What Now? With Trevor NoahTight Values, Loose Ideas with Malcolm Gladwell | What Now? with Trevor Noah Podcast
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
55 min read · 11,298 words- 0:00 – 0:51
Sesame Street’s toddler dominance (and the threat of Cocomelon)
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Trevor, you don't know this yet. You will someday, I hope. The, you know, the, the, the market share capture, the brain share capture of toddlers by Sesame Street is, like, 95%.
- SPSpeaker
It's insane.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
It's, it's-
- SPSpeaker
Sesame Street-
- TNTrevor Noah
Wait, it's still that high?
- SPSpeaker
Oh, yes.
- TNTrevor Noah
That's amazing.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Oh, my God.
- SPSpeaker
It's a classic.
- TNTrevor Noah
No, no, but I'm, I'm happy about that.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- TNTrevor Noah
I thought, like, it was over for Sesame Street.
- SPSpeaker
No, it's the best.
- TNTrevor Noah
And now it's all, like, Cocomelon and-
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
No, no, no, no, no.
- TNTrevor Noah
No? Oh, that's really good.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
They have got a strangle-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
They got a, they got ... They have your kid in a headlock.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, it's so, Sesame Street-
- TNTrevor Noah
That's a healthy headlock
- SPSpeaker
... Peppa Pig, and Cocomelon.
- TNTrevor Noah
Oh, Peppa Pig is fire, though.
- SPSpeaker
Cocomelon is like crack. [laughs] I call it-
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Cocomelon, I outlaw Cocomelon.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, yeah.
- TNTrevor Noah
Cocomelon is dangerous.
- SPSpeaker
Yes.
- TNTrevor Noah
I don't know what's happening there.
- SPSpeaker
It's dangerous. They ... I call them the Cocofellahs, the kids that watch that stuff.
- 0:51 – 2:37
Passing, identity, and Gladwell’s 23% Igbo discovery
- TNTrevor Noah
This is What Now? with Trevor Noah.
- SPSpeaker
We were telling people, well, when we talked about you, I was like, "Do you know Black people don't know Mal- know Malcolm Gladwell, but white people don't know Malcolm Gladwell."
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yeah, no.
- SPSpeaker
We were talking about it. I was like, "White people don't know."
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
No, I'm stealth.
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
I would've, back in the day, it would've been very ... I was born in the wrong century. 19th century, I, it was fantastic for me.
- TNTrevor Noah
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Huh? It's-
- SPSpeaker
You would've taken the system down from the inside out.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
[laughs] They're like, "Wait a minute." Like, historians would've uncovered 100 years later, "Wait a second. He was Black. What was he doing in Congress?" [laughs]
- SPSpeaker
Talking about Malcolm being passing-
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah
- SPSpeaker
... to white people.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yeah, I pass.
- SPSpeaker
Black people see the hair, they're like, "No, no, no, no, no."
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yeah, yeah.
- SPSpeaker
They're like, "Yeah."
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
It's, it's a tell.
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
It is a tell. It is completely a tell. But now you ... I didn't know that. When did this Nigerian thing happen?
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
I did my 23andMe, and I'm 23% Igbo.
- SPSpeaker
Oh, my God.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Which is so fantastic, and I put it on Twitter. And immed- ... And this is like every Nigerian on Twitter was like-
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
... "Oh, my God, fantastic," like-
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
... every, every single one was positive. Like, it was the most exc- you know, inclusive experience I've ever had in my life.
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- 2:37 – 3:40
“No such thing as half Jamaican”: belonging and cultural adoption
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
The, I, on a, on the Jamaican front, I, I was at, at the world championships, track championships, and I see Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, right? One of my heroes, so she's, like, this big. I go up and say, "Hello, my name is Malcolm. I don't know if you know this. I'm half Jamaican." She says, "There's no such thing as half Jamaican."
- TNTrevor Noah
There's only Jamaican.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
There's only Jamaican.
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah, that's right.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
That's the right attitude.
- TNTrevor Noah
That is the right attitude.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
That is the attitude.
- SPSpeaker
Right.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
There's no such thing as 23% Nigerian.
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
Yes.
- TNTrevor Noah
I sometimes think it would-
- SPSpeaker
Complete Nigerian
- TNTrevor Noah
... that's what, like, if instead of the British, if, like, Africans colonized the world, no one would've been left out. Do you know what I mean? Because, like, look, no, because all other colonization was like, "You're not like us."
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- TNTrevor Noah
And then, like, whereas Africans are very much any, anyone Black anywhere-
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yes
- TNTrevor Noah
... they just go like, "No, no, you're with us. Let's go."
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, yeah.
- TNTrevor Noah
"Let's go. It doesn't matter." Even if, have you even seen those videos online-
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yeah
- TNTrevor Noah
... of people who can just speak the language or can do the accent well? They're like, "All right, you're one of us."
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
[laughs] That's right.
- SPSpeaker
That's ... I'm saying Malcolm should go to Abia Sta- State. They'll make him a chief.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Chief Gladwell.
- TNTrevor Noah
I'll take it.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Chief Gladwell.
- SPSpeaker
Igwe Malcolm Gladwell. [laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
[laughs] Oh, man.
- SPSpeaker
He'll love that.
- 3:40 – 6:50
Why write a sequel that argues with your own classic?
- TNTrevor Noah
Um, Malcolm, I, I, um, I saw you, I saw you were releasing a new book, and, um, you, you know I'm a huge fan of yours. We've, we've talked over the years. Um, I'm al- I'm always trying to see what Malcolm Gladwell is thinking of, um, to give me a sense of, like, what I'm missing in the world. I think a lot of people think like that. Y- you, you know, um, as my friend David says, who you've met, David always used-
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yes
- TNTrevor Noah
... to say, "You make people think they're smart because they read your book and then they talk to other people about it." But, um, but, like, this book is, is an interesting take on Malcolm Gladwell, like Revenge of the Tipping Point. I, at first, I was like, wait, is it a continuation? Is it a ... But no, it, it, it feels like you are going up against you as-
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
You're, you're thinking it, you're thinking it's an exercise in self-hatred? Is that what you're saying?
- TNTrevor Noah
No, no, no, no, because here's the thing. Oftentimes people will write a book that ... And very, very seldom will it change the world. Let's, let's start-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- TNTrevor Noah
... with that, right? The Tipping Point, I would argue, changed the way people fundamentally think about many things, and then very few people would then go back and go, "Well, actually, let's change some of the thinking that this book basically laid the foundations for." Why do that?
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Well, no one likes changing his mind more than me, first of all. I just enjoy it. My da- my dad really enjoyed it. And as a kid, some of my, my greatest memories of my father, um, who was a marvelous character on his own, was him just shamelessly changing his mind on a subject. Like, without any explanation or apology, he just would agree. He'd talk to somebody, and he, if, he would always make this calculation. He would talk to someone, and if he thought they knew even 1% more on a subject than he did, he'd just like, "All right, you're right. I ..." You know, and that was it.
- TNTrevor Noah
That was it.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
And he was done. I thought it was fantastic as a child. And I, and secretly that's what I want. I want to be the guy who wakes up and decides, and Kate, my partner, is always making fun of me on this because I will not like someone, and then I'll just wake up and, "They're great."
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Like, "Why don't we have them over?" She's like, "Wait, I thought you didn't like them." [laughs] It's like, yeah, that's, you know, that was the past. Now I'm all over them. So I, I, I didn't read The Tipping Point after I wrote it. And then it was its anniversary, and I thought, "Oh, I should read it again," because we were thinking of doing a new, a revised edition.
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
So I read it again. I'm like, "Wait a second. I wrote that?" Like f- I just felt I w-- I was, like, arguing with the book the whole time. So that's why I, I wanna do a new one. That was basically what happened.
- TNTrevor Noah
Are you the opposite or the same?
- SPSpeaker
I'm the opposite, and that's why I find it so interesting that you were raised by a man who, like, changes his mind easily. Like, m- my parents are, like, deep Christians, and they're not changing their mind about anything. [laughs]
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
You know, my parents-
- SPSpeaker
Oh
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
... deep Christians.
- SPSpeaker
Okay, that's interesting.
- TNTrevor Noah
Wow.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
They're not changing-
- TNTrevor Noah
So all, all of us here.
- SPSpeaker
Okay.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
[laughs] They're-
- TNTrevor Noah
Super deep Christians.
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
Here we are.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
No, no, no.
- TNTrevor Noah
Three of us are gathered in His name. Let's go.
- 6:50 – 7:54
Tight values, loose ideas: the ethics of changing your mind
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
I don't think it's painful. First of all, just to go back on parents for a second, so my father, my father's, can I talk about my dad?
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah, of course.
- SPSpeaker
Yes.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
I love talking about him.
- TNTrevor Noah
Talk about your dad.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
He passed six or seven years ago, and I wrote his obituary, and I said, "He had strong opinions about the Bible, gardening, and mathematics. And on everything else, he was open to suggestion." And I sort of think that's the right model. You gotta have your core set of things-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
... that you hold dearly, and I think you should, I always use the phrase that ideas should be held loosely.
- TNTrevor Noah
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
And they're not values, but ideas.
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Values you hold tightly, but ideas you hold loosely, 'cause, you know, stuff changes, and you have, you grow up, or you're, um... You know what the, the, in the original Tipping Point, there's a chapter on crime, which is just about why New York City crime fell in the-
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
... 90s. It's an appalling chapter.
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
I mean, it's just appalling. I, [laughs] you know.
- SPSpeaker
Is this, like, the broken windows?
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yes.
- SPSpeaker
Okay.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Jesus. Like, what was I thinking? I mean, I didn't know any better, I guess. But it's not difficult. To me, it's very freeing-
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
... to say I was wrong.
- 7:54 – 10:59
Broken windows, stop-and-frisk, and the moral duty to update beliefs
- SPSpeaker
I'm curious, is it that the world, do you think the world has changed that radically in the 25 years, or were the ideas wrong then?
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Well, I've, I mean, the world, yes, of course the world has changed, although probably changed less than we think. I think sometimes we fetishize, you know, certain kinds of technological innovation, and think we've in, reinvented ourselves as human beings, and it's just, to my mind, a little bit more of the same. Um, but mostly it's that I've moved, like, the crime example is a good one. That I wrote that, broken windows was a fetish in New York City in the '90s. The mayor, Giuliani at the time, was, like, running around and saying, you know, "The only way to stop murder was to stop people from peeing on the sidewalk."
- TNTrevor Noah
Mm-hmm.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Now, I think he was right to say that we should, people shouldn't be peeing on the sidewalk, and we should clean it. That was totally right. But the, he made two subsequent connections. His first thing was that the way to stop people from engaging in that kind of behavior was to arrest, arrest them by the thousands. And then secondly, he said, and that's also, by the way, how you stop violent crime.
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Both of those second claims were, uh, in retrospect, preposterous, right? In the moment, in the late '90s, when we had just witnessed New York go from being one of the least safe big cities in North America to one of the safest, we were sort of willing to accept, to pay any price for that improvement in safety, and accept any, any explanation.
- TNTrevor Noah
Mm.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
And that was the fever that I was caught up in.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
I was like, "Okay, we're arresting hundreds of thousands of young Black men in the Bronx and Brooklyn, but better be, better that than being killed." That's what we were all thinking.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Right? Right? In the... And then, you know, I subsequently learned this, it's actually an incredibly interesting history. You know, what happens is a judge stops stop-and-frisk in New York. We go from stopping 700,000 people in one year to stopping 20,000.
- SPSpeaker
Wow.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
It, a- and everyone says, including the judge who stopped it, "Crime's gonna go back up." And what happens? Crime falls another 50%, and everyone's like, "Oh my God, not only did, was stop-and-frisk irrelevant to the crime drop, maybe it was preventing us from using police resources in a way that actually helped-"
- TNTrevor Noah
Oh, yeah
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
... solve mu- So we learned, this happened in 2012. And my point is, if you lived through that learning moment in 2012 when we took away stop-and-frisk, and crime fell another 50%, if you lived through those next five years, and you didn't change your mind, then you are morally bankrupt, right? You have to have changed your mind at that point. So you have to acknowledge, it's not wrong to be wrong in 1996. It's wrong to not change your mind after we learn something in, crucial in those, in those post-sto- stop-and-frisk years.
- SPSpeaker
Hmm.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
It's like you have to get a res- you have to respond if you... The price of playing the game of ideas in the world is you have to stay on your toes and respond to new evidence as it arises.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
That's the, you wanna play this game, that's the rule.
- 10:59 – 19:04
Trust, identity, and where new ideas come from
- TNTrevor Noah
I, okay, here's the thing. I think there are two things that you don't do that probably help you. One, you don't make it your identity. So you wrote about broken windows, but then there were some people who shaped their lives around broken windows.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- TNTrevor Noah
And then secondly, you didn't implement any policies, and I think that's probably one of the scariest things. Like, politicians i- i- in America are perfect examples. Very few of them are able to say, "Yeah, that was wrong. We used data that, at the time, was misread or misunderstood," or, "We used what we had-
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yeah
- TNTrevor Noah
... and we, we made, uh, an incorrect decision." They don't say that. They go like, "No, if you look at what we were trying to do, and we, we still..." Because everyone's afraid to say, I mean, just in life, everyone-
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yeah
- TNTrevor Noah
... is afraid to say, "I was wrong." Like, listening to you right now-
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Mm-hmm
- TNTrevor Noah
... I don't know how many times I've heard human beings say that, just go like, "I look back and go like, 'Damn, what was I thinking?'"
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
That was so, I mean, yeah, I find that so weird. And also, it was so long ago. Like, this is the, this was the late '90s. Y- I, you, I'm older than you guys.
- TNTrevor Noah
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
But it's like, have you looked at your high school yearbook or, like, it's just everything about it is Cringe worthy
- TNTrevor Noah
Right
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
I mean, it, it should be fine to look back on your 25 years in the past self and have an issue. I would, I would hope you would have an issue
- SPSpeaker
I think it's because so much of the world that we live in currently-
- TNTrevor Noah
Mm
- SPSpeaker
... it's built on, say, as a foreigner coming to America, so many times the Constitution is referenced and the amendments are referenced. Our world are built on ideas that sometimes emerged thousands of years ago, and we refuse to revisit them-
- TNTrevor Noah
Mm
- SPSpeaker
... in the same way you're revisiting Tipping Point.
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- TNTrevor Noah
But the funny thing about the amendments for me is the name itself. Like, whenever people get angry, you know, like you talk about the amendments, you go like, "Oh, you gotta change them," and then like, "You don't change them," and then I'm like, "Amendment means change." [laughs]
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
It's change
- TNTrevor Noah
It literally means change
- SPSpeaker
But they don't want any more change
- TNTrevor Noah
Yes, but what I'm saying is like the-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- 19:04 – 25:04
Rebuilding common ground: sports, movies, and the loss of shared reality
- SPSpeaker
What you've described, I think you have this basic level of intellectual curiosity.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
And Trevor said earlier that the reason you can hold your ideas loosely is because your ideas aren't your identity.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
Now, I would say it feels in this specific moment for a lot of people that their ideas are actually a huge part of their identity. They make up their identity. So if, they're not gonna come apart from that idea, because it's like, "Who am I?" There's a vacuum after that.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
So what do we do when we're engaging with people in our lives who ideas have become their identity, and you're trying to get them to see another point of view or point them towards something else, and they're like, "Oh, you're just a crazy r- liberal," or, "You're just a crazy conservative."
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah. There, I thought about this recently, 'cause I was, I go to this little coffee shop in my nearby hometown upstate, and there's always these two old guys who are in a corner. They're there every time I go there, and they're always having an argument about, not an argument, a long discussion about movies. They're movie junkies.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
And they have encyclopedic knowledge, and I eavesdrop on them all the time. And it, I realize that there, there's something really lovely there, which is that they have clearly a huge part of their identity is about the enjoyment and appreciation of that particular art form. And I would imagine that if one of those guys was a Trumper MAGA type, and the other was a diehard liberal, it wouldn't matter.
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Because they had found this area that was more important to their identity and that, where they could find common ground, and where they could find each other-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
... find joy in each other's company. And it's those kinds of spaces that I feel have been eroded. And I use the movie example for a reason, which was, for the longest time, in many cultures around the world, the movies occupied this huge position in people, the way people related to the world. Yeah. They saw, you know, you grow- people, talk to people who grew up in New York in the '30s and '40s, they would see a movie every day, and they would, that's what they would talk about on the playground. Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
And that's what they would, you know, and, you know, sports function in that way. And I s- I, uh, sometimes think to what we need actually, weirdly, is more sports, not less sports. Because sports are one of the few things that can occupy a big space- Mm.
- SPSpeaker
Mm
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
... and bring people together, and you can have a long conversation with someone about sports, and politics will never come up. You know, my, my, even my parents would be a good example. My, you know, a white father, Black mother, lot of people looked at them and said, uh, you know, "You guys are so different." They, and they, that's not how they organized their life. Yeah. They said they thought they were exactly the same. [laughs] You know, we're two committed Christians who, you know, their fathers read the same books. And I think that's the issue, is like it's just not good to be, spend all your time wallowing in political arguments. But I, I also, I also think it's this. I, I think, um, you know, I remember a f- a friend of mine describing, so he, he worked as a computer programmer. And I remember one day, he was, um, he was explaining the concept of the second system effect. The second system effect is what they teach programmers and coders about when, when working on a program and then moving it to the next version. And they go- Ah ... "You always have to consider the things that might happen that you don't know might happen because you've now changed the program over."
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yeah. 'Cause you always think of what you're updating. You always think of what you're improving, but you seldom think of what that could cause as a knock-on effect to what you didn't want, an unintended consequence.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
And oftentimes, that's what happens, right? You, y- you'll see it on your phone all the time. They'll, they'll go, new software, and then very quickly afterwards, there'll be, like, new software on top of the new software-
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
... because we just realized that what the new software did was it made the keyboard unusable when you were sending a text to certain people in a group chat. Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm, yeah.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
That's a second system effect, right? And that gave me a whole new way to think about life, because now I, I will go, oh, sometimes we make a change that is oftentimes an improvement, by the way, but we don't think of what the possible second system effect could be. Mm.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Like streaming and the proliferation of TV shows and, like, um, uh, you know, like, on demand. You, you can watch Breaking Bad when you wanna watch Breaking Bad, and, "Have you watched Game of Thrones?" "I'll watch it when I..." You, you know what I mean?
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
It's given you so much choice, but what a lot of people don't realize is it's robbed us of communal, um, uh, consumption. But then what have we all seen? The debate. "Oh, I saw the debate. Oh, I saw the de- Did you see the debate?" Oh, that's interesting.
- 25:04 – 27:06
Trevor’s F1 interlude: why Formula 1 (and Vegas) is special
- TNTrevor Noah
Now it's time for F1 Love, a segment where I get to talk all things F1 and why you should be excited for the F1 Las Vegas GP. So if you know anything about me, you know, um, I love a few things in my life. Uh, I love video games. I love tech. I love traveling. I love copious amounts of ice cream, and there are few things I love more than Formula 1. I've been watching Formula 1 my entire life. I started watching it with my dad. I think I've told you this, but, um, yeah, it's just, it is one of the most exciting, crazy, anything-can-happen sports in the world. And as I've grown, I've grown to appreciate it more because, you know, F1 athletes apparently are the fittest athletes in the world. They've got some of the strongest necks, which I know is a weird thing to think is cool, but I do. Because apparently their necks can sustain, like, 3, 4, or 5 G, which is pretty insane if you know what a neck can usually handle. But anyway, I'm really excited because Formula 1 used to only be in Europe, and now one of the most exciting races of the season is in Las Vegas. Formula 1 has two kinds of races. You've got the races that are on tracks, and so those ones are really fun and fantastic. But then every now and again, you'll have a race that's on the streets of the city that it's in, and the F1 race in Las Vegas is one of those. The cars are out on the strip racing around. I'm talking hundreds and hundreds of miles per hour. The stuff you wish you could do, they do it for real, and Vegas is the best place for it. You get to go out. You get to see the drivers over the weekend. You get to hear the cars, and if you've never heard an F1 car, like, you, you haven't lived. It literally sounds like the end and the beginning of the world at the same time. If you get a chance, try and go through the pit lanes if you have that opportunity. It's amazing. You get to see the cars up close. You get to see the technology. You get to see, like, even the tires. The tires are so impressive. But
- 27:06 – 31:56
The Harvard chapter: elite admissions via ‘white people sports’
- TNTrevor Noah
if you don't get the backstage exp- just go to the race. Wear a hat. Cheer for a team. See people drive cars the way they're supposed to be driven, and then think to yourself, "I could do that at home," but do not do it at home. That was F1 Love, brought to you by Las Vegas hosting the upcoming F1 race November 21 to 23. Tickets are available now by visiting f1lasvegasgp.com/tickets. There's gotta be one chapter in this book that you, um, that you enjoyed writing the most.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Oh, my God. So easy.
- TNTrevor Noah
Like, you, you, yeah, you have, like, a guilty joy when it comes to certain topics.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
[laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
This is something I know about you. You have, like, a, you, you have, like, a giggle in you. You have, like, a mischievous feeling in you where you're like, "Ooh, I love that I'm getting into this." Like, the, so what's, like, the most Gladwell chapter in this book where-
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
It's the Harvard. It's the Harvard chapter.
- TNTrevor Noah
The Harvard chapter?
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Why does-
- TNTrevor Noah
About the admissions?
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yeah. Why does Harvard-
- TNTrevor Noah
Okay, let's talk, let's talk through that
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
It's all about this strange fact that there is no university in the United States that has more Division I varsity sports than Harvard. So everyone thinks that the sports-obsessed schools are, like, in the South. No, no, no. The most sports-obsessed school is Harvard. Not only that, they're so obsessed with, with, that they, if you're an athlete, they have the, the front door is for smart kids who compete, and it's really hard to get in the front door. They have a back door for athletes and rich people, of course.
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah, of, of course.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
And the, if, the back door, you, it's way easier to get in. The simplest way to get into Harvard is to be a good athlete, not to be a good student. So the question is, why would they care so much about sports that they would, like, create a special back door for them-
- TNTrevor Noah
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
... and also play so many? And I think the answer is, is, is in the kind of sports they're playing. So what sports are, if they have all these... Rowing.
- TNTrevor Noah
Rowing, got it.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Middleweight, or, uh, light, heavyweight and lightweight rowing, and each team is, like, what is it? 25. I've forgotten.
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Some incredible number. Fencing. Okay.
- TNTrevor Noah
Mm-hmm.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Okay.
- TNTrevor Noah
Fencing.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Uh, sailing.
- TNTrevor Noah
Oh, interesting.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
How do we feel about sailing?
- TNTrevor Noah
Sailing.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Uh, tennis.
- TNTrevor Noah
Tennis.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Interesting. Tennis. Now, rugby. Now, rugby's, so now you guys are Africans. Particularly you, you come, you're, you guys are serious rugby-playing people.
- 31:56 – 38:51
Finding the real lever: why Will & Grace changed minds (more than ‘representation’)
- TNTrevor Noah
Do you know what I mean? Let me, let me ask you a question, Malcolm. Like, uh, in, in the book, the- there, there are many moments where you talk about like, um, it's not necessarily the tipping point, but it's like some of the, some of the larger things that made something happen. Like for instance, you talk about Will & Grace.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yeah.
- TNTrevor Noah
You know? And, and you go, "This is, like, the show that, that changes people's perspectives on gay people in America, et cetera." You know, and then some people will go like, "Ah, but what about Ellen? Ellen was on before that." And in the, in the opioid, um, section-
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Mm
- TNTrevor Noah
... you know, when you're talking about the Sackler family, you're like, "This is, you know, the, the story they told," and the passive voice when they're defending themselves. And you, and you tell the story where some people might read it and go like, "Oh, but I actually think the issue is the doctors." Like, how do you choose to hone in, or where do you think you've actually found-
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Mm-hmm
- TNTrevor Noah
... the real le- lever that, that, that has moved society or shifted-
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yeah
- TNTrevor Noah
... in a certain direction versus others?
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
So the Will & Grace, let's do the Will & Grace one. That was really interesting. So there's a really brilliant woman whose work I, uh, I read and love by the name of Bonnie Dowell.
- TNTrevor Noah
Mm-hmm.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Who does this kind of meta-analysis of television shows and their imp- and their importance. And she, she looked at the way, um, including in Ellen, the way that television had described and discussed gay relationships, and she said that up until Will & Grace, every time gay people were talked about, even if they were talked about on television in a positive way-
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
... a series of rules were in place. The, the emphasis on the show was always about how straight people reacted to the gay person, not on the gay person themselves. The second thing was that the gay person's gayness was always a problem that had to be solved.
- TNTrevor Noah
Oh.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
And the third thing was that the gay person was always in isolation. So she looks at Ellen, and she says, Ellen, yes, had a gay character, first openly gay character on network television, but those three rules were still in effect. The whole ... When Ellen comes out in that pivotal sitcom show from whenever it was, all the rules are in effect. Her gayness is a problem her friends have to solve. The whole show is about her straight friends dealing with the fact that Ellen is, like, complicated their lives, and she has no gay community on those shows. It's just her. Will & Grace comes along and breaks all three rules for the first time on television. Will's got a community. He's got Jack. Mm. Right? And that whole, like ... Uh, his gayness is not a problem to be solved. It's never-
- TNTrevor Noah
Mm.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yeah ... they never s- It's never even a problem. It's just a fact. Oof. Right? And the show is not about straight people reacting to Will. It's about Will and Grace together reacting normally to ... And sh- that makes that show revolutionary. This is ... And I ... That argument to me is so ... And if you, if all you do is watch Will & Grace without the benefit of that kind of analysis-
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
... you miss it. Yeah. And there's an incredible book that was written about the way Hollywood treated homosexuality, pointing out that, look at all the movies in which gay people appear from the '60s through the end of the '90s, and this guy just counts up what happens to the character, the gay character. And, like, in 60% of the cases, the gay character dies. In 10%, they commit suicide. In 10%, they die of a drug overdose. Like, Hollywood just killed them off.
- TNTrevor Noah
Right.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yeah. Like, that's what they did. They ... And you were allowed to feel sympathy for the ... 'cause ... But they were always a ... It was always this dreadful burden, right? And Will & Grace, it's not a burden. It's just like he's just an- he's a-
- TNTrevor Noah
It just happens to be part of their lives
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
... it's just part of their ... And that is so ... Like, I feel like it, it is no coincidence. That's right around the time when the country wakes up one day after flipping out about gay marriage, wakes up one day and, and just d- doesn't even say, "I love gay marriage," just shrugs and says, and says, "Are we really gonna fight about this?" And it just goes away.
- TNTrevor Noah
So it's actually, it's actually funny. You know, when I, when I was reading through that chapter, and when I was reading through some of the chapters about, like, overstories that you talk about, you know, the story that is over every other story that we're telling ourselves. I don't know if you've watched it. There's a, there's an animated movie. I think it's, um, Mitchells vs. The Machines, I think it's called.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Mm-hmm.
- TNTrevor Noah
And, um, it's a story of this family that goes up against, like, machines taking over the world. And one day I was, I was having a conversation with some, a group of friends, and someone said to me, like, "Oh, I hated that movie." And I was like, "Really? It was a great movie." They're like, "Yeah, it was great, but I didn't like that at the end we learned That the main protagonist was, uh, a gay character. And I was like, "Why not?" And they were like, "Why didn't we know from the beginning? I feel like you just tried to sneak it in." And, and I was like, "Well, are you pro-?" And she's like, "No, I'm pro- I'm pro-gay rights, and that's why I feel like it should've been." And then I said, "I think that's been the problem with a lot of programming, actually."
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Mm.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- TNTrevor Noah
Is that because Hollywood as a whole, and obviously I'm using a big umbrella here, but because Hollywood as a whole people forget is a business, they make these like fake stories and fake moves that are artificially trying to jump on trends that are not trends. Do you know what ... Do you get what I'm saying? So they'll be like, "Oh, wow, gay people are becoming very popular in society. We need to make a gay show."
- 38:51 – 41:23
Work as a bridge: soccer, shared tasks, and seeing people fully
- TNTrevor Noah
Right. I've, I've, I've seen a few times how ... So, like, for me this is, this is purely anecdotal, but in New York I play, um, I play football. I play soccer with a, a bunch of guys from all over the world.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Mm.
- TNTrevor Noah
Literally all over the world, all different walks of life, you know? Like, we have all of Africa on the team.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- TNTrevor Noah
And then we have Europe, and then we have Eastern Europe, and then we have, like sometimes we'll have like Australia and Asia, and then America, obviously. But it'll be a collection, 22 guys from everywhere-
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Mm
- TNTrevor Noah
... coming together. And one of the fascinating things I've noticed is we have built our relationships and our fri- friendships and our perceptions of each other, and each other's peoples, without ever speaking about them. Does that make sense?
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yeah.
- TNTrevor Noah
When we come to the game, we play the game. I judge the other people by how they play the game, and they judge me by how I play the game. Badly, well on a day, terribly.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Mm-hmm.
- TNTrevor Noah
But that's how we know each other. So you're like, "Latif, why, why don't you do this? You always do this. Joe. Joe, why are you doing this? Ah, no, zero technique. You have zero technique."
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
"Why are you doing this?" And it's like, "Shut up, Joe." And then like w- w- you'd, what I, what I realized the one day w- was almost magical, is like everyone on that team has a human, has a human example of somebody from another country. So if you say to them, "Do you, what are you, Ugandans?" They go like, "Oh, man, I know this guy Joe. He's from Uganda." And it's like, oh, what are you get- and then it's just like you know them, you know him as a human being.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- TNTrevor Noah
Does that make s-
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Mm.
- TNTrevor Noah
Does that make sense?
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Mm-hmm.
- TNTrevor Noah
And I think sometimes, like in these stories, we forget that we don't, we don't get to know people as human beings because we don't see them doing human being things.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Mm-hmm.
- TNTrevor Noah
And then we give ourselves like the full ... We give like the, the ... I mean, when I say ourselves, I mean like let's say the dominant group. You get to exist in your fullness.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- TNTrevor Noah
And then everyone who's on the margins has to exist only in one area. It's like, all right, gay people, you get a day of pride, and then the rest of it is, is for straight people. And even then we're gonna be like, "Why do you get a day?"
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
[laughs] And you're like, "Well, every day is a straight pride day."
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
You know, every day is like Chinos and-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- 41:23 – 45:07
Why a whole new book: podcasting, interviews, and the joy of listening deeply
- SPSpeaker
Malcolm, I'm curious. You say you went back, read Tipping Point, and you're like, "This is appalling," right? I'm interested about why it wasn't just an amendment, 'cause most people would do like there's a revised edition, and you write a chapter, and you say like-
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Yeah
- SPSpeaker
... y- a summary. Why is it revisiting and it's a whole book?
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
'Cause I'm crazy.
- SPSpeaker
Okay. [laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
[laughs]
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
'Cause I don't have enough to do. Because [laughs] I, because having two kids apparently is just really easy, and I can do, you know-
- SPSpeaker
You have time
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
... I have, I got time.
- TNTrevor Noah
I'm loving watching the difference in a man's perspective on having kids and a woman's.
- SPSpeaker
I know. I-
- TNTrevor Noah
Malcolm's like, "Yeah, it just feels like you have more time." And Christiane's like, "There's no time left." [laughs]
- SPSpeaker
My life is over.
- TNTrevor Noah
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
Malcolm's like, "Write another book."
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
No, I have, I've worked it out that I have, um, I have 45 minutes to myself a day.
- SPSpeaker
Okay.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Between 10:00 and 10:45.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
That's my time.
- SPSpeaker
Okay. And you write your book.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
It's, it's all I got. It's all I got.
- SPSpeaker
And, and you write your book.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
No, no, no, no.
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
I ... No, I don't know. Um, I, I also thought it would be fun- I actually had more, I've been enjoying myself tremendously over the last, um, I've had a kind of, ever since I started the podcasting stuff, it's loosened me up about, I'm not, I'm a lot less precious about the stuff I do, and I'm doing different kinds of stories and, um, I, so I just s- I, my position now is why not?
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
And why not do something that sounds like it'll be interesting? Who knows what'll happen? The turning point was, for me was, um, when I started the podcast and I started doing weird show, like, shows on-
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
... Cranky kind of, you know, going after golfers or whatever. Um, and I was like, "That was really fun." Like, I didn't realize that what kind of thing. And then I did that audiobook with Paul Simon with my friend Bruce, um, which, you know, I don't really know m- that much about music. I know I like Paul Simon. And we just sat down with him, and it was just so, we did hours and hours of interviews with him, and it was, it, it literally changed my life. I just realized, wow, I thought I was a, in this for the writing. I'm not. I'm in this because I like talking to people. I like interviewing them.
- 45:07 – 52:15
Not taking yourself too seriously: South Africa, humor in leadership, and parenting perspective
- TNTrevor Noah
What I'm hearing you say is something that I feel like we could all work on a little bit more, and that is being a little less serious about how we see ourselves in the world, you know? Because I, I, I think of the different paths, the different universes that Malcolm Gladwell could have been in. You could have been someone that got more serious and, and, and more prescriptive, and, you know, you could have written a book about, "And now let me tell you, it's 20,000 hours, and, uh, here's what else you gotta do. It's not just the windows. It's the doors and the floors and the sidewalks and the ... "
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
[laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
You know, you could ... No, you really, and I think there are people who do that because it becomes, again, going back to, it becomes their identity, so they're like, "I've, I've achieved success in this. I must hold onto it, and I need to do more of it."
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- TNTrevor Noah
And then the second part of it is we forget to have, like, fun. We forget the fun side of life. We forget the enjoyment. We forget the ... People are very, like, serious about things. I even noticed I was falling into it.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Mm.
- TNTrevor Noah
Like, if, if you asked me a question, I, I would give you, like, the serious answer first, but I'm not that person actually.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- TNTrevor Noah
You know? And I, I, I've noticed it starting in America, to be honest, and, like, South Africa's very far behind, thank God. But when, like, when I'm in South Africa, I realize, I'm like, "I'm taking this far too seriously."
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
"I'm taking all of it too seriously." Do you, do you, do you know what I'm saying?
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Could, could I tell you my South Africa story on this very front?
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
But I, now I for- the president of South Africa, his name is Ram-
- TNTrevor Noah
Ramaphosa
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
... Ramaphosa.
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
Ramaphosa.
- TNTrevor Noah
Cyril Ramaphosa.
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
So I'm at this conference in South Africa. Actually, that's what I texted you because I was walking around Cape Town.
- TNTrevor Noah
[laughs]
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
And I was like, "White people know their real estate."
- TNTrevor Noah
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
And then, and Trevor's like, "Yes, they do."
- TNTrevor Noah
[laughs]
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
So I go to this conference, and Ramaphosa's speaking. He gets up front of the stage. He's like ... And the lights go out, right, 'cause the power's always going off in Jo-
- TNTrevor Noah
Oh, yes. Yeah
- MGMalcolm Gladwell
... in Cape Town. And there's silence, and then you hear Ramaphosa saying, "It's all my fault." [laughs]
Episode duration: 52:15
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Transcript of episode 0nzREiczBaA
