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Speaker 1: Welcome to Invention, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey

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Speaker 1: you welcome to Invention. My name is Robert lamp and

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Speaker 1: I'm Joe McCormick. And Robert, I've got a question for you.

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Speaker 1: In what way are humans most like cats? Oh? I

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Speaker 1: don't know, Joe, in what way are humans most like cats? Well,

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Speaker 1: I'll answer the riddle myself then, since you thought it

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Speaker 1: was a joke, No, it's not a joke. No, it's

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Speaker 1: that both actually love packaging material of like gifts and

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Speaker 1: packages more than what's inside it. Because with the cats,

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Speaker 1: you know, like if you ever had a cat on

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Speaker 1: Christmas Day when presents are being open, of course you have. Uh.

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Speaker 1: I don't know if this is your experience and my experience,

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Speaker 1: they always want to get in the wrapping paper and

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Speaker 1: go to war with But with us humans, it's not

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Speaker 1: the wrapping paper. It's that darn bubble wrap. That stuff

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Speaker 1: is so intoxicating, the tactile pleasure of it, the gentle

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Speaker 1: popping sounds. It's like it's a drug from another universe. Well, um,

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Speaker 1: first of all, on on the cat issue, yes, I

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Speaker 1: can definitely testify that cats love packaging material. Uh, they

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Speaker 1: also really love or at least. My cat really loves

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Speaker 1: uh instruction manuals for the assembly of furniture, um like

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Speaker 1: Ikea manuals and kind of like Ikea manual or like

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Speaker 1: a Lego instruction book. When you start, when you pull

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Speaker 1: everything out of the box, that's right where she goes.

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Speaker 1: If you have the most comfortable couch in the world,

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Speaker 1: and then there is an Ikea instruction manual somewhere on

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Speaker 1: that couch, it's the instruction manual that she will lay on. Well,

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Speaker 1: I wonder if that's part of the larger trend of

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Speaker 1: cats always wanting to be between you and what you're doing,

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Speaker 1: and how they don't want your attention until you're really

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Speaker 1: trying to focus on something else and then they need

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Speaker 1: to get on top of that thing and in your

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Speaker 1: face possibly. And of course they love boxes and all

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Speaker 1: I understand because they are you know that they're they're

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Speaker 1: both predator and prey and uh and so they you know,

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Speaker 1: they want little places to hide out in to hide

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Speaker 1: from predators, but also you know, places of ambush for

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Speaker 1: the things that they would be hunting. Do you have

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Speaker 1: this memory when you were a little kid of like

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Speaker 1: the early early years of playing with bubble wrap and

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Speaker 1: just the intense fixation with popping every single bubble on

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Speaker 1: the sheet. Yeah. I mean I don't remember necessarily like

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Speaker 1: the feeling like I had to pop every bubble, but

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Speaker 1: I remember like this vague sense of almost disappointment at

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Speaker 1: having completely popped all of the bubbles and there being

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Speaker 1: something like fresh and exciting about a complete unpopped sheet

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Speaker 1: of bubble wrap. So yeah, I have some fond memories

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Speaker 1: of it. And as you know, as as a former child,

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Speaker 1: but also as the parent of a current child, especially

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Speaker 1: when he was younger, you know, we would we get

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Speaker 1: some bubble wrap. You give him some bubble wrap and

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Speaker 1: just just tell him here and go for it, and

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Speaker 1: he would have fun popping it. Um. It's better than

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Speaker 1: any twenty toy, It's yeah, yeah, Core. As as we'll discuss,

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Speaker 1: we see less full on bubble wrap these days, we

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Speaker 1: see in another type of of packing material that is

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Speaker 1: plastic inflated with air. We still get a decent amount

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Speaker 1: of bubble wrap here in the office because we often

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Speaker 1: get books delivered to us in the office in those

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Speaker 1: bubble wrap lined envelopes. Oh yeah, I guess we do, um,

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Speaker 1: which is always kind of silly because I don't, especially

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Speaker 1: if it's a you know, a review copy book. He

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Speaker 1: broke my book, and I don't. I don't mind if

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Speaker 1: it gets beat up a little bit. I mean, especially

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Speaker 1: since outside of work, when I order a book for myself,

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Speaker 1: I always order like the whatever the cheapest used copy is,

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Speaker 1: so you know, I get something in that has like

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Speaker 1: a weird odor to it and coffee stains. I love

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Speaker 1: And yeah, I love it when when a book has

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Speaker 1: been you know, the various package of passages that are

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Speaker 1: underlined and highlighted and little notes at it in summaries. Um. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so I really don't care if it is you know,

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Speaker 1: if it is you know, completely protected from the you know,

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Speaker 1: the physical dangers of transit. But but yeah, we still

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Speaker 1: so we still get a lot of of bubble wrap

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Speaker 1: like material. In fact, we get so much that it

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Speaker 1: can be a little you know, overbearing at times. Um,

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Speaker 1: I feel like once a week I have I'm like

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Speaker 1: a you know, an executioner in my house going around

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Speaker 1: to the various inflatable bits and just stabbing them all

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Speaker 1: to get the air out so I can stuff the

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Speaker 1: plastic in the and the recycling and then a similar

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Speaker 1: case with freezer bags for for food that is shipped,

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Speaker 1: you know, having to to gut those and get all

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Speaker 1: of the the the the the unfrozen material out of

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Speaker 1: there so I can stuff those plastic bags into the recycling.

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Speaker 1: I totally know what you're saying. My childhood fascination with

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Speaker 1: and love of bubble wrap has in many ways been

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Speaker 1: replaced by an adult guilt complex about packaging materials. I

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Speaker 1: feel like, oh, this probably isn't good for the planet.

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Speaker 1: I've gotten too much stuff shipped to my house and

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Speaker 1: and I don't know what to do about it. Now

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Speaker 1: it's here, I guess I just gotta pop this and

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Speaker 1: try to recycle it if I can. Yeah, So, on

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Speaker 1: today's episode, as as you can can tell, we're going

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Speaker 1: to discuss bubble wrap. And before you turn off and

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Speaker 1: say like, I don't you know that sounds dreary, No, No,

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Speaker 1: it actually has a surprising origin story which we'll get into,

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Speaker 1: and we'll discuss what came before bubble wrap, and and

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Speaker 1: where we've gone, where we're going post bubble wrap, and

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Speaker 1: what that sort of future holds for us. All right, well,

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Speaker 1: maybe we should go straight to the origin story. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and this is a more recent invention. So this is

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Speaker 1: not going to be one where you know the the

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Speaker 1: inventors are lost to the myths of prehistory. No we

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Speaker 1: know their names. So the story of bubble wrap begins

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Speaker 1: in the nineteen fifties with a pair of business partners.

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Speaker 1: Now these were an American inventor named Alfred W. Fielding

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Speaker 1: and a Swiss chemist named Mark Chavon. Now, Fielding and

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Speaker 1: Chevon were playing around with an idea for an innovation

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Speaker 1: in interior decorating, not in packaging material, not in childhood entertainment,

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Speaker 1: but in interior decor. They wanted to explore new frontiers

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Speaker 1: in wall paper. Now, wallpaper has gone in and out

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Speaker 1: of style over the course of the twentieth century, and

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Speaker 1: actually has gone in and out of style. I guess

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Speaker 1: before then is it in right now? I feel like

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Speaker 1: it's a little bit and I I didn't know. I

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Speaker 1: feel like these days, the modern sensibility, it tends to

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Speaker 1: be more sort of like solid painted muter color walls.

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Speaker 1: But I don't know, maybe it's coming back. I don't

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Speaker 1: know that much about interior design. I feel like I

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Speaker 1: I've been encountering it more like when when I go to, say,

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Speaker 1: like a new restaurant or something you know where there's

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Speaker 1: clearly been a lot of recent energy put into the decor.

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Speaker 1: I will sometimes find wallpaper and I'll think, oh, my goodness,

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Speaker 1: this is this is a sign of things to come.

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Speaker 1: I don't know, well, it used to be more of

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Speaker 1: a sign of luxury and interior decorating, but then it

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Speaker 1: became cheaper and more popular in the twentieth century, appearing

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Speaker 1: in more and more homes. I don't know if it's

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Speaker 1: coming back, and if it is coming back, I wonder

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Speaker 1: what that says. But anyway, in nineteen fifty seven, these

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Speaker 1: two guys Fielding and Chavan, we're trying to see if

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Speaker 1: they could make a new kind of weird artsy three

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Speaker 1: D textured wallpaper out of sheets of plastic layered over

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Speaker 1: paper backing, and so modern accounts of their efforts, including

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Speaker 1: an article I was reading by David Kindy and smith

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Speaker 1: Sony in about this invention, but a bunch of other things,

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Speaker 1: they all identify the beat generation as the target market

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Speaker 1: of this wallpaper. And I don't know if that goes

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Speaker 1: back to something that Fielding and Chavan themselves said at

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Speaker 1: some point, but it's gets repeated a lot. I'm trying

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Speaker 1: to exact imagine exactly what that means from like a

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Speaker 1: mass market consumer style point of view. Obviously they weren't

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Speaker 1: just trying to sell this to Alan Ginsberg and his friends,

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Speaker 1: because when you think Alan Ginsberg, you think can bubble

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Speaker 1: at well, I mean maybe maybe, because so I would say,

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Speaker 1: for some reason, we today tend to think of the

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Speaker 1: nineteen fifties as an extremely square time in the history

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Speaker 1: of like American arts and culture. But in reality, it

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Speaker 1: seems to me like it was exactly the opposite. Mid

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Speaker 1: century architecture and design, like the late forties through the

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Speaker 1: early sixties really seems to me to be absolutely crammed

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Speaker 1: with bizarre experimental styles that would be far too weird

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Speaker 1: for most new businesses or homeowners today. Uh. And so

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Speaker 1: that that's sort of the landscape imagining, Like I'm wondering

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Speaker 1: if this experimental textured wallpaper might have fit in with

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Speaker 1: elements of the mid century futurist architectural style known as googy,

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Speaker 1: which if you're trying to picture that, think like classic

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Speaker 1: architecture and designs in Las Vegas that you can still

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Speaker 1: see on some of their signs right right the the

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Speaker 1: the famous Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign is a

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Speaker 1: prime example of googy. And by the way, googie is

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Speaker 1: spelled g o O g i e. A word that

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Speaker 1: pretty much any search engine will try to insist does

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Speaker 1: not exist. They're like main Google right right now, I

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Speaker 1: mean googie. Uh and this is googie. So yeah, this

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Speaker 1: is probably the most readily available example of googy. That's

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Speaker 1: just going to be in your mind right now. If

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Speaker 1: you play video games. There's a bunch of googie design

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Speaker 1: that shows up in the Fallout game because they're going

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Speaker 1: for that nineteen fifties retro futurist style. There there are

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Speaker 1: other sort of names for related or overlapping mid century styles,

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Speaker 1: like mid century Modern, which is I think broader than googie,

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Speaker 1: or what is sometimes apparently now called ray gun Gothic.

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Speaker 1: I think that's a coinage by William Gibson. Interesting. Uh, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think it is important to This is actually something

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Speaker 1: that I always have to continually remind myself that the

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Speaker 1: creative minds of the nineteen fifties, the nineteen forties and

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Speaker 1: and other decades as well, for the most part, we're

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Speaker 1: just as as weird and as inventive, if not more so,

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Speaker 1: than anybody working today. Uh, you know, some of my

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Speaker 1: favorite artists that I've discovered it, such as Irving nor

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Speaker 1: It was you know, surrealist, dark surrealist painter, and he

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Speaker 1: was active, he would have been active at this time

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Speaker 1: in the nineteen fifties. And you look at his work

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Speaker 1: now and it looks it's it's difficult, it's uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: it's it's it's weird and dark and uh and and

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Speaker 1: and you know, undercutting in a way that you might

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Speaker 1: not expect from the nineteen fifties if you're just picturing,

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Speaker 1: like you know, the sort of the atomic family scenario,

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Speaker 1: the atomic family, the nuclear family family, it's the same thing. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you made me think of fallouts. I'm thinking about you know,

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Speaker 1: the idea more about atomics, I guess. But but also

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Speaker 1: like there's there are all these other strange styles that

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Speaker 1: are flourishing at the period, like like the tiki aesthetic. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: this definitely lines up with the same era. So for

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Speaker 1: those of you are not aware, mid century tiki was

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Speaker 1: a post War War two aesthetic fad that most memorably

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Speaker 1: gave us tiki drinks, but also in an entire aesthetic

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Speaker 1: vibe that's firmly rooted in the cultural appropriation of Polynesian culture,

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Speaker 1: they drinks themselves. However, as tiki drink master Beach Bumbari

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Speaker 1: points out in his excellent book Portions of the Caribbean, Uh,

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Speaker 1: these drinks are firmly products of the Caribbean and Caribbean products,

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Speaker 1: particularly rum, while the design is assembled from Pilford bits

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Speaker 1: of Polynesian aesthetics. Now, now, I'm a big fan of

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Speaker 1: tiki drinks myself. I think they're fun to make, fun

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Speaker 1: to drink and share. And then the history of of

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Speaker 1: each individual cocktail tends to be interesting with its sort

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Speaker 1: of you know, they're they're they're the stories of like

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Speaker 1: feuding bartenders in the fifties and sixties, etcetera. Um. But

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Speaker 1: just as the products that make up a tiki drink

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Speaker 1: are problematic in their roots in Western exploitation of the Caribbean,

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Speaker 1: so too is the style rooted in the exploitation of

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Speaker 1: Polynesian people's. So uh, you know, I'm not trying to

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Speaker 1: ruin tiki for anyone, but I'm just saying imbibe with

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Speaker 1: a shot of self reflection. And by the way, I'd

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Speaker 1: love to actually cover tiki and more detail on another episode.

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Speaker 1: Perhaps we could do an episode on invention of the

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Speaker 1: my tai. Really yeah, it has an interesting history, Okay,

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Speaker 1: trade secret swarring, tiki bartenders. Uh yeah, there's a whole

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Speaker 1: world there. Uh. And of course again Beech Bumbari is

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Speaker 1: a wonderful authority on all of these, highly recommend his books. Interesting, Well,

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Speaker 1: maybe we could come back. But so thinking about wallpapers specifically,

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Speaker 1: I mean connecting it back to the to the teaky aesthetic.

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Speaker 1: I was looking at a blog post by writer named

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Speaker 1: Katherine Brooks that was collecting wallpapers throughout history, and she

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Speaker 1: had a couple of examples of wallpapers selected from the

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Speaker 1: nineteen fifties, and they are very strange. One has this

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Speaker 1: complex design with kind of green and black tropical garden motif.

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Speaker 1: It seems to be evoking sort of like a like

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Speaker 1: a tiki a fascination. It's got palm trees and stuff.

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Speaker 1: But then another one of these wallpapers is just one

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Speaker 1: that shows pine spriggs and it's apparently embossed. It has

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Speaker 1: some kind of three D texture. So maybe three D

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Speaker 1: textured wallpapers were already sort of a thing in the

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Speaker 1: nineteen fifties. But to come back to our inventors Fielding

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Speaker 1: and Chivon, they were working out of a garage in Hawthorne,

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Speaker 1: New Jersey, in nineteen fifty seven to come up specifically

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Speaker 1: with a heat based ceiling process to press together two

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Speaker 1: layers of plastic shower curtain with paper backing, and unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: the final product they came up with did not have

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Speaker 1: the aesthetic properties they were looking for in a wallpaper.

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Speaker 1: The hot lamination of the flexible plastic ended up trapping

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Speaker 1: air bubbles between the layers, which doesn't sound like a

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Speaker 1: great texture for wallpaper. Or maybe it does. I don't

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Speaker 1: know exactly what it was they were trying to do,

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Speaker 1: but the popable walls sounds bad. Well, I mean, it's

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Speaker 1: not great, but it's not horrifying. And it does make

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Speaker 1: me think of the walls and Willy Wonka's chocolate factory.

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Speaker 1: You know where you had the flavored illustrations on the wallpaper.

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Speaker 1: I don't remember this part. You have flavored walls. It

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Speaker 1: was like lickable walls. Nice. This what the snores berries

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Speaker 1: tastes like Snorm's berries or whatever. Um, so you canberriesberries,

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Speaker 1: So you can imagine like snawsberry bubble wrap walls where

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Speaker 1: you could go up and you pop this, uh this

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Speaker 1: this pimple on the wall and in it emits this

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Speaker 1: uh this the smell, this odor, if not this taste

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Speaker 1: of whatever, you know, the you know, the suite happens

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Speaker 1: to be. Oh okay. So it's like perfume sample walls.

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Speaker 1: It's like popable or scratch off kind of mechanics, but

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Speaker 1: for your house. No, we're not saying that's what Fielding

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Speaker 1: and Chavon had in mind. I don't know exactly what

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Speaker 1: they were thinking, but they wanted to create this beat wallpaper,

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Speaker 1: and they did get patents for their process, but the

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Speaker 1: wallpaper did not really catch on. And Howard Fielding, the

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Speaker 1: son of Alfred Fielding, was a young kid when his

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Speaker 1: father brought home a sample of one. At some point

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Speaker 1: they had this invention that was the layers of plastic

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Speaker 1: with bubbles in it. And speaking to David Kindy of

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Speaker 1: Smithsonian Magazine, how Ward Fielding recalls this sort of psycho

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Speaker 1: tactle tractor beam allure of the plastic bubbles when he

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Speaker 1: first saw them. He says, I remember looking at the

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Speaker 1: stuff and my instinct was to squeeze it. I say,

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Speaker 1: I'm the first person to pop bubble wrap, but I'm

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Speaker 1: not sure that's true. The adults in my father's firm

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Speaker 1: likely did so for quality assurance, but I was probably

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Speaker 1: the first kid. They were really fun to pop. The

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Speaker 1: bubbles were a lot bigger than so they made a

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Speaker 1: loud noise. And I think it's always interesting when the

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Speaker 1: extent to which the people associated with a product or

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Speaker 1: a company actually talk about or promote it's sort of

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Speaker 1: off label use. Like this whole thing about the people

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Speaker 1: who make Q tips. They probably know that people are

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Speaker 1: sticking those in their ears all the time, but they

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Speaker 1: don't talk about that because you're not supposed to do that.

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Speaker 1: You're requested not to stick them in your ears. But

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Speaker 1: who actually thinks that's not going on? I mean no,

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Speaker 1: I mean they have other uses to be sure, you know,

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Speaker 1: it can be used makeup and um, and I use

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Speaker 1: them sometimes when I'm working on painting miniatures and all.

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Speaker 1: But that kind of code of silence is not going

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Speaker 1: on with bubble wrap. In fact, I noticed that whenever

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Speaker 1: their interviews with people involved with the company that still

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Speaker 1: makes bubble wrap, or you know, the Sealed Air Corporation,

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Speaker 1: which we'll get to in a minute, or people who

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Speaker 1: were involved in the invention of bubble wrap always talk

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Speaker 1: about the popping. They're like, it's like that. They admit

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Speaker 1: I like to pop the bubbles too. I don't know

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Speaker 1: what that is. It seems to be almost part of

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Speaker 1: their marketing. Yeah, I mean, in a way, this is

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Speaker 1: not the reasoning, but you can know, you could know.

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Speaker 1: You could look at it like, well, you're when you

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Speaker 1: pop all the bubbles and a piece of bubble wrap,

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Speaker 1: you render it useless, thus requiring the the purchase of

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Speaker 1: additional bubble wrapping for any packaging you're going to do. Okay, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: make up make a product that the children will destroy. Well,

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Speaker 1: maybe we should take a break and then we come back.

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Speaker 1: We can explore what happened with this failed wallpaper with

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Speaker 1: the bubbles in it. Alright, we're back. We've been discussing

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Speaker 1: the history of wallpaper or what initially comes right before

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Speaker 1: wallpaper in this quest to create this ideal beat generation

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Speaker 1: wallpaper that has air bubbles in it? What comes before wallpaper?

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Speaker 1: Or did you mean bubble wrap comes before bubble rap? Okay,

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Speaker 1: And I guess in a sense it would have been

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Speaker 1: like what would have been what it would have come after?

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Speaker 1: Like this is gonna be the next evolutionary step for wallpaper. Okay, yeah,

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Speaker 1: and instead it becomes the birth of something new. This

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Speaker 1: was gonna be the wallpaper you put on the side

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Speaker 1: walls of your like moon Igloe or whatever. But no,

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Speaker 1: it didn't work out that. It was not successful. It

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Speaker 1: didn't prove to be a popular product. I don't know

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Speaker 1: if they ever sold any of it. So the lamination

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Speaker 1: process was not successful at making a desirable wallpaper. But

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Speaker 1: they did get patents for their process, and they tried

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Speaker 1: to see if their system of making bubbly sealed layers

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Speaker 1: of plastic could be used for other stuff. Well, my

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Speaker 1: mind instantly turns to fashion. Didn't Barbarella where some one

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Speaker 1: of her outfits they didn't have like air bubbles in it.

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Speaker 1: Oh she might have I don't quite remember, but that

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Speaker 1: would seem to be Yeah, that would make sense. I

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Speaker 1: know there was at least I kept reading references to

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Speaker 1: There was one Playboy cover at some point that had

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Speaker 1: an actress or model dressed in bubble wrap. Uh. So

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Speaker 1: clearly there's some kind of alternative fashion uses for it.

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Speaker 1: But one thing that they tried to do when they

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Speaker 1: were marketing it was as insulation. They tried to so

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Speaker 1: Fielding and Chavon tried to market it as insulation material

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Speaker 1: for greenhouses. This failed to attract much interest, apparently just

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Speaker 1: wasn't great at insulating um. But Fielding and Chavon did

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Speaker 1: not give up in trying to find a use for

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Speaker 1: their plastic product. And I think it's interesting that here's

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Speaker 1: an example of the kind of like supply side drive

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Speaker 1: in in find in innovation, right where they're like, we've

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Speaker 1: got this process, we've got this invention, but we don't

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Speaker 1: know what it does yet. It's the opposite of the

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Speaker 1: idea that necessity is the mother of invention, right. Um,

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Speaker 1: So they're like, we know how to make this stuff,

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Speaker 1: but we don't know if it can do anything useful,

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Speaker 1: and they're trying to find a use for it. So

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Speaker 1: they didn't give up, and they continued making business moves

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Speaker 1: to support the development of this product in the in

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Speaker 1: the following years. So in nineteen sixty they founded a

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Speaker 1: company called the Sealed Air Corporation, which still exists. And

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Speaker 1: it was this year, in nineteen sixty and that Mark

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Speaker 1: Chavon had his breakthrough insight about a new use for

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Speaker 1: the textured wallpaper. And this is as told in a

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Speaker 1: two thousand ten New York Times City Room piece by

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Speaker 1: James Barron. Apparently, Chavon was on a small propeller plane

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Speaker 1: flying from Ohio to New York, New Jersey, and the

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Speaker 1: story is that Chavon was watching out the window as

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Speaker 1: the plane was coming in toward New Jersey and he

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Speaker 1: saw clouds and in that moment, in his mind, the

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Speaker 1: clouds seemed to be cushioning the planes controlled descent through

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Speaker 1: the atmosphere. It was a soft cushion and of gas.

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Speaker 1: And according to a manager with the Sealed Air Corporation

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Speaker 1: named Ron Schellenberger, this was how Chivan realized that bubbly

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Speaker 1: plastic could be useful for its cushioning properties during the

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Speaker 1: shipping of products. The lift under the airplane was quote

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Speaker 1: like bouncing across the bubbles. Okay, I'll allow it. I'm

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Speaker 1: always a little suspicious of idea origin, story depend upon,

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Speaker 1: you know, these Eureka moments of observation. Not to say

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Speaker 1: it doesn't happen, but sometimes it is used to I think,

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Speaker 1: to just add an artificial sense of myth and mystery. Sure, well,

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Speaker 1: as I said, this is the story they tell. It's

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Speaker 1: hard to know if that was really what was going

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Speaker 1: through his mind. Rather than uh, you know, somebody sitting

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Speaker 1: in the seat next to him was like, hey, you

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Speaker 1: should use that bubble wrap to ship products. So they

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Speaker 1: branded their air filled plastic sheeting as bubble wrap, which

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Speaker 1: is still a company trademark today. But it's one of

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Speaker 1: those things like clean X for tissue paper, popsicle for

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Speaker 1: quiescently frozen treats. I think it's one of those brand

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Speaker 1: terms that's just sort of become a worldwide generic term

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00:21:02,920 --> 00:21:06,040
Speaker 1: against its will. Technically, some of the stuff we call

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00:21:06,080 --> 00:21:10,720
Speaker 1: bubble wrap is air cushioned packaging material made by other companies.

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Speaker 1: I was reading a two thousand six article in Forbes

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Speaker 1: by Monty Burke that reported that counterfeit bubble wrap I guess,

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Speaker 1: being sold under the trade name but allegedly manufactured in China,

390
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Speaker 1: had been found in a home depot in California. Counterfeit

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Speaker 1: bubble wrap. Like, why would you go to the trouble?

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Speaker 1: This doesn't bring to mind? You know, we were joking

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Speaker 1: earlier about pitching a horror story, a horror of franchise

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00:21:33,560 --> 00:21:36,480
Speaker 1: about about bubble wrap, that this is the angle you

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Speaker 1: could take. Illicit bubble wrap that was created by another

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00:21:39,800 --> 00:21:43,280
Speaker 1: manufacturer and the bubbles, I don't know, contain some sort

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Speaker 1: of you know, terrible gas that drives people crazy or something.

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00:21:46,320 --> 00:21:49,479
Speaker 1: It's bubble wrap from the todash darkness. There you go.

399
00:21:49,600 --> 00:21:53,000
Speaker 1: Is he basically rights itself. So how did it go

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Speaker 1: from failed kitchen wallpaper and failed insulation two cushioning material

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00:21:58,000 --> 00:22:00,920
Speaker 1: for packaging even after they had this idea. Well, according

402
00:22:00,960 --> 00:22:04,520
Speaker 1: to company history, this was mostly due to a relationship

403
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Speaker 1: with a single very important customer that Sealed Air acquired

404
00:22:08,600 --> 00:22:11,959
Speaker 1: in the early nineteen sixties, and that was IBM. So

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00:22:12,000 --> 00:22:16,879
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty nine, IBM introduced an extremely successful line

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Speaker 1: of early computers used by businesses and institutions around the world.

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Speaker 1: This was the IBM four hundred series, the first major

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Speaker 1: model uh in which was the fourteen oh one. It

409
00:22:28,119 --> 00:22:31,760
Speaker 1: was a variable word length decimal computer that some sources

410
00:22:31,760 --> 00:22:34,720
Speaker 1: now refer to as like the Model T of computers

411
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Speaker 1: because of its early widespread use, mostly for data processing

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Speaker 1: by businesses. Obviously, this was before the home computer era,

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Speaker 1: and the story goes that a marketer named Frederick W.

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Speaker 1: Bowers saw potential here and he pitched IBM on the

415
00:22:48,200 --> 00:22:51,720
Speaker 1: advantages of bubble wrap as a cushioned packing material. For

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00:22:51,800 --> 00:22:55,240
Speaker 1: the fragile, expensive computers and computer parts. It was now

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00:22:55,240 --> 00:22:58,399
Speaker 1: shipping to businesses and institutions around the world, and the

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00:22:58,440 --> 00:23:02,280
Speaker 1: pitch worked. IBM became bubble Wraps first major client, and

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Speaker 1: then over the following year's bubble Wrap became a standard

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00:23:04,920 --> 00:23:08,479
Speaker 1: cushioning material to protect delicate stuff in transit, and the

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00:23:08,480 --> 00:23:11,320
Speaker 1: company flourished. So we often like to ask on the

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00:23:11,359 --> 00:23:13,959
Speaker 1: show what came before? This is one where it's not

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00:23:14,080 --> 00:23:17,359
Speaker 1: a super complicated at answer. Before bubble Wrap, the most

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00:23:17,400 --> 00:23:21,359
Speaker 1: commonly used packing material to cushion stuff was stuff like

425
00:23:21,440 --> 00:23:24,679
Speaker 1: watted up newspaper. This had the advantage, of course, of

426
00:23:24,720 --> 00:23:27,359
Speaker 1: being cheap or essentially free if you use the newspapers

427
00:23:27,359 --> 00:23:30,600
Speaker 1: people through away, but it came with multiple disadvantages. First

428
00:23:30,640 --> 00:23:33,760
Speaker 1: of all, it was not actually very good at cushioning stuff,

429
00:23:33,840 --> 00:23:36,520
Speaker 1: especially you know, a newspaper can be compressed, so if

430
00:23:36,520 --> 00:23:39,920
Speaker 1: you're shipping something that's both heavy and delicate, it can

431
00:23:39,960 --> 00:23:43,119
Speaker 1: kind of compress the newspaper until it's sort of flattened it.

432
00:23:43,160 --> 00:23:45,640
Speaker 1: And now it doesn't provide much cushioning, right, I mean,

433
00:23:45,640 --> 00:23:49,919
Speaker 1: when you and I've tried to cushion things with newspapers

434
00:23:49,960 --> 00:23:51,919
Speaker 1: before and and it really becomes this whole task of

435
00:23:52,000 --> 00:23:53,879
Speaker 1: like I can't you know, obviously, just can't throw a

436
00:23:53,920 --> 00:23:56,679
Speaker 1: newspaper in there. You have to take each individual page

437
00:23:56,960 --> 00:23:58,520
Speaker 1: and you have to watch it up, but don't watch

438
00:23:58,520 --> 00:24:01,200
Speaker 1: it up too much and find a like optimal level

439
00:24:01,240 --> 00:24:04,520
Speaker 1: of wadding where it's nice and springy, and keep doing that,

440
00:24:04,920 --> 00:24:07,080
Speaker 1: uh you know, for you know, however long it takes.

441
00:24:07,560 --> 00:24:10,119
Speaker 1: You know, obviously, if you if you spend the money

442
00:24:10,119 --> 00:24:13,360
Speaker 1: on some sort of a manufactured packaging material, you can

443
00:24:13,480 --> 00:24:16,560
Speaker 1: certainly cut down on your time. Especially even instead of

444
00:24:16,760 --> 00:24:21,080
Speaker 1: packaging like the odd box of valuables for your you know,

445
00:24:21,160 --> 00:24:25,040
Speaker 1: once in a decade moved instead your packaging objects every

446
00:24:25,080 --> 00:24:27,560
Speaker 1: day some sort of product to send out to consumers.

447
00:24:27,960 --> 00:24:30,480
Speaker 1: And another big problem with wadded up newspaper is that

448
00:24:30,600 --> 00:24:33,560
Speaker 1: it ends up smeering ink everywhere. I hadn't thought about that.

449
00:24:33,800 --> 00:24:37,480
Speaker 1: So one of the huge advantages though, of newspaper packaging

450
00:24:37,680 --> 00:24:39,439
Speaker 1: is um I don't know if you've experienced this, but

451
00:24:39,480 --> 00:24:41,879
Speaker 1: if you order something, particularly if you order something like

452
00:24:42,000 --> 00:24:45,240
Speaker 1: via e pay, sometimes you get uh you know, foreign

453
00:24:45,280 --> 00:24:47,720
Speaker 1: newspapers in there, and that that can become like a

454
00:24:47,760 --> 00:24:50,439
Speaker 1: fun bonus. I a few years back, I ordered some

455
00:24:50,520 --> 00:24:54,160
Speaker 1: miniatures to paint, and they came from somewhere in Russia,

456
00:24:54,480 --> 00:24:57,920
Speaker 1: so it was packaged. The little figurines were were cushioned

457
00:24:57,920 --> 00:25:00,560
Speaker 1: by these wadded up newspapers and when you, uh, you

458
00:25:00,720 --> 00:25:03,760
Speaker 1: unlatted them, you saw the you know, the cyrillic on

459
00:25:03,840 --> 00:25:06,920
Speaker 1: the page. It was in it for a fun experience. Interesting, Yeah,

460
00:25:07,119 --> 00:25:09,480
Speaker 1: bubble wrap, it's you know, I guess you could pop

461
00:25:09,560 --> 00:25:11,680
Speaker 1: it and be like, mrs where is this air from

462
00:25:11,680 --> 00:25:15,480
Speaker 1: its air from New Jersey, But it's just not the same. Uh. Well.

463
00:25:15,560 --> 00:25:20,480
Speaker 1: So ultimately, air filled plastic did prove superior resisting compression

464
00:25:20,560 --> 00:25:24,840
Speaker 1: and protecting fragile objects from impacts, and over the years,

465
00:25:24,960 --> 00:25:27,960
Speaker 1: the Sealed Air Corporation has done some interesting like marketing

466
00:25:28,000 --> 00:25:31,320
Speaker 1: stunts to show off the superior protective capabilities of bubble

467
00:25:31,320 --> 00:25:35,320
Speaker 1: wrap over competing materials. One example is that this was

468
00:25:35,359 --> 00:25:37,679
Speaker 1: reported in that Forbes piece I was talking about. In

469
00:25:37,680 --> 00:25:40,480
Speaker 1: the year two thousand, they entered this big public pumpkin

470
00:25:40,560 --> 00:25:44,160
Speaker 1: dropping contest in Iowa, and I'm like, what is that.

471
00:25:44,240 --> 00:25:46,199
Speaker 1: I guess that the goal is to keep a falling

472
00:25:46,280 --> 00:25:49,040
Speaker 1: pumpkin from being smashed when it hits the ground. I

473
00:25:49,040 --> 00:25:51,040
Speaker 1: couldn't find a lot on this but it looks like

474
00:25:51,080 --> 00:25:54,480
Speaker 1: they're engineering departments at some universities that have similar contests

475
00:25:54,520 --> 00:25:56,960
Speaker 1: where Yeah, and and high schools as well. Sometimes with

476
00:25:57,040 --> 00:26:00,480
Speaker 1: eggs are popular. Yeah, throwing some eggs or throwing melons

477
00:26:00,520 --> 00:26:02,560
Speaker 1: off the roof, and it becomes a science project to

478
00:26:02,560 --> 00:26:03,919
Speaker 1: figure out the best way to cush in it and

479
00:26:03,920 --> 00:26:07,080
Speaker 1: protect it from injury, to like make a protective container

480
00:26:07,280 --> 00:26:11,640
Speaker 1: or protective landing zone or something with within certain design constraints. Yeah,

481
00:26:11,640 --> 00:26:15,000
Speaker 1: it's a pretty great engineering project for his kids because

482
00:26:15,040 --> 00:26:19,000
Speaker 1: it involves like doing something totally against the rules, throwing

483
00:26:19,080 --> 00:26:21,919
Speaker 1: stuff off the roof of the school, with like just

484
00:26:22,119 --> 00:26:25,480
Speaker 1: a fun engineering challenge. How do you keep the inevitable

485
00:26:25,520 --> 00:26:28,640
Speaker 1: from happening? Uh? Yeah, so I'm all in favor of it. Well,

486
00:26:28,640 --> 00:26:31,080
Speaker 1: the story here is that the engineers from Sealed there

487
00:26:31,359 --> 00:26:33,879
Speaker 1: did a demonstration where they dropped an eight hundred and

488
00:26:33,920 --> 00:26:37,760
Speaker 1: fifteen pound pumpkin named gord Zilla from my height of

489
00:26:37,800 --> 00:26:41,280
Speaker 1: thirty five feet, cushioned only by bubble wrap. CEO William

490
00:26:41,359 --> 00:26:44,399
Speaker 1: Hickey told Forbes quote the pumpkins survived the drop. The

491
00:26:44,440 --> 00:26:48,280
Speaker 1: problem was that it bounced and then there's no more information.

492
00:26:48,400 --> 00:26:51,200
Speaker 1: I'm like, what is that? What is that problem? Then

493
00:26:51,200 --> 00:26:53,960
Speaker 1: did it bounce and land on somebody's card and bounce

494
00:26:54,040 --> 00:26:56,199
Speaker 1: and turn it? And did it come to life? I

495
00:26:56,240 --> 00:26:58,280
Speaker 1: know I was looking around too, because I mean, just

496
00:26:58,320 --> 00:27:00,639
Speaker 1: the mention of gord Zilla, I had to to find

497
00:27:00,680 --> 00:27:03,360
Speaker 1: more and I wasn't able to find anything. Now, granted,

498
00:27:03,400 --> 00:27:06,119
Speaker 1: this is like nearly two decades ago, and I know

499
00:27:06,200 --> 00:27:09,920
Speaker 1: that it maybe the videotaping of everything wasn't quite as ubiquitous,

500
00:27:09,960 --> 00:27:11,280
Speaker 1: but it seems like if they were going to the

501
00:27:11,280 --> 00:27:16,160
Speaker 1: trouble to drop fifteen pound Gordzilla off of a roof,

502
00:27:16,720 --> 00:27:19,120
Speaker 1: they would have filmed it, and that that footage would

503
00:27:19,160 --> 00:27:24,639
Speaker 1: be probably displayed somewhere. Unless indeed, something really terrible happened,

504
00:27:24,640 --> 00:27:29,440
Speaker 1: like it killed somebody or came to life. Well, I'm

505
00:27:29,440 --> 00:27:32,399
Speaker 1: gonna feel extremely betrayed if I find out that former

506
00:27:32,440 --> 00:27:35,520
Speaker 1: Sealed Air CEO William Hikey is making up details of

507
00:27:35,560 --> 00:27:39,400
Speaker 1: the story. I demand proof of Gordzilla. That's what That's

508
00:27:39,440 --> 00:27:42,320
Speaker 1: what I am demanding. Are they a publicly traded company.

509
00:27:42,359 --> 00:27:44,560
Speaker 1: I think they are. Yeah. I think that the stockholders

510
00:27:44,600 --> 00:27:52,000
Speaker 1: should demand proof Gordzilla. The documents. Okay, so the company

511
00:27:52,119 --> 00:27:54,719
Speaker 1: still makes bubble wrap. The bubble wrap represents only a

512
00:27:54,720 --> 00:27:57,080
Speaker 1: small part of its revenue. Now I've seen estimates maybe

513
00:27:57,080 --> 00:27:59,840
Speaker 1: around ten or fift something like that. That's what i've

514
00:28:00,160 --> 00:28:03,320
Speaker 1: They've transitioned largely to food packaging. Actually, they own the

515
00:28:03,359 --> 00:28:06,399
Speaker 1: Cryovac brand, so there's a lot of food packaging. But

516
00:28:06,480 --> 00:28:09,000
Speaker 1: there have been interesting developments. It's not just like, Okay,

517
00:28:09,040 --> 00:28:10,760
Speaker 1: we figured out how to make bubble wrap and then

518
00:28:10,800 --> 00:28:14,119
Speaker 1: they just coasted on that forever. One example of developments

519
00:28:14,119 --> 00:28:16,720
Speaker 1: in the history of bubble wrap is, for example, the

520
00:28:17,200 --> 00:28:20,159
Speaker 1: former CEO of Sealed Air, William Hicky we just mentioned.

521
00:28:20,240 --> 00:28:23,480
Speaker 1: He told Forbes in two thousand six that Alfred W.

522
00:28:23,760 --> 00:28:27,840
Speaker 1: Fielding always wanted to be able to create a way

523
00:28:27,880 --> 00:28:31,200
Speaker 1: to put air into the bubble when you needed it

524
00:28:31,560 --> 00:28:35,040
Speaker 1: instead of when it was manufactured, right, so that like

525
00:28:35,119 --> 00:28:38,120
Speaker 1: you could ship out flat bubble wrap and then it

526
00:28:38,120 --> 00:28:40,800
Speaker 1: could be inflated on site. Now, why would that be important?

527
00:28:40,840 --> 00:28:44,360
Speaker 1: We'll think about like volume and density and shipping. Imagine

528
00:28:44,360 --> 00:28:47,160
Speaker 1: you run a factory that ships out delicate products and

529
00:28:47,200 --> 00:28:49,560
Speaker 1: you need to use air cushioning material to pack it.

530
00:28:49,880 --> 00:28:52,200
Speaker 1: How do you get the material? Well, if it's getting

531
00:28:52,240 --> 00:28:54,720
Speaker 1: shipped to you in trucks or something, the space in

532
00:28:54,720 --> 00:28:56,880
Speaker 1: the truck is going to be mostly taken up by

533
00:28:56,920 --> 00:29:00,040
Speaker 1: bubbles of air. It's not very efficient. But by the

534
00:29:00,120 --> 00:29:04,600
Speaker 1: twenty one century, uh Fielding's dream of on site inflatable

535
00:29:04,640 --> 00:29:08,360
Speaker 1: bubble wrap was actually achieved. The Sealed Air Corporation originally

536
00:29:08,360 --> 00:29:11,680
Speaker 1: called this stuff new air I b uh, and it

537
00:29:11,880 --> 00:29:15,240
Speaker 1: is apparently much more space saving than the original. According

538
00:29:15,240 --> 00:29:18,840
Speaker 1: to that two thousand six article, one truckload of the

539
00:29:19,320 --> 00:29:23,160
Speaker 1: inflatable bubble wrap is the same as forty truckloads of

540
00:29:23,200 --> 00:29:26,440
Speaker 1: the already inflated bubbles. Yeah, I mean it makes sense.

541
00:29:26,560 --> 00:29:30,400
Speaker 1: I've also seen this referred to as fill air products. Yeah.

542
00:29:30,440 --> 00:29:32,920
Speaker 1: But when you start thinking about this about like the

543
00:29:33,240 --> 00:29:36,920
Speaker 1: quantities and the efficiency, you do start to see the

544
00:29:36,960 --> 00:29:40,080
Speaker 1: downsides of all this packaging material. Right. There's a claim

545
00:29:40,080 --> 00:29:43,040
Speaker 1: in that two thousand six Forbes article that the company

546
00:29:43,160 --> 00:29:45,600
Speaker 1: UH that they insisted that at the time they produced

547
00:29:45,760 --> 00:29:48,800
Speaker 1: enough bubble wrap every year to circle the Earth at

548
00:29:48,840 --> 00:29:52,040
Speaker 1: its equator ten times. They do not say it what width,

549
00:29:52,040 --> 00:29:55,600
Speaker 1: though that seems important information. And then is it did

550
00:29:55,600 --> 00:29:58,200
Speaker 1: the big bubble, the fat bubble or the little teeny bubble?

551
00:29:58,240 --> 00:30:00,240
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, I guess it's probably whatever

552
00:30:00,280 --> 00:30:04,480
Speaker 1: their most common width of material is. But no matter

553
00:30:04,520 --> 00:30:07,520
Speaker 1: what with it is that's a lot of plastic. Yeah,

554
00:30:08,040 --> 00:30:10,000
Speaker 1: it is a lot of plastic. And then that that

555
00:30:10,080 --> 00:30:13,080
Speaker 1: continues to be one of them the major concerns I

556
00:30:13,080 --> 00:30:16,160
Speaker 1: guess with with with platt with bubble wrap, but also

557
00:30:16,200 --> 00:30:19,400
Speaker 1: these other like fill air products. One of the articles

558
00:30:19,480 --> 00:30:22,959
Speaker 1: I was looking at was an article that was published

559
00:30:23,000 --> 00:30:26,960
Speaker 1: in the Atlantic by Boree Lamb that's l a M.

560
00:30:27,000 --> 00:30:30,240
Speaker 1: Titled about those air cushions and Amazon packages everywhere and

561
00:30:30,280 --> 00:30:34,280
Speaker 1: this is from and In this article, Lamb discusses how

562
00:30:34,400 --> 00:30:37,640
Speaker 1: the colossal growth of e commerce has indeed benefited the

563
00:30:37,680 --> 00:30:41,720
Speaker 1: packing material industry as often it was a five point

564
00:30:41,760 --> 00:30:46,280
Speaker 1: six billion dollar industry and sealed air is the biggest

565
00:30:46,320 --> 00:30:49,920
Speaker 1: market shareholder. Uh and uh and at this time there

566
00:30:49,960 --> 00:30:52,600
Speaker 1: said she said that bubble wrap itself was only fifteen

567
00:30:52,600 --> 00:30:55,240
Speaker 1: percent of the business, with more of an emphasis being

568
00:30:55,240 --> 00:30:58,240
Speaker 1: placed on the fill air products. For instance, like you'll

569
00:30:58,280 --> 00:31:01,520
Speaker 1: find in Amazon packages, most of your Amazon packages that

570
00:31:01,560 --> 00:31:04,920
Speaker 1: you're receiving today, so like one big bubble in in

571
00:31:04,960 --> 00:31:08,240
Speaker 1: a piece of plastic. Well, or it's like it's or

572
00:31:08,240 --> 00:31:11,120
Speaker 1: it's kind of like it's like the paper towel roll

573
00:31:11,160 --> 00:31:14,880
Speaker 1: equivalent right where it's like each segment has clearly been inflated,

574
00:31:14,960 --> 00:31:18,000
Speaker 1: and its minimal plastic. Uh. This is the stuff that

575
00:31:18,080 --> 00:31:21,760
Speaker 1: after you order anything, you find yourself ritually stabbing all

576
00:31:21,800 --> 00:31:24,080
Speaker 1: of the air bladders so that you can recycle the material.

577
00:31:24,680 --> 00:31:29,440
Speaker 1: So plastic sacrifice, the plastic sacrifice. So Lamb says that

578
00:31:29,760 --> 00:31:32,040
Speaker 1: the fill air products like this are very popular for

579
00:31:32,080 --> 00:31:34,920
Speaker 1: several reasons. First of all, economically, it's a cheap way

580
00:31:34,960 --> 00:31:38,120
Speaker 1: to package goods, both in terms of material and shipping weight,

581
00:31:38,520 --> 00:31:41,760
Speaker 1: and the machines that inflate the material uh and then

582
00:31:41,760 --> 00:31:45,400
Speaker 1: again on site such as that the shipping facility. Um,

583
00:31:45,440 --> 00:31:47,800
Speaker 1: you know that this these machines don't take up that

584
00:31:47,880 --> 00:31:52,720
Speaker 1: much room in the facility, so that's that's another huge advantage.

585
00:31:53,040 --> 00:31:55,800
Speaker 1: And as far as the environment goes, uh, it is

586
00:31:55,840 --> 00:31:59,920
Speaker 1: preferred over styrofoam, and the plastic is at least recyclable.

587
00:32:00,200 --> 00:32:02,480
Speaker 1: Does it get recycled very often? That's that's part of

588
00:32:02,480 --> 00:32:04,920
Speaker 1: the problem. So like in my house when we do it,

589
00:32:05,160 --> 00:32:07,400
Speaker 1: first of all, I have to ritually sacrifice all of

590
00:32:07,440 --> 00:32:10,120
Speaker 1: the air bladders, which takes a little time, but okay,

591
00:32:10,160 --> 00:32:13,240
Speaker 1: I do it. And then once you get them sacrificed,

592
00:32:13,680 --> 00:32:15,600
Speaker 1: you can't put them in with your or at least

593
00:32:15,600 --> 00:32:19,360
Speaker 1: we can't put them in with their normal curb side recycling. Instead,

594
00:32:19,440 --> 00:32:21,520
Speaker 1: we have to put in a separate container, and then

595
00:32:21,560 --> 00:32:24,280
Speaker 1: I have to take that container periodically to the trunk

596
00:32:24,320 --> 00:32:27,120
Speaker 1: of my car. And then once my trunk of once

597
00:32:27,120 --> 00:32:30,720
Speaker 1: the trunk of my car is completely filled with plastic bags,

598
00:32:31,000 --> 00:32:32,680
Speaker 1: then I remind myself, oh, I need to go to

599
00:32:32,680 --> 00:32:36,120
Speaker 1: the grocery store and go to their their area where

600
00:32:36,160 --> 00:32:40,480
Speaker 1: they will take plastic bags for recycling. And so yeah,

601
00:32:40,560 --> 00:32:42,880
Speaker 1: that's that's a that's a big thing, right, It's not

602
00:32:42,960 --> 00:32:45,040
Speaker 1: as easy to recycle it. A lot of people are

603
00:32:45,040 --> 00:32:48,160
Speaker 1: probably just throwing these in the garbage, or they're throwing

604
00:32:48,200 --> 00:32:51,240
Speaker 1: them maybe into their curbside recycling, which of course is

605
00:32:51,280 --> 00:32:54,960
Speaker 1: just gonna end up in the carbage that way as well. Um,

606
00:32:55,000 --> 00:32:56,680
Speaker 1: and on top of that, the average person is just

607
00:32:56,800 --> 00:33:00,440
Speaker 1: swamped with so much of it it becomes a personal assle,

608
00:33:01,040 --> 00:33:04,320
Speaker 1: plus a growing reminder of just how much plastic waste,

609
00:33:04,560 --> 00:33:08,320
Speaker 1: to say nothing of cardboard waste we're producing and demanding

610
00:33:08,360 --> 00:33:12,240
Speaker 1: all for the convenience of e commerce. Now, Lamb in

611
00:33:12,240 --> 00:33:14,000
Speaker 1: this article does point out that you know, we do

612
00:33:14,160 --> 00:33:16,480
Speaker 1: there are studies that back up the idea that you're

613
00:33:16,480 --> 00:33:20,680
Speaker 1: still depending on less energy in many cases when you're

614
00:33:20,760 --> 00:33:23,400
Speaker 1: when you're doing e commerce firstus going to a traditional

615
00:33:23,400 --> 00:33:27,800
Speaker 1: brick and mortar store because you know, ultimately the supply

616
00:33:27,880 --> 00:33:30,920
Speaker 1: chain exists. No matter what the shape of the supply chain.

617
00:33:30,960 --> 00:33:33,280
Speaker 1: I mean, you're still dealing with goods that are produced

618
00:33:33,320 --> 00:33:35,720
Speaker 1: somewhere that have to be shipped somewhere else and then

619
00:33:35,720 --> 00:33:39,560
Speaker 1: shipped to another location. So you know, when you start

620
00:33:39,640 --> 00:33:41,520
Speaker 1: doing the math on all of that, it becomes a

621
00:33:41,520 --> 00:33:45,840
Speaker 1: bit complicated. But that being said, just on a personal level, Yeah,

622
00:33:45,840 --> 00:33:49,000
Speaker 1: when when you start accumulating a lot of plastic, a

623
00:33:49,040 --> 00:33:52,160
Speaker 1: lot of cardboard, you begin to ask questions to megett

624
00:33:52,360 --> 00:33:55,720
Speaker 1: to wonder like is this sustainable? Is this? Is this?

625
00:33:56,320 --> 00:33:59,000
Speaker 1: Am I making good choices? And and are we making

626
00:33:59,040 --> 00:34:02,160
Speaker 1: good choices as a culture? Uh? If this is the

627
00:34:02,200 --> 00:34:05,040
Speaker 1: kind of waste we're producing, well, I know that what

628
00:34:05,080 --> 00:34:07,600
Speaker 1: I'm about to say is absolutely a secondary concern to

629
00:34:07,640 --> 00:34:10,480
Speaker 1: the just massive use of it, whether it's necessary or not.

630
00:34:10,680 --> 00:34:14,120
Speaker 1: But I will I noticed that, like we're saying, I

631
00:34:14,160 --> 00:34:16,279
Speaker 1: think a lot of times there are plastic filled air

632
00:34:16,320 --> 00:34:20,880
Speaker 1: products that are in packages I received that don't seem necessary.

633
00:34:21,600 --> 00:34:25,000
Speaker 1: You know, I'll get a package that's a cardboard box

634
00:34:25,080 --> 00:34:27,960
Speaker 1: that has inside it's something that just really doesn't seem

635
00:34:28,080 --> 00:34:31,480
Speaker 1: very fragile or breakable, and there's filled air plastic inside it. Well,

636
00:34:31,520 --> 00:34:34,320
Speaker 1: part of that is that there are standard box sizes,

637
00:34:34,920 --> 00:34:38,600
Speaker 1: and you know, whatever you have ordered generally have to

638
00:34:38,600 --> 00:34:41,080
Speaker 1: go in a standard sized box. And if there is

639
00:34:41,120 --> 00:34:43,840
Speaker 1: space in that box, that space needs to be filled,

640
00:34:44,120 --> 00:34:46,719
Speaker 1: they would prefer to fill that with more merchandise, obviously,

641
00:34:46,840 --> 00:34:49,439
Speaker 1: but if there's not not additional merchandise, that means there's

642
00:34:49,440 --> 00:34:53,520
Speaker 1: going to have to be additional padding via these inflatable

643
00:34:53,560 --> 00:34:57,000
Speaker 1: air bladders, because also they don't want it. Otherwise your

644
00:34:57,120 --> 00:34:59,480
Speaker 1: item is knocking around in there, which might be fine,

645
00:34:59,520 --> 00:35:02,200
Speaker 1: but it also ah might cause the object to be

646
00:35:02,280 --> 00:35:06,480
Speaker 1: damaged in some either legitimate or at least perceived manner,

647
00:35:06,760 --> 00:35:09,200
Speaker 1: at which point you would then return it, which of

648
00:35:09,239 --> 00:35:13,000
Speaker 1: course costs the the company money. So you know, it

649
00:35:13,000 --> 00:35:16,120
Speaker 1: becomes a situation where for them, the most reasonable thing

650
00:35:16,160 --> 00:35:19,040
Speaker 1: to do is to inflate some air bladders, shove them

651
00:35:19,040 --> 00:35:21,680
Speaker 1: in there, and then send you your comic book. Yeah,

652
00:35:21,719 --> 00:35:24,200
Speaker 1: maybe it's cheaper to fill a hundred air bladders than

653
00:35:24,239 --> 00:35:27,040
Speaker 1: it is to have one customer return a product. Yeah,

654
00:35:27,080 --> 00:35:28,640
Speaker 1: I probably. I mean, I don't you know, I don't

655
00:35:28,640 --> 00:35:30,120
Speaker 1: have the math on that in front of me, but

656
00:35:30,160 --> 00:35:33,239
Speaker 1: it's probably something along those lines. Yeah, I wonder if

657
00:35:33,320 --> 00:35:36,400
Speaker 1: sometimes people, Uh, I guess this is probably less the

658
00:35:36,400 --> 00:35:38,960
Speaker 1: case now because you've got the big, you know, single

659
00:35:39,160 --> 00:35:42,040
Speaker 1: single chamber bladder. But I wonder if there were times

660
00:35:42,040 --> 00:35:46,040
Speaker 1: when people used to order cheap products just because they

661
00:35:46,040 --> 00:35:48,759
Speaker 1: wanted to get the bubble wrap to pop it. Because

662
00:35:48,800 --> 00:35:50,520
Speaker 1: you can't go to the store and buy bubble wrap,

663
00:35:50,600 --> 00:35:52,880
Speaker 1: can you? Yeah you can't. Wait, you can. You can

664
00:35:52,960 --> 00:35:55,839
Speaker 1: go to can store and you can buy bubble wrap.

665
00:35:55,880 --> 00:35:57,560
Speaker 1: Imagine you can buy bubble wrap at some of the

666
00:35:57,640 --> 00:35:59,880
Speaker 1: larger stores as well. I'm not saying I've done this,

667
00:36:00,080 --> 00:36:01,839
Speaker 1: by the way, but I am shocked that you can

668
00:36:01,840 --> 00:36:04,319
Speaker 1: buy bubble rap at the store. I've never heard of this. Yeah,

669
00:36:04,440 --> 00:36:05,960
Speaker 1: go for it. It's out there. I mean you can

670
00:36:06,000 --> 00:36:08,720
Speaker 1: even I mean, I imagine you can go to crafting

671
00:36:08,760 --> 00:36:11,000
Speaker 1: stores to and get some because you have the colorful

672
00:36:11,000 --> 00:36:15,440
Speaker 1: bubble wrap as well. Yeah, you blew my mind. All right,

673
00:36:15,440 --> 00:36:17,640
Speaker 1: maybe we should take a break and then we come back.

674
00:36:17,680 --> 00:36:26,799
Speaker 1: We can talk briefly about bubble wrap psychology. Alright, We're

675
00:36:26,840 --> 00:36:30,760
Speaker 1: back this episode of invention is about bubble wrap. We've

676
00:36:30,800 --> 00:36:34,000
Speaker 1: discussed where it came from, its origins as a as

677
00:36:34,080 --> 00:36:37,960
Speaker 1: the future of wallpaper. Uh, and we've discussed you know,

678
00:36:37,960 --> 00:36:42,160
Speaker 1: our our current situation with bubble wrap and other types

679
00:36:42,200 --> 00:36:46,600
Speaker 1: of cushioning materials, and you know, given our craze for

680
00:36:46,719 --> 00:36:50,160
Speaker 1: e commerce. But now we're coming back to a more

681
00:36:50,840 --> 00:36:54,120
Speaker 1: you know, visceral relationship that we have with bubble wrap,

682
00:36:54,280 --> 00:36:56,680
Speaker 1: and that is the popping of bubble wrap and why

683
00:36:57,080 --> 00:37:01,719
Speaker 1: it is so satisfying, Why is almost everyone drawn to it.

684
00:37:02,960 --> 00:37:06,400
Speaker 1: That's a strange thing to have a like near universal

685
00:37:06,440 --> 00:37:10,160
Speaker 1: psychological drive for. Yeah, you don't encounter people, or at

686
00:37:10,200 --> 00:37:12,560
Speaker 1: least I have not encountered anyone who hates it. Have

687
00:37:12,680 --> 00:37:15,360
Speaker 1: you ever heard of anyone who like has a phobia

688
00:37:15,440 --> 00:37:18,759
Speaker 1: of bubble wrap? And maybe they are people with balloon phobias, Yeah,

689
00:37:18,920 --> 00:37:21,960
Speaker 1: the other are so I mean, there's probably someone, but

690
00:37:22,000 --> 00:37:24,600
Speaker 1: you don't hear about people hating bubble wrap. And really

691
00:37:24,600 --> 00:37:26,520
Speaker 1: the most negative thing that could be said about the

692
00:37:26,560 --> 00:37:29,879
Speaker 1: experience of bubble wrap is that you give a child

693
00:37:29,920 --> 00:37:32,320
Speaker 1: some bubble wrap and they can make some shockingly loud

694
00:37:32,440 --> 00:37:36,760
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, unexpected noises. They may startle you well,

695
00:37:36,800 --> 00:37:40,319
Speaker 1: I have read cases where police were called or say

696
00:37:40,320 --> 00:37:43,480
Speaker 1: a military base was shut down or something because sounds

697
00:37:43,520 --> 00:37:47,279
Speaker 1: of bubble wrap were popping were mistaken for gunfire, Like yeah,

698
00:37:47,280 --> 00:37:49,080
Speaker 1: where that could be the case. Yeah, because it is

699
00:37:49,120 --> 00:37:51,319
Speaker 1: a it is a like a popping you know, the

700
00:37:51,360 --> 00:37:55,239
Speaker 1: popping cracking sound can can be confusing. There's actually been

701
00:37:55,320 --> 00:37:58,880
Speaker 1: a little bit of research on the psychological effects of

702
00:37:58,880 --> 00:38:00,880
Speaker 1: popping bubble wrap, and doesn't look like we're going to

703
00:38:00,920 --> 00:38:03,680
Speaker 1: get anything super solid or earth shattering, but there have

704
00:38:03,800 --> 00:38:07,040
Speaker 1: been a couple of studies. So in nineteen two, a

705
00:38:07,120 --> 00:38:12,000
Speaker 1: researcher named Kathleen Dylan published in the journal Psychological Reports

706
00:38:12,080 --> 00:38:15,640
Speaker 1: a study called Popping sealed air capsules to Reduce Stress.

707
00:38:15,680 --> 00:38:19,120
Speaker 1: This was a small sample of thirty undergraduates participated in

708
00:38:19,160 --> 00:38:21,680
Speaker 1: this study to find out whether popping plastic air capsules

709
00:38:21,719 --> 00:38:24,880
Speaker 1: like bubble wrap would relieve stress. And study found that

710
00:38:24,960 --> 00:38:28,440
Speaker 1: after a session of popping bubbles quote, subjects reported feeling

711
00:38:28,520 --> 00:38:32,840
Speaker 1: significantly more energized, less tired, and more calm and according

712
00:38:32,840 --> 00:38:36,160
Speaker 1: to Dylan quote, some advantages to this technique over existing

713
00:38:36,160 --> 00:38:40,520
Speaker 1: ones include that this technique involves minimum ability essentially no

714
00:38:40,640 --> 00:38:44,440
Speaker 1: training or practice, and a little likelihood of paradoxical anxiety

715
00:38:44,480 --> 00:38:47,399
Speaker 1: effects that have been shown to a company meditative relaxation

716
00:38:47,440 --> 00:38:52,040
Speaker 1: techniques in some subjects of this, the comparative advantage of

717
00:38:52,160 --> 00:38:57,440
Speaker 1: therapeutic bubble popping versus just say traditional meditate meditation like

718
00:38:57,480 --> 00:38:59,680
Speaker 1: the idea being I guess that if you're trying to

719
00:38:59,760 --> 00:39:02,400
Speaker 1: meta take, your mind might be distracted by all the

720
00:39:02,400 --> 00:39:04,840
Speaker 1: things you're trying to get away from via meditation, and

721
00:39:04,840 --> 00:39:09,360
Speaker 1: therefore the experience could be frustrating and anxiety inducing, whereas

722
00:39:09,360 --> 00:39:11,560
Speaker 1: bubble rap is going to like pretty much nail it

723
00:39:11,640 --> 00:39:13,920
Speaker 1: every time. It's yeah, it's it's a sure thing. But

724
00:39:13,960 --> 00:39:16,000
Speaker 1: I would say the same thing might be true of

725
00:39:16,080 --> 00:39:18,560
Speaker 1: just like playing Tetris or something. Yeah, I mean it,

726
00:39:18,640 --> 00:39:21,440
Speaker 1: And I could be having covered Tetris. We did two

727
00:39:21,480 --> 00:39:23,239
Speaker 1: episodes of it for Stuff to Blow your Mind, and

728
00:39:23,280 --> 00:39:26,719
Speaker 1: we really went deep on the psychological effects of it. Uh,

729
00:39:27,080 --> 00:39:29,200
Speaker 1: you could see some sort of you know, there are

730
00:39:29,239 --> 00:39:32,840
Speaker 1: some obvious parallels. Well, I would say part of the

731
00:39:32,880 --> 00:39:35,600
Speaker 1: appeal of a good video game controller, like the A

732
00:39:35,719 --> 00:39:38,239
Speaker 1: B buttons on a game Boy that people used to

733
00:39:38,239 --> 00:39:41,759
Speaker 1: play Tetris on. Uh, A controller really needs to have

734
00:39:41,840 --> 00:39:45,040
Speaker 1: the right button feel and the right kind of button

735
00:39:45,080 --> 00:39:47,080
Speaker 1: feel is kind of similar to the feeling of a

736
00:39:47,120 --> 00:39:50,279
Speaker 1: sealed air capsule on bubble wrap. It's a good point.

737
00:39:50,600 --> 00:39:53,000
Speaker 1: But while I've seen quite a few articles referenced this

738
00:39:53,080 --> 00:39:56,360
Speaker 1: study by Dylan in ninety two, I've seen fewer reference

739
00:39:56,520 --> 00:40:01,040
Speaker 1: this one from nineteen by Taylor person or Bollock called

740
00:40:01,320 --> 00:40:05,160
Speaker 1: could Popping air capsules affect State anxiety and Psychological Reports?

741
00:40:05,560 --> 00:40:08,120
Speaker 1: They looked into whether bubble popping has an effect on

742
00:40:08,160 --> 00:40:12,240
Speaker 1: test subjects on their level of state anxiety, and the subjects,

743
00:40:12,239 --> 00:40:15,440
Speaker 1: again were university students, and the test group popped air

744
00:40:15,480 --> 00:40:19,000
Speaker 1: capsules for five minutes. Control group did nothing. Afterwards, the

745
00:40:19,000 --> 00:40:21,840
Speaker 1: test group actually showed higher levels of anxiety than the

746
00:40:21,840 --> 00:40:24,800
Speaker 1: control group, which was the opposite of the expected effect.

747
00:40:25,480 --> 00:40:28,120
Speaker 1: Uh So, I would not try to conclude anything with

748
00:40:28,200 --> 00:40:31,439
Speaker 1: high confidence about the psychological effects of bubble popping from

749
00:40:31,480 --> 00:40:33,920
Speaker 1: just these two studies, But just the fact that the

750
00:40:34,000 --> 00:40:37,680
Speaker 1: studies exist, I think demonstrates that something people have the

751
00:40:37,719 --> 00:40:41,440
Speaker 1: intuition that something's going on here, there was something psychologically

752
00:40:41,520 --> 00:40:44,680
Speaker 1: significant about the bubble popping activity and why people are

753
00:40:44,719 --> 00:40:47,680
Speaker 1: so drawn to it. I don't have any strong evidence

754
00:40:47,719 --> 00:40:50,040
Speaker 1: to support this. This is just a sort of hunch

755
00:40:50,080 --> 00:40:53,400
Speaker 1: of mine, But I have a hunch that the bubble

756
00:40:53,480 --> 00:40:57,480
Speaker 1: popping drive might be rooted in an instinct for grooming

757
00:40:57,600 --> 00:41:01,480
Speaker 1: behaviors like you know, picking lice and other bugs, the

758
00:41:01,600 --> 00:41:05,280
Speaker 1: kind of like pimple popping, the kind of like small

759
00:41:05,440 --> 00:41:11,680
Speaker 1: intense finger you know, fingertip pressure application, kinds of things

760
00:41:11,719 --> 00:41:15,120
Speaker 1: that would come along with social grooming behaviors and primates.

761
00:41:15,520 --> 00:41:17,640
Speaker 1: This is a great point. Yeah, I've I've thought about

762
00:41:17,719 --> 00:41:22,280
Speaker 1: this fair amount with in regards to two pimples and boils,

763
00:41:22,320 --> 00:41:25,040
Speaker 1: because if you look around on YouTube, and I suggest

764
00:41:25,120 --> 00:41:27,640
Speaker 1: you do, you'll find that there are quite a few

765
00:41:27,880 --> 00:41:30,960
Speaker 1: videos of people, um, you know, grooming themselves. I think

766
00:41:30,960 --> 00:41:32,960
Speaker 1: there's even like a reality show that came out of this,

767
00:41:33,040 --> 00:41:35,640
Speaker 1: like pimple Popper Empty or something like that, Dr pimple

768
00:41:35,680 --> 00:41:37,680
Speaker 1: Popper or some boy. I have not watched it, but

769
00:41:37,719 --> 00:41:40,280
Speaker 1: I know that it exists. But all this like tends

770
00:41:40,320 --> 00:41:43,000
Speaker 1: to show that, like it or not, we have this

771
00:41:43,080 --> 00:41:48,680
Speaker 1: fascination with the popping of of of of boils and

772
00:41:48,760 --> 00:41:52,560
Speaker 1: pimples and and and and we all know that you're

773
00:41:52,680 --> 00:41:54,839
Speaker 1: you're not supposed to really do that. You know, we're

774
00:41:54,880 --> 00:41:58,440
Speaker 1: not supposed to just go and start squeezing every odd

775
00:41:58,480 --> 00:42:01,319
Speaker 1: mark on our face, or you know, if we get

776
00:42:01,320 --> 00:42:03,680
Speaker 1: to boil, you know, or not so much boil, but

777
00:42:03,680 --> 00:42:05,480
Speaker 1: say a blister. You're not supposed to mess with it

778
00:42:05,560 --> 00:42:08,280
Speaker 1: like that, um, you know, for a variety of reasons.

779
00:42:09,200 --> 00:42:11,880
Speaker 1: And yet we have this impulse to do so. And

780
00:42:11,920 --> 00:42:14,400
Speaker 1: I wonder if it is tied in with this, um,

781
00:42:14,440 --> 00:42:18,040
Speaker 1: this desire for personal grooming, but even social grooming. I

782
00:42:18,040 --> 00:42:21,880
Speaker 1: mean I have I have heard, you know, anecdotal reports

783
00:42:21,960 --> 00:42:25,040
Speaker 1: of in say locker room environments where they'll be like

784
00:42:25,080 --> 00:42:30,279
Speaker 1: a communal experience of dealing with someone's pimples, like like

785
00:42:30,360 --> 00:42:34,520
Speaker 1: back or something. Yeah. Uh, this is what comes of

786
00:42:34,560 --> 00:42:40,320
Speaker 1: following um reports of of the pro wrestling world. But

787
00:42:40,320 --> 00:42:43,759
Speaker 1: but in another area that I was thinking about this too,

788
00:42:43,880 --> 00:42:48,520
Speaker 1: is uh, is when it comes to another stress relief device,

789
00:42:48,640 --> 00:42:52,239
Speaker 1: that being um, some sort of a squeezeable object. Like

790
00:42:52,400 --> 00:42:56,000
Speaker 1: right now, I tend to have a squeezable object, uh,

791
00:42:56,280 --> 00:43:00,319
Speaker 1: stress relief squeezy in my hand when we're recording. Not

792
00:43:00,400 --> 00:43:02,239
Speaker 1: so much that, you know, because I'm like rapped with

793
00:43:02,280 --> 00:43:06,160
Speaker 1: anxiety during recording session, but because like my hands need

794
00:43:06,200 --> 00:43:08,960
Speaker 1: to be doing something and if I'm not squeezing this ball,

795
00:43:09,360 --> 00:43:11,719
Speaker 1: then I'm going to be messing around with my pin

796
00:43:11,800 --> 00:43:13,960
Speaker 1: and dropping in and making a noise. While if I

797
00:43:14,040 --> 00:43:18,279
Speaker 1: dropped this, it makes makes basically no sound. But I

798
00:43:18,360 --> 00:43:21,319
Speaker 1: want fidgeting with fingers thing in general. Yeah, yeah, but

799
00:43:21,360 --> 00:43:23,800
Speaker 1: it but it makes me wonder if this too has

800
00:43:24,840 --> 00:43:28,239
Speaker 1: like some root in our experience of the flesh, you know,

801
00:43:28,360 --> 00:43:33,120
Speaker 1: like the it is soothing to to squeeze this fleshy

802
00:43:33,200 --> 00:43:37,960
Speaker 1: ball because it is like squeezing flesh. That's that's as

803
00:43:37,960 --> 00:43:39,680
Speaker 1: far as I've come. I actually looked into I tried

804
00:43:39,719 --> 00:43:42,160
Speaker 1: to find some studies on this a while back, thinking

805
00:43:42,200 --> 00:43:44,000
Speaker 1: we could do an episode of one of our shows

806
00:43:44,440 --> 00:43:47,920
Speaker 1: on squeeze balls, and I really couldn't. I found some

807
00:43:47,960 --> 00:43:51,000
Speaker 1: stuff that was specialized towards um, uh, you know, the

808
00:43:51,040 --> 00:43:56,080
Speaker 1: treatment of certain certain conditions, but nothing like general about

809
00:43:56,120 --> 00:43:59,120
Speaker 1: like the human experience of needing to uh you know,

810
00:43:59,200 --> 00:44:02,759
Speaker 1: to manipulate a fleshy ball in your hand. Well, I mean,

811
00:44:02,880 --> 00:44:05,120
Speaker 1: another thing I would say is that the tradition of

812
00:44:05,200 --> 00:44:08,400
Speaker 1: things like fidget spinners is not new. All kinds of

813
00:44:08,440 --> 00:44:13,840
Speaker 1: cultures have small handheld objects that are carried as carried

814
00:44:14,040 --> 00:44:17,040
Speaker 1: or or you know, just like messed around with during

815
00:44:17,120 --> 00:44:19,959
Speaker 1: rituals or even when you're not doing anything else, maybe

816
00:44:19,960 --> 00:44:22,520
Speaker 1: you just walk around with little stones in your hands.

817
00:44:23,040 --> 00:44:26,080
Speaker 1: That this is not a culturally uncommon thing. What are

818
00:44:26,120 --> 00:44:29,600
Speaker 1: these things for? What is the rosary for? Where does

819
00:44:29,640 --> 00:44:31,799
Speaker 1: that come from? Well, part of it is you said,

820
00:44:32,280 --> 00:44:34,359
Speaker 1: what are these four? Think of the hands, what are

821
00:44:34,360 --> 00:44:37,840
Speaker 1: these hands for? Like you look at human evolution and

822
00:44:37,840 --> 00:44:40,880
Speaker 1: and the reason we have this shape here that we have,

823
00:44:40,960 --> 00:44:43,799
Speaker 1: the reason we have this this ultimately like less than

824
00:44:43,920 --> 00:44:47,719
Speaker 1: healthy posture of standing upright is so that we could

825
00:44:47,800 --> 00:44:50,279
Speaker 1: use these hands for things. And then you enter a

826
00:44:50,320 --> 00:44:53,880
Speaker 1: modern life experience of not having things to do with

827
00:44:53,960 --> 00:44:57,440
Speaker 1: your hands like that. It's it's no wonder that that

828
00:44:57,480 --> 00:44:59,440
Speaker 1: would be a little perplexing that you would need to

829
00:44:59,480 --> 00:45:02,200
Speaker 1: have something in your fingers because we just went through

830
00:45:02,239 --> 00:45:06,120
Speaker 1: this tremendous evolutionary process to be able to use these

831
00:45:06,160 --> 00:45:09,640
Speaker 1: hands while we're doing other things. Yeah, within our evolutionary

832
00:45:09,680 --> 00:45:12,920
Speaker 1: history is standing there not using your hands for anything?

833
00:45:13,040 --> 00:45:16,719
Speaker 1: Is that kind of like standing on one foot? It's

834
00:45:16,800 --> 00:45:19,480
Speaker 1: just naturally kind of puts you off balance a little bit. Yeah,

835
00:45:19,480 --> 00:45:22,760
Speaker 1: you're really insulting the gods, right, or at least insulting

836
00:45:22,800 --> 00:45:25,319
Speaker 1: the evolutionary process if you're not using your hands for

837
00:45:25,400 --> 00:45:27,920
Speaker 1: something at all times, at least talk with him, at

838
00:45:27,960 --> 00:45:31,840
Speaker 1: least make wild gestures. At least make yourself crazy gloves

839
00:45:31,880 --> 00:45:35,719
Speaker 1: with fidget spinners at each fingertip. Tin Spinners. That's my

840
00:45:35,719 --> 00:45:38,320
Speaker 1: new band, Tin Spinners. Okay, I could see that working.

841
00:45:38,600 --> 00:45:40,600
Speaker 1: I really is. This is one area where I really

842
00:45:40,640 --> 00:45:42,840
Speaker 1: wish we had some more solid science on this. I

843
00:45:43,040 --> 00:45:45,520
Speaker 1: couldn't you know, I couldn't find anything else really on

844
00:45:45,560 --> 00:45:48,440
Speaker 1: the bubble popping drive. And maybe there's some studies out

845
00:45:48,440 --> 00:45:50,640
Speaker 1: there that I wasn't able to locate. If so, if

846
00:45:50,640 --> 00:45:53,920
Speaker 1: you're you know, experienced in this area, please contact us

847
00:45:53,960 --> 00:45:56,279
Speaker 1: with these. I would like some something with more meat

848
00:45:56,320 --> 00:45:59,200
Speaker 1: on it. Well, maybe when we do an an Invention

849
00:45:59,280 --> 00:46:03,400
Speaker 1: episode on the Blackhead Remover, then we can like the

850
00:46:03,440 --> 00:46:05,959
Speaker 1: black Head Gun, then we can we can get into

851
00:46:06,000 --> 00:46:08,279
Speaker 1: this more. Okay, I don't know if I want to

852
00:46:08,320 --> 00:46:10,719
Speaker 1: find out what that is. My understanding, it's like a

853
00:46:10,719 --> 00:46:14,400
Speaker 1: little device for like sucking um um, you know, the

854
00:46:14,480 --> 00:46:19,160
Speaker 1: like the darkened you know, material out of your pores. Amazing. Yeah, okay,

855
00:46:19,200 --> 00:46:21,600
Speaker 1: that's gotta be it for just a Simpsons joke about it, right?

856
00:46:21,680 --> 00:46:23,200
Speaker 1: I mean where they I don't know. I think Aunt

857
00:46:23,480 --> 00:46:28,160
Speaker 1: Selma has one, Okay, we're done. That's the end, all right. Well,

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00:46:28,400 --> 00:46:31,000
Speaker 1: if you would like to listen to other episodes of Invention,

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00:46:31,160 --> 00:46:33,560
Speaker 1: you can find them at invention pod dot com. That

860
00:46:33,680 --> 00:46:36,440
Speaker 1: is our home page. Of course, you can find the

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Speaker 1: that because that also helps to stat as well. Huge

869
00:47:01,400 --> 00:47:04,840
Speaker 1: thanks as always to our excellent audio producers, Maya Cole

870
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Speaker 1: and Seth Nicholas Johnson. If if you would like to

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Speaker 1: get in touch with us with feedback on this episode

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Speaker 1: just to say hi, you can email us at contact

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Speaker 1: at invention pod dot com. Invention is production of I

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