WEBVTT - Attack of the Night People 0:00:15.410 --> 0:00:26.250 Pushkin. This episode will discuss death by suicide. If you're 0:00:26.290 --> 0:00:30.850 suffering emotional distress or you're having suicidal thoughts, support is available, 0:00:31.170 --> 0:00:34.370 for example, from the nine to eight to eight Suicide 0:00:34.370 --> 0:00:37.970 and Crisis Lifeline in the US or from the Samaritans 0:00:38.210 --> 0:00:51.450 in the UK. New York City, nineteen fifty six, a 0:00:51.490 --> 0:00:54.930 young man goes into a bookstore and asks for a book, 0:00:56.330 --> 0:01:02.930 I Libertine by Frederick R. Ewing. The bookstore clerk checks 0:01:02.970 --> 0:01:07.050 their stock. It seems that they don't have a copyright now, 0:01:07.090 --> 0:01:10.970 but let's see if he can order one. He thumbs 0:01:11.050 --> 0:01:16.370 through the list of books available from the stores wholesalers. Strange, 0:01:17.010 --> 0:01:22.610 he can't see it anywhere. What's it called? I Libertine? 0:01:22.970 --> 0:01:26.410 The young man says, And who did you say was 0:01:26.450 --> 0:01:32.610 the author? Frederick R. Ewing. The clerk still can't find it. 0:01:33.570 --> 0:01:37.690 Do you happen to know the publisher? Sure, says the customer. 0:01:38.530 --> 0:01:43.290 Excels your Press. The clerk keeps looking through his lists. 0:01:44.410 --> 0:01:48.010 He can't see any mention of excels your Press. Are 0:01:48.010 --> 0:01:51.410 you sure that's the right name? The young man says 0:01:51.490 --> 0:01:56.450 he's sure. The bookstore clerk can only shrug in confusion. 0:01:57.490 --> 0:02:01.930 I'm sorry, he says, the book doesn't seem to exist. 0:02:03.450 --> 0:02:08.050 The young man thanks him and walks away, looking disappointed 0:02:08.930 --> 0:02:15.450 but also strangely amused. Later, another young customer approaches the clerk. 0:02:16.530 --> 0:02:20.650 I'm looking for a book, he says. It's called I 0:02:20.930 --> 0:02:27.530 Libertine by Frederick R. Ewing. Oh, says the clerk. Someone 0:02:27.570 --> 0:02:30.370 else asked about this. I looked for it and it 0:02:30.410 --> 0:02:36.170 doesn't exist. Sure it does, the customer insists, Freddie Ewing, 0:02:37.010 --> 0:02:41.730 you know, the noted expert on eighteenth century erotica. Haven't 0:02:41.730 --> 0:02:46.450 you heard his radio series on the BBC. The clerk 0:02:46.570 --> 0:02:52.450 decides to call his wholesaler. It's very odd, says the wholesaler. 0:02:53.450 --> 0:02:56.850 We've been getting lots of calls asking for I Libertine, 0:02:57.890 --> 0:03:01.050 but we never heard of it, or Frederick are Ewing 0:03:02.010 --> 0:03:08.410 or Excelsior Press. What on earth is going on? I'm 0:03:08.450 --> 0:03:36.610 Tim Harfer, and you're listening to cautionary tales. In the 0:03:36.610 --> 0:03:40.490 middle of the night, in a building in Carteret, New Jersey, 0:03:41.010 --> 0:03:44.210 a man in his mid thirties is talking into a 0:03:44.290 --> 0:03:48.290 microphone wearing nothing but fruit of the loom jockey shorts. 0:03:49.210 --> 0:03:54.210 It's stiflingly hot because also in this building is a 0:03:54.330 --> 0:04:00.850 fifty thousand watt radio transmitter and there's no ventilation. This 0:04:01.090 --> 0:04:04.330 is not what Jeene Shepherd had in mind when he 0:04:04.370 --> 0:04:07.730 moved to New York with his young family in tow 0:04:07.890 --> 0:04:11.290 to try to crack the big time. He'd been jobbing 0:04:11.290 --> 0:04:17.010 around various provincial radio stations, starting in his Indiana hometown. 0:04:18.210 --> 0:04:21.050 Next HG. Grubbage and the news. 0:04:22.130 --> 0:04:28.010 There's no HG. Grubbage. It's Shepherd playing the character of 0:04:28.090 --> 0:04:32.570 a self important newsreader and reading out odd little snippets 0:04:32.570 --> 0:04:36.570 he's seen in the newspaper, like the zookeeper whose paycheck 0:04:36.770 --> 0:04:39.370 was eaten by an elephant, or the man in the 0:04:39.370 --> 0:04:42.730 Canary Islands who tried to cross the Atlantic in a barrel. 0:04:43.530 --> 0:04:46.930 He sailed two yards and turned over twice. 0:04:47.490 --> 0:04:52.330 Two bystanders rescued him, then two medical attendants took him 0:04:52.450 --> 0:04:55.210 to the local psychiatric hospital. 0:04:56.330 --> 0:05:01.010 Shepherd collects these stories, not quite garbage, he calls them, 0:05:01.130 --> 0:05:06.690 but grubbage mostly though he doesn't read stuff out. He 0:05:06.810 --> 0:05:13.530 just talks and talks, no script, no notes. At WKRC 0:05:13.690 --> 0:05:18.130 in Cincinnati, he's fired for too much talking. It just 0:05:18.210 --> 0:05:20.770 wants someone to read out the ads from sponsors and 0:05:20.930 --> 0:05:25.010 tee up the records. He promises to play more music 0:05:25.050 --> 0:05:27.370 on his show, so they give him his job back, 0:05:28.050 --> 0:05:32.570 but he just keeps talking and talking, so they fire 0:05:32.610 --> 0:05:35.570 him again. He moves to Philadelphia. 0:05:37.010 --> 0:05:40.010 The purpose of my program is not to please, but 0:05:40.050 --> 0:05:43.570 to begin trains of thought. I realize that many things 0:05:43.570 --> 0:05:45.850 that I do might not be good listening. 0:05:47.650 --> 0:05:51.810 Shepherd's unusual approach piques the interest of a New York 0:05:51.930 --> 0:05:55.130 radio station, who try him out on a Saturday afternoon. 0:05:56.410 --> 0:06:00.090 In just a few months, he sheds so many listeners 0:06:00.130 --> 0:06:03.810 that they shunned him into the graveyard shift from one 0:06:03.850 --> 0:06:08.410 am to five thirty every weeknight, and because the New 0:06:08.490 --> 0:06:12.690 York studio closed overnight, he has to broadcast from the 0:06:12.730 --> 0:06:18.370 sweltering transmitter room in New Jersey wearing only his underpants. 0:06:21.690 --> 0:06:24.930 Shepherd doesn't mind. He's got four and a half hours 0:06:24.930 --> 0:06:29.090 to fill every night, a prospect that might be daunting 0:06:29.250 --> 0:06:35.170 for some broadcasters, but not for Shepherd. Finally, his thoughts 0:06:35.250 --> 0:06:36.970 have room to breathe for the. 0:06:36.930 --> 0:06:40.490 Guy hits a on the piano and I went Merigs, Schmedrigs, 0:06:40.850 --> 0:06:43.370 double Beat, Nicks, Papkins all agree a pin. 0:06:43.650 --> 0:06:47.690 In the words of his biographer Eugene Bergmann, these late 0:06:47.810 --> 0:06:54.930 night shows are a slow, casual free floating association of ideas, philosophy, 0:06:55.410 --> 0:07:00.650 and amused commentary. He tells long, meandering stories about his 0:07:00.810 --> 0:07:05.250 childhood and his time in the army. That is anyone 0:07:05.410 --> 0:07:11.170 actually listening. His bosses suspect not. They worry that Shepherd's 0:07:11.490 --> 0:07:16.410 not commercial. He hates playing music or reading out ads 0:07:16.410 --> 0:07:21.850 from sponsors. They threaten to fire him. Shepherd decides to 0:07:21.970 --> 0:07:22.690 fight back. 0:07:22.810 --> 0:07:25.290 All right, gang, let's show them that there are a 0:07:25.330 --> 0:07:28.410 few klutzes out there to listen to this drivel all night. 0:07:28.810 --> 0:07:31.210 All of you go to your grocery star tomorrow and 0:07:31.290 --> 0:07:32.890 ask for Sweetheart soap. 0:07:34.170 --> 0:07:38.170 The next day, stores in New York shift a surprising 0:07:38.210 --> 0:07:43.930 amount of Sweetheart soap. There's any one problem. Sweetheart Soap 0:07:44.610 --> 0:07:49.370 isn't actually a sponsor of the radio station. Shepherd chose 0:07:49.410 --> 0:07:52.210 it at random, just to make a point. He does 0:07:52.330 --> 0:07:57.250 have listeners, a lot of listeners, and they're devoted. In 0:07:57.330 --> 0:08:01.010 the dead of the New York night, Shepherd has found 0:08:01.170 --> 0:08:05.890 his audience. He starts to ruminate on who they are, 0:08:06.370 --> 0:08:08.370 these night people. 0:08:09.090 --> 0:08:11.810 I'm talking about people with that while tossing in the 0:08:11.890 --> 0:08:14.850 soul that somehow makes them stay up till three o'clock 0:08:14.850 --> 0:08:17.330 in the morning and brood. They might get up at 0:08:17.370 --> 0:08:19.810 seven the next morning and go to work, but that 0:08:19.890 --> 0:08:22.850 ain't That isn't what their life is about, not a 0:08:22.890 --> 0:08:23.370 bit of it. 0:08:25.010 --> 0:08:30.530 Shepherd also starts to philosophize about the day people. Their 0:08:30.570 --> 0:08:34.530 life is about work. They believe in the world of 0:08:34.570 --> 0:08:39.490 the office. He says, they believe in file cabinets. They're 0:08:39.490 --> 0:08:43.970 the people in sales meetings with the light of ecclesiastical 0:08:44.170 --> 0:08:48.290 fervor in their eyes. They believe in what they're selling. 0:08:49.450 --> 0:08:53.290 Shepherd diagnoses that the day people are suffering from a 0:08:53.370 --> 0:08:54.370 malaise he. 0:08:54.450 --> 0:08:57.730 Calls creeping meatballism. 0:08:57.890 --> 0:09:01.330 By which he means conformity. 0:09:02.130 --> 0:09:06.050 The average person the day thinks in certain prescribed patterns. 0:09:06.330 --> 0:09:09.290 People that they have a genuine fear of stepping out 0:09:09.370 --> 0:09:10.490 and thinking, and they're own. 0:09:12.210 --> 0:09:15.450 Take the latest model of refrigerator that has a clever 0:09:15.570 --> 0:09:19.370 design of door that enables it to open from either side. 0:09:20.370 --> 0:09:23.850 The day people think this kind of progress is great. 0:09:24.570 --> 0:09:27.690 By George, we really are getting ahead. 0:09:28.730 --> 0:09:32.410 The night people couldn't care less about which side their 0:09:32.490 --> 0:09:35.290 fridge door opens. All they want to know is. 0:09:35.850 --> 0:09:40.090 Does it keep the stuff cold? 0:09:40.130 --> 0:09:44.490 This is the nineteen fifties. Remember Shepherd was ahead of 0:09:44.530 --> 0:09:47.770 his time. What would he have thought of fridges that 0:09:47.850 --> 0:09:48.930 connect to the internet. 0:09:49.690 --> 0:09:50.730 He needs cheese. 0:09:52.890 --> 0:09:56.770 One day, Shepherd's in a New York bookstore trying to 0:09:56.770 --> 0:09:58.570 get a copy of a book he saw at a 0:09:58.610 --> 0:10:02.650 friend's house. The bookstore clerk looks through the lists of 0:10:02.730 --> 0:10:06.650 books he can get from wholesalers and inform Shepherd that 0:10:06.730 --> 0:10:11.610 the book doesn't exist. But Shepherd knows the book exists, 0:10:12.210 --> 0:10:13.010 He's seen it. 0:10:13.690 --> 0:10:17.170 I suddenly became aware that New York is almost entirely 0:10:17.490 --> 0:10:20.610 a city that really does run on lists. 0:10:22.210 --> 0:10:25.810 The day people believe in lists. If a book's on 0:10:25.890 --> 0:10:28.770 a bestseller list, it must be good. If it's not 0:10:28.810 --> 0:10:32.170 on any list at all, it not only can't be good, 0:10:32.690 --> 0:10:37.530 it can't exist. Shepherd wants to mess with the belief 0:10:37.610 --> 0:10:38.330 in lists. 0:10:38.930 --> 0:10:41.650 What do you say tomorrow morning, each one of us 0:10:41.890 --> 0:10:45.010 walk into a bookstore and ask for a book that 0:10:45.130 --> 0:10:47.290 we know does not exist. 0:10:48.610 --> 0:10:52.690 Shepherd asks his listeners to suggest a title. He chooses 0:10:53.370 --> 0:10:58.450 I Libertine and makes up the author's bio on the fly. 0:10:59.330 --> 0:11:05.290 Frederick R. Ewing, an expert in eighteenth century erotica who's 0:11:05.730 --> 0:11:08.930 retired from the Royal Navy and broadcasts on the BB 0:11:09.250 --> 0:11:14.490 see I Libertine is going to be an explicit account 0:11:14.490 --> 0:11:19.450 of the salacious sex lives of eighteenth century London aristocrats. 0:11:20.370 --> 0:11:23.850 And by the way, mister Ewing is quite surprised at 0:11:23.890 --> 0:11:26.970 the success his book is enjoying, since it was written 0:11:27.010 --> 0:11:32.530 primarily for scholars people who want misunderstand that Satain chapters 0:11:32.570 --> 0:11:35.930 are there for the purpose of scholarly research. 0:11:38.530 --> 0:11:41.930 Listeners write in to tell Shepherd what happened when they 0:11:41.970 --> 0:11:46.090 went into stores to ask for the book. One reports 0:11:46.130 --> 0:11:50.370 a deliciously satisfying encounter with the puffed up clerk at 0:11:50.370 --> 0:11:54.690 his local bookstore who always has an opinion on every book. 0:11:55.410 --> 0:12:00.890 When the listener mentions I Libertine, the clerk knowingly strokes 0:12:00.930 --> 0:12:07.410 his beard. Ah, yes, Freddie Ewing, It's about time the 0:12:07.450 --> 0:12:14.570 public discovered him. A student tells Shepherd that he turned 0:12:14.570 --> 0:12:19.010 in an essay on I Libertine augmented with quotes from 0:12:19.170 --> 0:12:25.050 Ewing's BBC broadcasts. He got a B plus superb research. 0:12:26.370 --> 0:12:30.850 Another listener says he flagged I Libertine to the Archdiocese 0:12:30.850 --> 0:12:36.090 of Boston and got them to ban it. It seems 0:12:36.290 --> 0:12:42.010 like a perfectly judged prank, funny and harmless, but there's 0:12:42.050 --> 0:12:46.490 another angle on the story of I Libertine, which shows 0:12:46.530 --> 0:12:51.810 it in a different light, will pick up Gene Shepherd's story, 0:12:52.810 --> 0:12:58.130 but first let's meet his modern heirs after the break. 0:13:09.690 --> 0:13:14.090 In two thousand and seven, a post on the anonymous 0:13:14.130 --> 0:13:19.850 online message board four chan suggested that users send an 0:13:19.890 --> 0:13:25.810 email to the principle of their local high school. Yesterday afternoon, 0:13:25.930 --> 0:13:29.130 I came home early to find my son and his 0:13:29.250 --> 0:13:35.290 friends getting high on something they called jencom. They urinate 0:13:35.530 --> 0:13:39.650 and defecate in plastic bottles and leave them to ferment 0:13:39.770 --> 0:13:45.650 in the sun, then inhale the resulting gas. Surely not, 0:13:47.130 --> 0:13:50.450 but the email continues. I looked it up on the 0:13:50.450 --> 0:13:55.410 Internet and apparently this was something invented by African children. 0:13:56.690 --> 0:14:04.330 That's actually true. Kind of years earlier, in the nineteen nineties, 0:14:05.170 --> 0:14:09.370 a press agency in Zambia had reported on how how 0:14:09.410 --> 0:14:14.850 tough life was for impoverished street children. Some were seeking 0:14:14.890 --> 0:14:19.450 a temporary escape by getting high on gases from human 0:14:19.530 --> 0:14:24.330 waste that had fermented in sewer ponds. The New York 0:14:24.410 --> 0:14:29.250 Times and BBC picked up the report and included the 0:14:29.290 --> 0:14:35.850 local term for that fermented sewer water, jencom. So if 0:14:35.850 --> 0:14:40.650 an unsuspecting high school principle went to Google and typed 0:14:40.690 --> 0:14:45.370 in jencom, they would find the top results did indeed 0:14:45.490 --> 0:14:50.690 mention African children, and they came from respected news organizations 0:14:51.570 --> 0:14:56.490 that made the emails seem superficially plausible, though what it 0:14:56.650 --> 0:15:02.210 said next about jencom wasn't true at all. Now kids 0:15:02.410 --> 0:15:05.570 all over the world are doing it. My son says 0:15:05.650 --> 0:15:09.690 most of his friends at school have tried it. You 0:15:09.730 --> 0:15:13.770 would hope that most high school principals who received this 0:15:13.890 --> 0:15:17.890 email will have engaged their brains, done a bit of digging, 0:15:18.170 --> 0:15:22.810 and concluded that it was clearly a hoax. Most of 0:15:22.850 --> 0:15:28.330 their students were not fermenting their own excrement in plastic bottles. 0:15:29.490 --> 0:15:32.250 But there are always people who are ready to panic 0:15:32.490 --> 0:15:36.690 about what the kids are up to. A sheriff's office 0:15:36.730 --> 0:15:41.170 in Florida sent out a warning, complete with photos they'd 0:15:41.210 --> 0:15:44.690 found on the Internet of a teen inhaling from a 0:15:44.730 --> 0:15:50.450 plastic bottle. Someone had made jencom as a joke from 0:15:50.690 --> 0:15:57.410 flower Water and Natella. Local news stations picked up the story. 0:15:58.610 --> 0:16:02.090 Cops are calling it jenkam or the human waste drug, 0:16:02.170 --> 0:16:05.370 but parents need to be aware that kids are calling 0:16:05.450 --> 0:16:08.610 it by the more popular slang term butt hash. 0:16:11.010 --> 0:16:15.570 How could concerned parents tell if their teenager is inhaling 0:16:15.810 --> 0:16:20.770 butt hash. One news reporter earnestly advised parents to smell 0:16:20.890 --> 0:16:25.010 their children's breath at bedtime. Another asked for action from 0:16:25.050 --> 0:16:29.730 the US Drugs Enforcement Agency. An amused agent explained that 0:16:29.890 --> 0:16:33.610 it was hard for the government to regulate people's urine 0:16:33.610 --> 0:16:39.410 and feces. This all caused much hilarity for the anonymous 0:16:39.490 --> 0:16:44.410 users of four chan. As Around this time, the academic 0:16:44.530 --> 0:16:48.210 Whitney Phillips found out about four chan from her eighteen 0:16:48.290 --> 0:16:52.330 year old brother. Check it out. He told her, you'll 0:16:52.410 --> 0:16:56.410 like it. Phillips checked it out and was horrified. 0:16:57.370 --> 0:17:01.810 She recalls there was so much porn and gore, so 0:17:02.010 --> 0:17:06.210 much offensive, antagonistic humor, and general foulness. 0:17:06.810 --> 0:17:09.610 It was also confusing with its own lang language and 0:17:09.770 --> 0:17:14.930 evident in jokes. Why were people saying a hero, for example, 0:17:15.850 --> 0:17:19.930 I'll come back to that. Phillips sense that whatever was 0:17:19.970 --> 0:17:24.370 happening on four chan was interesting enough to study. She 0:17:24.450 --> 0:17:29.890 did a PhD on trolling subculture. The anonymous posters on 0:17:30.010 --> 0:17:35.130 four chan self identified as trolls, but what did the 0:17:35.170 --> 0:17:41.170 word even mean? Phillips soon discovered that there were two etymologies. 0:17:42.410 --> 0:17:47.650 For some The troll comes from Norse mythology, trolls are ugly, 0:17:47.810 --> 0:17:52.370 malevolent and stupid. They live under bridges and threatened to 0:17:52.410 --> 0:17:59.650 eat the billy goat's gruff that others insisted that trolling 0:17:59.770 --> 0:18:04.010 is a fishing term. It means dangling bait behind a 0:18:04.010 --> 0:18:09.610 fishing boat. In this sense, trolling is a skilled suit. 0:18:10.730 --> 0:18:15.010 The metaphor of dangling bait certainly seems like a better 0:18:15.170 --> 0:18:20.250 fit for the jencum email, which got several satisfying bites 0:18:21.090 --> 0:18:27.210 from school principles and local news reports. When Phillips asked 0:18:27.250 --> 0:18:31.010 the four Chan trolls what makes a troll, they told 0:18:31.050 --> 0:18:37.650 her trolls believe that nothing should be taken seriously. When 0:18:37.650 --> 0:18:40.170 she asked them what they got out of trolling, they 0:18:40.210 --> 0:18:47.530 said lolls. Lolls, says Phillips, is an extremely slippery term. 0:18:47.810 --> 0:18:50.610 Trolls themselves struggle to explain it. 0:18:51.890 --> 0:18:54.410 You know it when you see it was the most 0:18:54.410 --> 0:18:57.250 common definition I heard when conducting interviews. 0:18:58.490 --> 0:19:01.930 But Phillips has a go at defining lolls. 0:19:02.970 --> 0:19:06.490 A kind of ambiguous, unsympathetic laughter. 0:19:08.370 --> 0:19:12.370 Pant. More and more time getting to know the kind 0:19:12.410 --> 0:19:16.090 of people who post on four chan. What she found 0:19:16.170 --> 0:19:19.130 reflected the split between these two etymologies. 0:19:20.690 --> 0:19:25.730 Some trolls are remarkably reflective and intelligent, and some are 0:19:26.650 --> 0:19:27.450 remarkably not. 0:19:28.570 --> 0:19:34.610 Phillips began to understand the language and the iconography. She realized, I. 0:19:34.690 --> 0:19:39.170 Found certain forms of trolling funny, interesting, and in some 0:19:39.250 --> 0:19:40.650 cases justifiable. 0:19:42.010 --> 0:19:46.530 Rick rolling, for example, came from four chan, the practice 0:19:46.610 --> 0:19:51.010 of disguising links so you end up unexpectedly. At the 0:19:51.090 --> 0:19:55.050 YouTube video of Rick Astley singing never going to give 0:19:55.210 --> 0:19:59.890 you up, Never going to let you down, a well 0:19:59.970 --> 0:20:04.290 executed rick roll makes a point. We're tempted to click 0:20:04.290 --> 0:20:08.530 on a link against our better judgment, and Astley is 0:20:08.570 --> 0:20:15.130 our chain reward. Why Rick Astley, It's just one of 0:20:15.170 --> 0:20:21.410 those random things that caught on Like over nine thousand, 0:20:22.490 --> 0:20:28.250 originally from a melodramatically delivered and mistranslated English dub of 0:20:28.290 --> 0:20:31.250 the Japanese anime Dragon Ball. 0:20:31.170 --> 0:20:33.330 Z, It's over nine thousand. 0:20:35.090 --> 0:20:38.890 Over nine thousand took on a life of its own 0:20:38.970 --> 0:20:43.090 on four Chan as the default joke answer to any 0:20:43.210 --> 0:20:49.090 numeric question. Anyone familiar with troll subculture would immediately recognize 0:20:49.610 --> 0:20:57.330 over nine thousand. Oprah Winfrey was not familiar with troll subculture. 0:20:58.210 --> 0:21:01.890 In two thousand and eight, she was discussing peterophilia on 0:21:01.930 --> 0:21:07.370 her show, some people still weren't understanding the threat to children. 0:21:07.570 --> 0:21:10.490 She said, let me do something that was posted on 0:21:10.530 --> 0:21:12.850 our message boards from someone who claims to be a 0:21:12.850 --> 0:21:15.050 member of a known pedophile network. 0:21:15.290 --> 0:21:17.170 Are you sure about this, Oprah? 0:21:17.250 --> 0:21:20.570 His group has over nine thousand penises and they're all 0:21:20.650 --> 0:21:25.130 raping children. So I want you to know they're organized 0:21:25.170 --> 0:21:27.970 and they have systematic ways of hurting children. 0:21:29.570 --> 0:21:35.490 Over nine thousand penises became a four Chan classic, an 0:21:35.530 --> 0:21:41.410 absurdist in joke, offensive subject matter, but it also made 0:21:41.410 --> 0:21:46.690 a worthwhile point. It showed that Oprah could take some random, 0:21:46.890 --> 0:21:50.370 anonymous post on her message board and imbue it with 0:21:50.570 --> 0:21:56.210 authority as long as it fit her sensationless narrative. The 0:21:56.250 --> 0:22:00.890 researcher Whitney Phillips concludes that this kind of trolling performs 0:22:00.930 --> 0:22:05.410 a useful social function. As she writes in her book, 0:22:06.050 --> 0:22:08.570 this is why we can't have nice things. 0:22:09.250 --> 0:22:14.370 Trolls on earth the biases, hypocrisies, and deep inconsistencies that 0:22:14.490 --> 0:22:16.490 compose mainstream culture. 0:22:17.290 --> 0:22:25.930 Or put another way, trolls reveal it all sounds very 0:22:26.010 --> 0:22:30.810 much like Gene Shepherd's Night. People asking bookstores for a 0:22:30.850 --> 0:22:36.450 book they know doesn't exist. The prank revealed that some 0:22:37.010 --> 0:22:41.210 archdioceses might ban a non existent book if the title 0:22:41.290 --> 0:22:46.010 sounds a bit risque that some teachers will call research 0:22:46.450 --> 0:22:50.330 superb if it reads plausibly like it might have been 0:22:50.370 --> 0:22:55.290 superb if only the subject were real. The student who 0:22:55.330 --> 0:22:58.530 got a B plus for his essay on Frederick R. 0:22:58.650 --> 0:23:04.010 Ewing wrote to Shepherd, my whole education is probably phony. 0:23:05.050 --> 0:23:10.010 Shepherd kept up the joke for weeksjournalist who was in 0:23:10.050 --> 0:23:13.730 on it casually mentioned in his column had lunch with 0:23:13.890 --> 0:23:18.730 Freddie Ewing. Today, a listener reported that three players at 0:23:18.730 --> 0:23:23.570 a bridge party had earnestly discussed I Libertine and concluded 0:23:23.970 --> 0:23:28.890 they didn't like it. The prank revealed when people were 0:23:28.930 --> 0:23:31.450 willing to bluff an opinion about a book that was 0:23:31.490 --> 0:23:35.490 getting bars, rather than admit that they didn't know a thing. 0:23:37.250 --> 0:23:41.770 Then a publisher who was in on the joke wrote 0:23:41.810 --> 0:23:48.730 to Shepherd with a proposal, how about writing I Libertine 0:23:49.330 --> 0:23:54.770 for real? Cautionary tales will be back in a moment. 0:24:02.850 --> 0:24:06.730 When Whitney Phillips began to study four chan in two 0:24:06.770 --> 0:24:12.810 thousand and seven, the commonly used phrase a hero was 0:24:12.850 --> 0:24:17.570 one that confused her, as she discovered it traced back 0:24:17.650 --> 0:24:21.490 to a teenager who'd killed himself in two thousand and six. 0:24:22.850 --> 0:24:25.850 One of the boy's friends had posted on an online 0:24:25.930 --> 0:24:30.890 memorial page a poem mourning his loss. The poem was 0:24:31.130 --> 0:24:37.170 heartfelt but terribly written. He was such an hero to 0:24:37.250 --> 0:24:41.690 take it all away. We miss him so that you 0:24:41.770 --> 0:24:47.810 should know. It goes on with three more mentions of 0:24:48.650 --> 0:24:55.650 an hero and loving him like an brother. Someone posted 0:24:55.690 --> 0:24:59.770 the poem to four chan, where it became one of 0:24:59.810 --> 0:25:06.090 those random things that caught on. That's comprehensible. It is, 0:25:06.130 --> 0:25:11.770 after all, an terrible poem, But what happened next was 0:25:12.250 --> 0:25:17.290 truly awful. Trolls on four Chan tracked down the address 0:25:17.370 --> 0:25:20.330 of the boy who had killed himself and published his parents' 0:25:20.410 --> 0:25:26.130 phone number. The parents got prank calls, kids turned up 0:25:26.130 --> 0:25:29.290 at the boy's grave to take photos to post on 0:25:29.490 --> 0:25:34.490 four Chan. There's no worthwhile point to redeem any of this, 0:25:35.730 --> 0:25:37.210 As Whitney Phillips puts it. 0:25:37.610 --> 0:25:41.370 The trolls were either disinterested in or outright blind to 0:25:41.570 --> 0:25:47.330 the ways in which their mockery exacerbated an already traumatizing experience. 0:25:50.890 --> 0:25:54.370 The trolls of four Chan had told Whitney Phillips that 0:25:54.410 --> 0:25:58.570 they didn't take anything seriously. They were in it for 0:25:58.650 --> 0:26:03.930 the lulls. Sometimes it's true they happened to make a 0:26:03.970 --> 0:26:10.090 point while annoying or confusing or offending people, like showing 0:26:10.210 --> 0:26:12.970 up the gullibility of media when it comes to raising 0:26:13.090 --> 0:26:18.930 fears about drugs and pedophiles. But making a point wasn't 0:26:18.930 --> 0:26:23.850 the point. The lulls was the point. Whatever they revealed 0:26:24.530 --> 0:26:30.050 was just by accident. When a publisher approached Gene Shephard 0:26:30.050 --> 0:26:35.930 to write I Libertine for real, he agreed that have 0:26:36.050 --> 0:26:38.650 to rush it out while the buzz was still buzzing. 0:26:39.170 --> 0:26:42.850 So Shepherd quickly sketched an outline, and they drafted in 0:26:42.890 --> 0:26:47.650 the prolific sci fi writer Theodore Sturgeon to bash out 0:26:47.650 --> 0:26:53.730 the prose against a tight deadline. When Sturgeon fell asleep 0:26:53.770 --> 0:26:57.650 at his typewriter with only one chapter to go, the 0:26:57.690 --> 0:27:02.410 publisher's wife stepped in to finish it off. None of 0:27:02.410 --> 0:27:14.170 this sounds very promising, nor does the blurb turbulent, turgid, tempestuous. 0:27:14.930 --> 0:27:19.810 I Libertine is long out of print. But I was curious, 0:27:20.530 --> 0:27:25.690 and Oxford University's Bodily and Library has almost every book 0:27:25.970 --> 0:27:31.570 ever published in English? Did it have I Libertine, but 0:27:31.690 --> 0:27:37.530 of course in hardback and paperback editions. I requested it 0:27:37.770 --> 0:27:43.130 for the purpose of scholarly research. On the paperback cover, 0:27:44.450 --> 0:27:49.490 a dungeon, a swashbuckling hero in a tricorn hat, a 0:27:49.530 --> 0:27:57.090 woman in chains dress, ripped eyes, closed lips, sensually parted. 0:27:59.210 --> 0:28:05.530 Let's check out the pros, shall we? What happened? What happened? 0:28:05.970 --> 0:28:10.130 It was a tease, a small thing and nothing, a passatiempe, 0:28:10.570 --> 0:28:13.010 and she closing her eyes and her lips to show 0:28:13.090 --> 0:28:18.570 him some childish something in this blaze, this confiscation, arms 0:28:18.610 --> 0:28:27.410 full of mouthful of break, burst, spill, crash, silence. It's 0:28:27.450 --> 0:28:32.130 no mystery why I Libertine is out of print. What 0:28:32.330 --> 0:28:35.610 is a mystery is why Gene Shepherd thought this was 0:28:35.650 --> 0:28:39.490 a good idea. Getting people to talk about a non 0:28:39.530 --> 0:28:46.090 existent book was very funny and revealing. Actually, then to 0:28:46.290 --> 0:28:50.370 publish a book that's just shlock doesn't seem that funny 0:28:50.810 --> 0:28:56.130 or clever or revealing of anything, except perhaps that Gene 0:28:56.130 --> 0:29:02.010 Shepherd hadn't really understood why his own joke worked. So 0:29:03.170 --> 0:29:07.170 was I Libertine really as perfectly judged a prank as 0:29:07.210 --> 0:29:12.450 it seemed. Let's look again from another angle. 0:29:14.050 --> 0:29:18.250 Double Beatnicks, Pompkins, all agreed a pinch, and all these 0:29:18.290 --> 0:29:21.250 guys were sitting and they're looking at me and Jean. 0:29:21.330 --> 0:29:26.450 Shepherd's free floating late night shows won him some lifelong fans. 0:29:27.410 --> 0:29:31.770 One likens him to a jazz musician with words. Another 0:29:31.850 --> 0:29:36.410 recalls he made literature fresh, right in front of your eyes, 0:29:36.770 --> 0:29:39.930 like a guy making pizza in the window of a restaurant. 0:29:40.290 --> 0:29:43.890 While Shepherd wove his spell by night, he spent his 0:29:44.050 --> 0:29:47.810 days with a mistress. He'd come home to his wife 0:29:47.930 --> 0:29:51.890 now and then. His son recalls he'd talk his way 0:29:51.930 --> 0:29:53.730 back in with a line how it was going to 0:29:53.730 --> 0:29:58.650 be different from now on. It never was. All he 0:29:58.770 --> 0:30:01.210 seemed to want was the wife to do his ironing. 0:30:04.970 --> 0:30:08.610 Nearly half a century after Shepherd went off the airwaves, 0:30:09.450 --> 0:30:14.610 some recordings of his shows remain. To be honest, it's 0:30:14.970 --> 0:30:21.050 not always easy to reconstruct his appeal Like an hero 0:30:21.690 --> 0:30:27.010 or over nine thousand. Shepherd's catchphrases seem to have taken 0:30:27.050 --> 0:30:30.130 on such a life of their own that you probably 0:30:30.170 --> 0:30:37.410 had to be there to get them, like this excelsior, Yes, 0:30:37.690 --> 0:30:40.970 bad head. He was so fond of that one that 0:30:41.050 --> 0:30:46.130 it became the title of his biography and Excelsior Press. 0:30:46.970 --> 0:30:50.730 Any bookstore clerk who knew Shepherd would surely pick up 0:30:50.730 --> 0:30:56.730 on the clue all this Flick Lives. Flick was a 0:30:56.850 --> 0:31:03.210 character in Shepherd's meandering childhood stories. One night, Shepherd told 0:31:03.210 --> 0:31:05.690 his fans, I'll. 0:31:05.490 --> 0:31:06.530 Tell you what you want to do. 0:31:07.090 --> 0:31:10.370 Just put wherever you can and the score John at 0:31:10.410 --> 0:31:14.530 the bulletin board, and just one single line, just say 0:31:15.170 --> 0:31:16.370 Flick lives. 0:31:16.730 --> 0:31:20.210 That's all on those claire our heads on the subway, 0:31:20.250 --> 0:31:22.970 you know, or it says holy her headdress, and those 0:31:23.570 --> 0:31:27.130 you just right under there, Flick lives. 0:31:29.810 --> 0:31:32.610 The point was simply to mess with the day people. 0:31:33.330 --> 0:31:37.890 Shepherd's listeners would know why Flick Lives was suddenly everywhere. 0:31:38.810 --> 0:31:41.770 The day people would be confused, and that would be 0:31:41.770 --> 0:31:47.850 funny lulls. In his dead of night shows, Shepherd'd like 0:31:47.930 --> 0:31:52.970 to do something he called hurling invective. He'd ask his 0:31:53.090 --> 0:31:57.210 listeners to put their radio up against an open window 0:31:57.810 --> 0:32:02.250 and whisper to them to turn the volume up up, 0:32:02.850 --> 0:32:08.010 up all the way to maximum. Then he'd yell some 0:32:08.810 --> 0:32:11.330 non sensical insult. 0:32:11.530 --> 0:32:14.210 You balthy pregnantist, I'm gonna get you. 0:32:16.410 --> 0:32:20.210 The point was simply to annoy the day people by 0:32:20.290 --> 0:32:26.810 startling them awake lulls. Sometimes Shepherd would invite his listeners 0:32:26.850 --> 0:32:30.650 to hold a mill, which meant turning up at a 0:32:30.650 --> 0:32:34.410