? No, no, not exactly. It's very supportive. One of the things that you don't get about Ted is because the videos are edited, you don't see all the mistakes. And I guarantee that everyone has made a mistake in a TED talk. And one of the great things about the whole vibe of the room, and you might not know this while watching it, is that the whole room is like on your side.

They're really, really rooting for you. They want to, they want to be wowed. Right. And so if something technically goes wrong or you flub and have to restart, the whole crowd just plods and cheers and just gets you going again. And it's really something. It's like so, like, joyful. Have you ever had a room full of billionaires clap for you?

Yeah. But it's something you don't pick up from the presentation, which gets a little, it's pretty slick. It is very slick. It's that, that roughness that makes people, like they're really, you can sort of rely on them to lift you up. And it's, it's, it's kind of, it's a nice room to be in as an audience member and as a person on stage.

Wow. Well, that's good to know actually, because it seemed, yeah, I mean, it seems like you're walking into a room full of like a firing squad, not you, but just anybody. Cause it's just so quiet and it just seems stiff and that's good to know. We seem to hissed anytime you made a mistake. Exactly. It's not like that. It's, it's exact opposite.

Well, I watched a train wreck of his talk this year. Oh no. It was kind of the, it was the most kind of amazing moment because people like stood up and cheered and tried to get this kid going and it was amazing. And it was such a disaster. It was like a performance art level of disaster. Oh God. Like you're making my stomach hurt right now.

Yeah, I know. But it, but it was, but it was in a way, it was like this cathartic event for all 1600 people in the theater. And it was, it was, it was kind of fun. All right, Roman, thank you, my friend. And people really, I know we, we talk about 99% invisible more than we should as competitors. Not enough. Not enough.

It's a great, great show and people should support that in radio. I always tell people if you don't, even if you don't think you like design, you should just try 99% invisible because it's much, much more than that. Where can they go to find you, Roman? They can find us on our website at 99pi.org or, you know, anywhere where you get podcasts. Nice. Well, thank you for coming on. Thank you so much.

Yeah. My pleasure. I really appreciate it. I'm a huge fan. This is very exciting to me. Thanks man. All right. So Chuck, that's Ted Talks.

Yeah. Thanks, Roman. That was awesome. Yeah. What a cool dude. If you want to know more about Ted Talks, well, just type Ted Talks into a search bar and start watching Ted Talks. There's a million of them, basically.

And you can also read the article on how stuff works about it. Yeah. And I said how stuff works, which means it's time for, I'm going to call this cremation. We did a great show on cremation quite a while ago. If we do say so. If we do say so. And this is from Emily. She says, hey guys, my dad was just listening to cremation.

My dad was cremated in 2004 after passing away to stupid idiot cancer. And my stepmom has a really, had a really interesting concept. She's really big on recycling. She's known locally as the queen of recycling in Indianapolis. Wow. Not bad. She found hundreds of teeny tiny medical bottles about the size of the last segment of your pinky with tiny rubber plugs.

She hand filled like 300 bottles with my dad's cremains and put them on the mantle of the lodge at which we hosted his celebration. We had a celebration instead of a funeral outdoors under fall leaves with wine and live music. Nice. As he was locally loved as a folk musician, Craig Laughlin. All who loved him could take a few of the bottles of him with them. Nice.

Pretty neat. That's a great party favor. I think it's awesome. Since then he's been to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. Cool. He's in the Bellagio Fountain in Las Vegas. Sweet. And most recently he's been mixed into black volcanic sand in Iceland's Snuffleupicus peninsula.

I don't think that's what it's called. She even sent me how to pronounce it, Snuffle... I've also scattered him in every apartment I've lived in since, always in the very back corner of a closet or in a crack somewhere. Anyways, thanks for the episode. Pretty informative. And I'm sure my dad would giggle if he knew his body was flailing around in the flames at the end. That's very cool.

Yeah, that's from Emily and when I told her she was on Lister Mail, she just responded with a big uppercase expletive with an exclamation point. Shoot. Yep. And I was like, right? That's cool. Thanks, Emily. She's very excited.

That is really neat. Like, that's just a great story. Yeah, and you know what? If you want to send some of your dad's cremains, we'll have him here in the studio with us. Oh yeah? Yeah, why not? Okay. Can't play any folk music, though.

No, but we would take good care of it if you decided to do so. That's right. Okay. Thanks for that, Chuck. And thank you, Emily. And I hope that you have a great day. I hope that you have a great day. Thanks for that.

And I'll see you next time. Thank you. On the podcast, Hey Dude the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude the 90s called on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new I Heart Podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help and a different hot, sexy teen crush boy band are each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say bye, bye, bye.

Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.