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Speaker 1: Pushkin. This episode will discuss death by suicide. If you're

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Speaker 1: suffering emotional distress or you're having suicidal thoughts, support is available,

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Speaker 1: for example, from the nine to eight to eight Suicide

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Speaker 1: and Crisis Lifeline in the US or from the Samaritans

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Speaker 1: in the UK. New York City, nineteen fifty six, a

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Speaker 1: young man goes into a bookstore and asks for a book,

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Speaker 1: I Libertine by Frederick R. Ewing. The bookstore clerk checks

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Speaker 1: their stock. It seems that they don't have a copyright now,

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Speaker 1: but let's see if he can order one. He thumbs

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Speaker 1: through the list of books available from the stores wholesalers. Strange,

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Speaker 1: he can't see it anywhere. What's it called? I Libertine?

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Speaker 1: The young man says, And who did you say was

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Speaker 1: the author? Frederick R. Ewing. The clerk still can't find it.

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Speaker 1: Do you happen to know the publisher? Sure, says the customer.

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Speaker 1: Excels your Press. The clerk keeps looking through his lists.

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Speaker 1: He can't see any mention of excels your Press. Are

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Speaker 1: you sure that's the right name? The young man says

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Speaker 1: he's sure. The bookstore clerk can only shrug in confusion.

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Speaker 1: I'm sorry, he says, the book doesn't seem to exist.

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Speaker 1: The young man thanks him and walks away, looking disappointed

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Speaker 1: but also strangely amused. Later, another young customer approaches the clerk.

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Speaker 1: I'm looking for a book, he says. It's called I

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Speaker 1: Libertine by Frederick R. Ewing. Oh, says the clerk. Someone

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Speaker 1: else asked about this. I looked for it and it

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Speaker 1: doesn't exist. Sure it does, the customer insists, Freddie Ewing,

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Speaker 1: you know, the noted expert on eighteenth century erotica. Haven't

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Speaker 1: you heard his radio series on the BBC. The clerk

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Speaker 1: decides to call his wholesaler. It's very odd, says the wholesaler.

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Speaker 1: We've been getting lots of calls asking for I Libertine,

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Speaker 1: but we never heard of it, or Frederick are Ewing

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Speaker 1: or Excelsior Press. What on earth is going on? I'm

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Speaker 1: Tim Harfer, and you're listening to cautionary tales. In the

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Speaker 1: middle of the night, in a building in Carteret, New Jersey,

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Speaker 1: a man in his mid thirties is talking into a

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Speaker 1: microphone wearing nothing but fruit of the loom jockey shorts.

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Speaker 1: It's stiflingly hot because also in this building is a

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Speaker 1: fifty thousand watt radio transmitter and there's no ventilation. This

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Speaker 1: is not what Jeene Shepherd had in mind when he

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Speaker 1: moved to New York with his young family in tow

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Speaker 1: to try to crack the big time. He'd been jobbing

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Speaker 1: around various provincial radio stations, starting in his Indiana hometown.

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Speaker 2: Next HG. Grubbage and the news.

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Speaker 1: There's no HG. Grubbage. It's Shepherd playing the character of

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Speaker 1: a self important newsreader and reading out odd little snippets

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Speaker 1: he's seen in the newspaper, like the zookeeper whose paycheck

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Speaker 1: was eaten by an elephant, or the man in the

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Speaker 1: Canary Islands who tried to cross the Atlantic in a barrel.

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Speaker 2: He sailed two yards and turned over twice.

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Speaker 3: Two bystanders rescued him, then two medical attendants took him

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Speaker 3: to the local psychiatric hospital.

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Speaker 1: Shepherd collects these stories, not quite garbage, he calls them,

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Speaker 1: but grubbage mostly though he doesn't read stuff out. He

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Speaker 1: just talks and talks, no script, no notes. At WKRC

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Speaker 1: in Cincinnati, he's fired for too much talking. It just

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Speaker 1: wants someone to read out the ads from sponsors and

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Speaker 1: tee up the records. He promises to play more music

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Speaker 1: on his show, so they give him his job back,

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Speaker 1: but he just keeps talking and talking, so they fire

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Speaker 1: him again. He moves to Philadelphia.

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Speaker 2: The purpose of my program is not to please, but

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Speaker 2: to begin trains of thought. I realize that many things

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Speaker 2: that I do might not be good listening.

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Speaker 1: Shepherd's unusual approach piques the interest of a New York

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Speaker 1: radio station, who try him out on a Saturday afternoon.

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Speaker 1: In just a few months, he sheds so many listeners

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Speaker 1: that they shunned him into the graveyard shift from one

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Speaker 1: am to five thirty every weeknight, and because the New

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Speaker 1: York studio closed overnight, he has to broadcast from the

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Speaker 1: sweltering transmitter room in New Jersey wearing only his underpants.

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Speaker 1: Shepherd doesn't mind. He's got four and a half hours

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Speaker 1: to fill every night, a prospect that might be daunting

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Speaker 1: for some broadcasters, but not for Shepherd. Finally, his thoughts

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Speaker 1: have room to breathe for the.

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Speaker 3: Guy hits a on the piano and I went Merigs, Schmedrigs,

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Speaker 3: double Beat, Nicks, Papkins all agree a pin.

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Speaker 1: In the words of his biographer Eugene Bergmann, these late

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Speaker 1: night shows are a slow, casual free floating association of ideas, philosophy,

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Speaker 1: and amused commentary. He tells long, meandering stories about his

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Speaker 1: childhood and his time in the army. That is anyone

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Speaker 1: actually listening. His bosses suspect not. They worry that Shepherd's

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Speaker 1: not commercial. He hates playing music or reading out ads

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Speaker 1: from sponsors. They threaten to fire him. Shepherd decides to

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Speaker 1: fight back.

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Speaker 2: All right, gang, let's show them that there are a

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Speaker 2: few klutzes out there to listen to this drivel all night.

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Speaker 2: All of you go to your grocery star tomorrow and

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Speaker 2: ask for Sweetheart soap.

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Speaker 1: The next day, stores in New York shift a surprising

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Speaker 1: amount of Sweetheart soap. There's any one problem. Sweetheart Soap

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Speaker 1: isn't actually a sponsor of the radio station. Shepherd chose

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Speaker 1: it at random, just to make a point. He does

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Speaker 1: have listeners, a lot of listeners, and they're devoted. In

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Speaker 1: the dead of the New York night, Shepherd has found

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Speaker 1: his audience. He starts to ruminate on who they are,

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Speaker 1: these night people.

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Speaker 4: I'm talking about people with that while tossing in the

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Speaker 4: soul that somehow makes them stay up till three o'clock

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Speaker 4: in the morning and brood. They might get up at

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Speaker 4: seven the next morning and go to work, but that

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Speaker 4: ain't That isn't what their life is about, not a

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Speaker 4: bit of it.

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Speaker 1: Shepherd also starts to philosophize about the day people. Their

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Speaker 1: life is about work. They believe in the world of

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Speaker 1: the office. He says, they believe in file cabinets. They're

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Speaker 1: the people in sales meetings with the light of ecclesiastical

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Speaker 1: fervor in their eyes. They believe in what they're selling.

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Speaker 1: Shepherd diagnoses that the day people are suffering from a

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Speaker 1: malaise he.

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Speaker 2: Calls creeping meatballism.

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Speaker 1: By which he means conformity.

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Speaker 2: The average person the day thinks in certain prescribed patterns.

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Speaker 2: People that they have a genuine fear of stepping out

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Speaker 2: and thinking, and they're own.

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Speaker 1: Take the latest model of refrigerator that has a clever

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Speaker 1: design of door that enables it to open from either side.

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Speaker 1: The day people think this kind of progress is great.

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Speaker 2: By George, we really are getting ahead.

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Speaker 1: The night people couldn't care less about which side their

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Speaker 1: fridge door opens. All they want to know is.

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Speaker 2: Does it keep the stuff cold?

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Speaker 1: This is the nineteen fifties. Remember Shepherd was ahead of

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Speaker 1: his time. What would he have thought of fridges that

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Speaker 1: connect to the internet.

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Speaker 5: He needs cheese.

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Speaker 1: One day, Shepherd's in a New York bookstore trying to

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Speaker 1: get a copy of a book he saw at a

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Speaker 1: friend's house. The bookstore clerk looks through the lists of

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Speaker 1: books he can get from wholesalers and inform Shepherd that

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Speaker 1: the book doesn't exist. But Shepherd knows the book exists,

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Speaker 1: He's seen it.

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Speaker 4: I suddenly became aware that New York is almost entirely

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Speaker 4: a city that really does run on lists.

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Speaker 1: The day people believe in lists. If a book's on

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Speaker 1: a bestseller list, it must be good. If it's not

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Speaker 1: on any list at all, it not only can't be good,

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Speaker 1: it can't exist. Shepherd wants to mess with the belief

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Speaker 1: in lists.

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Speaker 2: What do you say tomorrow morning, each one of us

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Speaker 2: walk into a bookstore and ask for a book that

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Speaker 2: we know does not exist.

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Speaker 1: Shepherd asks his listeners to suggest a title. He chooses

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Speaker 1: I Libertine and makes up the author's bio on the fly.

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Speaker 1: Frederick R. Ewing, an expert in eighteenth century erotica who's

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Speaker 1: retired from the Royal Navy and broadcasts on the BB

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Speaker 1: see I Libertine is going to be an explicit account

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Speaker 1: of the salacious sex lives of eighteenth century London aristocrats.

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Speaker 2: And by the way, mister Ewing is quite surprised at

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Speaker 2: the success his book is enjoying, since it was written

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Speaker 2: primarily for scholars people who want misunderstand that Satain chapters

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Speaker 2: are there for the purpose of scholarly research.

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Speaker 1: Listeners write in to tell Shepherd what happened when they

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Speaker 1: went into stores to ask for the book. One reports

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Speaker 1: a deliciously satisfying encounter with the puffed up clerk at

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Speaker 1: his local bookstore who always has an opinion on every book.

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Speaker 1: When the listener mentions I Libertine, the clerk knowingly strokes

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Speaker 1: his beard. Ah, yes, Freddie Ewing, It's about time the

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Speaker 1: public discovered him. A student tells Shepherd that he turned

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Speaker 1: in an essay on I Libertine augmented with quotes from

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Speaker 1: Ewing's BBC broadcasts. He got a B plus superb research.

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Speaker 1: Another listener says he flagged I Libertine to the Archdiocese

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Speaker 1: of Boston and got them to ban it. It seems

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Speaker 1: like a perfectly judged prank, funny and harmless, but there's

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Speaker 1: another angle on the story of I Libertine, which shows

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Speaker 1: it in a different light, will pick up Gene Shepherd's story,

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Speaker 1: but first let's meet his modern heirs after the break.

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Speaker 1: In two thousand and seven, a post on the anonymous

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Speaker 1: online message board four chan suggested that users send an

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Speaker 1: email to the principle of their local high school. Yesterday afternoon,

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Speaker 1: I came home early to find my son and his

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Speaker 1: friends getting high on something they called jencom. They urinate

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Speaker 1: and defecate in plastic bottles and leave them to ferment

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Speaker 1: in the sun, then inhale the resulting gas. Surely not,

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Speaker 1: but the email continues. I looked it up on the

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Speaker 1: Internet and apparently this was something invented by African children.

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Speaker 1: That's actually true. Kind of years earlier, in the nineteen nineties,

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Speaker 1: a press agency in Zambia had reported on how how

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Speaker 1: tough life was for impoverished street children. Some were seeking

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Speaker 1: a temporary escape by getting high on gases from human

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Speaker 1: waste that had fermented in sewer ponds. The New York

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Speaker 1: Times and BBC picked up the report and included the

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Speaker 1: local term for that fermented sewer water, jencom. So if

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Speaker 1: an unsuspecting high school principle went to Google and typed

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Speaker 1: in jencom, they would find the top results did indeed

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Speaker 1: mention African children, and they came from respected news organizations

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Speaker 1: that made the emails seem superficially plausible, though what it

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Speaker 1: said next about jencom wasn't true at all. Now kids

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Speaker 1: all over the world are doing it. My son says

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Speaker 1: most of his friends at school have tried it. You

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Speaker 1: would hope that most high school principals who received this

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Speaker 1: email will have engaged their brains, done a bit of digging,

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Speaker 1: and concluded that it was clearly a hoax. Most of

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Speaker 1: their students were not fermenting their own excrement in plastic bottles.

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Speaker 1: But there are always people who are ready to panic

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Speaker 1: about what the kids are up to. A sheriff's office

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Speaker 1: in Florida sent out a warning, complete with photos they'd

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Speaker 1: found on the Internet of a teen inhaling from a

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Speaker 1: plastic bottle. Someone had made jencom as a joke from

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Speaker 1: flower Water and Natella. Local news stations picked up the story.

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Speaker 6: Cops are calling it jenkam or the human waste drug,

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Speaker 6: but parents need to be aware that kids are calling

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Speaker 6: it by the more popular slang term butt hash.

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Speaker 1: How could concerned parents tell if their teenager is inhaling

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Speaker 1: butt hash. One news reporter earnestly advised parents to smell

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Speaker 1: their children's breath at bedtime. Another asked for action from

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Speaker 1: the US Drugs Enforcement Agency. An amused agent explained that

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Speaker 1: it was hard for the government to regulate people's urine

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Speaker 1: and feces. This all caused much hilarity for the anonymous

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Speaker 1: users of four chan. As Around this time, the academic

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Speaker 1: Whitney Phillips found out about four chan from her eighteen

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Speaker 1: year old brother. Check it out. He told her, you'll

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Speaker 1: like it. Phillips checked it out and was horrified.

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Speaker 5: She recalls there was so much porn and gore, so

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Speaker 5: much offensive, antagonistic humor, and general foulness.

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Speaker 1: It was also confusing with its own lang language and

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Speaker 1: evident in jokes. Why were people saying a hero, for example,

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Speaker 1: I'll come back to that. Phillips sense that whatever was

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Speaker 1: happening on four chan was interesting enough to study. She

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Speaker 1: did a PhD on trolling subculture. The anonymous posters on

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Speaker 1: four chan self identified as trolls, but what did the

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Speaker 1: word even mean? Phillips soon discovered that there were two etymologies.

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Speaker 1: For some The troll comes from Norse mythology, trolls are ugly,

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Speaker 1: malevolent and stupid. They live under bridges and threatened to

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Speaker 1: eat the billy goat's gruff that others insisted that trolling

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Speaker 1: is a fishing term. It means dangling bait behind a

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Speaker 1: fishing boat. In this sense, trolling is a skilled suit.

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Speaker 1: The metaphor of dangling bait certainly seems like a better

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Speaker 1: fit for the jencum email, which got several satisfying bites

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Speaker 1: from school principles and local news reports. When Phillips asked

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Speaker 1: the four Chan trolls what makes a troll, they told

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Speaker 1: her trolls believe that nothing should be taken seriously. When

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Speaker 1: she asked them what they got out of trolling, they

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Speaker 1: said lolls. Lolls, says Phillips, is an extremely slippery term.

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Speaker 1: Trolls themselves struggle to explain it.

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Speaker 5: You know it when you see it was the most

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Speaker 5: common definition I heard when conducting interviews.

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Speaker 1: But Phillips has a go at defining lolls.

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Speaker 5: A kind of ambiguous, unsympathetic laughter.

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Speaker 1: Pant. More and more time getting to know the kind

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Speaker 1: of people who post on four chan. What she found

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Speaker 1: reflected the split between these two etymologies.

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Speaker 5: Some trolls are remarkably reflective and intelligent, and some are

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Speaker 5: remarkably not.

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Speaker 1: Phillips began to understand the language and the iconography. She realized, I.

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Speaker 5: Found certain forms of trolling funny, interesting, and in some

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Speaker 5: cases justifiable.

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Speaker 1: Rick rolling, for example, came from four chan, the practice

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Speaker 1: of disguising links so you end up unexpectedly. At the

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Speaker 1: YouTube video of Rick Astley singing never going to give

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Speaker 1: you up, Never going to let you down, a well

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Speaker 1: executed rick roll makes a point. We're tempted to click

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Speaker 1: on a link against our better judgment, and Astley is

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Speaker 1: our chain reward. Why Rick Astley, It's just one of

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Speaker 1: those random things that caught on Like over nine thousand,

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Speaker 1: originally from a melodramatically delivered and mistranslated English dub of

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Speaker 1: the Japanese anime Dragon Ball.

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Speaker 2: Z, It's over nine thousand.

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Speaker 1: Over nine thousand took on a life of its own

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Speaker 1: on four Chan as the default joke answer to any

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Speaker 1: numeric question. Anyone familiar with troll subculture would immediately recognize

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Speaker 1: over nine thousand. Oprah Winfrey was not familiar with troll subculture.

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Speaker 1: In two thousand and eight, she was discussing peterophilia on

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Speaker 1: her show, some people still weren't understanding the threat to children.

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Speaker 7: She said, let me do something that was posted on

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Speaker 7: our message boards from someone who claims to be a

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Speaker 7: member of a known pedophile network.

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Speaker 1: Are you sure about this, Oprah?

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Speaker 7: His group has over nine thousand penises and they're all

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Speaker 7: raping children. So I want you to know they're organized

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Speaker 7: and they have systematic ways of hurting children.

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Speaker 1: Over nine thousand penises became a four Chan classic, an

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Speaker 1: absurdist in joke, offensive subject matter, but it also made

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Speaker 1: a worthwhile point. It showed that Oprah could take some random,

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Speaker 1: anonymous post on her message board and imbue it with

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Speaker 1: authority as long as it fit her sensationless narrative. The

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Speaker 1: researcher Whitney Phillips concludes that this kind of trolling performs

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Speaker 1: a useful social function. As she writes in her book,

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Speaker 1: this is why we can't have nice things.

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Speaker 5: Trolls on earth the biases, hypocrisies, and deep inconsistencies that

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Speaker 5: compose mainstream culture.

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Speaker 1: Or put another way, trolls reveal it all sounds very

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Speaker 1: much like Gene Shepherd's Night. People asking bookstores for a

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Speaker 1: book they know doesn't exist. The prank revealed that some

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Speaker 1: archdioceses might ban a non existent book if the title

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Speaker 1: sounds a bit risque that some teachers will call research

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Speaker 1: superb if it reads plausibly like it might have been

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Speaker 1: superb if only the subject were real. The student who

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Speaker 1: got a B plus for his essay on Frederick R.

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Speaker 1: Ewing wrote to Shepherd, my whole education is probably phony.

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Speaker 1: Shepherd kept up the joke for weeksjournalist who was in

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Speaker 1: on it casually mentioned in his column had lunch with

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Speaker 1: Freddie Ewing. Today, a listener reported that three players at

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Speaker 1: a bridge party had earnestly discussed I Libertine and concluded

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Speaker 1: they didn't like it. The prank revealed when people were

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Speaker 1: willing to bluff an opinion about a book that was

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Speaker 1: getting bars, rather than admit that they didn't know a thing.

296
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Speaker 1: Then a publisher who was in on the joke wrote

297
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Speaker 1: to Shepherd with a proposal, how about writing I Libertine

298
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Speaker 1: for real? Cautionary tales will be back in a moment.

299
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Speaker 1: When Whitney Phillips began to study four chan in two

300
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Speaker 1: thousand and seven, the commonly used phrase a hero was

301
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Speaker 1: one that confused her, as she discovered it traced back

302
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Speaker 1: to a teenager who'd killed himself in two thousand and six.

303
00:24:22,850 --> 00:24:25,850
Speaker 1: One of the boy's friends had posted on an online

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Speaker 1: memorial page a poem mourning his loss. The poem was

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Speaker 1: heartfelt but terribly written. He was such an hero to

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Speaker 1: take it all away. We miss him so that you

307
00:24:41,770 --> 00:24:47,810
Speaker 1: should know. It goes on with three more mentions of

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00:24:48,650 --> 00:24:55,650
Speaker 1: an hero and loving him like an brother. Someone posted

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Speaker 1: the poem to four chan, where it became one of

310
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Speaker 1: those random things that caught on. That's comprehensible. It is,

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Speaker 1: after all, an terrible poem, But what happened next was

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Speaker 1: truly awful. Trolls on four Chan tracked down the address

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Speaker 1: of the boy who had killed himself and published his parents'

314
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Speaker 1: phone number. The parents got prank calls, kids turned up

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Speaker 1: at the boy's grave to take photos to post on

316
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Speaker 1: four Chan. There's no worthwhile point to redeem any of this,

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Speaker 1: As Whitney Phillips puts it.

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Speaker 5: The trolls were either disinterested in or outright blind to

319
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Speaker 5: the ways in which their mockery exacerbated an already traumatizing experience.

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Speaker 1: The trolls of four Chan had told Whitney Phillips that

321
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Speaker 1: they didn't take anything seriously. They were in it for

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00:25:58,650 --> 00:26:03,930
Speaker 1: the lulls. Sometimes it's true they happened to make a

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00:26:03,970 --> 00:26:10,090
Speaker 1: point while annoying or confusing or offending people, like showing

324
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Speaker 1: up the gullibility of media when it comes to raising

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Speaker 1: fears about drugs and pedophiles. But making a point wasn't

326
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Speaker 1: the point. The lulls was the point. Whatever they revealed

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00:26:24,530 --> 00:26:30,050
Speaker 1: was just by accident. When a publisher approached Gene Shephard

328
00:26:30,050 --> 00:26:35,930
Speaker 1: to write I Libertine for real, he agreed that have

329
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Speaker 1: to rush it out while the buzz was still buzzing.

330
00:26:39,170 --> 00:26:42,850
Speaker 1: So Shepherd quickly sketched an outline, and they drafted in

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Speaker 1: the prolific sci fi writer Theodore Sturgeon to bash out

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Speaker 1: the prose against a tight deadline. When Sturgeon fell asleep

333
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Speaker 1: at his typewriter with only one chapter to go, the

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Speaker 1: publisher's wife stepped in to finish it off. None of

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00:27:02,410 --> 00:27:14,170
Speaker 1: this sounds very promising, nor does the blurb turbulent, turgid, tempestuous.

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00:27:14,930 --> 00:27:19,810
Speaker 1: I Libertine is long out of print. But I was curious,

337
00:27:20,530 --> 00:27:25,690
Speaker 1: and Oxford University's Bodily and Library has almost every book

338
00:27:25,970 --> 00:27:31,570
Speaker 1: ever published in English? Did it have I Libertine, but

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00:27:31,690 --> 00:27:37,530
Speaker 1: of course in hardback and paperback editions. I requested it

340
00:27:37,770 --> 00:27:43,130
Speaker 1: for the purpose of scholarly research. On the paperback cover,

341
00:27:44,450 --> 00:27:49,490
Speaker 1: a dungeon, a swashbuckling hero in a tricorn hat, a

342
00:27:49,530 --> 00:27:57,090
Speaker 1: woman in chains dress, ripped eyes, closed lips, sensually parted.

343
00:27:59,210 --> 00:28:05,530
Speaker 1: Let's check out the pros, shall we? What happened? What happened?

344
00:28:05,970 --> 00:28:10,130
Speaker 1: It was a tease, a small thing and nothing, a passatiempe,

345
00:28:10,570 --> 00:28:13,010
Speaker 1: and she closing her eyes and her lips to show

346
00:28:13,090 --> 00:28:18,570
Speaker 1: him some childish something in this blaze, this confiscation, arms

347
00:28:18,610 --> 00:28:27,410
Speaker 1: full of mouthful of break, burst, spill, crash, silence. It's

348
00:28:27,450 --> 00:28:32,130
Speaker 1: no mystery why I Libertine is out of print. What

349
00:28:32,330 --> 00:28:35,610
Speaker 1: is a mystery is why Gene Shepherd thought this was

350
00:28:35,650 --> 00:28:39,490
Speaker 1: a good idea. Getting people to talk about a non

351
00:28:39,530 --> 00:28:46,090
Speaker 1: existent book was very funny and revealing. Actually, then to

352
00:28:46,290 --> 00:28:50,370
Speaker 1: publish a book that's just shlock doesn't seem that funny

353
00:28:50,810 --> 00:28:56,130
Speaker 1: or clever or revealing of anything, except perhaps that Gene

354
00:28:56,130 --> 00:29:02,010
Speaker 1: Shepherd hadn't really understood why his own joke worked. So

355
00:29:03,170 --> 00:29:07,170
Speaker 1: was I Libertine really as perfectly judged a prank as

356
00:29:07,210 --> 00:29:12,450
Speaker 1: it seemed. Let's look again from another angle.

357
00:29:14,050 --> 00:29:18,250
Speaker 3: Double Beatnicks, Pompkins, all agreed a pinch, and all these

358
00:29:18,290 --> 00:29:21,250
Speaker 3: guys were sitting and they're looking at me and Jean.

359
00:29:21,330 --> 00:29:26,450
Speaker 1: Shepherd's free floating late night shows won him some lifelong fans.

360
00:29:27,410 --> 00:29:31,770
Speaker 1: One likens him to a jazz musician with words. Another

361
00:29:31,850 --> 00:29:36,410
Speaker 1: recalls he made literature fresh, right in front of your eyes,

362
00:29:36,770 --> 00:29:39,930
Speaker 1: like a guy making pizza in the window of a restaurant.

363
00:29:40,290 --> 00:29:43,890
Speaker 1: While Shepherd wove his spell by night, he spent his

364
00:29:44,050 --> 00:29:47,810
Speaker 1: days with a mistress. He'd come home to his wife

365
00:29:47,930 --> 00:29:51,890
Speaker 1: now and then. His son recalls he'd talk his way

366
00:29:51,930 --> 00:29:53,730
Speaker 1: back in with a line how it was going to

367
00:29:53,730 --> 00:29:58,650
Speaker 1: be different from now on. It never was. All he

368
00:29:58,770 --> 00:30:01,210
Speaker 1: seemed to want was the wife to do his ironing.

369
00:30:04,970 --> 00:30:08,610
Speaker 1: Nearly half a century after Shepherd went off the airwaves,

370
00:30:09,450 --> 00:30:14,610
Speaker 1: some recordings of his shows remain. To be honest, it's

371
00:30:14,970 --> 00:30:21,050
Speaker 1: not always easy to reconstruct his appeal Like an hero

372
00:30:21,690 --> 00:30:27,010
Speaker 1: or over nine thousand. Shepherd's catchphrases seem to have taken

373
00:30:27,050 --> 00:30:30,130
Speaker 1: on such a life of their own that you probably

374
00:30:30,170 --> 00:30:37,410
Speaker 1: had to be there to get them, like this excelsior, Yes,

375
00:30:37,690 --> 00:30:40,970
Speaker 1: bad head. He was so fond of that one that

376
00:30:41,050 --> 00:30:46,130
Speaker 1: it became the title of his biography and Excelsior Press.

377
00:30:46,970 --> 00:30:50,730
Speaker 1: Any bookstore clerk who knew Shepherd would surely pick up

378
00:30:50,730 --> 00:30:56,730
Speaker 1: on the clue all this Flick Lives. Flick was a

379
00:30:56,850 --> 00:31:03,210
Speaker 1: character in Shepherd's meandering childhood stories. One night, Shepherd told

380
00:31:03,210 --> 00:31:05,690
Speaker 1: his fans, I'll.

381
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Speaker 2: Tell you what you want to do.

382
00:31:07,090 --> 00:31:10,370
Speaker 4: Just put wherever you can and the score John at

383
00:31:10,410 --> 00:31:14,530
Speaker 4: the bulletin board, and just one single line, just say

384
00:31:15,170 --> 00:31:16,370
Speaker 4: Flick lives.

385
00:31:16,730 --> 00:31:20,210
Speaker 8: That's all on those claire our heads on the subway,

386
00:31:20,250 --> 00:31:22,970
Speaker 8: you know, or it says holy her headdress, and those

387
00:31:23,570 --> 00:31:27,130
Speaker 8: you just right under there, Flick lives.

388
00:31:29,810 --> 00:31:32,610
Speaker 1: The point was simply to mess with the day people.

389
00:31:33,330 --> 00:31:37,890
Speaker 1: Shepherd's listeners would know why Flick Lives was suddenly everywhere.

390
00:31:38,810 --> 00:31:41,770
Speaker 1: The day people would be confused, and that would be

391
00:31:41,770 --> 00:31:47,850
Speaker 1: funny lulls. In his dead of night shows, Shepherd'd like

392
00:31:47,930 --> 00:31:52,970
Speaker 1: to do something he called hurling invective. He'd ask his

393
00:31:53,090 --> 00:31:57,210
Speaker 1: listeners to put their radio up against an open window

394
00:31:57,810 --> 00:32:02,250
Speaker 1: and whisper to them to turn the volume up up,

395
00:32:02,850 --> 00:32:08,010
Speaker 1: up all the way to maximum. Then he'd yell some

396
00:32:08,810 --> 00:32:11,330
Speaker 1: non sensical insult.

397
00:32:11,530 --> 00:32:14,210
Speaker 2: You balthy pregnantist, I'm gonna get you.

398
00:32:16,410 --> 00:32:20,210
Speaker 1: The point was simply to annoy the day people by

399
00:32:20,290 --> 00:32:26,810
Speaker 1: startling them awake lulls. Sometimes Shepherd would invite his listeners

400
00:32:26,850 --> 00:32:30,650
Speaker 1: to hold a mill, which meant turning up at a

401
00:32:30,650 --> 00:32:34,410
Speaker 1: certain place at a certain time and just milling around

402
00:32:34,450 --> 00:32:38,330
Speaker 1: for a while doing nothing. Hundreds turned up to these mills.

403
00:32:38,970 --> 00:32:42,370
Speaker 1: One venue Shepherd frequently chose for a mill was a

404
00:32:42,650 --> 00:32:47,690
Speaker 1: gallery cafe. The owner later said, I dreaded it. The

405
00:32:47,810 --> 00:32:52,130
Speaker 1: waitresses dreaded it. All these young people would come, they

406
00:32:52,170 --> 00:32:56,490
Speaker 1: never ordered, they never left a tip, The regular customers

407
00:32:56,530 --> 00:33:01,650
Speaker 1: would stay away. The evening was just ruined. It's not

408
00:33:01,770 --> 00:33:06,090
Speaker 1: in the same league of awfulness as harassing the parents

409
00:33:06,130 --> 00:33:09,610
Speaker 1: of a kid who took his own life, but still

410
00:33:10,610 --> 00:33:15,650
Speaker 1: it's inconsiderate. Not that Shepherd cared. He liked the lulls.

411
00:33:17,210 --> 00:33:19,770
Speaker 1: When you look at I Libertine in the light of

412
00:33:19,890 --> 00:33:23,850
Speaker 1: Gene Shepherd's other work, it seems hard to imagine he

413
00:33:23,930 --> 00:33:27,530
Speaker 1: thought far beyond the lulls. The point was simply to

414
00:33:27,570 --> 00:33:31,010
Speaker 1: annoy and confuse the day people, to waste the time

415
00:33:31,050 --> 00:33:35,290
Speaker 1: of the bookshop clerks. What it ended up revealing was

416
00:33:35,410 --> 00:33:38,770
Speaker 1: just by accident. There's a lot to be said for

417
00:33:38,890 --> 00:33:45,610
Speaker 1: pranks that reveal. Like jenkom Over nine thousand penises or

418
00:33:46,250 --> 00:33:50,890
Speaker 1: I Libertine. But maybe it's harder than we might hope

419
00:33:51,370 --> 00:33:55,370
Speaker 1: to create the conditions for those pranks to emerge. With

420
00:33:55,490 --> 00:33:59,010
Speaker 1: both Gene Shepherd and four Chan, they seem to have

421
00:33:59,170 --> 00:34:04,170
Speaker 1: popped up by happy accident from a wider culture that's

422
00:34:04,210 --> 00:34:12,330
Speaker 1: mean and self absorbed. Soon after Whitney Phillips began to

423
00:34:12,410 --> 00:34:18,530
Speaker 1: study trolling subculture, that culture began to splinter. The anonymous

424
00:34:18,570 --> 00:34:25,570
Speaker 1: posters on four Chan were also collectively Anonymous capital A.

425
00:34:25,570 --> 00:34:30,130
Speaker 1: As four Chan became more and more popular, new posters

426
00:34:30,170 --> 00:34:34,690
Speaker 1: wanted anonymous not just to chase the lulls, but to

427
00:34:34,690 --> 00:34:39,730
Speaker 1: make a point. They began a campaign against scientology, prank

428
00:34:39,810 --> 00:34:44,690
Speaker 1: phone calls, denial of service attacks, gathering in person outside

429
00:34:44,730 --> 00:34:49,490
Speaker 1: branches of the church, and playing Rick Astley very loudly

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Speaker 1: on a loop. They embraced activism, supporting WikiLeaks, the Occupy movement,

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Speaker 1: and the Arab Spring. The old Hands were appalled. One

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00:35:01,890 --> 00:35:06,410
Speaker 1: complained to Whitney Phillips, Anonymous isn't supposed to represent anything.

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Speaker 1: We did stuff for lulls, not because we care what

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Speaker 1: happens in the world, but that Anon was disappearing, Phillips explained.

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00:35:18,610 --> 00:35:24,370
Speaker 5: As actavist Anon grew lolls. Anon receded, suggesting that the

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00:35:24,410 --> 00:35:28,610
Speaker 5: cultural landscape has room for only one anonymous at a time.

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00:35:30,130 --> 00:35:35,010
Speaker 1: Whitney Phillips had found two types of troll, reflecting two

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00:35:35,050 --> 00:35:40,810
Speaker 1: takes on etymology, the witless ogre and the bait dangling

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00:35:40,890 --> 00:35:46,890
Speaker 1: technique that took subtlety and guile. As Anon ditched the

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00:35:46,970 --> 00:35:52,890
Speaker 1: lulls for earnest political activism, the fishing variety understanding of

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00:35:53,050 --> 00:35:59,330
Speaker 1: trolling began to fade away. One troll reflected wistfully, the

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00:35:59,370 --> 00:36:04,770
Speaker 1: real trolls from way back when are done now. Trolling

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00:36:04,890 --> 00:36:08,090
Speaker 1: is just an all encompassing term for being an ars

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00:36:08,130 --> 00:36:16,810
Speaker 1: on the Internet. Jean Shepherd was onto something with his

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00:36:17,130 --> 00:36:23,010
Speaker 1: Credo of the Night People. His critique of creeping meat ballism,

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00:36:23,410 --> 00:36:29,570
Speaker 1: thoughtless conformity is just as relevant today, and irreverent humor

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00:36:29,850 --> 00:36:31,810
Speaker 1: is still the only antidote.

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00:36:32,930 --> 00:36:37,170
Speaker 2: Once a guy starts thinking, once a guy starts laughing

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00:36:37,490 --> 00:36:41,010
Speaker 2: at the things he once thought were very real, once

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00:36:41,050 --> 00:36:45,490
Speaker 2: he starts laughing at TV commercials. Once a guy starts

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00:36:45,570 --> 00:36:50,090
Speaker 2: doing that, he's making the transition from day people to

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00:36:50,290 --> 00:36:55,090
Speaker 2: night people. And once this happens, he can never go back.

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Speaker 1: But if you take nothing seriously, you throw out some

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00:37:00,930 --> 00:37:09,370
Speaker 1: things that are worth caring about, compassion, relationships. Shepherd himself

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00:37:09,570 --> 00:37:13,010
Speaker 1: never took much interest in his children. His son recalls,

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00:37:13,770 --> 00:37:19,050
Speaker 1: he was more interested in talking about himself. His daughter adds, my.

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00:37:19,130 --> 00:37:20,930
Speaker 5: Father was an ahole as a father.

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00:37:22,770 --> 00:37:28,210
Speaker 1: Shepherd left his wife and married an actress. That didn't

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00:37:28,290 --> 00:37:32,810
Speaker 1: last because his new wife's career took off and Shepherd

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00:37:32,810 --> 00:37:33,570
Speaker 1: couldn't cope.

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00:37:34,410 --> 00:37:37,690
Speaker 4: Don't ever get yourself into a situation where a woman's

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00:37:37,770 --> 00:37:39,330
Speaker 4: making more money than you are.

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00:37:40,690 --> 00:37:46,090
Speaker 1: Shepherd was a tremendously insecure guy, says someone who worked

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00:37:46,090 --> 00:37:52,770
Speaker 1: with him, very narcissistic. Even off Mike, he couldn't shut

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00:37:52,890 --> 00:37:57,490
Speaker 1: up about himself. He was a monomaniac, says another colleague.

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00:37:57,770 --> 00:38:03,130
Speaker 1: He was always on. Maybe Shepherd's problem was a lack

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00:38:03,210 --> 00:38:07,210
Speaker 1: of self awareness when he mocked the day people and

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00:38:07,370 --> 00:38:11,690
Speaker 1: the conventional way they viewed the world. An old boss

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00:38:11,730 --> 00:38:16,650
Speaker 1: recalls he would rail against the establishment, and yet he

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00:38:16,970 --> 00:38:23,170
Speaker 1: desperately wanted the acceptance of that establishment. Shepherd thought he

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00:38:23,250 --> 00:38:27,610
Speaker 1: never got the credit his genius deserved. The boss says

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00:38:29,050 --> 00:38:32,370
Speaker 1: many guys would have achieved his success and been really

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00:38:32,410 --> 00:38:38,810
Speaker 1: happy with it. Shepherd, like modern trolls, was all about

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00:38:38,850 --> 00:38:44,810
Speaker 1: the lulls, but his boss decided in the end that

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00:38:44,890 --> 00:38:51,170
Speaker 1: Shepherd was a deeply unhappy guy. Perhaps the same is

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00:38:51,250 --> 00:38:55,050
Speaker 1: true of people who choose to be an ass on

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00:38:55,130 --> 00:39:13,690
Speaker 1: the Internet. Key sources for this episode were Excelsior, You

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00:39:13,890 --> 00:39:18,410
Speaker 1: Fat Head by Eugene Berkman and This is Why We

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00:39:18,490 --> 00:39:25,050
Speaker 1: Can't Have Nice Things by Whitney Phillips. Cautionary Tales is

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00:39:25,090 --> 00:39:28,770
Speaker 1: written by me Tim Harford, with Andrew Wright, Alice Fines,

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00:39:29,010 --> 00:39:34,650
Speaker 1: and Ryan Dilly. It's produced by Georgia Mills and Marilyn Rust.

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00:39:34,690 --> 00:39:36,970
Speaker 1: The sound design and original music are the work of

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00:39:37,130 --> 00:39:43,970
Speaker 1: Pascal Wise. Benderdaff Haffrey edited the scripts. Cautionary Tales features

484
00:39:44,010 --> 00:39:48,610
Speaker 1: the voice talents of Genevieve Gaunt, Melanie Guttridge, Ed Gohm,

485
00:39:49,090 --> 00:39:54,530
Speaker 1: Stella Harford, Jamal Westman, and Rufus Wright. The show also

486
00:39:54,610 --> 00:39:57,610
Speaker 1: wouldn't have been possible without the work of Jacob Weisberg,

487
00:39:57,730 --> 00:40:03,810
Speaker 1: Greta Cohne, Corin Gilliard, Fisher, benderdaff Haffrey, Eric Sandler, Christina Sullivan,

488
00:40:04,170 --> 00:40:08,530
Speaker 1: Kira Posey, and Owen Miller. Cautionary Tales is a production

489
00:40:08,610 --> 00:40:12,770
Speaker 1: of Push Industries. If you like the show, please remember

490
00:40:13,050 --> 00:40:16,250
Speaker 1: to share, rate, and review it. Really does make a

491
00:40:16,250 --> 00:40:19,450
Speaker 1: difference to us, and if you want to hear it,

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00:40:19,810 --> 00:40:24,450
Speaker 1: add free and receive a bonus audio episode, video episode,

493
00:40:24,770 --> 00:40:28,570
Speaker 1: and members only newsletter every month, why not join the

494
00:40:28,650 --> 00:40:33,210
Speaker 1: Cautionary Club. To sign up, head to patreon dot com

495
00:40:33,250 --> 00:40:37,290
Speaker 1: slash Cautionary Club. That's Patreon, p A, t R, e

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00:40:37,410 --> 00:40:41,450
Speaker 1: o N dot com slash Cautionary Club