What Now? with Trevor Noah - Malcolm Gladwell: Do Fairytales Make Adulthood Harder?

Episode Date: March 5, 2026

This week, author and journalist Malcolm Gladwell joins Trevor and Eugene for a conversation that starts with big social theory and then delves into whether Disney movies have been quietly gaslighting our childhoods. From the idea that your parents are basically just middle managers for your grandparents’ personalities to the invisible shortcuts and assumptions that shape how we see the world, Gladwell does what he does best, spotting hidden patterns in the ordinary. And Trevor does what he does best, poking holes, grounding theory in real life, and refusing to let a big idea off the hook too easily.   Part pop culture autopsy and part intellectual rabbit hole, this episode makes us overthink the things we love and love the things we overthink. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This should be a business for the three of us. I think all of us should contribute to the reimagining of these flawed classics. What, the Disney ones? Yeah, but here's, okay, but have you watched the newer ones? Well, I've watched. No, because they have been reimagined. We did. I didn't want to spoil it for you because I think you're going.

No, no, we did Moana the night. Yeah. But it gets really violent. I'm like. That's what it's like to be like to be young, female and black. When your friend is. a chicken and one is a pig. And you're stuck with an older guy.

A god. With a catamaran. And your grand is a ghost. And your grandfather ran away from your dad. And he's a spirit of the seas. The chicken. Eugene watches a lot of Moana. Do you, as you can tell.

Juan, yes. How old? My daughter's turning 17 this year. Oh, seven. Are you yours away from this? What? From Moana. We watched it the other day.

Can you not tell? What do you mean? You're assuming. that his daughter is the one who wants to watch it. Oh, is he? That was the one who has to put it on for him. Megway! Make way!

Yeah, she's the one who's putting it out for him. This is What Now with Trevor Noah. In fact, here's another reason, Malcolm Gladwell, you should be pro-pickleball. I know your views on golf. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know how much you hate the fact that, like, golf takes up inordinate amounts of spaces, and it's like it's unfairly apportioned to the pickleball turns one tennis courts into four pickleball courts. Wait, is that true?

That is completely true. Four? Four. Quadruples the output. Yes. It quadruples. It quadruples. And.

And I did. I did. And most pickleball games, most are generally played by four people. Most tennis like get-togethers are two people. So technically. It's really eight. Eight X. The productivity of the space.

Uh-huh. I wish you could come see a match. All right, right. No, that's why I think you would love it. Yeah. It is the sport of the people. All right, all right, all right. There's a point at which.

There's a point of which. I start banging the egalitarian democracy drum on behalf of. But it is, though. I think that's what it is. How you been? What have you been up to? I have been, um, Well, as I said to you before, I now have two children.

Yes, congratulations. Thank you. I have two daughters. Yes. Started late and you've just kept going. I started late. I kept going. I think I'm stopping it too.

They're enormously entertaining. I spend an enormous amount of time consuming children's television and music. What's your favorite show? Bluey, Cocoa, Cocoa, Peck. Well, the good thing, there was a lot of Peppa Pig going on in my life right now. Although I'm trying to phase it out. we're on to the Disney movies. Hey.

And I discovered, I'm discovering all these things that other people discovered many years ago. So I'm going to, and this is the thing about parenting is it, parenting is the, is the, is, it rides on the illusion that you are discovering for the first time what the rest of the world has known for like, you know, millennia. So I have discovered that like the early Disney movies are 50 times better than the most recent ones. Yes. Like, I never saw these as a kid. So I'm singing for the first time. So I've watched a lot of, for example, Snow White. And, first of all, Snow White is astonishingly good.

But the best part about it, and this is actually, because I've been part of the larger thing I've become very interested in, the best part about Snow White is all of the, and also even more so probably with Cinderella. Okay. is their willingness to go on these tangents. Like in Cinderella, there's like 20 minutes on the mouse playing with the cat, Lucifer,

and they leave the whole story, set it over here, and it's just the cat and the mouse. And the self-confidence of the filmmaker, they're like, the kids are happy to put Cinderella to the side and just go with the mouse and the cat for 20 minutes, and they'll come back to us. We have such confidence in our story and our storytelling ability.

And I feel like today, when you watch the newer ones, there's never any of these digressions. No. And what is they don't understand how kids' minds work, or even, pardon me, how human beings' mind works. Well, you know this is a comic in comedy, right? It's the digressions that often get you the biggest laugh. Yes. When you veer off the path, boom, right? But I think conversations are the same.

The same. I think in everything, the surprise is what actually gets you going versus where you thought you were going to get to. So why aren't they doing that with the kids? Why can't forget the digression? I think it's a market economics thing. I think they've, I have this fight oftentimes with people who work in new television, right? Especially in streaming. I think they read data wrong.

That's my opinion, is that they look at the data and they go, oh, if it's not engaging in the first two minutes, then people are not going to watch and you've got to catch their attention and people like short content and people like this and people like that and people. But they've made all these assumptions based on data. but data as you know better than anyway you can read data however you like and it can tell you the story you wanted to tell you so I think a lot of the things that are being made today are being made with the idea

that people don't have an attention span but I don't think that that's true people still have attention spans the difference is people now have more choice than they had back in the day so they don't tolerate shit in the same way that they used to that we used to do you know what I mean so I think maybe it was like a little bit of arrogance or just confidence on the side of like old Disney.

But I also think no one was telling them, oh, the data says you've got to move on. Yeah, nobody was giving them instructions. The other thing that's interesting is that the mistake that data makes is that they don't account for the fact that the audience might change its mind. And audience is changing. The moment when an audience changes its mind, and when I say changes its mind,

I simply mean when they go from, they might go from indifference to engagement from puzzlement to joy, just some shift. And again, I'm sure you've experienced this a million times because you live this in some sense in your live performances. That moment, and that moment doesn't always happen at the beginning. In fact, sometimes it's way better if it happens deep into the performance, and you can tell. Why are you guys pointing at this show?

Eugene and I met doing stand-up. That's how we met in South Africa. How many years has it been? 20 now? Yeah, 20 years ago, we met. We basically started stand-up comedy in the same week. Same week, yeah. In the same venue.

And that's like our origin story. And we took many years, then we became friends. Yeah. But what you're saying now is exactly, that's why this is exactly what we've been saying. The shift. But it's exactly the way you said it there. Even this morning we had the same conversation about something else that we go. Is that sometimes the reward is not that you get it immediately.

It's that you don't know when it's going to happen. And then all of a sudden you go, that's it. That's it. Wow. I'm into something. You know where that happened to me recently? Have you watched, maybe your girls are too young, but I think they'll still enjoy it.

Have you watched a demon K-pop hunter on Netflix? No, no, no, no. I've seen it. Can I tell you, K-pop demon hunters or K-pop demon hunters, I think? I started this movie. In the first like three minutes, I was like, ah, this is not for me. And then 40 minutes later, I was sitting there on the couch,

completely mesmerized, completely entertained. Just like bopping along. Just like every day, that's just me like singing along. Just like, you're my shoulder pop. You're my nana son of pop. I can't explain it. Yeah. But it's what you're saying.

Yeah. I gave it a chance. I went with it. And now I got the reward. But if I if I succumbed to that initial instinct, that three minutes, four minutes, I would have gone. This is not for me. But that's very, oh, sorry, Malcolm.

That's very similar to what stand-up comedy really is. It's like raising children. You suspend disbelief. and you just go with the flow and be able to be surprised at some point Oh, you just bump into something Because that's what happens When adults watch children's shows

They first start resisting Then they go, well, no dog is not talking And they go, wow, blue is actually Blue is a boy? Blue is a girl? What's going on here? Then you become more involved because you've suspended disbelief

But it takes a long time And that's what happens with comedy The first five minutes You're trying to express yourself And you're trying to go to people forget about your job, forget where you parked your car, let me take you to another planet. Who is your favorite character?

Like yours, not your girls. There's got to be something you watched where you're like... In this recent iteration, because I never watched any of this as a kid. But that's what I'm saying, you never watched TV as a child. No, no, no, no. No, no. I honestly didn't watch TV. Malcolm Gladwell didn't watch television as a child.

How? He lived in like a learned household. I didn't watch television until I got to college. At all? Well, barely. I mean, I would go over to friends. house every now and again and watch like a football game. But I knew nothing.

I mean, I would fake it. You'd say that you've never watched TV? No, no, no, no, at the time. So if you talked to me in high school, you would have thought we had a television. But I was just reading about, I was just reading about these shows and faking it. You think that you had watched television?

Oh, man, this is so funny. You see this week on the A-team? Oh, the A-team. No, it's not that hard to, it wasn't that hard to do. And I would, I, for you know, I was a huge basketball fan. and football fan in high school, and I had never seen a professional basketball game,

and I had only seen, like, an incredibly small number of, but I could, to this day, I can talk about the 1970s era San Antonio Spurs. I never, my favorite player was the Iceman, George Gervin. I never saw George Gervyn play. I would read about him in Sports Illustrated once a week, and I constructed George Gervin in my mind. And I would read these,

to this day, I can quote, He was, George Griffin was this, he was a kind of spectral figure. He was, again, I never saw him. But this is what I learned from reading about him. He was the greatest score in the game in the mid-70s. And he was very, very, very thin. And he had all these kind of, he was not a great athlete, but he always kind of while he moves.

And he would give these incredibly cone-like, bizarre quotes to the media. And my favorite one was when he was explaining his ability to get to the basket. whereas I be not too fast from here or there, otherwise my game be zigzagging, uh-huh. Which I, as a 12-year-old, I read that. So you never heard that voice.

That was the voice you heard. But those were the words he said. Yes. Whereas I be not too fast from here to there, otherwise my game be zigzagging, uh-huh. And I remember, so I'm 12. I'm in rural Ontario and Canada in a little farm school with like a lot of men of nights.

I have no TV. I have no conception of what a professional basketball game is. And I read that quote, and I just think, this guy sounds so fantastic. So I have a, in my, growing up, I have a big poster of George Gervin. Who you have never seen play. To the stay, I've never seen him play.

I mean, he's long retired, but every now and again, there's some mention in George Gervin. You have no yearning to, like, go find like a tape or go. I don't want to ruin it. It was way better in my imagination. You know, because I, that, imagine if you're working off that. quote. So he's not fast from here to there, but his game be zigzagging. You can imagine in your

mind how he gets to the basket, right? And he's like, he's literally, I have my picture, in the picture on my wall. He's six, seven, six eight. And if he's 160 pounds, I'd be stunned. He's, he's a, he's rail thin. So he's like slipping his, slipping and sliding his way. You were like, you know, doing some, I don't know, I never saw him, but like doing some weird thing with his hand. That's, so like, my, I mean, I, and I, and I've been. became hooked on to the day. I'm a massive basketball fan, but that was its origin. I know all the stories of these players. I just don't know anything about. I mean, that's the most important thing, isn't it? It is the most important thing. Not really, it is because that is the story.

Like when we talk about a legendary game, if you go like Liverpool, A.C. Milan, you're talking about the story. See, that's what you're doing? I do that every time with football, every time, because I hate football. Oh, God, I hate how he does this. But I've learned where to jump in. Let's make an example there. I hate this. Let's say you're talking about a coach that. I can't you're going to make me entertain this. Go ahead. Wait, what's your favorite football team, by the way? Liverpool.

Liverpool. How did it come to be Liverpool? So, I grew up. Oh, man. You know, let me give Eugene his example so he doesn't mess up my world. No, no, you're doing quite well. Go ahead, please. No, no, I'll give you the example.

Have you seen how Liverpool plays? Jeez. You know, anyway, carry on. This season with Arne Slot. And just like since Arne Slot came, you've seen an evolution in the game. But before. It was honest lot.

Anyway, carry on you. This is what he does. Yeah. He's never watched. He doesn't watch. He doesn't care to watch. He doesn't care. And then I've seen him inflame people around us.

Yeah. Because they'll get agitated because they'll think he's agreeing with them or disagreeing with them. And then I have to stop them and go, Eugene doesn't know anything about the sports. I'd be zigzagging. Uh-huh. Otherwise. You forgot the otherwise, which is the crucial. That is the crucial.

That is the construction of that sentence. The otherwise is... So, okay, I'll tell you how I became a fan. So it is a long story, but it'll tell you a lot. We've got time. Okay, thank you. I didn't grow up liking soccer. In fact, I quite hated it because it was the thing that interrupted my ability to play video games on a television.

So whenever I'd want to play TV games, as they were called when I was young, then my uncle and all these people would walk in and be like, turn that off. We want to watch the game. And as a child, I used to think that the game was like three, four hours long. As just like, this never ends, right? So I didn't like it, didn't like it, didn't like, because we had one TV and that TV was taken away from me by football. Fast forward many years, ironically, video games bring me back to the sports. So a series gets released called FIFA and it's, you know, it's a soccer game. I play that up. I start loving the game. Like you, I start falling in love with players who have never watched because I see them as digital recreations running across

my screen. Who is this person? You know what I mean? Like I'm Miroslav closer. Who is this German? I love him. The way he head is the ball. The way. And I get sucked into this world, which is a facsimile of the real world. So when I talk to people who like love football, they know what I'm talking about. And then at some point it would break down because they would go like, oh, where did you? And I go like, oh no, I don't watch the game. I just play the video game. Some people would be happy. Others would feel like I'd betrayed them.

They feel like I'd catfish them. Sounds familiar. So then, I think, like, from there, I started falling in love with the game. With the real game. Yeah, with, like, the real, real, real game. Yeah. And then...

But are you watching Premier League in South Africa? It was on, but I couldn't get it, and I think that's part of it. Yeah. You had to have, like, a premium television. You had, like, satellite TV, that type of stuff. So you fast-forward, many years. I've now become a fan of players, coaches, and like random, you know, collections. I

don't support teams at this time because I was like, a team doesn't care about me. They would sell a player without consulting anyone. I would see friends around me distraught. I've seen it even now in like the NBA. People, how could we trade? How could we trade Luca? How could we? And I'm like, what, it's not we. They did it to you. You're sad now. And so I remember thinking, the one thing I do not want is to be part of this inherited sadness that I have nothing to do with. So I would just support players. I'd go around with them. Then one day, I fell in, through the video game, I fell in love with a coach by the name of Juergen Klopp, German coach who was coaching a team called Barusia Dortmund. And Dortmund, what I loved about them is they were the underdogs of the

German league. They were playing against a team called Bayern Munich, who were the most powerful, richest, they won every year. So they were top of the heap in the Bundesliga. See, this guy knows, the Bundesliga. You see what he did this? He got me excited. Then I remembered he doesn't care. But for that moment, you got me excited. And they challenged and they won. And they did, they, you know, to borrow from the movie 300, they showed that a guard could bleed. And I loved what Juergen Klopp had done. Then Bay and Munich basically pillaged, bought all the players from that team. Other teams

bought the players. The team didn't become Yergen Klopp left. He went to Liverpool. At the same time, Liverpool in the game, the video game was becoming better because they had like a bunch of players who were amazing. Fernando Torres, Daniel Sturridge, Rahim Sterling, all of these guys. So I was loving the players in the video game because it was great to play with them. Yogan Klopp goes there. Then I became friends, like closer friends with another South African who loved Liverpool. He wouldn't stop talking about Liverpool, but he would show me cool things that were around Liverpool.

And then the first live game that I went to was a Liverpool game, but it was in New York, ironically. Ah. And have you been to a Liverpool game in Liverpool? Oh, I have. It's like church. Is that the one where they sing you never walk alone? Oh my God. I just got goosebumps.

Okay. Malcolm, you're so good. That video, there's a, there's like a short list of like five YouTube videos that I just endlessly watch whenever I need some kind of. And there's a video of the crowd singing. Do you know, I don't know, I mean, there must be many. It must be many, but do we, should we explain that? Please explain to me, yes.

The context is, it's a song by, is it Jerry and the Pace? Who sings at a rich? Someone sings it originally. No, man. What's his name, Ryan? It is. It is, during the Facebook. But they have a terrible, they have a tragedy.

Yes, yes. The Hillsborough disaster. And they adopt that song. Oh. And then they sing it every time. They sing it at every game. Yes. And the whole crowd, in that wonderful way,

the one thing about English football that, again, I know nothing about it, but I know that they love to sing. Yeah. Collective singing. And collective singing is one of the most emotionally powerful things human beings do. It really is. It's like choral music. It's like,

lines in unison. Yeah. And they sing this song. And there's a video online, and it's just like, I'm in tears like a minute in. You get it. And I have no connection with Liverpool.

You get it, my friend. The first time I heard that song live, I was actually in Ukraine. And I'd gone to watch Liverpool in the Champions League, like hearing it live like that. And it was the Champions League final. They were playing against Real Madrid.

And I will never forget that moment. You walk into the stadium. And as, we walked in, they started singing it. They first play it on like the PA system in the stadium. So you hear the original voice like, when you

walk and then the crowd starts picking up. Sing more of it. Come on. When you walk and it starts and it plays through the stone. Hold your head up high. And then the crowd starts coming in.

And don't be afraid of the dog. Sing it, Ryan. I know you want to sing it. And like... No, no, no. Carry on. No, no. And you... Such a great song, by the way. Everyone, everyone, this is the part where everyone must... Yeah, you. Everyone.

50,000 people are singing this thing. It's just like, it's devastating. Malcolm, you're almost winning me over. Yeah, come on. And there's a part with the best part of the song in every stadium in every game. Yes. Is it stops. That's right. There's a part with like the...

The music stops. I don't know if you... I don't know if they stop or if you can't hear. you can't hear it. Maybe it's the magic that makes me think that. But all you then hear is the crowd. Because it gets to like the bridge and then the chorus. You know what I mean?

And it's like, walk on. The rain. Walk on. And you feel it reverend to the way. And you'll never. And it's just like, and then the whole crowd. Man. But even.

I got goosebumps. And on top of that, I'm not going to be corny. The message is so beautiful. It really is. to this tragedy, this idea of singing a song, all of us singing a song saying you'll never walk alone, it's like you know, it's a song

to the, essentially to the families of the victims. Right? We're with you. It's a tribute. It's so beautiful. It really is beautiful. It's what, it's, it is music at its best in that kind of Yes. And all of these things drew meets the club because what I also loved about that

story was that song, the club, everything. It was like one of the not first, but it was one of the more significant stories where people realized that a tale could be told about a group of people that wasn't true, that could affect how other people see them. So at this disaster, like the press at the time, Ryan, you'll correct me at any point when I'm wrong here, but like, it was the press at the time, they basic, the mainstream

press blamed the fans and blamed the people who had died and they were like, you're the cause and blah. And then it came out that it wasn't. It wasn't their fault and it was, what did the police have to do it again? The police lied and said the Liverpool fans caused the stampede. Yeah, but they said the fans caused it. It was a bad design stadium too, isn't it?

It was a defect in the... But the point is they blamed the fans. They didn't just go like, hey, let's see what happened. No, they blamed the fans. And so part of it also became this rallying cry against, you know, an establishment that was unjust. in that moment. We're talking about,

are we talking about the 70s? When does this happen? Wait. Ryan, I can appeal. Just shout Ryan anywhere in the world. Ryan, if you go to the whole question.

You shout Ryan and you'll answer it. I think it was in the early 80s. Oh, early 80s. Yeah. Yeah. But it is goosebumps. And so now, to get to the end of that,

the reason I love Liverpool, the way they play football, the fans, when you go to Liverpool, Liverpool, like Liverpoolians. What are they called? Liverpoolians. The Beatles.

The funniest people, the most interesting people. The cult. I can't. The accent is fantastic. It really is amazing. It really is. Can you do it? I can't do a perf.

No, if I talk to, there's a comedian, John Bishop. If I talk to him for a while, I can stop picking it up. But then I lose it. Because you know, like English accents, if you mess up one part, all of a sudden, you're like... Back to default. Yeah, you're in like Birmingham now. They're like, no, that's Brummeon. You're like, oh, wait, wait, say it again, say it again, say it again.

and you just, you have to find like a few keywords. I was sitting in a coffee shop this weekend, and there were two people from Manchester, young, young, and one was just moved here to work, and one was visiting her, and they were talking in that accent, it was just so fantastic. Describing New York through a Manchester accent,

it's just like, I just stopped working and just eavesdrop for like an hour and a half. It was just amazing. But anyway, yeah, there are very specific, you know, those, you can locate the, you know, the region. Yeah, really, through the accent on its own. Oh, yeah.

You know, there's a linguist at Columbia, John McWhorter, and he can tell, I always call him up, if I have any kind of, and play him tape of people talking, and he'll say, oh, yeah, yeah, that person's from, you know, they're from Baltimore and they grew up in the 70s, right? Or they're from, he has that for, and I've been trying to force him to write a, encourage him, to write a book about America,

a history of American accents where he describes the whole an audio book where he walks you through how you can tell the difference between someone from southern Kansas and someone from, you know, Nebraska or, you know, in the way...

Those stories are always the most fascinating. And he's also... He's this incredibly fascinating guy. He's this incredibly fascinating guy. He's heavily into Broadway theater, linguist, kind of a little bit of a provocateur. He's incapable of being uninteresting.

He just everything he says, my favorite thing is, I'll go to see. He's a little office at Columbia. I've gone a couple times, and I just play him tape, and I say, what's going on here? You go, wow. And then he's off to the racist, right?

I played him a tape of, of, I haven't told you this story before. I was doing this thing on Tom Bradley, the black mayor of Los Angeles, and I was listening to all this tape of him. He was a mayor in the 70s and 80s. If you listen to him, he sounds like a white guy. I was like, well, that's weird,

because if you were a black mayor today, you wouldn't sound like a white guy. So I go to John and I say, well, what's going on here? He's like, well, you know, there was a period in American life where if you were a black person and you wanted to succeed, you had to sound like a white person. And that ends in and he tells me the moment that it shifts. Like you can listen to contemporary.

There's a moment where in bling a black public figure no longer required you to sound white, but required you to sound black. Whatever local, regional, otherwise you would, you know, you went from being in the, before that moment, you would be seen as illegitimate and, you know, uneducated if you sounded, quote-unquote, black. After that moment, you would be seen as inauthentic as pretending to be someone that you weren't. And what was the catalyst?

The catalysts, I forgot. It's sometime in the late 60s, early 70s. I've forgotten the specific, but it has to do, as you can imagine, with the rise of kind of black nationalism, black empowerment. It's this incredibly crucial shift in the way white people view black people and the way black people view themselves in this country. And it's marked linguistically. And so Tom Bradley was a vestige. He's born in the teens. So he's a vestige of the earlier.

You listen to him. I mean, this guy is like black, black. He's not black skin. He's a, you know. And he was the most impactful black politician in the country for years and years. And if you never saw a picture of him, you would think he was white. It's just so fascinating to me. I love, I love, I mean, Eugene, how many languages do you speak?

Well, as many as possible in South Africa. No, no, no, but I mean, seriously. How many in South Africa? No, no, because he's like, he's like one of my favorite linguists. Are you curious? Yes, South African languages, yes. He's phenomenal with languages. Wow.

Wait, how many languages are spoken in South Africa as a whole? 11 official, which the 11th one is a sign language. And the other two, the other one is called. And how closely related are they? Well, so there's Nguni, which is Zulu, Kosa, Sindabele. They sound almost alike. And Swati. And then there's Sutu.

And there's northern Sutu and the southern Sutu, which is Swana and Sepedi. So they are all almost interlinked. But if you don't know how to tell the difference, you wouldn't be able to. Why is it you know so many of them? What is it about your life that led you to master nine of them? Well, I grew up in a township, like many South Africans at the time. And in our section, it was a Tsonga section. Well, my grandfather worked in the railroads.

So he came from Nelspritsch, where they speak Sisswati. So he came all the way to Pretoria. And in Pretoria, they put him in a section where Tsonga people live. So he had to learn Shittzonga. Which isn't like mainstream. Not very much. So there's two languages that are not mainstream. Shitsonga and Chivenda, which is more north and the other one is the other side.

So he had to learn that. And when we grew up, it was just a language that he would speak with his friends around the neighborhood. And then when we would go to school, we would go to another section that speaks Isizulu. And the school that I went to, I had to learn Isizulu. But to get to that school, I had to go through a section that spoke is Situ. So to navigate your way from home to school and to understand what my – because I was very nosy. To understand what my grandfather was saying with his friends, I would often eavesdrop and I would ask him, what is that? What is that?

And before I knew it, I could speak all the languages. And my mom was a nurse. So in hospital, she would be called all the time to come and translate for the doctors who couldn't understand the language. So the language just became normal. Do you mix them up or do you stay with one language when you're speaking it? I choose to stay with one, but it becomes easy because I sometimes speak Shizonga with him. And he thinks he doesn't know Shih Tzonga, but he speaks very well Shih Tzong. No, I understand.

But that's speaking well. But that's fluency in a language. But here's the thing that I remember is we have 11 official languages. I would argue most people in South Africa, speak two, three maximum, for the most part. So when I'm always fascinated by people who speak like way more languages because I go like, how do you? And then I'll ask him for the vocabulary and the words.

But the accents that you're saying, I find super fascinating because it's a story. Yeah. You know what I mean? We forget that when somebody speaks with an accent, there's a story that comes with that accent, like always. It is almost the same in South Africa what your friend was trying to explain to you when languages and accents started losing what. their value was to the people that spoke the languages.

So migrant workers would try their kids would assimilate to where they were. Yeah. So they would lose the language. So people who come who speak Isiswati are from the kingdom of Eswati, which is formerly known as Swaziland, will be closer to people that live in the Nelsprit, which is the east. But when they come to the north, they would stop using that language. And there's also a historic kind of side to it where King Shaga, King of the Zulus, had a brother that he sent. His name was Soshangane, that he sent up east, né?

to go to Mozambique, to go conquer there. Yeah, northeast. Then he never left. He found it interesting and he loved it. With his little tribe, he built a nation, and those people started speaking a dialect of what the people there were speaking, which was a mixture of Portuguese and their indigenous language,

it was called Shizonga. But then when people were being derogatory towards his brother, they said shangan. And then people were called shangans. And then that language started dying out because people were ashamed to be called by the majority group that they're called. Basically, if you call someone that,

you call them a defector. Oh, I see. I love these things because... I do. I think it's fascinating. So to your point, one of my friends, she, like, deep in...

She studied this for acting school, like in the UK and then came out here. Ella, you know, Ella Belinska, fantastic actress, and she, like, learned all these things. And she, like, took me on a journey, like, you're saying. So she can show you how the new

Orleans accent, you can trace it back to like an actual French accent. And if someone does it well, you'll go, that's not possible. I've even had a French show me that like with Jamaican and then like take Jamaican and then stitch it to parts of England, but then also stitch it to parts of India and then you end up with a Jamaican accent. Wow. And you're just like, damn, it's amazing how you're telling a story every time you're speaking. Because there's all of those, Jamaica had lots of Indians.

Yeah. lots of Chinese and heavily Scottish the white the initial kind of white immigration into Jamaica was Scottish largely Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, yeah, so you have like It's why so many Jamaicans have Scottish last names, right? But the The, you get that, you can see the elements

that combine to create. Actually, I knew a Jamaican girl once, don't Jamaican? Well, she was. Well, she's complicated. I met her, she lived, she grew up in Miami. Her parents were, family was Jewish. her grandparents had lived in Cuba and then had moved to Jamaica. So she had, her accent was Miami, Cuba, Jamaica, Jewish.

And I could listen to this girl all day long. I just like everything else about her just like faded into, I just said, just talk. It's just incredible. You know, every, you know how when someone's speaking, normally, I, the question in my mind is what word is coming next. With her, it's not just what word is coming next. What's the word going to sound like? Because it was so utterly unpredictable.

I'd never heard this before. Anyway, she was... Wait, but I just realized we didn't get your answer. What's your favorite children's character? You haven't watched the movies. Oh, going all the way back. My favorite... Because you just watched now.

So like now. Just be honest, Malcolm. Well, I'll tell you, I'm getting annoyed. No. That's a good place to start. This guy, I just wanted the character, and then he gladwelled us. No, no, no. I just wanted the character.

I'm getting there. I'm getting there. I'm getting there. The whole blonde, blue-eyed Disney heroin thing, which I know is a cliche, is driving me crazy. Okay. It's really, really deeply annoying. But you watch... Why is it...

Why are they all the fairest damsel in the land? Like, enough already. Why can't... You know the original Cinderella? Cinderella is just like an ordinary girl. Like she's just a kind of, you know, she's no different than anybody else, but she gets lucky.

And then Disney comes along and insists that she has to be a bombshell. Why does she have to be Marilyn Monroe? In the original fairy tale, it's way better. And she's just an ordinary girl who has a fantastic thing happen to her. And so if you're a kid, and you listen to Cinderella,

you're like, oh my goodness, amazing things can happen to all of us. Yes. Disney comes along, makes her into Marilyn Monroe and says, basically, unless you're drop dead gorgeous and have a heart of gold, it's not happening for you.

It's not happening for you. And if things don't happen for you, it's because you're not good looking enough and you've done some people think. So my daughter is saying, you know, we're watching Cinderella and I'm just thinking, oh my God, what is she? Can they let up already on like,

can someone even just have dark hair? Why does everyone have to be blonde? What is, what crazy Germanic, like, like, Aryan fantasy is being worked out in Walt Disney's mind as he's doing this? I mean, you just said it. That's hilarious. You just, you're like, what is going on in Walt Disney's mind? This Aryan, yeah, you just said it.

Anyway, we know how Walt Disney felt. So, I mean, do you know what I mean? There was that, no. I knew nothing about Walt Disney. About how anti-Semitic it was? I did not know that. Oh, damn. Oh, I thought like you would, oh, yeah,

Disney, man, hella problematic. Yeah. Tell us more, Trevor. I had no idea. I assumed he was Jewish. Why? With the last name. I mean, in Hollywood, that era.

Did I not know the Disney's career? Could I tell you? This is about Poland? By the way, here's the craziest. This is my personal experience of my current, so I love, I have to know where people are from. Okay. I have to.

First question I always ask everyone is literally I need to know where you're from I need to know what your background is I need to know what the language do you speak I need to know that in order It's just I don't know if it's a bad or a good habit But it just is an important one It's important for me to know

Did you grow up outside of Pretoria? I grew up in Pretoria Or in Pretoria Yes Yes That's important for me to know My grandfather's the one who came in to me. And you're

Johannesburg Johannesburg Okay important for me to know So I'm watching the Billy Joel documentary on HBO And I don't know. I thought he was Italian. Is that crazy? I thought he was an Italian guy from Long Island. So I don't know if you have you watched this documentary. It's fantastic. So like we're 20 minutes in. And it's like, of course we were Jewish. And I'm like, wait, Billy Joel is Jewish. And then. So I'm like, oh my God. This is like rocking my world. And my wife who is half Jewish and from Long Island and is like, you know, Billy Joel was in her hometown. She worships Billy Joel. She plays like Uptown girl from my four-year-old constantly.

So my wife's like, you didn't know he was Jewish? I was like, no, I thought he was Italian. Then he kept going. And like in the second part, you learned that his family, his grandfather was a, he's come from this high-born, sophisticated intellectual German-Jewish family. They were industrialists. They owned a big garment manufacturing plant in Nuremberg. The Nazis took it over. and the striped pajamas

the concentration camps the Nazis turned that plant into a plant that made those striped pajamas so if you look on the label of the striped pajamas it says Joel no ways absolutely and then

so then they kept the name of the yeah of course they did that's weird the labels are already there so they already have I mean it's weird that they put labels I'm sorry I'm focusing on the wrong part This is just like a weird.

But then you understand. So I always wondered why did Billy Joel, because I would, there's a famous, you ever watch Inside the Actors Studio? Yes. Okay, so the one with him, which I saw years ago, is one of the greatest ones of all time.

And you realize, oh, because he would play all his classical music. You know, like, he knows all his class. I was like, so I was trying to compete. I thought he was like working class Italian from Long Island. How does he know Tchaikovsky from memory? Like, it didn't make any sense to me. But now, I was like, oh,

his father was a classically trained pianist. Because, of course, they come from this incredibly sophisticated family in Europe. I totally located him in the wrong place. So for me, who loves to locate people, this is like so destabilizing. And then in the documentary, and this is the problem with the documentary. So my first thought is, okay, now that I know this fact, why isn't the whole person, and he has a falling out with his father. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

The whole documentary should be about his father. The whole thing is about Billy Joel's whole life is, kid of this insanely sophisticated intellectual German Jewish family who are Holocaust escapees comes to Long Island and reinvents himself as like a Long Island streethood. But he can't pull off the reinvention, quote unquote, successfully, because he's too sophisticated. The minute he plays Chicago. He's too smart, and he plays Chicago.

So that's the story. And his father disappears from the family. And what's he doing in his whole life? He's chasing this vanished father who represents this. sophisticated side that he has kind of lost contact with him, right? And there's a moment in the dark and they only give you 30 seconds of it, which drove me crazy. Where he finds his father, years later, who's living in Vienna, and that song, Vienna waits for you. It's about his father. It's about finding his father in Vienna. I didn't know that. No one told me that. I just thought he went to

Vienna on holiday. No, no, it's about his father. So then, you know that song, Vienna waits for you. It's one of the most beautiful. I don't know any songs by their titles. It's one of the most beautiful all the Billy Joel songs and I heard it as a kid and I was like, you know, almost moved to tears by it, but I just thought he's random, you know, I just thought he's a Italian kid dreaming about Vienna. No, his dad's living in Vienna. He discovers his dad in Vienna.

He goes there, writes the song. And then they show you, he's at this concert and he show him, they show him saying, Dad, if you come up and if you want to play, and then they cut to, they have two grand pianos pushed together and Billy's on one and his dad's on the other. Oh, wow. And it's like, we don't, the only, They give us 10 seconds of this, and they should have given us 45 minutes.

We need the Gladwell cut. That's what we need. We should actually just do this. You know what? I'm going to pitch you a business here. You just go in and we just glad well everything. So we glad well Disney movies. We glad well documentaries.

Because clearly there's the Gladwell cuts. And you basically go off on your own tangents. The one that you would have loved to see. That's just the Gladwell cut. I think the three of us. This should be a business for the three of us. I think you, all of us should, contribute to the reimagining of these flawed classics.

What, the Disney ones? Yeah, but, okay, but have you watched the newer ones? Well, I've watched. No, because they have been reimagined. We did. I didn't want to spoil it for you because I'm nothing to go in. No, no, we did Moana the night. Yeah.

But it gets really violent. I'm like, that's what it's like. That's what it'd be like to be young, female and black. When your friend is a chicken and one is a pig, and you're stuck with an older guy. guy with a catamaran and your grand is a ghost and your grandfather ran

away from your dad and he's a spirit of the seas. The chicken. Eugene watches a lot of Moana. Do you, as you can tell. Juan, yes. How old? My daughter's turning 17 this year. Oh, seven. You're yours away from this. What? From Moana.

We watched it the other day. Can you not tell? What do you mean? You're assuming that his daughter is the one who wants to watch it. Oh, you see. Oh, yeah. That was the one who has to put it on for him. Megway, she's the one who's putting it out for him. I actually feel like, you know what the Disney movies? One of the issues I actually have is, and maybe this is like the Gladwell part of my brain,

is I go, I think Disney did a major disservice to an entire generation that has grown up on it because it gave us a false idea of how things turn out. Yeah. Happy endings? but not just happy endings it's like the way things turn out like I'll talk to a lot of people who go the world I can't believe this

I can't believe they can't believe Trump won they can't believe this is still happening they come then I'm like but why can you not believe it and then for me at least I go if you've grown up your whole life being told that the good guy always wins that the damsel always gets saved then when you go out into life

you're like don't worry you just wait Trump oh you'll see what happens to him by the third act. You'll see what happens to him. It's only, and then it's like, it's not a matter of time. That's not actually how the world works. Do you get what I'm saying? And I think those movies are partially to blame for that.

And I don't know if you would know this, maybe you know deep, but like a lot of them were based on stories that didn't have those endings. You do know that, right? I know, they changed them. Darne and Walt. No, no, but seriously, they were not happy endings. Like, I think in one of them, is it sleeping beauty or snow? She just dies.

She is actually dead. She is dead. Yeah, sleeping in beauty. Damn. So they're just kissing a dead body. The original Grim Brothers tales. Is it a word for that in the English language? What is it?

Oh, Nicrophilia. Say it one of your other 11 languages. How was this? Oh, man. You know, that's another way. You know, the thought that I had about that? The thought I had about... I'm still recovering from me.

And the expressive... Do they all have... Was it you putting that on? Or is there something in that language that is more expressive and... Well, because there's some languages that... Half the language, but... It's too, buded. There's definitely half in the language.

That's half in the language. It definitely is. Like the name for flip-flops. That's better. That is so much better. Because it's the sound that they make when you walk. So much better. Yeah.

So much better. Pack-pac-pac-pac-pac-pac-pac-pac-pac. It's too much better. It's doombu. But that does sound like a dead body. If you think about it, okay, imagine if you had a dead body and you dropped it on the ground. So, okay, I will hold the dead body. You're going to say the word as I dropped this dead body.

You got it. Oh, man, this body's so heavy. Oh, goddamn dead body. Oh, no, I dropped it. Boom. Wait, what's the little transition of dumbo? It's doom. It's a corpse.

Oh, I see. Yes. I'm saying, what sound does a dead body make when you drop it? Exactly. There should be an aggressive program to incorporate. Like, my mother uses this, this is a Jamaican word for, it's not quite a rath. It's a lovable rascal, but it's more than that.

It's ginnel. Ginol. Okay. And she would, some of my fondest memories of the child are doing something that was clearly wrong. My mother calling me a ginnle. And what it meant was what you did was wrong, but I said, I love you. Oh, I like that. No, no, it's more than I love you.

It's not that I forgive you and I love you. It's that I recognize that the core of that behavior is something I would like to keep alive and cherish. Oh, wow. That's what it is. The ginnle is like, the ginal is, the general is, is, the general will save us. If we're, if we're all imperiled and like the overlord is made, the gill is the one who will, you know, it's the general is the one who will, you know, it's, Nancy figure. It's the classic in sort of African folklore.

The idea of the mischief maker who could save the day. Right? It is not inherently bad, but it causes so much mischief that we don't like it, but in a time of need, it will step up. Exactly. That particular thing, that's just a lovely word. And I taught it to my daughter because she's a general. So she now

uses, the old four-year-old. She now uses a general. It makes me so happy. She accused her mother of being a gentle. I was like, who's my mom? Your mother is not a general. That's actually not what it is. Oh, man. Causing chaos in the household.

Oh, man. But like those, all those little, those little folkisms, because this, my mother would have, who's turned 94 yesterday, would have learned that from, you know, the nanny she would have had in the little tiny place in the middle of, of Jamaica in the 30s would have been the, who was an older woman, would have been probably the daughter or granddaughter of someone who might have been born in Africa because remember West Indian slaves were, because they all died off, they were constantly bringing new ones.

So you could actually be the granddaughter of someone who came from Africa. So that's an African term that just gets, just enters straight into the Jamaican vernacular. So it's like, it's hilarious thing that now I'm, the language of our household is echoing. That's beautiful, man. It's really beautiful. I always feel like we've got to do that more. Yeah, that's why my point. We need to,

you guys should come up with three or four words, which you just try really, really hard to introduce into the American vernacular. That are better. That actually have some objective advantage. Okay, we'll do that. That'll be our work. That'll be your work. That'll be like our job.

We'll work through it and we'll figure that. I'll make note when you say something and I'll be like, I think that's what we can get people saying. You know when... Actually, you know when I realize that he actually speaks more languages than he lets on and actually we miss speaking the language

and I think people that have known him for longer over here don't know that he speaks the languages is when we drift off and we speak Is his Zulosh, it's on. Yeah, yeah, we'll just switch into... And then he'll just see everyone going... No, but you know the weirdest thing...

He's from there! He's got it! He's from there, we found him! And then I... Ice, like, shows up. It's like, oh, he's not an American. Juno! Oh, man.

Don't go anywhere, because we got more what now after this. Oh, the, that journal thing, do you think that that is sort of what has informed how you write, how you think, how you, because I've always felt like you're a mischievous reporter. Like, you don't, let me tell you what I mean by this. Like, I've met many reporters in my lifetime. And, like, even like the old, old, old. old school ones, like from the Brokaw days, you know, like Tom Brokaw, like, and they have a, well, let me tell you something. When you're searching for a fact, you have to know where a fact starts and where it ends,

and you search for the story and there's something about it that you have to. And there's like a, there's like, oh, okay, I get this. And then there's journalists today. You are one of the most mischievous journalists I've ever met. And I think that's part of what I like about your thinking, you're writing, your vibe. But do you think you kept that because of what your mom said? Well, it's, I think, first of all, thank you.

But I think it's because my, it doesn't feel mischievous to me because my parents were the same way. Oh, okay, okay. My mother is still, who she's turned to turn to 94, she's in a nursing home in Canada, and she writes for the nursing home newsletter. That's amazing. She sends them to me. And, you know, they're like really interesting, thoughtful. But like half the time she's like, you know, picking a fight with some. or doing some.

And I just in a very, in a very nice, respectful way, she's causing trouble still. She's a trouble maker. She's always been a little bit of a, you know, like there's something in her, and I think that's a, there's something,

an immigrant is someone, you know, which all of us at this table are immigrants, and my mother was an immigrant, three times over, or twice over. I think an immigrant has a, has that impulse because they're willing to shake up their life, right?

And so they, once you've made this, the most, once you've made the most important of all decisions about shaking up your life, which is I am leaving family, friends, and culture and going somewhere else, then everything else seems trivial in comparison, right? Like, you know, you've done the, you've done the hard thing. Like, you know, you've, you've already thumbed your nose at what every, what everyone else in your circle is doing. You've left. So like now you can, it's why are comics so often from, you know, either immigrant groups or marginalized groups?

Because they've already done the big thing. Right after. So it's easy after that. I wonder if it's augmented by whether or not you chose your immigration. Because when you were saying that, I was trying to think through and I went, I actually feel like there's almost two camps if we were going to make it binary. I think there are some immigrants who are the opposite of that. There are many immigrants who are like, no, I do not shake. I do not, there's no mischief.

There's no, my only goal is to fully become this new world because I don't necessarily have another choice. You know what I mean? But then I wonder if like you're more likely to keep that mischief when your choice was the thing. Yeah. Because if you shake up your world, you're mischievous. But if the world shakes up your life,

then you don't necessarily have that same thing. I think. Does that make sense? It does. Like, I think there's some people where they go, like, my parents came here because they wanted to da, da, da, da, da. Those parents are generally more like shaking up the world. Then there's some people who go, yeah, my parents came here because they had to.

Something happened. And I find sometimes not always, but sometimes those people are like, listen, I, this is not my choice. Yeah. And so I don't want to be shaken up again. So I'm not going to be in a position where I can be shaken up. Yeah. But there are ways that you always see how those groups that have migrated from somewhere that they loved and that they miss have always just rebelled a little bit in the way they cook food or stealing off speaking their language inside their house and sometimes not losing their accents. Because my grandfather was big in not trying to lose his accent.

Like actively trying. Actively trying. That's a funny thought. Because even the friends that he kept, even well into his old age, where people that came from the same province as him that spoke the same. language, then he would keep, they would play cards together and insist on speaking the language and just sounding like they were back home when they were not.

You know, so there is that little part he would also make his own Bill Tongue. You know what Bill Tongue is? Like, he's jerky. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He would insist on which drove my grandmother crazy. He would just hold on to those two things because what he hated the most was the fact that when his

parents died, right? He had to go live with his uncle. Yeah. So when he moved in with his uncle. He lived with him for a while and then when it was time for him to get his ID card, he couldn't use his father's surname, which was Ngomani. So he had to use his uncle's surname, which was Kausa, which was my son name now. Oh, that's your surname, yeah. Yes. And then all of his life from when his first grandchild was born, he insisted that we call him grandfather and Gorman. So he wanted to hold on to the thing that was taking that, yeah. What his dad taught him

how to make jerky and also the language. But you see, that's sort of what I'm saying. Yeah. If you think about it because it was taken from him. Twice. He did not have the inclination to lose it or to shake it up. His inclination was hold onto it as much as possible. I want to keep that accent, that last name, that food. Yes. Because it was taken from him. But I feel like there's like a, there's a mischievous luxury that comes with you being the creator of your little tornado. And it's just like, you know what I mean? It's just like, wait, wait, I have something, this, having, hearing your Let's, Eugene talk, reminds me of this thing I've been thinking about, which is that you've talked now on several occasions about your grandfather. So this is a two-part theory.

Part one of the theory is all of us explain who we are with some reference to our families, right? It's a common thing. Yeah. But I've noticed that when people do this, they always pick one. so you never hear someone say, rarely, I get this to my mom and this is my dad. What you get is when they're talking about something, they say, oh yeah, that comes to my father.

And they talk father, father, father, father, father, father. Then you come back to them five years later and they're like, mom, mom, mom, mom, and the dad's disappeared. You can't do both at the same time. No, no, you can't. And then part two of this series, I thought of this too well. And then because I was noticed it was so,

this is the theory of asymmetrical parental attribution. You can only do one pair of them. The theory of asymmetrical parental attribution. You can only do one. parent at a time. But then I decided, no, no, no, I don't like that theory anymore. Then I decided... Well, you just decided

randomly? Yeah, I kicked the theory out of. Theory boss. And I decided I think the mistake we make, I don't think parents, this is why this is coming back to you. Right. I don't think parents are the right place to make sense of someone. I think

grandparents are. In other words, if I were, if I'd never met you, either you before, and you sat down and I gave myself, 10 minutes to get to the essence of you psychologically. And I had a choice. I could have you talk only about your parents or I could have you talk only about your grandparents. My point is the grandparents is a far more revelatory conversation

because there's so much noise with your relationship with your parents. You're blind to it. It's complicated for all kinds of other reasons. There's siblings in the mix. You can't figure it all out. But if I get you to talk about your grandparents, there's a kind of purity in the way we see our grandparents. And when I think about my,

I can locate myself way more easily in my grandparents than my parents. And I think of my kids, and I can locate them much more easily in my parents and my wife's parents than I can in us. And I think grandparents, because we have sort of gotten, this would have been 100 years ago, this would have been commonplace because we were living with our grandparents but now it's like a harder thing to grasp because they're not they're absent in a way they

weren't before but um you think perhaps maybe that's why they're called grand yeah that's right that yeah they are grand they are like the ultimate of parents the pinnacle of parents but i mean i but i just loved that you were talking so much about your grandfather because it's it's it's rare that not rare but it's people don't spend enough time I think talking about that layer of their heritage. I think mostly sometimes, you're good. Have you thought of writing a book?

This is not a profound theory. As an author, you would kill. This is just a random observation. But now I'm curious, no, does that? You are so right. Does that make sense to you? It makes 100% sense. You're right when you say it's the noise

between yourself and the parents. And also, there's no one greater than your parents at the time that your parents are in your life. So people who have, enriching childhoods, which is what I had up until the age of six, was when my grandparents were around. Because it almost allowed me to see my parents as children as well. Because they had someone older who could tell them,

you don't do that because disciplining was not a thing when my grandparents were around. I would get away so much more. But then when my grandparents passed away, my parents almost had to step in to become the parents. And they became the villains of the story. Don't do this, don't do that. And also you miss. the person that let you get away with so much more.

And I had to pick in my memory the past that I remember the most, you know, sitting under the table. My grandfather used to be like, you're going to end up on TV one day. And I was like, why? Because when I was five or six, we got our first television set, the news would play in English and he would say, watch what my grand study is going to do. Then I say, tell us what they said there. Then I would just listen, listen, and I'd be like, William, wait, would you say back in English?

Yeah. No, I said back in Tongue. So you would translate it. Yes. You see, this is what, you see? I didn't even know that, but there you go. He said, you are going to end up on television one day. And my mom held on to that forever and ever and ever.

She used to say that over and over again, and it happened. So I remember those little moments and I'm like... So not only, what's interesting is not only do you see your grandparents more clearly than your parents, but your grandparents maybe saw you more clearly than your parents did. They also, because it goes in both directions because they don't have the clutter either. Apparently, there's so much now that of a parent... Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. you can't just glad well as then

clothed through that. There's so much clutter. When I look at my own kids, there's so much in the way of seeing them clearly. There's so much crap you bring to that relationship with your kids

that is irrelevant to who they are. You're so intent on turning them into versions of yourself that you forget they're not, never will be. But the grandparents is free of that. They get to see the kid for who they are.

I remember, I knew my, I didn't know my, my grandparents all died before I was, and they were always living in other countries. But I always felt that there was a kind of clarity in the way they saw me. And it was, yeah, it was like an uncomplicated. Is there a part of you that wishes you had your kids sooner in life so that they could have had that? Oh, yeah, 100%. I mean, the biggest mistake. Really?

I may was not, I was waiting so long. But on the other hand, I'm chival. killer than I would have been, I find parenting to be completely unstressful. I think that's because I'm older. I find it hilarious. When they act up, I find it. And I also let them do whatever they want. So in a way, you are the grandparents. I am the permissive grandparent. There's no question about that. Yeah. That is amazing. And, you know, maybe that has consequences. Who knows? I won't be around for them. I'm kidding.

Wait, so, so who is your favorite kid's character? I thought you were going to say who's your favorite kid? I was like, oh my God. No, I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't do that. Louis. You can't know this soon. You'll know, but not this soon.

Have you decided yet? Do I, I, I'm struggling with this one. I know. That's what I'm saying. Don't think. There's got to be one that makes you happy inside because you've watched them. You've watched Pepper Pig. You've watched Louie's grandfather.

It's hilarious. to me because... Pepper Pig has a grandfather? Yeah. Oh, I didn't know that. He's so funny because he's just like, he is so, there's a certain kind of, that's my, you know, my father's family, I feel like they were a hundred people like Pepper Pig's father and Pepper Pig's grandfather.

It just like takes me back to going to England as a kid and like, they're all that way. And they have that, they capture that really beautiful thing about kind of the way the English speak, which is they love being vague about everything. All just have a spot of tea. Yes. What's the spot? We're not going to, it's not a cop. It's not specifying anything.

And everything is like in this kind of vague, like euphemistic language. That's what I listened to as a kid. And I just love it. I just think it's fantastic. When you hear that it just like takes you back to that. My dad would do that. My dad was, was incredibly delightfully inarticulate. Just couldn't.

Inarticulate? Inarticulate. Like, which is why I was so obsessed with expressing myself. because I've said it's very many times. If you live with a father who is completely inarticulate, what do you do? I spend my entire time as he's speaking, as a kid, like rewriting the words in my head.

No, no, no, don't say that. What you mean is this. You should say this. Like, come on, out with it. What you meant? The words you're looking for is this. This is what's going on to my head. It's a kid, but I'm listening to him.

And he wasn't, he's incredibly smart man, but just like not interested in mastering, you know, tell a joke and would, the first time he took my mother on a date, they go to some big, you know, student thing at the University College of London, and he stands up to tell a joke, and he forgets the punchline.

And my mother, this is the first date. My mother's sitting there, it's like, what just happened? This guy takes me out. This white guy, first of all, this white guy takes me up. By the way, my father, my mother was a twin, and her twin, identical twin,

identical twin, went to the same UC, UCL a year before, and my father asked my mother's sister out, who turned him down but said, my sister is coming. That is hilarious. So you imagine the psychological kind of circumstances of my mother. So not only it's just like, I think he might prefer my twin, A, and B, he's just made a fool of himself in front of like a hundred of his. Anyway, they were happily married for, how many years? 50, whatever, 60 years.

That's beautiful. It was weird having a mom who has a twin. I could imagine the mischief that Jendilla would get up to But why do you think that? Because I would have someone who looks like my mom But doesn't behave like my mom You know how many times

I'd wish my mom had a twin Jane life Or my aunt would come over and rescue me Well, you're going to like use your mom for shenanic Like your mom's sister for shenanigans Let's not use moms You were going to You're going to You're going to

Why we use it? It's not that generation that's interesting It's the next generation. So your mom's twin sisters' children are your half-siblings genetically. Yes. So that's interesting. Oh, geez. Right?

Well, I've never thought of that, actually. We share the same mom. Oh, geez. All of my, there are first cousins who are actually half-siblings, and it's just really interesting. There's a kind of comfort level that you would have with a sibling, but it's a first cousin. But how different was your mom from your aunt?

My mom is... Or your aunt. Is that how you guys say here? They looked exactly the same to the point where, and they did that thing. My aunt was living in Jamaica, my mom in Canada, and they would independently, and without telling each other, wear the same clothes, change their hairsty. We were talking about this the other. This is so wild.

It's this freaky twin thing that happens. So they always looked identical. So I would mistake them. You yourself. And then my... We would go to Jamaica to VIII. visit and my mother would drive around with my father and everyone in the little town would think that my aunt was stepping out with a strange white man oh man oh man shenanigans who was inarticulate and who

couldn't find the pipe slide he was like that's him wearing a suit and tie like you know an english guy with a big beard um and then uh explain yourself and he's like well it appears there's quite an unfortunate uh coming together of uh history that might confuse to people, or groups, rather, who think that may, oh, you're dead. No, no, it's lovely. But my grand, but the other flip side of it is that my mom's twin sister, marries a Jamaican guy, but who is basically my father. So they...

No, no ways. I've heard of that happen. Jamaican version of your English dad. They find, they find, which makes sense. They're the same person. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So they find, they're exact, in fact, my father and my uncle's. uncle knew each other before, and my uncle was actively successfully pursued by odd.

But they looked the same, they had the same interests. The whole thing is just uncanny. In the Cosa culture, if there's a twin, one must lose part of their pinky so people can identify them easily. God damn. Yeah, they must cut part of their pinky. The brutal version. But there are other cultures.

I'm not sure which one it is in South Africa where if you marry one twin, you have to marry the other. because chances of the other one being happy without the other are very low unless they meet someone who's like you. So you have to do polygamy in that way to keep them together and to keep the other one from making another man miserable.

So the fact that your aunt married someone similar to your dad and your dad almost dated her first is the only reason she has her pinky. Don't press anything. We've got more. What now after this? You know the thing you're talking about, like us taking the articulate thing with your dad? I've always wanted, I've always wanted to learn, or I've tried to learn about like astrophysics. And it's so complicated and math throws me.

It's too much for my brain. But I like to try and learn about it. And one of the more interesting ideas for me is entropy, right? The idea that everything energy-wise is always trying to get to. a state of sort of like middle is the best way to describe it in my brain. And when you say that, I always wonder if that's all we're doing as like species and humans and is people don't realize that their kids are supposed to sort of like balance them out. So if you are loud and crazy, there's a good chance your kid might be like really quiet, especially you have like one kid.

They might be like really quiet and timid. And then if you are inarticulate, your kid is going to be extremely precise and good and a wordsmith. And do you know, I even wondered that with, I wondered if COVID was the ultimate natural experiment, which I know you love, by the way, just natural experiments. Do you know, not COVID? What do you mean? No, not COVID. No, natural experiments.

No, because because what COVID did, in some ways, COVID showed us that the human experiment has been successful. In that one thing could not wipe us all out. Yes. Some people died very quickly. some people didn't even get a sniff. And we don't really know why. You know, there's obviously things, people like comorbidities and weight and age. Yeah, but once you remove that, there's some instances where people just, they were just gone.

And then others on the opposite end of the spectrum, and then the middle people got sick and whatever. And I was thinking about that going, it's like this fascinating, beautiful sort of like hedging of our bets that we do as a species. Yeah. where you're supposed to be a little bit different, try this version, try that version. And then if you have multiple kids, they must all try a different version, different version so that the species

are the best chance of surviving. Do you know what I mean? Like, I've always wondered that as like a... It's the great... For your, it's one of the great puzzles in psychology was trying to figure out, and it goes exactly to your point, why are siblings so different?

Because they shouldn't be different. Yeah. They have same parents, same genes, same home environment, same, but they're like wildly different, right? And that is because, yeah, the impulse is to differentiate, not to take the exact same experience and interpret it in radically different ways. And I see it already with my two daughters. Like the younger one is fashioning from exactly the same environment is fashioning a completely different experience for herself.

Yeah. Nature versus nurture. Yeah, but even beyond that, it's a safety mechanism. One of the rabbit holes I've been, you know, going deeper and deeper into over the past few years has, been like monopolies and consolidation. I'm obsessed by it. And I'm obsessed by it because we were never really taught about the effects. Like most people in society, if you go monopolies, they'd be like, I guess it's bad

because we're told it's bad. But for most of us, if you say like, why is it bad? We don't really know like why. You know, someone might be like, oh, prices and whatever. One of the best examples of why it's bad sort of ties into this is in America. in America and in many parts of the world now, if one species of chicken gets sick, they could all go. They could all go.

Monocultures, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Like, there's one family in Germany, I think, or something that owns, I think it's a type of egg, but it's like it's basically the egg, if that makes sense. And if something goes wrong with that egg, or if there's a disease that affects that strain of chicken and that species of...

It's gone. Yeah, but it's gone. This is the story in my last book, I told that story about the cheetahs. The cheetahs, there was an extinction event for cheetahs, like whatever, a thousand years ago. And we think that the cheetah population of the world might have got down to one.

What? It might have been one mother who, one pregnant mother who survived. And that's why every cheetah today is genetically identical, which is why cheetahs have such incredible disease? Yeah, they're struggling. Even now. Oh my God, they're so prone to disease. It's really, really hard

to keep cheetahs alive in captivity because even minor infections were just, there's certain kinds of minor infections which that particular cheetah type just happens to be susceptible to, and so they're all susceptible to it. So there's a kind of coronavirus that normally

animals shrug off, but it's fatal to cheetahs. And we had a huge problem a couple years ago with keeping, but in the wild, too, cheetahs are like, they're sickly and they're, it's because they're all the same, and their sperm is degraded. It's just cousins, baby mating with cousins over and over and over and over and over again. They're so identical like that you can do, you know, when you do a skin graft, the reason they figured this out was they were puzzled by why cheetahs were getting so sick in zoos.

And so they did a simple skin graft where they took two cheetahs, different cheetahs, and they just took skin from one and grafted it onto the other. and under normal circumstances, the graph would be rejected. Oh, rejected. Because it's different. Like, you can't take slap on a graph. You have to give them all kinds of immunosuppressive drugs.

Right. No problem. The other cheetah just accepted the graft, and they realized, oh my God, they're twins. And it's like they're all twins, cheetahs. It's just one family. It's just one big,

yeah, family. But those are, those are, and I use that in that book, because I was describing, I was writing about this community, this little wealthy town, which is known as Pop to Grow, I don't give us real name, that had a suicide epidemic at the high school, local, that went on for years, a very serious one. And my argument, the argument in the book, and the argument of the researchers who studied it was that the problem was that the community had become a monoculture. The kids were all the same. They're all pursuing the same goals.

They all wanted to go to Ivy League schools, be attractive, play sports, work really hard, win their parents' approval. And that's not normal for adolescence. In a normal high school, there's 10 different social groups, each of which have different goals. And if you fail at one group, you just slide into another. There's always a home for you, right? Yeah.

And if you didn't, in this high school, if you didn't fit this perfect model, the one perfect model, then you were considered to be a failure, right? And that's how the suicide epidemic got started. All these kids. to eliminate themselves because they didn't fit into the general population. I'm not, I can't live up to the standard. So in the pursuit of excellence, and everyone would agree, this is one of the greatest high schools, public high schools in America,

one of the loveliest places to live in America, there was this disaster because they forgot how incredibly important this kind of diversity that you're talking about is to successfully functioning societies. You can't have, especially teenagers. You can't put a teenager into a system where there's only one model of success. I think we're experiencing that with everything. And it's, so one of the, you know, sometimes in life you'll have an experience that isn't necessarily special, but it has an outsized effect on you. One of those was a trip that I took was my first time ever going to Paris. It was like a few years ago.

It was pretty late in life if you can travel. And I went to Paris and it was this whole thing. what I found most interesting about France's history was how they imperfectly, but still in a really beautiful way, sought to encourage the idea of the difference. And the reason it stuck with me is because it was like art. They were like, if you're an artist,

you have a purpose. The French government would pay you to just make art. Just make it. Good or not good, we'll decide later. Your job is to make art. and then the government will buy it and then we'll go from there. Sculptures, you name it, you name, sometimes it was music, sometimes. And what I kept thinking was, what is going to happen to our society if we allow it to get

to a place where the only way we measure success is one metric? What is, what is going to happen to our society when every kid wants to be the same thing because the only way we measure success is through money or through a certain type of power? And so no one wants to be a teacher, no one wants to be a nurse, no one wants to be, do you know what I mean, like what happens when that becomes a homogenous society? Does it mean we then lose our edge? Like, when we're all the surgeon or when we're all the accountant or when we're, like, what happens to us? That's what I, and when you put it that way, I go like, oh, yeah. We lose our edge. Yeah. No, I mean, there are still, I mean, thankfully there are professions. I do this thing

as part of my kind of job where I find people who I think are interesting and I just interview them sometimes for 20, 30 hours until I find the story. I did this last summer with this incredible woman. I'm doing it right now with this Canadian anesthesiologist from Atlanta

who is the most, I love this guy so much. he looks like he's so handsome first of all I realize that that's not relevant but it is it is kind of relevant and he we don't judge he has and he is he is so articulate that that sometimes I'm listening to him and I'm just like I can't improve on this this is you know because I'm used to having the voice in the head right yeah yeah and he he just expresses himself so beautifully and it's just everything I mean I mean, it's perfection. In another era, he would be a famous rabbi or a, you know, he, but he's a doctor. He's an intensive care specialist. And he describes his, and what I'm really interested in is just, I want to know what his life is like. What is it like? He goes into intensive care for shifts of seven days, where he's on, basically, and it's the most intensive care is the hardest and most intellectually demanding, he says. And I think I agree with him of this medical. specialties. And you have someone who is in real trouble and you are locked in for your seven-day stretch

with that person. And his, and a reason I'm saying this long, saying, his metric of success is incredibly specific and is outside all these, I know, I'm sure he cares about money like all of us, but like if he wanted to make money, this is a dude who could have made 10x on an old street, right? He could have been famous, I'm quite sure, if he wanted, he's never going to be famous. He's a doctor at a research hospital in Atlanta. Like, his, the thing that he uses to judge his contribution to society is, is the degree of kind of intellectual and physical effort he puts into keeping someone alive during his seven days on, right? And as long as there are professions like that

that allow people to have their own very specific definition of success we're okay as long as they exist yeah not

will they always exist but there there are these little pockets where you know I I'm about say something

incredibly macar morbid which is dumb because yes how do you say that word against

do do so so so so so Oh, I see.

Stoom. Okay. Imagine like a drum, like a big drum being. Stoom. One more time. Sudud. Yeah, and then the drum release. Stoombo.

Oh, Sudumbu. Ah, there you go. Okay, all right, right. Okay. Stoombo. So my mother is 94 and I've been thinking, because I can't help myself, I've been thinking about her obituary.

Right. She's not, she's a long way from dying, knock on wood. And but she talks about, you know, So she was talking about what she wanted to be cremated. I was like, why are you doing this? Anyway, so I suddenly go, what would I say? Many, many, many people will come to my mom's funeral. So what would I say?

Because it's going to, you know, I'm going to have to. And one of the things I want to say about her and her life is that she's someone who lived a small life, meaning that she could have lived a big life. She could have been famous. She could have made a lot of money. She's a brilliant, driven. ambitious, you know, a woman. She chose instead to define her life, much like that doctor I was talking about. She's someone who, her whole life is a series of relationships in which she has taken care

of people or been important to people for decades. And there are now, you know, countless people who have been in contact with my mother in an intimate way, going back 50, 60 years. I remember as a kid, there would be people coming into our living room who had never seen before just to sit with my mother and share, and I would listen to these conversations, very personal things about the things.

That's her life. That's the way she chose. And so she chose to live a small life. And the idea of valorizing the small life is, I think, really important. And a society that loses sight of in many ways the contribution of the people who live small lives is greater than the contribution of people of big lives

it doesn't work without that layer right so that's what I've been thinking about that's what I would like to say is by choice she lived a small life and it was she's not dead it's horrible why am I doing this but that's what I would like to say that's her about her that's her legacy I think, and it's a really beautiful one. And it's not done.

She's still doing that thing, only in a nursing arm in rural Ontario. I think what you speak about is what a lot of people crave now, the simplicity of life as well. You know, sometimes we like, no, we want it organic. You know, I want that real small farmer

that makes those, you know, if it's not in season, then I will not have it. I think ultimately inside, with all the conveniences that we have now and all the abundance that we have now, we still crave to forage. We want to go and find out. We want to sit for 30 hours with a human being

and just hear what they have to say and go through the weeds until we find the treasure, you know? And I find that with great friendships, that's what friendships are about. We're having this conversation about how to approach anything, whether it's an episode or comedy. And we're saying that if you're not willing to go

and whack the weeds until you found that Garden of Eden, then you've just lost what he likes to call the friction of life. Yeah. But it's the small, I like the poetry that you've expressed it with.

Me? Because, no, Malcolm. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yours as well. Yours as well, definitely. No, but I mean in talking about your mom specifically because, like, there's a beautiful,

to go back to football, sorry, Eugene. No, no, no. But to go back to football. One of my favorite things about Liverpool is how many, opposing players and teams will say, man, you don't want to play at Anfield.

And they don't just mean you don't want to play the away game. They often refer to the fact that the fans are a 12th player on the field. And Mikhail Orteza, the coach of Arsenal, who used to be, I mean, he's one of the best players who's played the game, talks about his playing days. And they asked him about where to play and what was tough. And he has the story where he recounts how tough going to Anfield was.

And what made Mikhailo Teter brilliant was that he could see the whole game. He could always see where players were. He was that kind of player, you know, as the point guard in that way. And he says when he went to Anfield, the fans would start singing. The fans would start chanting. And he says you would lose your teammates. He said you would just lose them. You'd be like, I'm alone.

He'd be like, wait, where's everyone? And in that, I think that's another thing that I loved about Liverpool. I think a lot of football fans will have this with their teams generally, if it's a great team and great fans, is there's a beautiful synergy between the big and the small. Every football player, every basketball player, every, it doesn't matter what athlete there are,

they will tell you that when they had to perform their sport with nobody around, there wasn't a thing. Yeah. Yeah, you could hit the ball. Yeah, you could shoot. Yeah, you could. jump. It wasn't the same. But the little people, they were doing the biggest thing. It's just that we sometimes don't see it that way because of how we like aim the lens. Does that make sense?

Yes. Yes. Like the fans are making, to your point, English football, one of the reasons I think it is the biggest of the leagues in the world, the biggest, is because of the fans. It's because of what they make it. It's because of what they, yeah, there's people playing football all around the world. It's people kicking that soccer ball doing their thing. but like that that little and that's what I mean by the valuing I love that you said that because I not to be ominous about it but I just worry that we'll get to a place where there is no valuing there is no you know I do I do think of like as a child I love how many fights kids used to have in my school when we're talking about what do you want to be lots of fights

what do you want to be I want to be this I'm going to be a fire I'm going to drive a fire There was this idea that society had that all of these avenues can provide you with a value that is valorous in its pursuit. And then like now, and it's not the kids' fault, but a lot of the kids, you go, what do you want to be? And they're like, famous. Rich.

Rich. And I'm like, what are we showing them and teaching them? Because rich and famous is a byproduct of doing a thing well, I often think. But they aren't aiming for that oftentimes. They'll go like, famous, rich, whatnot. And then a person who's in their position has to be like, oh, but what of that?

you want? What of that are you looking for? What of that? You know what I mean? And so I would love to know like with your girls, do you have a preconceived notion? How do you think you're going to do it? Are you, like, are you already going, oh, I hope they would be this or not? Or are you seeing things in them where you, because I'm sure you can't, you can't, like, resist it, but is there something where you go? With my girls, I'm doing the thing that I swore I would not, which is that I, all I, I'm obsessed with how well they'll do it's sports. and will there be good runners. And so I spent a lot of time scrutinizing their running form.

And I took my, I've decided my little one who is super focused and who, by the way, is ripped. I mean, it's a horrible thing to say about a two-year-old, but I'm sorry, she is ripped. She's built for this. Oh, my God, I've never seen a child like this. She looks like, this is, and she loves, like, lifting heavy things. And she's super, kind of disciplined. And we took her to the track. and she got in her lane

and ran the she ran 200 meters in her lane at 2 and stayed in the there was lane discipline and she ran the curve hard and eased up on the straight I mean it was like instinctually it was it was

the single greatest moment of my of my brief parenthood career so that's all I care about do they you know because you know if you're running you want to be a four foot striker you want you should land on a front of your foot.

Yes. So I've been looking very closely to make sure whether they're natural forfeit strikers, they are. And I'm trying to make sense of, you know, are they quarter-mileers, half-milers, or distance? You know, that's an important thing because I've got to focus. And I'm terrified they're going to be good at the sports

I don't want them to play. Like pickleball. Tennis. Well, tennis. I don't want the time sucks sports. This is the big mistake of one makes. Swimming, uh,

uh, tennis, uh, gymnastics, uh, any of these things that require tons of travel and like six hour practices. Okay. No, you destroy their childhood. Yeah. All right. Why are you doing that? Soccer fine.

I'd accept soccer because I think it would be fun to play. But I really, I mean, track's perfect. It's just ideal. It's like one hour day. It's like fun hanging out with other runners. runners. That's what I want for them. So that's all I do is I think about their running form, really.

I love that you admit it. You're like, I turned into what I promised. I have become everything. Actually, this is something I wanted to ask you. So the podcast thing that you did talking about like trans women in sports. Yes, oh God, you should put your hand on your head. How ripped were they?

Because, so talk me through this a little bit. Because I like you as a person. I love your writing and I think I know you as like the, let me call you the artist separate from like the human. But when I was watching this, I even said to Eugene, I was like, this is like the least Gladwellian way to handle a situation. I was just like, and then I was like,

do you think like this now because you have daughters? Do you think it's shaped you? Explain to me what happened there. Did people get something wrong? Tell me what happened there. Four years ago, five years ago. There was a sports conference that happens every year. Yeah.

a sports analytics conference. They were going to have a panel on trans participation in sports. And they said, do you want to be the moderator of the panel? Now, right there, any intelligent person would have said, of course not.

There's zero upside to moderating a panel. It's a landmine. What does Malcolm say? Yeah, sure. So I'm the moderator of the panel, and there's a guy named, South African. Ross Tucker is the sports scientist

who believes very strongly that trans women should not participate in the female category. And there are two Joanna Harper and another people who are arguing the opposite side. I'm the moderator. And they tell me beforehand, do not get us in trouble, whatever you do. Just like get through this. I was like, I was like through this.

So I sit there and the audience is like split in half. So whenever one side says something, they go, rar. And the other side says something, they go rur. It's just a minefield. I'm singing. I'm like, what did I get myself into? So we managed, there's a moment in this conversation when Joanna Harper, one of the pros, pro-participation people, says something which would have been, you know when you're interviewing someone and there are moments when someone says something which is an opportunity to jump in and like gets to the heart of the matter. Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.

She said something that got to the heart of the matter. And my instinct as a journalist was to say, oh, this is the moment. This is what people were, this is. And I said, as like, man, I could say that. It's too complicated. I don't, the crowd's nuts. I sit on my hands. Nothing happens. Do you remember what she said? Yes. She said to Ross Tucker,

Ross, you have to let us win. And what she meant was, she was conceding the point that trans women have a genetic advantage over biological women. Trans women have a genetic advantage over biological women. But what she was saying was,

that's not the issue here. The issue is, it's a broader symbolic thing for And it crystallized the whole argument because it was why the argument can't be one because they're both after different things. One side are people who are trying to protect the purity of women's support, as they would say,

and the other side is someone who's trying to make a human rights argument about a disadvantaged group. It's two arguments. They're never, ever going to meet. And in that moment when she said that, it crystallized why this was an impossible problem to resolve. my inclination in that moment was to say oh I could have jumped on that we could have had we could have we could have we could have used this to explain the fact that this is an irresolvable argument I don't say anything fast forward four years ross Tucker who has out of his place in johannisburg has this podcast which is listened to by a very very small number of people it's a super fat is my favorite podcast super fascinating nerdy podcast about the science of sport lots of rugby talk collect

Lots of, you know, he did a whole episode once on shoes, which was amazing. So I'm on Ross's thing, and I say in a minute, we spend 45 seconds reminiscing about this panel. And I say to Ross, you know, that moment I really should have. I regret not. That would have been an incredible moment to jump in and blah. Then we go on and talk about other things. And then I wake up and I'm like, I don't know what happened. They did five minutes on me on Sean Hannity.

Oh, yeah, you were everywhere. I was everywhere. No, you were everywhere. I had no idea what happened. I was like, what's going on here? Yeah, no, you were everywhere. J.K. Rowling, like, tweets at one point, like, oh, my goodness. And I was just paralyzed.

I was like, nothing, I was reading all the stuff that was saying. I said stuff that I didn't say. People are going nuts about it. And I was like, oh, Jesus. So I just shut up. You know, every time I see that happen, there's like a thing inside me that, like, does like, a, you know, because there's a, there's a specific knowledge you have about how these situations unfold

if you've been a part of it. You know what I mean? I've experienced this before where literally like I've woken up and half of the world has an opinion of me. Then I'm like, wait, what did I say? And then it expands beyond what you've ever said or what you've ever done. And by the time, and it's that old Churchill quote, right? That a lie is halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to put its pants on.

Yeah. You, helpless is a perfect world because you just sit there going like, wait, what? No, no. And it expands and it goes and it goes and it grows and it grows and it grows and grows. And then now people are using it to say, you know, like people who are very anti-trans

are like, ah, you see? He agrees. Gladwell agrees. And not only does he agree, he shows you that he's terrified of telling the truth. And I was like, Malcolm Gladwell is not terrified at telling the truth.

That's a moderator on a panel. I mean, and they under strict instructions not to ruffle any feathers. And then made, I didn't think, I was on Ross Tucker's, I didn't think anyone would listen to Ross Tucker's podcast other than people who were, who were good for Ross. I mean, I love Ross. He's, I think he's brilliant. And I've been following him for years. But I didn't think it would be, you know, who thought that podcasts recorded in Johannesburg or Cape Town? But this is my, this is Johannesburg, Cape Town? Can I just pause on this for a moment? Just suddenly change the subject. There's this thing that always irks me, which is Salpolo, Rio, right? Sydney, Melbourne. Yes.

Johannesburg, Cape Town. Yeah. In all these instances, people have this urge to say, yeah, Melbourne is New York and Sydney's L.A. South Paulo is L.A. No, Salpalo is New York. Rio is L.A. Sol Pallos is New York. Or Johannesburg is New York.

and Cape Town is L.A.? Cape Town is not L.A. The only thing that L.A. has in common with Cape Town is there's a beach and a lot of rich white people. That's it. That's it. The urge to make everything about that's New York and that's that just drives me to distraction.

Have you never... Is there no other way we can describe these places but to say... Is the word a heuristic? Is that what it is? It's just like a shortcut that people are using. But it's not even... They're only useful. Heuristics are useful when they actually have some basis in reality.

In what universe would you go to Johannesburg and say, this feels like New York to me. No, I'll tell you how. Okay, I'll tell you how. Don't do you dare join in with him. I'll tell you how. I'll tell you how.

So I think what people mean by that is that the vibe and the energy of the cities are generally defined in one way versus another way. So, okay, I'll give you an example. So Johannesburg, New York, Sao Paulo, those are like the hubs of business. That's where the people consider life to be fast. That's where there is no lounging about

That's where there is no chilling You know what I mean There's this idea of like You come here, you do business You get things going You keep it moving You got it. Rio, Cape Town

L.A. Eh, tranquilo, you know what I mean? It's like a there's a feeling of like beach vibes And chilling and no no No, no, but it's all in relation to the other Oh, I see. And by the way, I'm not, you're not crazy for thinking this

because I feel like that whenever people would say It would always irk me when they would go like, it's the size of of 20 elephants. Then I was like, hey, man, stop doing this.

But Americans love this size of five football fields. I'm like, who's, yeah? Yeah, but I'm like, Hey man. Who's out here? So in that regard,

I also, I'm just like, I don't get why you use. But I do understand why people do it because those cities, let's put it this way. Yeah. If you loved L.A. And you were leaving it.

You had to leave. Yeah. And you were going to go live in Johannesburg or Cape Town. And you loved everything about L.A. Ah. You would be better off betting on Cape Town.

You love Malibu. And if you love Rio, you would be better off betting on. And if you loved Sydney, that's all I think it is. Even if it's 51.49. No, no, no, you would just, there's just a bet. You would have a better chance of. But this is, I will, I will just say that this is a case where the heuristic gets in the way. Effect.

I like, like say, I like heuristics when they help us. Cool. Get over the hump. and sort of, all right, then we can go from there. But sometimes they block us and they get in the way. Yeah. And I feel like this is getting in the way. And like...

What do you think it's getting in the way of? It's getting in the way of appreciating another culture for what it really is. So, as opposed to saying, what's offensive to me about this with Johannesburg in Cape Town, for example, because you guys know these cities very well, is like these are the people who use this heuristic don't know anything about this. And I think in expressing that heuristic are creating an obstacle to learning more. Okay. Right?

It's like, oh, it's just New York is a way of saying, okay, I've satisfied my, so I can go, I'll see a couple sites and I'll leave. As opposed to really like thinking in a complicated and an interesting way about

what is, this is a city unlike any other, all these cities are unlike themselves, fundamentally. And the biggest obstacle is outsiders coming in and pretending they have an understanding of something that they have no understanding of. That's what I object to. Like, I don't pretend to understand Cape Town.

I went there once. All I know is got an insane real estate, right? Yes, there is. And a nice beach. And that hill that walk up and down. And that hill that you walk up and down. But, you know, one thing I don't want to let go of, because I think you said something that's nuanced, difficult,

and in my opinion, very important. You said something about the conversation that was happening on that stage when people were talking about trans women and sports. And I think it's something that people don't like to acknowledge in many conversations that we have in society. It's that people on two different train tracks acting like they're fighting about the same thing, but they're not actually. Because the way you framed it there, I was like, yeah, people are arguing across each other. And so you can never reach a conclusion if you're not arguing. It's impossible. But you're not arguing the same thing.

It's irresolvable. It's irresolvable. It's like there's two competing values. And you have to pick which one in this moment you think is more important. And if you're going to pick one, then I think you have to accommodate the interests of the other side. In other words, if you're someone who thinks that trans women should not participate in the female category, you have to go out of your way to be an advocate for all other aspects of the trans agenda. Yes.

That's your obligation. You have to be able to say, okay, I know that this is something that means a lot to you. I'm not going to back you on this, but I promise you I'll back you on everything else. And the flip side is also true. I think that if you are someone who wants that kind of participation, you have to go out of your way to acknowledge the importance that you're basically saying to people who care a lot about sports and women's sports in particular, that I'm asking you to give up something here. and I will go, I will bend over backwards to make that sacrifice easier for you. There has to be that accommodation. And like I said, I don't, there's no, I, you know, my position on this is I acknowledge both sides.

It's really hard. I happen to be a huge track and field fan. So it's really hard for me to make the sacrifice of giving up the female category in that same way. But I also understand that that's a problematic position to hold, particularly for a group that is under, that is imperiled and, And so, you know, my answer is for the moment, because I also acknowledge that my mind might change, right? I was writing about Castor Semenya 10 years ago, and I had a different position than I had now. How did it change? The science of people at that moment did not understand the degree to which, the question, this is a technical question.

If I, if I, she was, she's not trans. She's DSD. Yeah. She was intersex. the question was if you suppress the testosterone of someone in that condition, do you equal the playing, do you level the playing field? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There was a belief back then that you could level a playing field. Now the science seems to be that there's still a considerable kind of historical advantage.

Yeah. So it's more complicated, right? But that side is, it's super complicated. All you can say is, if you're going to pay. one side, you have to accommodate the other. I think it, you know, for me, where it lies is, I often find that we're stuck in these situations and these conversations because we allow ourselves to suffer from a lack of imagination. And the reason I say that is because we act like what is always was and will always be.

Yeah. Okay? So I look at people now, arguing hard, the women's sports, and I go, if I was to rewind time, and go back decades and decades and decades, I would argue that those same people would be the ones going, women can't do sports, women can't, and we would see that. There was a time when women were stopped from getting into sport. Like people were like, no, a woman can't box, a woman can't run, a woman can't,

no, no, no, no, what do you mean women's sports? Women's public bathrooms, that was the one that blew my mind the most, was in America, people used to fight against women using a public toilet. They were like, no, you go, what are you doing? that's for the men you go home what are you doing was that to stop them from not going too far

no it was just like this idea of like it just didn't make sense because of the way things were same thing with black people there was a time when people were like so you're saying black people quick story my dad at some point ran like a small little

restaurant would be a strong term he cooked food for people and they came and ate at it a tiny little place in Johannesburg just outside of Johannesburg actually. And I asked him, I was like, oh, what happened to the place? He's like, oh, it got shut down. It was like, what happened?

He's like, they shut it down because I wanted to serve black patrons and white patrons. Then I immediately was like, oh, my father, the saint. Oh, what a legend. Then he was like, no, no, no, I don't care about the race thing at all. He's like, I don't care. He's like, it just didn't make sense to me. And he's a very, like, he's Swiss-German. He was like, this makes no sense.

Black people and white people eat the same things and use the same cutlery and all the say, what are you doing? It's also terrible for a business. And what the apartheid government wanted is they wanted my father to build an additional bathroom just for black people because they were like, white people and black people should not use the same bathroom. This is scientific. That's what they even said.

It's science. And then my dad was like, no, sorry, I'd rather shut down the restaurant because this is crazy to me, right? So he had his own reason, which I guess aligned with good, but he doesn't even accept it when I go. That was a good choice. He's like, no, it just doesn't make sense. Now, when I come back to the world of imagination, I go, if we acknowledge that the things that are weren't always, then we acknowledge the possibility that's something new could be. The Paralympics is an example. I remember when the Paralympics first started. Like first, first started. People went, this is crazy.

And they changed their minds now. Now, have you seen how big the viewership is? Have you seen how big the endorsements are? You go to a city or a town when the Paralympics is. on the advertisements change there's major campaigns it's no longer even it's not a it just moves over to the paralympics you get what I'm saying and in the Paralympics I found some of the most creative thinking because they went how do we to your point how do we find a measure of fair in an in a thing that we've also invented in terms of fairness so they're like how do you say that a person missing a leg from the knee down, who do they run against?

Somebody with the same thing, but what if that person has no legs, but it's only from the hip or not from the hip or an eye or a hand? And they were like, you know what, we're just going to work to figure this thing out. We're just going to work to figure this thing out. Because I think they,

whoever was organizing this, remembered the original idea of what the sport was supposed to be. It was a competition between people and they were participating in something that we've imagined. It's not real, guys. Like, this is not, do you know what I mean?

It's not gravity. The rules and the lines that we draw on a field. There's a wonderful quote to this very point, that sport is the willing acceptance of arbitrary constraints. Yes, that's exactly it. So here's an example I was thinking of when I was going through this. I went, we make it seem like in some sports, it's just man-woman. Man-woman, right?

That's it. But then in another sport, we'll go, no, no, it's not just man and woman. So age is important. Yes, the under 16 World Cup. Oh, why do we have a different category for? Well, they're younger. So who says they should get a different category? But we accept that, right?

Boxing for me is probably one of the craziest. With the classes? Guys, at some point, and you can clearly see when people want to make concessions, they'll make them. If you think about it, technically boxing should have just been, you fight him, the winner is the winner. And then at some point someone went, bro, I'm skinny, man. Come on, this is not fair. I can't beat that guy. And they didn't go like, well, then you're out.

They went, all right, right, we're going to make a class for these feather light people. You guys who are as light as feathers. I love that about boxing. But that's my, but this is what I'm trying to say. But that's running. No, but this is what I'm trying to say is like, imagine we have a sports where you can come in weighing feathers all the way to heavy weight. You've given, and it's not one, it's not two, it's not three, it's not four, it's not five. The weight divisions do this, they do this, they do this, and no one would say to you like, that's crazy, that's so many divisions.

Yeah. I wonder why we never engaged in these conversations. You know the worst offenders are, the swimmers who, they've just created a sport to maximize the number of medals they give out. There's like the 50 meter freestyle, the 100 meter freestyle. Yes. But that's what I mean, it's arbitrary. It's like, they're going to have like, they're going to have before it's all over, like 10 different freestyle. Yes.

The 150 meters. Can you do it like a butterfly? Can you do it? I have a whole step. a bit about that where I'm just like, what is this? You're doing it less efficiently and you get more medals. No one ever uses those strokes outside of competition. That should tell you something.

You see? So now what I'm saying about these conversations... You're changing strangely quiet on the question. No, no, no. But what I'm saying about these things is we forget, I think we forget that everything exists in the time that exists. And it becomes the norm. Because that's what it is in any given time.

But if we stop imagining possibilities, then we're going to be tied to what is now but not what could ever be and so when I that's funny enough that's like when I it's fine I think that's where you've influenced me in my life is like a glad well way to think I always think

is like yeah but but where was it and what is it and what is it trying to be the fundamental thing sports is trying to be is fair however some sports if we're honest are inherently unfair like to use like the casta simini thing I remember going people would say oh but she has an unfair advantage I'll be like yeah so does the

Brian James, if you are like seven feet tall, you have an unfair advantage in basketball. We should ban you from the sport. You don't what I mean? If you are Michael Phelps, you have an unfair advantage that your body doesn't produce as much lactic acid. We should ban you from the sport. But we don't. We celebrate those people because we go, you're a freak of nature.

Well done. But then when other people are the same freak of nature, then all of a sudden we, you know what I mean? And so I think that's like the thing that frustrates me in some of these moments is I'm not saying there's a right way and a wrong way and this way and that way. But it's like, you know, man, if you can find a way for more people to participate and you can make it as fair as possible, like the UFC does, like boxing does, I will fight, I will watch two skinny men fighting and then I will watch two of the bulkiest men fighting or for that matter, women in

UFC. And I don't go like, yeah, this. You should have been the moderator of this panel. You would have survived much. Jesus, what was I, do you have a good, what was they thinking? But, no, but I, but I, but I, actually think that's what it is. That's what it is. I think, I think in, in institutions mainly, and which I think sports federations and sports organization are big, long institutions that have institutional memory of how things were done.

Exactly. Two things will always alter the course of any institution. It's either the people. dying out or commercialization coming in. Because I think when you add money, there's incentive now to accommodate and find creative ways to extract money from sponsors to sponsor the Paralympics. You're not wrong. You have the same with let's add more backstroke, side stroke, kickstroke, knee stroke.

Yeah, because they would get rid of that if people stopped watching it and there was no money and they would be like, all right. Absolutely. And that's what people are finding a problem with now with the Olympics. People watch the Olympics and go, what am I watching? What is this? Yeah. Because also it doesn't equal out.

So you see, if every discipline that exists in the Olympics, right, exists in the Paralympics, then I would be sold. If there was shooting and for, but with people with something that they normally wouldn't have. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would be, I'd be fully in. But when I feel like there's concessions being made and I'm like, I'm not watching the full thing. And that's the thing that I find with soccer fans is they watch male soccer. Yeah. But then female soccer is, oh, do you know, really?

Joker is nudie. They don't watch fully. You guys are not fully participant in football. Yeah, but I think you're missing the point. Are you? No, but I think you're missing the point, though. See, I think this is where I think you're missing the points.

There are some people like Joseph Opie, our friend. We had him on the podcast. He watches everything. Everything, everything, everything, everything. Female. Yeah. Yeah. But you see, before you run to that and you go like,

oh, a football fan is inconsistent because they watch men soccer, but they don't watch women soccer. I also don't watch other leagues. I don't watch the Turkish league. They've got great teams, Galatasarai, Bessik Tas. They've got great teams that I see in the Champions League. I don't watch the Portuguese League.

I don't watch the Italian League. Syria has had some of the greatest champions that have ever existed. I don't watch the Syria. I don't watch the South African League. There's many leagues that I don't watch. So I don't think we can quickly say, oh, you're not supporting women's sport because you don't watch that, but you also don't watch other leagues. Do you get what I'm saying?

I think the more important thing to ask ourselves is why people are or aren't allowed to just be part of a thing before we even get to commercialization. Because I'm not saying that everybody must watch the same thing the same. What I'm saying, what I'm saying is if a skinny ass man is allowed to be a boxer, a man who weighs less than a bag of cement is allowed to be a professional boxer, a man that I can pick up and throw to the other side of the room, he'll beat me in a fight boxing, but I can lift him. If that person gets accommodated, why can we not accommodate a trans woman is what I'm saying?

That's all I'm saying. I've never thought of boxing is the most egalitarian. Any human being can dream of growing up and being a boxing. Can I tell you something? Golf is one of the most egalitarian sports ever invented. I know you hate it, but it's one of the most egalitarian. I think golf courses, of course. No, no, yeah.

Almost like the PJ in coming for you. As if you haven't been enough trouble. Trevor, I have enough trouble. And you can speak your mind, Malcolm. You don't say that we scared you. You can speak your mind. No, I look at golf. golf has one of the craziest systems ever invented, the handicap system,

where you as a golfer who has just started can go and play against somebody who is a professional and you can beat them on the same course hitting the same ball. How did they do that? They adjusted the scoring system to account for what your level is versus what this other person's level is. It's beautiful. It's beautiful and it's imaginative. because what golf could have easily done is said, no, that's how it works. But they realized in the strangest egalitarian way,

which no one thinks as golf being because it's like the rich sports, etc. They went, we want people to be able to have as much fun as possible playing with and against whoever. Yes, but there's a difference between hitting something and hitting someone. Yeah, but what I'm saying is you can. A 19 year old can hit a ball same as a 65 year old. Not true. But then none of I'm saying that it's a ball that they're hitting. No, but it's not true.

They're punching those spaces. Yes, but what I'm saying is you can make those. That's exactly what I mean by accommodations. Why do we have a youth division? Why do we have a seniors division? Why did we even do that? I can tell you now, a seniors division did not always exist in sports. And then it did.

Enter commercialization. But that's, so that's what I mean by imagination is I go, if we think to ourselves that it stops where we are currently in time, I don't care what it is, technology, you know, education. Then I go like, man, then we've become that homogenous society. science, we've become that high school that all thinks the same way. Like I go, there is, you can

find a way. If you believe that you can find a way, I'm not saying it'll be easy. I'm not saying it'll be obvious. But if you say no, if your answer is no completely, then I'm like, ah. No too skinny men fighting. So you're, you see? No. Yeah, but what I'm saying is, what I'm saying is we can create a category where skinny men

fight skinny men. And that's what they've done. And so I go, then how are we? And we can. Which categories do you think we should create now to solve everything else. Oh, no. You see, to lie and say that I have the answer now, I don't have it.

You know what I love about you? Your dimples, one. And you're going to say that. Because like, wherever. No, but that's exactly what I mean. It's like, I go,

I don't, but we, to your point, we can't get there if we don't have the messy bumbling along discussion. This season, in the Premier League, I don't know about all the leagues, the rules changed.

Right. Do you know how old football is as a sport? But the rules changed now. They said if a goalkeeper holds the ball for longer than eight seconds, it's now a corner kick. No way. Yeah, I didn't grow up with those rules. Eight seconds. He acts like he cares.

That's defined as changing the game. It changes everything. Eight seconds? Yeah. We're ashamed of eight seconds from the hogging. Yes. So that wasn't a thing before. That wasn't a thing before.

So the goalkeeper was allowed to- The goalkeeper could hold the ball once they caught it. And still do that thing off. Technically, you were just supposed to get rid of it, but there was no time. The ref would just be like, you took too long. But they made it a rule now. Now, I'm saying if an old sport like football can still introduce new rules in 2025, then I think all sports can look at introducing ideas that can include everyone.

I don't think a kid who has one leg, yeah, let the kid run. Let's find a way for that kid to run. No, technically they... Yeah, but you can find a way for them to run. Yeah. That's what I'm saying is. magical for me. There was this thing I remember like, you know, I love video games. And I remember when I was when I was at Microsoft, like I've worked with them for a while, like in, you know, the hardware and

all of that stuff. One of my favorite things was helping them think about like controllers that kids with disabilities could use. And they were showing me this stuff as like they'd bring a kid in who has a disability. And the kid would go like, I now use my feet to play street fighter, which seems ridiculous. It seems crazy. And then you see them and you're like, damn, you know what? I like, in this moment, you're a gamer and I'm a gamer. Yeah. The point of a controller wasn't that you could only play a game with if you had hands.

The point of a controller was that it helped you to control something that was happening on the screen. Yeah. And once we realized... Like the moderator five years ago. You feel like Malcolm? No, say, say. Because the...

No, they're finding ways to play more inside by themselves. But that's not the... No, they're not playing by themselves. Most of their kids are online. And now if you're the only... So other people, other kids with disabilities are online. What I'm saying is if you can't be online with your friends who are online, you're now isolated. They change the rules in a way that allowed the person who previously had a disability to no longer have a disability.

And so what I'm saying is if we are going to live in a simplistic binary world, so should trans women compete with women, then I'm like, why are you making it seem like there's only two? And I mean this honestly, like as categories. So you'd want to have a trans category? This is how crazy it would be. Imagine if you rewound time. There was someone who said, uh, people who swim butterfly shouldn't be able to swim with people who

and they were like, yeah, let's just do butterfly category and a breaststroke category. Why is it in your voiceovers, people who are stopping things sound boring and the people that, because people who stop things are boring. Like,

yeah, yeah, because people who stop things are boring, Eugene. That's why. We're going to imagine, bro. You've got to imagine. Yeah.

Okay, let's imagine it. No, but you got to imagine. to stop saying that people. Yeah, because that's, you know why? Disney movies. That's why I have those voices. It all comes back. It does, though.

It's Disney movies. They've ruined us. It's Disney movies. Malcolm feels like he was the part where he was watching Snow White and there was a rat and the 20 minutes long. Oh, this was the cat and the mouse that went off for 20 minutes. I loved that.

With his zigzagging. Okay. So, wait, wait. Otherwise. Otherwise. Otherwise. So now, before we let you go. Yes.

Who is your favorite animated character? Oh. Oh. I can't answer. Why am I having such difficult? No, I'm just asking me. No, I told you.

Oh, yeah. I said it was Pepper Pig's grandfather. Pepper Pig's grandfather. Who brought back, yes. Pepper Pig's grandfather is my reigning current. And it might be, I'm also fond of Maleficent, who my daughter describes as magnificent, which is so great.

Yeah. She's the witch. in. What is she the witch in? Which one? She's got the curly. She's got the horns. Yeah. What is? Yeah. Maleficent. It's no white. Is she from? No, she's in Sleeping Beauty.

Oh, she's in Sleeping Beauty. Yeah. Got it. And for some reason. So today my daughter went to school in a dress that was festooned with just with Maleficent. Huh. I don't know who, what? Has she watched the spin-off or she just likes her as the villain? Well, she's fast. What happens is every time.

Maleficent comes on the screen, who she calls Magnificent, she turns to me, he goes, and I'm not speaking, she goes, hush, daddy, don't say anything. She doesn't want, she's so riveted

by the possibility of drama involving Maleficent that she wants to make sure that I don't step in and like, right on her parade. Meanwhile, she's watching like seven times.

I'm like, I don't say anything. I'm sitting here. But, no, she's quite militant in her watching of, sleeping beauty.

What's your favorite cartoon character? Me? Yeah. Of all time? Yes. Now you put me on the spot. Because I haven't been watching them recently like Malcolm has. Yeah, but old school, new school.

Let me think, let me think. Do you have a favorite? Absolutely. Who? Remy from Ratatooie. Oh, that's an interesting choice. I mean, why? I can create a human joystick. Huh.

I see what you did there. I see what you did there. I see what you did there. I see what you did there. Nicely done. I thank you. Nicely done. You know what I like about you?

You're willing to admit when I'm right. Malcolm Gladwell, thank you for joining us. Thank you. This is very fun. This has been a lot of fun. I hope to see you again. Yes. This is really great.

Thank you, yo. Thank you. That was fun. What Now with Trevor Noah is produced by Day Zero productions in partnership with Sirius XM. The show is executive produced by Trevor Noah, Senaziamen, and Jess Hackle. is our producer. Our development researcher is Marcia Robiu. Music, mixing and mastering by Hannes Brown.

Random Other Stuff by Ryan Harduth. Thank you so much for listening. Join me next week for another episode of What Now.