HTDE: Motivation, Secret Messages, and Stealing Your Thunder

Summary

Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!

Episode: HTDE: Motivation, Secret Messages, and Stealing Your Thunder
Date: October 29, 2025
Host: NPR (Peter Sagal, Mike Danforth, Ian Chillag), with guests Alice Wu, Theo Guerin, Susie Dent, and others

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Overview

This episode of NPR’s Wait Wait... Don’t Tell Me! (How to Do Everything edition) delivers a lively and engaging mix of stories and advice around the themes of motivation, the unexpected social uses of old podcast comment sections, and the origin of the phrase “stealing your thunder.” The hosts and their guests share anecdotes, field odd listener questions, and illuminate linguistic history, with abundant humor and heart.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Motivation Hacks: Alice Wu’s High-Stakes Accountability Trick

[00:53–03:11]

• Filmmaker Alice Wu (Saving Face, The Half of It) shares her personal battle with procrastination while writing her second screenplay.

• She describes an “extreme consequence” to force herself to finish:

  • Wu wrote a $1,000 check to the NRA (an organization she’s ideologically opposed to), entrusting it to her friend.
  • If she didn’t complete her first draft by the deadline, her friend would send the check.
  • To increase stakes, Wu told others, which ensured social pressure.

• Quotes:

  • "I need to find a consequence that is so terrible that I can't possibly live with myself... I'm going to write a check to the NRA for $1,000." —Alice Wu [01:20]
  • "She would have sent it in. C.J. she's a butch firefighter. She would have sent it in. If she were here, I'm sure she would tell you that—all the horribly shameful things she would then do to me as she sent it in." —Alice Wu [02:25]

• **Hosts’ banter highlights the absurdity of the “perk tier” and how such a donation would result in ostracization (“a social pariah amongst all Asian lesbians as I wore my NRA lobby... I would die alone, but I would have a free shirt, is what you're telling me.” —Alice Wu [02:56]).

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2. NPR Comment Sections: The New Teenage Secret Hangouts

[03:33–08:54]

• Theo Guerin (TED Radio Hour) reveals a mysterious surge of benign, unrelated comments on old NPR podcast episodes—mostly from teenagers.

• Guerin suspects it's a workaround for students facing restrictions from Instagram/social apps in school; Spotify remains accessible, so they turn old comment sections into private chat rooms or “digital dead drops.”

• The team discusses how kids create single-episode playlists as makeshift group chats, unnoticed by teachers or parents.

• Potential for secret communication even if a phone is confiscated; all you need is access to Spotify.

• Quotes:

  • "One of the theories... is that maybe this is just a way to get around a classroom phone-free situation." —Theo Guerin [05:22]
  • "It's kind of like a dead drop, you know, like a classic spy thing where there's this trash can which nobody's thinking about. And since nobody's thinking about it, you can hide your messages for other spies there." —Ian Chillag [07:01]
  • "God bless these children." —Ian Chillag [08:05]

• The hosts express admiration for the ingenuity and encourage listeners to use their own comment sections if needed.

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3. Etymology Spotlight: "Stealing Your Thunder"

[11:07–14:57]

• Lexicographer Susie Dent explains the literary origin of “stealing your thunder.”

  • February 5, 1709: Playwright John Dennis invents thunder sound machine for his doomed play; his sound effect is stolen by the next theater company for a production of Macbeth.
  • At the performance, Dennis shouted, “Damn them. They will not let my play run, but they steal my thunder.”

• The phrase is unique because its origin can be pinpointed to an exact moment—a rarity in linguistic history.

• The phrase didn’t become common until the 20th century.

• Quotes:

  • "For lexicographers, it's pretty rare to find the exact moment that a word or phrase was born... but we do know with this one." —Susie Dent [12:00]
  • "Damn them. They will not let my play run, but they steal my thunder." —Susie Dent [13:27]
  • "For him it's quite sad that this is his enduring legacy, I suppose." —Susie Dent [14:13]
  • "Who knows if we would remember his name, you know, this is the way he has persisted at least most broadly through history." —Ian Chillag [14:24]

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4. Listener Out-of-Office Hijinks & LEGO Joy

[15:08–19:18]

• The team follows up on a running bit: serving as emergency contacts in listener out-of-office email messages.

• They wind up embroiled in a real customer service dispute about a freight delivery, involving a custom LEGO store owner, Courtney.

• Courtney recounts how rediscovering LEGO as an adult was therapeutic, leading to a fulfilling business building custom LEGO structures for clients.

• Quotes:

  • "LEGO was like my thing as a kid... I, you know, grew up and went to therapy and realized that I had... put my… inner child... locked away in a closet and that was affecting my life. So got to know my inner child again and all he wanted to do was play with lego." —Courtney [17:59]
  • "Could you build them a LEGO forklift so that they could do this properly next time?" —Ian Chillag [18:44]

• In the end, the hosts admit they’re not much help but relish the ensuing story.

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5. Memorable Moments & Quotes

• On Motivation:
  • "It worked. I got it written, and that's how I did that. Yeah. And that script became my second film." —Alice Wu [02:07]
• On Teenage Ingenuity:
  • "If any of you out there listening need a place to post secret messages or, you know, want to communicate with somebody, feel free to use our comment sections." —Mike Danforth [08:07]
• On Language:
  • "It’s actually very true [that tantrums are memorable]... if he had stood up and said, well, good use of my thunder, that's not a phrase people are going to repeat." —Mike Danforth & Susie Dent [14:39]

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6. Key Timestamps

• Motivation and Alice Wu’s Story: 00:53–03:11
• Teens Using Podcast Comments as Chatrooms: 03:33–08:54
• Origin of “Stealing Your Thunder”: 11:07–14:57
• Listener Out-of-Office & LEGO Story: 15:08–19:18
• Notable Quote, Show Wrap: 19:27–20:03

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Episode Takeaways

• Extreme Accountability Works: Sometimes making the stakes uncomfortable (even socially or ideologically) can push you over a motivational hump (see: Alice Wu’s NRA check).
• Teens Are Brilliant at Outwitting Restrictions: Old podcast comment sections now double as stealth teen chat rooms—a delightful example of digital repurposing and creativity.
• Language Has Wild Histories: “Stealing your thunder” is more literal than you think, born of one man’s frustration and preserved by centuries of repetition.
• Joy in Rediscovery: Reconnecting with childhood joys—in Courtney’s case, LEGO—can dramatically enhance adult life.
• Hosts’ Ethos: Irreverent, supportive, and celebrating the odd connections that make life interesting.

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For New Listeners

This episode exemplifies Wait Wait... Don’t Tell Me!’s blend of wit, curiosity, and human warmth. Whether you crave clever hacks for your own productivity, marvel at digital subcultures, or enjoy being let in on the story behind everyday language, you’ll find pithy wisdom and genuine laughs throughout.

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Transcript

[NPR Announcer]

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[Ian Chillag]

Hey, it's Peter. Coming up, we have another episode of how to Do Everything, made by.

[Mike Danforth]

Wait, Wait.

[Ian Chillag]

Producers Mike Danforth and Ian Chillag. Now this week, filmmaker Alice Wu will explain a clever trick that helped her finally finish her screenplay. Plus, why teenagers are taking over the comment sections of old NPR podcast episodes to hang out. Once again, everybody. How to do Everything will not live in this feed forever, so be sure to get out of here and follow them at their own feed. Frankly, I'm just tired of them taking up space around here. Take it away, Mike and Ian. Who doesn't have problems with motivation?

[Mike Danforth]

Not us, not me.

[Ian Chillag]

Nobody. Nobody doesn't have problems with motivation. Alice Wu, the filmmaker behind the movie Saving Face and the Half of It, was really stuck. When she was trying to write a script, and she came up with a way to finally make herself do it.

[Alice Wu]

I thought, you know, I should write my second film. I then proceeded to spend, like, six months, like, lying on the floor of my office, staring at the ceiling, being like, why am I so terrible? Why is everything so terrible? I'd, like, write a sentence, I'd delete it. I knew I had to get over that, Humphrey. And so I then thought, I need to find a consequence that is so terrible that I can't possibly live with myself. And I thought, you know what? I'm going to write a check to the NRA for $1,000, and I'm going to give it to I want. My best friend is the one person I know who, because she gave me her word, would do it. And I was like, I'm giving you this check. I'm giving myself five weeks to write this first draft. On August 8th, if this thing is not written, I'll have two people read it and confirm it can be terrible, but it has to be a fully formed first draft. And if it's not, you're sending that check in. And then I proceed to tell everyone in my life, because I would constantly get texts from friends like, you better not be a donor to the nra. Like, I think at one time I sent a friend an otter video, and she was like, why aren't you writing? So it worked. I got it written, and that's how I did that. Yeah. And that script became my second film.

[Ian Chillag]

Do you think your friend would have actually sent it in 1,000%. Really?

[Alice Wu]

Yeah. She's my best friend. Like, yes, absolutely. She would have sent it in. C.J. she's a butch firefighter. She would have sent it in. If she were here, I'm sure she would tell you that. All the horribly shameful things she would then do to me as she sent it in.

[Mike Danforth]

$1,000. That's a lot of money. That's like a. There's a. That's a certain tier that is not entry level.

[Alice Wu]

Yes.

[Mike Danforth]

Right. That's like, we know this from our public radio experience. That's a leadership level amount of. You'll probably get a T shirt. You might even get a free gun with that.

[Alice Wu]

You know what? Yes. I had not thought of the perks. No. That I'd become a social pariah amongst all Asian lesbians as I wore my NRA lobby. Like, basically, I would die alone, but I would have a free shirt, is what you're telling me.

[Mike Danforth]

A free shirt?

[Susie Dent]

At least.

[Mike Danforth]

And probably once a year. Birthday announcement, I would think. Yeah. This is how to do everything. I'm Mike.

[Ian Chillag]

And I'm Ian. Coming up, we're going to get to more of your out of office messages. But first, there's a little mystery here at npr.

[Mike Danforth]

A few podcasts have been noticing something strange. Theo Guerin works on TED Radio Hour fio. Can you tell us about this?

[Theo Guerin]

Yeah. So one of my responsibilities on my team is to monitor our Spotify comments. And for the most part, we mostly get really, like, nice comments or people engaging with our content, giving constructive feedback or saying how much they liked it. But about three weeks ago, I noticed kind of a different. A different floodgate situation. And the first instance was only about 20 comments.

[Mike Danforth]

20 comments on one episode.

[Theo Guerin]

20 comments on one episode that came out three years ago. Yeah. And all the comments kind of had the same like, no, you're so pretty. You're so pretty. And I was really trying to rack my brain about the content of this episode three years ago to be like, is there a discussion about beauty standards that they are trying to engage with? Yeah. And then about a week later, they struck again, but this time hitting the comments hit into the 90s. And then I, I kind of felt like, okay, this really needs to be something we're flagging. And when I brought it up, it seemed like other teams had also been privately sitting on this very odd situation.

[Ian Chillag]

Other shows at npr.

[Theo Guerin]

Yeah, Other shows at npr.

[Ian Chillag]

Well, so what's your theory? So I guess we're all kind of still figuring out what's happening here, but what's Your theory on who's doing this and why they're doing it?

[Theo Guerin]

Yeah, I mean, we definitely can't say exactly like who these people are, why they're doing this, but my sense is that they're kids. One of the theories that some other folks have put forward is that maybe this is just a way to get around a classroom phone free situation. Maybe they can have their laptops out, but they can't have Instagram open or they Spotify is the only thing they are allowed to have. I don't actually know.

[Ian Chillag]

I mean, it seems like a way.

[Theo Guerin]

A workaround for sure.

[Ian Chillag]

It's brilliant because like, what could be less worrying to a teacher or a parent who might be catching, you know, a of lot. Look at one of these kids phones that they're listening to NPR's Ted Radio Hour with their friends.

[Theo Guerin]

Oh my gosh. Yeah.

[Ian Chillag]

What is the episode? What's an episode where you've noticed this? I just want to bring it up and see if I can find it.

[Theo Guerin]

Yeah. And to your point, it is definitely the kind of episode that I'm sure a teacher would not bat an eye at. But one of the episodes was, was called what Leadership Looks like. I think my sense from digging into it a little bit and following the usernames was effectively they make a playlist that has just one podcast and that podcast becomes kind of the graffiti space, I guess, of this. I don't know, it feels like a pop up conversation.

[Ian Chillag]

It's like a. I mean, it's kind of like a dead drop, you know, like a classic spy thing where there's this trash can which nobody's thinking about. And since nobody's thinking about it, you can hide your messages for other spies there. As long as they know it's. They know the trash can to look for.

[Theo Guerin]

I love that I didn't think about this in spy terms, but.

[Mike Danforth]

So basically kids are using the comment sections of old episodes of NPR podcasts as little private social media chat rooms.

[Ian Chillag]

Yeah. They figured out that this is a space where they can speak freely and no one, no one will find them.

[Mike Danforth]

There's an episode of TED Radio Hour where they're just talking about somebody's cat. They just got a cat.

[Ian Chillag]

Another thing that could be happening here. If your parents take your phone away, this is a way you could still talk to your friends.

[Mike Danforth]

Yeah, yeah. Like you. It's a prearranged thing. You say, if you don't hear from me, check my Spotify. I'll create a playlist. It'll have one episode in it, go to those comments. That's where I'll be.

[Ian Chillag]

God bless these children.

[Mike Danforth]

It's brilliant. If any of you out there listening need a place to post secret messages or, you know, want to communicate with somebody, feel free to use our comment sections.

[Ian Chillag]

And, you know, if you're not a Spotify person, you can do it in reviews. So we'll, we'll keep an eye out and anything we see that seems to have nothing to do with us, we'll just assume it's a secret message for someone else. Hey, if you have a question for us, no matter how big, how small, you can send it to us [e-mail] and we will do our best to get it answered for you.

[Mike Danforth]

We will not stop until we find an answer for whatever question you have.

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[Courtney]

My mother said, I'm sorry that you weren't here because Father Sager was here visiting and he found a very nice orphanage for you. And I said, but I'm not an orphan machine.

[Ian Chillag]

Surprising stories in your podcast Feed this American Life. We all know the phrase steal your thunder. Our producer, Hina, her sister would use the phrase, and for much of her life, Hina thought her sister had invented it.

[Theo Guerin]

I just idolized her. I thought that everything that came out of her mouth was amazing because she was my older sister, and I thought she invented the phrase stealing my thunder as well. And then I would use it, and she would yell at me for stealing her thunder.

[Mike Danforth]

She would yell at you for saying the phrase stealing my thunder?

[Theo Guerin]

Yeah. She'd be like, you got that from me.

[Mike Danforth]

Oh.

[Ian Chillag]

So in order to save Hina's relationship with her sister, we're gonna find out where the phrase really came from. Lexicographer Susie Dent knows the answer. Susie, what can you tell us?

[Susie Dent]

So happy that you asked me this one. Because for lexicographers, it's pretty rare to find the exact moment than a wor word or phrase was born. So we usually have some idea of the chronology. A decade, probably a year if we're lucky. But the exact moment is really rare. But we do know with this one and it. We have to go back to the 5th of February, 1709, and we're talking about a playwright critic called John Dennis, who had written a rather boring, apparently pretty turgid play called Appius in Virginia. Didn't have much going for it, except he had perfected for his drama a machine that reproduced the sound of thunder. It was pretty impressive. But even with this sound effect, the play closed after a really short run. And the play that succeeded his was the Scottish play, shall we say, by Shakespeare.

[Mike Danforth]

Okay.

[Susie Dent]

And John Dennis went along to see the opening night, which was pretty decent of him, given that he's very close. Anyway, he was all ready for a lovely night until the witch's scene arrived and he heard, booming out from the stage, the sound of his very own machine. And contemporaries of the time wrote up accounts afterwards and said he stood up and shouted something like, damn them. They will not let my play run, but they steal my thunder.

[Ian Chillag]

Wow.

[Susie Dent]

So it's almost pretty literal. We're not quite. Yeah. Born in the Pieta. It's just such a good story.

[Mike Danforth]

Do you know. Do you know, Susie, that when it was picked up and used again, because it's one thing to say something, it's another thing for someone to be like, well, as John Dennis said the other night, we're stealing. Someone's going to steal his thunder.

[Susie Dent]

That is a really, really good point. And believe it or not, not until 1900 according to the OED. So we know that it came from that utterance of John Dennis and it must have been quoted and re quoted but then had to become really embedded in the language before it was used freely without any reference to that event. Yeah, that took a while. But for him it's quite sad that this is his enduring legacy, I suppose.

[Mike Danforth]

Yeah, kind of his lowest moment when he had stood up and had a bad reaction through a tantrum basically and everybody wrote it down and that's forevermore what we think.

[Susie Dent]

Exactly.

[Ian Chillag]

I don't know. I mean, who knows if we would remember his name, you know, this is the way he has persisted at least most broadly through history, you know. Well, we know this work of his more than any other.

[Susie Dent]

It actually I've not read Appius in.

[Mike Danforth]

Virginia, but it actually makes you think maybe being generous isn't such a good thing. Right. Because if he had stood up and said well, please. Yeah, thank you. Well, good use of my thunder. That's not a phrase people are going to repeat.

[Susie Dent]

Yeah, that is actually very true.

[Ian Chillag]

Lexicographer Susie Dent's adult fiction debut Guilty by Definition is out. Now.

[Mike Danforth]

As most of you know, we have offered to be your out of office email emergency contact during any breaks that you might be taking. And to our great surprise, a lot of you are still doing it.

[Ian Chillag]

Yeah, you're actually doing it. We just got an email here from a shipping company about a problem with some freight and this seems, I'm going to say dangerously outside of our ability to help. So let's see what we can do.

[Courtney]

Thank you for calling dinner. This is Courtney, how may I assist you today?

[Mike Danforth]

Hello Courtney, my name is Mike. I'm calling about an email I got. Should I give you the reference number?

[Courtney]

Yes sir, please.

[Mike Danforth]

1028774.

[Courtney]

And do you have a bill of lading number starting with the 1 2?

[Mike Danforth]

I'm afraid I don't have anything. We just got an email from you and I'm wondering if it came from an out of office message from somebody named Corey. So I guess my question is do you still need information from Corey and how can we help?

[Courtney]

All right, so this was for discrepancy on his shipment?

[Ian Chillag]

Yeah. Did he leave a phone number?

[Courtney]

801.

[Mike Danforth]

Corey, are you there?

[Courtney]

I'm here.

[Mike Danforth]

Hey, it's Mike and Ian calling.

[Courtney]

Hey, good to talk to you guys.

[Mike Danforth]

So tell us what's going on, what happened?

[Courtney]

Yeah, so I run three bricks and minifigs. It's like a buy sell trade Lego store and part of it, we do custom builds for people. So we built this amazing 4 foot by 4 foot custom build of a factory in California, were located in Utah. So I had to ship it to them and I confirmed that they were not going to use a liftgate delivery because that costs extra and we didn't need it.

[Ian Chillag]

Yeah.

[Courtney]

But they used it anyway and charged me for it.

[Ian Chillag]

Yeah. So we got an email from a customer service representative. In order to dispute this charge, we will need a photo of the forklift or dock used at the delivery location to unload the freight. Do you have a photo?

[Courtney]

No, because they don't. They didn't have a forklift or a dock and it wasn't needed because the crate that we shipped was small enough just to hand offload. So kind of up a creek here. Yeah. You guys have a picture of a dock or a forklift? You could send them?

[Mike Danforth]

I'm sure we could get one.

[Ian Chillag]

I definitely could send them a picture of a forklift. When you say you do custom builds. So like tell us more about that. I, I don't know about this.

[Courtney]

Okay. So I mean, you know, Lego, Lego puts out kits. Well, sometimes customer wants, or a company wants a custom designed kit. We design those things, make instructions, kit them up and then to companies for gifts or employee awards or things like that.

[Ian Chillag]

Wow. How'd you get into this? Were you just a big LEGO fan and then you made it your career?

[Courtney]

Sort of. I, LEGO was like my thing as a kid, as a young kid. And then I gave it all away when I was a teenager because I was too cool for it. And then I, you know, grew up and went to therapy and realized that I had, you know, besides giving away my Lego, had put my, my inner child, my younger self locked away in a closet and that was affecting my life. So got to know my inner child again and all he wanted to do was play with lego. So I kind of got back into it, bringing lots of joy to lots of people.

[Mike Danforth]

That's phenomenal. Wow. Well, we talked to Courtney, she told us that the bill had been paid, but I guess we didn't do Ian, I don't think we did enough due diligence and we didn't follow up on the photo dispute part of it.

[Ian Chillag]

Could you build them a LEGO forklift so that they could do this properly next time?

[Courtney]

That's a great idea. You know, maybe I'll do that. I'll send them a picture of a LEGO forklift and just say, hey, here's your forklift.

[Mike Danforth]

Now give me my $7. If for whatever reason you want us to be your out of office email contact. Just copy and paste the text in today's show notes into your out of office email and we will do our best to at least help you. As much as we helped Corey, we.

[Ian Chillag]

Did not help at all. Well, that does it for this week's show. What we learned today Mike I learned.

[Mike Danforth]

That our old podcast episodes, even though they're old and we don't think they have any use anymore, are actually providing a service to today's young people.

[Ian Chillag]

Here's an episode of Wildcard NPR Podcast, which is an interview with Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love. One of the comments is last Friday I broke up with my girlfriend. I think one piece of advice that might be helpful is, as Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray Love, said, having a broken heart is a good sign because it means you tried for something.

[Mike Danforth]

How to Do Everything is produced by Skyler Swenson and Hina Srivastava. Technical direction from Lorna White.

[Ian Chillag]

Some of the music you heard in this episode was from Moby Gratis. You can get us your [e-mail] I'm Ian.

[Mike Danforth]

And I'm Mike.

[Ian Chillag]

Thank you.

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