Malcolm Gladwell: Do Fairytales Make Adulthood Harder?

Summary

What Now? with Trevor Noah

Episode: Malcolm Gladwell: Do Fairytales Make Adulthood Harder?

Release Date: March 5, 2026
Guests: Malcolm Gladwell (author, journalist), Eugene (comedian, friend of Trevor Noah)

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into the lasting effects that childhood fairytales, especially classic Disney movies, have on our expectations for adult life. Trevor Noah is joined by Malcolm Gladwell and Eugene for a wide-ranging, insightful, and playful conversation about everything from the evolution of children’s stories, the pitfalls of over-idealistic narratives, and the value of digressions in storytelling, to identity, the immigrant experience, language, sports, and societal change. Throughout, the discussion maintains Trevor’s signature mix of humor, candor, and intellectual curiosity, with Malcolm offering trademark Gladwellian analysis and Eugene providing warmth, perspective, and laughter.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Reimagining of Fairytales and Disney Movies

• Malcolm notes his late discovery of Disney classics:
  “The early Disney movies are 50 times better than the most recent ones… Snow White is astonishingly good… their willingness to go on these tangents.” (03:43)
• Importance of narrative digressions; modern films and TV are more relentless and less confident in letting stories wander, losing touch with the way children’s and even adult minds work.
• Trevor connects this to standup comedy:
  “In everything, the surprise is what actually gets you going versus where you thought you were going to get to.” (05:03)
• Modern storytelling seems beholden to data and algorithm-driven attention economy, potentially at the cost of depth, surprise, and engagement (09:01).

2. Market Forces and Modern Storytelling

• Newer kids’ shows and movies are heavily informed by market data and streaming metrics; the belief that audiences have short attention spans persists, but Trevor and Malcolm both argue that’s a misreading of people’s real engagement.
• Malcolm: “The mistake that data makes is that they don’t account for the fact that the audience might change its mind.” (09:52)
• Standup and performance as natural experiments: The real magic often happens well into a show, not at the start.

3. The Power and Pitfalls of Legendary Narratives

• Malcolm shares how he idolized basketball player George Gervin without ever seeing him play, constructing an image solely through print (14:51).
• Trevor admits he learned to love football through FIFA video games, not through actual matches, showing how mediated experiences still shape real passions (18:51).
• The value of imagination and myth in forming identity and passion.

4. Football, Fandom, and Collective Emotion

• Trevor and Malcolm bond over Liverpool FC and the emotional resonance of “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” especially as a unifying, healing anthem after tragedy (21:34).
• Malcolm: “Collective singing is one of the most emotionally powerful things human beings do... I’m in tears a minute in.” (22:39)
• Societal myths, media blame, and the Hillsborough disaster as a case study in narrative shaping public perception and justice (24:20).

5. Language, Accent, and Identity

• The group discusses South African linguistic diversity (11 official languages) and how language and accents tell hidden cultural stories (30:35, 33:08).
• Story of Jamaican–Scottish roots and how migration, assimilation, and shame influence which languages die out or are preserved (35:10).

6. Representation, Beauty Standards, and Disney Critique

• Malcolm’s issue with Disney’s “blonde, blue-eyed heroine” model:
  “Why can’t someone just have dark hair? ...What crazy Germanic, like Aryan fantasy is being worked out in Walt Disney’s mind?” (37:12)
• Malcolm admits he was unaware of Walt Disney’s problematic (antisemitic) history (38:44).

7. Immigrant Experience, Mischief, and Belonging

• Malcolm and Trevor explore how the immigrant’s choice to “shake up their life” can foster mischief, resilience, and a willingness to challenge norms (54:10).
• But important nuance: Those who choose migration versus those forced to leave may relate differently to risk, heritage, and identity (56:41).
• Stories of family, name changes, and holding onto tradition as acts of daily resistance and survival (58:51).

8. Family, Grandparents, and Self-Understanding

• Malcolm’s evolving theory: Grandparents, not parents, hold the key to understanding who we truly are (59:31).
• Eugene shares moving stories of how his grandfather’s influence was deeper and less “noisy” than that of parents (62:17).
• Grandparental clarity and prophecy—sometimes, “your grandparents maybe saw you more clearly than your parents did.” (63:38)

9. Valuing “Small Lives” and the Danger of Monocultures

• Malcolm’s tribute to his mother and the idea of the “small life”—quiet, relational, under-celebrated, but socially foundational (85:48).
• Societal risk: If success is only measured by money or fame, we lose essential diversity.
  “A society that loses sight of the contribution of people who live small lives is in trouble.” (88:52)
• Analogy to sports: The “fans are the 12th player”—the small acts that enable the great moments (90:18).
• Monocultures in high schools: Why having only one accepted path to success can be disastrous for mental health (79:55).

10. Imagination, Accommodations in Sport, and the Trans Athlete Debate

• Malcolm discusses moderate/moderator dilemmas in the controversial trans women in sports panel (95:36).
• The core problem: The debate is intractable because both sides are arguing with different goals (“the purity of women’s sports” vs “human rights for an imperiled group”) (97:17; 106:05).
• Trevor’s key insight: Many social arguments cannot be resolved because we are not really disagreeing about the same thing.
• Malcolm: “If you pick one side, you have to accommodate the other, and my answer is for the moment, because my mind might change…” (108:27)
• Trevor suggests the power of imagining alternatives: Sport rules are arbitrary agreements; new categories can be invented for new realities (112:34).
• Value of inclusion, creative thinking, and adaptation in sports and society.

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Memorable Quotes

• Malcolm Gladwell: “The best part about Snow White is all of the… willingness to go on these tangents… We have such confidence in our story and our storytelling ability.” (03:44)
• Trevor Noah: “Conversations are the same… the surprise is what actually gets you going.” (05:03)
• Eugene: “That’s what it’s like to be young, female, and black. When your friend is a chicken and one is a pig…” (00:26, on Moana’s allegory)
• Malcolm Gladwell: “You can only do one parent at a time… I think grandparents are a far more revelatory conversation.” (60:00)
• Malcolm Gladwell: “There’s a beautiful synergy between the big and the small. Every football player… will tell you that when they had to perform… with nobody around, it wasn’t a thing. But the little people, they were doing the biggest thing.” (90:17)
• Trevor Noah: “If you succumbed to that initial instinct, that 3 or 4 minutes, you would have gone, ‘this is not for me.’” (11:23)
• Malcolm Gladwell: “The audience is changing… and that moment doesn’t always happen at the beginning. Sometimes it’s way better if it happens deep into the performance.” (09:52)
• Malcolm Gladwell: “What I would like to say is: by choice, she (my mother) lived a small life, and it was… a really beautiful one.” (85:48)
• Trevor Noah: “If you can find a way for more people to participate and you can make it as fair as possible… that is magical to me.” (115:08)
• Malcolm Gladwell: “The fundamental thing sport is trying to be is fair. However, some sports, if we’re honest, are inherently unfair.” (115:26)
• Trevor Noah: “If we stop imagining possibilities, then we’re going to be tied to what is now, but not what could ever be.” (113:38)

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Notable and Fun Moments

• Gladwell describes being raised TV-free, faking cultural fluency by reading about shows. (13:00–15:20)
• Shared football banter between Trevor, Eugene, and Gladwell—how to convincingly “fake” being a fan. (16:28)
• Moving breakdown of what “You’ll Never Walk Alone” means at Liverpool games. (21:34–24:40)
• Language mashup/semiotics: The Xhosa tradition for twins, the sound-symbolism of African languages. (71:00)
• Gladwell on children’s book characters and “Gladwelling” storytelling—plus the idea for a “Gladwell Cut” of movies/documentaries. (43:45)
• Comedy about video games, pickleball, and golf as "the sport of the people." (01:39, 119:20)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [03:43] Malcolm on classic Disney storytelling and digressions
• [09:52] Audience engagement, timing, and the misreading of data
• [14:51] Constructing sports heroes from words alone
• [21:34] “You’ll Never Walk Alone” and football fandom as collective emotion
• [30:35, 33:08] Language, accent, and identity in South Africa
• [37:12] The “Aryan” Disney heroine critique
• [54:10] Mischievousness and the immigrant spirit
• [59:31] Grandparents as keys to psychological self-understanding
• [79:55] Monoculture, high schools, and mental health crisis
• [85:48] The importance of “small lives” in family and society
• [95:36] Moderating the panel on trans women in sports—balance and blowback
• [106:05] The two train tracks of social arguments: fairness vs. rights
• [112:34] The arbitrariness and adaptability of sports rules

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Closing Thoughts

The episode is a tapestry of humor, storytelling, and philosophical inquiry. Gladwell and Noah challenge each other—and the audience—to question inherited wisdom, embrace digression, and imagine boldly. Whether discussing narrative structure, sports, or “small lives,” the trio underscores the richness of complexity, the necessity of including many voices, and the importance of remaining open to new ways of seeing the world.

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Summary prepared for those who haven’t listened—this is an episode you can dive into for both belly laughs and insight. The put-downs are gentle, the ideas sharp, the conversation wide-ranging and comfortingly human.

Transcript

[Malcolm Gladwell]

This should be a business for the three of us. I think you, all of us should contribute to the reimagining of these flawed classics.

[Trevor Noah]

What, the Disney ones? Yeah, but here. Okay, but have you watched the newer ones? Well, I've watched Moana because they have been reimagined.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

We did.

[Trevor Noah]

I didn't want to spoil it for you because I was.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

No, no. We did Moana the other night. Yeah, but it gets really violent.

[Eugene]

That's what it's like. That's what it'd be like to be young, female, and black. When your friend is a chicken and one is a pig and you're stuck with an older guy catamaran. And your grand is a ghost and your grandfather ran away from your dad. He's the spirit of the seas, the chicken.

[Trevor Noah]

Eugene watches a lot of Moana.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Do you?

[Eugene]

As you can tell, Juan is how old? My daughter's turning 17 this year.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Oh, seven. Are you away. You're years away from this.

[Eugene]

What?

[Malcolm Gladwell]

From Moana?

[Eugene]

We watched it the other day.

[Trevor Noah]

Can you not tell? What do you mean? Can you? You're assuming that his daughter is the one who wants to watch it.

[Eugene]

I was the one who.

[Trevor Noah]

She has to put it on for him. Yeah, she's the one who's putting it on for him. This is what now with trevor, noah. In fact, here's another reason. Malcolm Gladwell, you should be pro pickleball. I know your. I know your views on golf.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

I know how much you hate the fact that, like, golf takes up inordinate amounts of spaces and it's like it's unfairly apportioned to the pickle ball. Turns one tennis court into four pickleball courts.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Wait, is that true?

[Trevor Noah]

That is completely true.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

4.

[Trevor Noah]

4.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

It quadruples the output.

[Trevor Noah]

It quadruples.

[Eugene]

Did you lobby for one to be traded?

[Trevor Noah]

And I did. I did. And most pickleball games. Most are generally played by four people. Most tennis, like, get togethers are two people.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

So technically, it's really 8.8x the productivity of the space.

[Trevor Noah]

Huh?

[Eugene]

I wish you could come see a match.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

All right.

[Trevor Noah]

No, that's. That's why I think you would love it.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Yeah, it is.

[Trevor Noah]

It is the sport of the people.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

All right, all right, all right. There's a point at which. Trevor starts banging the egalitarian democracy drum on behalf of.

[Trevor Noah]

But it is, though. I think that's what it is. How you been? What? What. What have you been up to?

[Malcolm Gladwell]

I have been. Well, I. I. As I said to you before, I now have two children.

[Trevor Noah]

Yes. Congratulations.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Thank You. I have two daughters. Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

Started late. And you've just kept going.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

I started late, I kept going. I might have to. I think I'm stopping at two. They are enormously entertaining. I am. I spend an enormous amount of time consuming children's television and music.

[Trevor Noah]

What's your favorite show? Bluey. Cocomelon.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

No, no.

[Trevor Noah]

Pig.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Well, the good thing, there's a lot of Peppa Pig going on in my life right now, although I'm trying to phase it out. We. We're onto the Disney movies and I've discovered. I'm discovering all these things that other people discovered many years ago. So I'm gonna. And this is the thing about parenting, is that parenting is the. Is the is. It rides on the illusion that you are discovering for the first time what the rest of the world has known for like, you know, millen. So I have discovered that like the early Disney movies are 50 times better than the most recent ones.

[Trevor Noah]

Yes.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Like, I never saw these as a kid, so I'm seeing for the first time. So I've watched a lot of, for example, Snow White. And first of all, Snow White is astonishingly good. But the best part about it, and this is actually because I've been part of a larger thing I've become very interested in. The best part about Snow White is all of the. And also even more so probably with Cinderella, is their willingness to go on these tangents. Like in Cinderella, there's like 20 minutes on the mouse playing with the cat, Lucifer. And they leave the whole story, set it over here. And it's just the cat and the mouse and the self confidence of the filmmaker. They're like, the kids will. Are happy to put Cinderella to the side and just go with the mouse and the cat for 20 minutes and they'll come back to us. We have such confidence in our story and our storytelling ability. And I feel like today when you watch the newer ones, there's never any of these digressions.

[Trevor Noah]

No.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

And one is they don't understand how kids minds work or even, pardon me, how human beings mind works. Well, you know, this is a comic in comedy. Right. It's the digressions that often get you the biggest laugh.

[Trevor Noah]

Yes.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

When. When you veer off the path.

[Trevor Noah]

Boom.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Right.

[Trevor Noah]

But I think conversations are the same.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Are the same.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. I think in everything, the surprise is what actually gets you going versus where you thought you were going to. You were going to get to. But it.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

So why aren't they doing that with the kids? Why. Forget the digression.

[Trevor Noah]

I think It's a. I think it's a market economics thing. I think they've. I have this fight oftentimes with people who work in new television, right? Especially in streaming. I think they read data wrong. That's my opinion, is that they look at the data and they go, oh, if it's not engaging in the first two minutes, then people are not gonna watch. And you've gotta catch their attention. And people like short content and people like this and people like that and people. But they've. This message is a paid partnership with Apple Card. Imagine this. You're at a checkout counter. You're ready to pay, when you realize you don't have your wallet. Dun, dun, dun. You could drive all the way back home and you could get it. But you remember that you have your Apple card on your iPhone so you can tap to pay with Apple Pay. Imagine that. No need to carry a wallet. But, you know, one of the things I do like about having my card on my phone is we live in a world where you lose your card and then you don't know where it is. And then you're like, what do I do? Well, if your phone is connected to your card and your card is connected to your phone, you know what's going on. The best thing about having the Apple card connected to your phone is you know what every transaction is. You know, like, sometimes you're like, what did I spend this month? The Apple card will show you one month. I had spent an obscene amount of money ordering videos online.

[Eugene]

Just videos?

[Trevor Noah]

They were just videos.

[Eugene]

What kind of videos?

[Trevor Noah]

That's not the point. The point is, I knew that I didn't want to order those videos anymore because I'd spent too much money on was videos on how to not spend money online.

[Eugene]

I felt like I'd been duped.

[Trevor Noah]

Point is, Apple showed me what I was spending my money on, and I was able to change my spending habits. And you can do it, too. I earn up to 3% daily cash back on every purchase with my Apple card. That's unlimited daily cash back no matter where I shop. Apply for Apple card in the wallet app on your iPhone subject to credit approval. Apple card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City branch terms and more at applecard.com support is available 247 with VRBoCare.

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We're here day or night, ready whenever you need help.

[Trevor Noah]

Because a great trip starts with the right support. This episode is brought to you by Verizon. All right, Eugene, let's play a little game. You know, make something Fun. Two truths and a lie. Here we go. One, I've had to tell a world leader that their fly was undone. Two, when getting dressed, I don't do sock, sock, shoe, shoe. I do sock, shoe, sock, shoe. Three, I've been a Verizon customer for 11 years. What do you think?

[Eugene]

Very confused. First of all, why would a world leader own a fly? Because those things just come uninvited. Secondly, lying to your friends is not cool. There's never been a game.

[Trevor Noah]

No, Eugene, a fly is for, like the zip is what? And then it's. It's not a lie. It's a game where I'm trying. It's like I give you information. Okay, I lied. All three are true, Eugene. And in case you were thinking, you know, Verizon isn't as expensive as you think. In fact, if you bring in your AT&T or T mobile bill, they'll give you a better deal. And the reason I've been with them for this long is just because I travel so much. I need a network that's reliable. That's right, a better deal on the best network with the most ways to save on plans, streaming and phone deals. Take your AT&T or T mobile bill to your local Verizon store today. Get your better deal and start saving for real. Based on root metrics, best overall Mobile Network Performance, U.S. second Half 2025. All rights reserved. You must provide recent consumer mobile bill in the name of the person redeeming the deal. Additional terms, conditions and restrictions apply. So do you understand how two truths. And do you understand it now?

[Eugene]

I understand that you didn't have to lie first before telling me that Verizon is the best.

[Trevor Noah]

No, I wasn't lying, Eugene. It's not a lie. I wouldn't lie to you. It's a game. Okay, I'm sorry I lied. Ah, get all these assumptions based on data. But data, as you know better than anyone, you can read data however you like and it can tell you the story you wanted to tell you. So I think a lot of the things that are being made today are being made with the idea that people don't have an attention span. But I don't think that that's true. People still have attention spans very much the difference is people now have more choice than they had back in the day. So they don't tolerate in the same way that they used to, that we used to do you know what I mean? So I think maybe it was like a little bit of arrogance or like. Or just confidence on the side of like old Disney. But I also think no one was telling them, oh, the data says you got to move on.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Yeah, Nobody was giving them instructions. The. The other thing that's interesting is that the mistake that data makes is that they don't account for the fact that the audience might change its mind. And audience is changing the moment when an audience changes its mind. And when I say changes its mind, I simply mean when they go from. They might go from indifference to engagement, from puzzlement to joy, to just some shift. And again, I'm sure you've experienced this a million times because you live this in some sense in your live performances, that moment. And that moment doesn't always happen at the beginning. In fact, sometimes it's way better if it happen deep into the performance and you can tell. Why are you guys pointing at each other?

[Trevor Noah]

We. We both. We. Eugene and I met doing stand up. Yeah, that's how we met in South Africa. How many years has it been?

[Eugene]

20, 29.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, 20 years ago we met. We basically started stand up comedy in the same week. Same week in the same venue. And that's like our origin story. And it took many years. Then we became friends. Yeah, but what you're saying now. Yeah, is exactly. That's why this is exactly what we've been saying, the shift. But it's exactly the way you said it there.

[Eugene]

Even this morning, we had the same conversation about something else that we go

[Trevor Noah]

is that sometimes the. The rule is not that you get it immediately, it's that you don't know when it's going to happen. And then all of a sudden you go, that's it.

[Eugene]

This is it.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Wow.

[Trevor Noah]

I'm. I'm into something, you know where. That happened to me recently. Have you watched maybe your girls are too young, but I think they'll still enjoy it. Have you watched Demon K Pop Hunter on Netflix?

[Malcolm Gladwell]

No, no, no, I've seen it.

[Trevor Noah]

Can I tell you K Pop Demon Hunters or K Pop Demon Hunters? I think I started this movie in the first, like, three minutes. I was like, ah, this is not for me. And then 40 minutes later, I was sitting there on the couch, completely mesmerized, completely entertained, just like bopping along just like, like every day. That's just me, like, singing along just like, you're my shoulder pump. You're my nana soda pump. I can't explain it. Yeah, but it's what you're saying. Yeah, I gave it a chance, I went with it, and now I got the reward. But if. If I, If I succumbed to that initial instinct, that three minutes, four minutes, I would have gone, this is not for me.

[Eugene]

But that's very. Oh, sorry, Malcolm. That's very similar to what stand up comedy really is. It's like raising children. You suspend disbelief and you just go with the flow and be able to be surprised at some point or you

[Trevor Noah]

just bump into something.

[Eugene]

Because that's what happens when adults watch children's shows. They first start resisting. Then they go, well, the dog is not talking. And they go, wow, blue is actually. Blue is a. Blue is a boy, Louis. A girl is. Is what's going on here. Then you become more involved because you've suspended disbelief. But it takes a long time. And that's what happens with comedy. The first five minutes, you're trying to express yourself and you're trying to go to people. Forget about your job, forget where you parked your car. Let me take you to another planet.

[Trevor Noah]

Then who is your favorite character? Like yours. Not your girls. There's gotta be something you watched where you're like.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Cause in this recent iteration. Cause I never watched any of this as a kid.

[Trevor Noah]

But that's what I'm saying. You never watched TV as a child?

[Malcolm Gladwell]

No, no, I honestly didn't watch tv.

[Trevor Noah]

Malcolm Gladwell didn't watch television as a child. How he lived in, like a. Like a learned household.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

I didn't watch television until I got to college at all. Well, barely. I mean, I would go over to a friend's house every now and again and watch, like a football game. But I. No, I knew nothing. I mean, I would fake it.

[Eugene]

You'd fake that you've never watched tv?

[Malcolm Gladwell]

No, no, no. At the time. So if you talked to me in high school, you would have thought we had television. But I was just reading about. I was just reading about these shows and faking it.

[Eugene]

You think that you had watched television? Oh, man, this is so funny. You see this week on the A team. Oh, the A team.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

No, it's not that hard to. It wasn't that hard to do. And I would. I. For years, I was a huge basketball fan and football fan in high school, and I had never seen a professional basketball game. And I had only seen, like, an incredibly small number of. But I could. To this day, I can talk about the 1970s era San Antonio Spurs. I never. My favorite player was the Iceman George Gervin. I never saw George Gervin play. I would read about him in Sports Illustrated once a week, and I constructed George Gervin in my mind. And I would read these to this Day I can quote George Gervin was this. He was a kind of spectral figure. He was. Again I never saw him, but this is what I learned from reading about him. He was the greatest scorer in the game in the mid-70s and he was very, very, very thin and he had all these kind of. He was not a great athlete but he had all these kind of wily moves and he would give these incredibly cone like bizarre quotes to the media. And my favorite one was when he was explaining his ability to get to the basket. Whereas I be not too fast from here there, otherwise my game be zigzagging. Uh huh. Which I as a 12 year old.

[Trevor Noah]

So you never heard that voice. That was the voice you heard but those were the words he said yes.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Whereas I be not too fast from here to there, otherwise my game be zigzagging. Uh huh. And I remember. So I'm 12, I'm in rural Ontario in Canada in a little farm school with like a lot of Mennonites. I have no tv, I have no conception of what a professional basketball game is. And I read that quote and I just think this guy sounds so fantastic. So I have a, in my growing up, I have a big poster of

[Trevor Noah]

George Gervin who you have never seen play.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Never seen to this day, never seen him play. I mean he's long retired but every now and again there's some mention of George, George Girvin.

[Trevor Noah]

You have no yearning to like go find like a tape or go.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

I don't want to ruin it. It was way better in my imagination because imagine if you're working off that quote. So he's not fast from here to there, but his game be zigzagging. You can imagine in your mind how he gets to the basket, right? And he's like, he's literally. I have my picture in the picture on my wall. He's six seven, six eight. And if he's £160, I'd be stunned. He's rail thin. So he's like slipping his, slipping and sliding his way through and like you know, doing something. I don't know, I never saw him but like doing some weird thing with his hand that's so like you're my. I mean I. And I became hooked on. To this day I'm a massive basketball fan. But that was its origin was, was. I know all the stories of these players, I just don't know anything about.

[Trevor Noah]

I mean that's the most important thing, isn't it?

[Malcolm Gladwell]

It is the most important thing.

[Trevor Noah]

No, really it is because that is the story. Like when we talk about a legendary game, if you go like Liverpool, AC Milan, you're talking about the story. Yeah, that's what you're doing.

[Eugene]

I do that every time with football. Every time. Because I hate football.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh God, I hate how he does it.

[Eugene]

But I've learned where to jump in. Let's make an example there.

[Trevor Noah]

I. I hate.

[Eugene]

Let's say you're talking about it.

[Trevor Noah]

I can't believe you're going to make me entertain this.

[Eugene]

Go ahead.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Wait, what's your favorite football team, by the way?

[Trevor Noah]

Liverpool.

[Eugene]

Liverpool.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

How did it come to be Liverpool?

[Trevor Noah]

So I, I grew up. Oh man. You know what, let me give Eugene his example so he doesn't mess up my.

[Eugene]

No, no, you're doing quite well. Go ahead.

[Trevor Noah]

No, no, no, I'll give you the example. Have you seen how Liverpool plays?

[Eugene]

Jeez, you know.

[Trevor Noah]

Anyway, carry on this season with Arne slots. And just like since Arne slot came, you've seen an evolution in the game.

[Eugene]

But before there was honest lot. Anyway, carry on.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, this is what he does. Yeah, he's never watched. He doesn't watch. He doesn't care to watch. He doesn't care. And then I've seen him inflame people around us.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Cuz he'll. They'll get agitated because they'll think he's agreeing with them or disagreeing with them. And then I have to stop them and go, Eugene doesn't know anything about the sport.

[Eugene]

I be zigzagging

[Malcolm Gladwell]

otherwise. You forgot the otherwise, which is the crucial, that is the CR in the construction of that sentence, the otherwise.

[Trevor Noah]

Anyway, so okay, I'll tell you how I became a fan. So it is a long story, but it'll tell you a lot.

[Eugene]

We've got time.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay, thank you. I didn't grow up liking soccer. In fact I quite hated it because it was the thing that interrupted my ability to play video games on a television. So whenever I'd want to play TV games, as they were called when I was young, then my uncle and all these people would walk in and be like, ah, turn that off. We want to watch the game. And as a child I used to think that the game was like three, four hours long. I was just like, this never ends. Right. So I didn't like it. Didn't like it didn't like. Because we had one TV and that TV was taken away from me by football. Fast forward many years. Ironically, video games bring me back to the sport. So a series gets released called FIFA and it's you know, it's a soccer game. I play that. I start loving the game like you. I start falling in love with players who I've never watched because I see them as digital recreations running across my screen. Who is this person? You know what I mean? Like, I'm Miroslav Closer. Who is this German? I love him the way he headers the ball, the way. And I get sucked into this world, which is a facsimile of the real world. So when I talk to people who, like, love football, they know what I'm talking about. And then at some point, it would break down because they would go like, oh, where did you. And I go like, oh, no, I don't watch the game. I just play the video game. Some people would. Would. Would be happy. Others would feel like I'd betrayed them. They feel like I'd catfish them.

[Eugene]

Sounds familiar.

[Trevor Noah]

So. So then I think, like, from there, I started falling in love with the game.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

With the real game?

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, with like, the real, real, real game?

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

And then.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

But you're not. Are you watching Premier League in South Africa?

[Trevor Noah]

It was on, but I couldn't get it. And I think that's part of it. Yeah, you had to have, like, a premium television. You had, like, satellite tv, that type of stuff. So you fast forward many years, and I've now become a fan of players, coaches, and, like, random, you know, collections. I don't support teams at this time because I was like, a team doesn't care about me. They would sell a player without consulting anyone. I would see friends around me, distraught. Literally. I've seen it even now in, like, the NBA people. How could we trade? How could we trade Luka? How could we? And I'm like, it's not we. They did it to you. You're sad now. And so I remember thinking, the one thing I do not want is to be part of this inherited sadness that I have nothing to do with. So I would just support players. I'd go around with them. Then one day I fell in. Through the video game. I fell in love with a coach by the name of Jurgen Klopp, German coach, who was coaching a team called Borussia Dortmund. And Dortmund, what I loved about them is they were the underdogs of the German league. They were playing against a team called Bayern Munich, who were the most powerful, richest. They won every year.

[Eugene]

So they were top of the heap in the Bundesliga.

[Trevor Noah]

See, this guy knows the Bundesliga. See what he did there? He got me excited. Then I remembered, he doesn't care. But for that Moment you got me excited. And they challenged and they won. And they did. They, you know, to borrow from the movie 300, they showed that a God could bleed. And I loved what Jurgen Klopp had done. Then Bayern Munich basically pillaged, bought all the players from that team. Other teams bought the players. The team didn't become. Jurgen Klopp left. He went to Liverpool at the same time. Liverpool in the game. The video game was becoming better because they had like a bunch of players who were amazing. Fernando Torres, Daniel Sturge, Raheem Sterling, all of these guys. So I was loving the players in the video game cuz it was great to play with them. Jurgen Klopp goes there. Then I became friends, like closer friends with another South African who loved Liverpool. He wouldn't stop talking about Liverpool, but he would show me cool things that were around Liverpool. And then the first live game that I went to was a Liverpool game, but it was in New York, ironically.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Ah. And have you been to a Liverpool game in Liverpool?

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, I have, I have. It's like church.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Is that the one where they sing you'll never, you'll never walk alone? Oh, my God.

[Trevor Noah]

I just got goosebumps.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Okay, so Malcolm, you're so good. That video. There. There's a. There's a. There's like a short list of like five YouTube videos that I just endlessly watch whenever I need some kind of. And there's a video of the crowd singing. Do you know that? You know. I don't know. I mean, there must be many. Must be many. But do we. Should we explain that?

[Eugene]

Please explain to me.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Yes, the context is. Yes, it's a song by. Is it Jerry and the Pacemaker who sings it original? Someone who sings it originally?

[Trevor Noah]

No, man. What's his name? Ryan.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

It is Jerry the Bassmaker. But they have a terrible. They have a tragedy.

[Trevor Noah]

Yes, yes. The Hillsborough disaster.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

And they adopt that song and then they sing it every time. They sing it at every game.

[Trevor Noah]

Yes.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

And the whole crowd in that wonderful way. The one thing about English football that again, I know nothing about it, but I know that they love to sing that collective singing. And collective singing is one of the most emotionally powerful things human beings do. It really is like choral music is like voices unison.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

And they sing this song and there. It's a video online. And it's just like I'm in tears, like a minute in.

[Trevor Noah]

You get it?

[Malcolm Gladwell]

And I have no connection with Liverpool.

[Trevor Noah]

You get it, my friend? The first time I heard that song live. Yeah, I was actually in Ukraine And I'd gone to watch Liverpool in the Champions League fight, like, hearing it live like that. And it was the Champions League final. They were playing against Real Madrid. And I will never forget that moment. You walk into the stadium, and as we walked in, they started singing it. They. They. They first play it on like this, the PA system in the stadium.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

So you hear the. Like, the original voice, like when you walk, and then the crowd starts picking up.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Sing more of it. Come on.

[Trevor Noah]

When you walk and it starts and it plays through the storm. Hold your head up high. And then the crowd starts coming. And don't be afraid of the dog. Sing it, Ryan. I know you want to sing it. And like.

[Eugene]

No, no, no. Carry on. Don't stop.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Such a great song, my man.

[Trevor Noah]

Everyone. This is the part where everyone must.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

You know, everyone. 50,000 people are singing this thing, and it's just like.

[Trevor Noah]

It's devastating.

[Eugene]

Malcolm, you're over here.

[Trevor Noah]

And there's a part where the best part of the song in every stadium in.

[Eugene]

Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

Is it stops.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

That's right.

[Trevor Noah]

There's a part where, like, the. You can't.

[Eugene]

Music stops.

[Trevor Noah]

I don't know if you. I don't know if they stop or if you can't hear it. Maybe it's the magic that makes me think that. But all you then hear is the crowd because it gets to, like, the bridge and then the chorus. You know what I mean? It's like, walk on, rain, walk on. And you feel it reverb into the rain, and you'll never. And it's just like. And then the whole crowd. You, man.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

But even on top of that, I'm now gonna be corny. The message is so beautiful. It really is response to this tragedy, this idea of singing a song, all of us singing a song, saying you'll never walk alone. It's like, you know, it's a song to the. Essentially to the families of the victims.

[Trevor Noah]

Right.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

We're with you.

[Eugene]

It's a tribute.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

It's so beautiful. Really is beautiful. It's what it is. Music at its best in that kind of.

[Trevor Noah]

Yes. And all of these things drew me to the club because what I also loved about that story was that song, the club, everything. It was like one of the. Not first, but it was. It was one of the more significant stories where people realized that a tale could be told about a group of people that wasn't true, that could affect how other people see them. So at this disaster, like the press at the time. Ryan, you'll correct me at any point when I'm wrong here, but like, it was the press at the time. They basic. The mainstream press blamed the fans and blamed the people who had died and they were like, you're the cause and blah. And then it came out that it wasn't. It wasn't their fault and it was. What did the police have to do with it? Again?

[Eugene]

The police lied and said the Liverpool fans caused the stampede. So it was a stampede.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, but they said the fans caused it.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

It's a bad thing.

[Trevor Noah]

That was the main thing.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Stadium too, isn't it? It's a defect. Everything.

[Trevor Noah]

Com. But the point is they blamed the fans. They didn't just go like, hey, let's see what happened? And we don't. No, they blamed the fans. And so part of it also became this. This rallying cry against, you know, an. An establishment that was unjust.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

And in that moment, we're talking about. Are we talking about the 70s? When does this happen?

[Trevor Noah]

Wait, Ryan.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

R. I can just shout Ryan. Anywhere in the world.

[Trevor Noah]

Simple question. You shout Ryan. And I think it was in the early 80s.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Oh, early 80s, yeah. Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

But it is, it is goosebumps. And so now to get to the end of that, the reason I love Liverpool, the way they play football, the fans. When you go to Liverpool, like Liverpoolians.

[Eugene]

What are they called?

[Trevor Noah]

Liverpool.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

The Beatles.

[Trevor Noah]

The funniest people. The most interesting people. The. The cult. I can't.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

The extent is.

[Trevor Noah]

It really is amazing. It really is.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Can you do it?

[Trevor Noah]

I can't do a perf. No. If I talk to. There's a comedian, John Bishop. If I talk to him for a while, I can start picking it up but then I lose it because, you know, like English accents, if you. If you mess up one part, all of a sudden you're like back to default.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

You're in like Birmingham now. And they're like, no, that's brummy. And you're like, ah, wait, wait, say it again, say it again, say it again. And you just. You have to find like a few keys.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

I was sitting in a coffee shop this weekend and there were two people from Manchester. Young, young. And they. One was just moved here to work and one was visiting her and they were talking. That accent, it was just so fantastic. Describing New York through a Manchester accent. It's just like.

[Eugene]

I was just.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

I just stopped working and just eavesdropped for like an hour and a half. It was just amazing. But anyway, yeah, no, you. There are very specific, you know, those, those you can locate the. You know, the region.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

Really through the accent on its own.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Oh, yeah. You know, there's a linguist at Columbia, John McWhorter, and he can tell. I always call him up if I have any kind of. And play him tape of people talking, and he'll say, oh, yeah, yeah, that person's from. You know, they're from Baltimore and they grew up in the 70s. Right. Or they're from. He has that for. And I've been trying to force him to write a. Encourage him to write a book about America, a history of American accents, where he describes the whole. An audiobook where he walks you through how you can tell the difference between someone from southern Kansas and someone from, you know, Nebraska. Or, you know, in the way his

[Trevor Noah]

story's always the most fascinating.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Yeah. And he's also. He's this incredibly fascinating guy. He's a black guy, heavily into Broadway theater. Linguist, kind of a little bit of a provocateur. He's incapable of being uninteresting. He just. Everything he says, my favorite thing is I'll go to see his little office at Columbia, and I've gone a couple times, and I just play him tape and I say, what's going on here? You go, well. And then he's off to the races, right? I played him a tape of. Of. I may have told you this story before. I was doing this thing on. On Tom Bradley, the black mayor of Los Angeles, and I was listening to all this tape of him. He was a mayor in the 70s and 80s, and if you listen to him, he sounds like a white guy. I was like, well, that's weird, because if you were a black mayor today, you wouldn't sound like a white guy. So I go to John and I say, well, what's going on here? He's like, well, you know, there was a period in American life where if you were a black person and you wanted to succeed, you had to sound like a white person. And that ends in. And he tells me the moment that it shifts. Like, you can listen to contemporary. There's a moment when being a black public figure no longer required you to sound white, but required you to sound black. Whatever local, regional. Otherwise you would, you know, you went from being. Before that moment, you would be seen as illegitimate and, you know, uneducated. If you sounded, quote, unquote, black.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

After that moment, you would be seen as inauthentic, as pretending to be someone that you weren't.

[Trevor Noah]

And what was the catalyst?

[Malcolm Gladwell]

The catalyst, I forgot. It's sometime in the late 60s, early 70s. I've forgotten the specific. But it has to do, as you can imagine, with the rise of kind of black empowerment, black nationalism, black empowerment. It's, it's this. It's this incredibly crucial shift in the way white people view black people and the way black people view themselves in this country. And it's marked linguistically. And so Tom Bradley was a vestige. He's born in the teens, so he's a vestige of the earlier. And you listen to him like, I mean, this guy is like black, black. He's not light skinned. He's a. You know, and he was the most powerful black politician in the country for years and years. And if, if you, if you never saw a picture of him, you would think he was white. It's just so fascinating to me.

[Trevor Noah]

I love, I love. I mean, Eugene, how many languages do you speak?

[Eugene]

Well, as many as possible in South Africa. But.

[Trevor Noah]

No, no, no, but I mean, seriously. No, no, because he's like. He's like one of my favorite linguists.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Are you serious?

[Eugene]

Yes. South African languages? Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

He's phenomenal with languages.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Wow. Wait, how many languages are spoken in South Africa as a whole?

[Eugene]

11 official, which. The 11th one is a sign language. And the other two. The other one is Koa.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

How closely related are they?

[Eugene]

Well, so there's Nguni, which is Zulu, Xhosa, Sindebele, they sound almost alike. And Swati. And then there's Suthu, and there's Northern Sutu, and then the Southern Suthu, which is Tswana and Siperi. So they're all almost interlinked. But if you don't know how to tell the difference, you wouldn't be able to.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Why. Why is it you know so many of them? What is it about your life that led you to master nine of them?

[Eugene]

Well, I grew up in a. In a township, like many South Africans at the time. And in our section, it was a Tsonga section where my grandfather worked in the railroads. So he came from Nelspridge, where they speak Siswati, so. So he came all the way to Pretoria, and then in Pretoria, they put him in a section where Tsonga people live. So he had to learn Chitonga, so.

[Trevor Noah]

Which isn't like mainstream, not very mainstream.

[Eugene]

So there's two languages that are not mainstream. Shitonga and Chivenda, which is more north, and the other one is the other side. So he had to learn that. And when we grew up, it was just a language that he would speak with his friends around the neighborhood. And then when we would go to school, we'd go to another section that speaks Isizulu. And the school that I went to, I had to learn Isizulu. But to get to that school, I had to go through a section that spoke Isutu. So to navigate your way from home to school and to understand what my. Because I was very nosy to understand what my grandfather was saying with his friends, I would often eavesdrop, and I would ask him, what is that? What is that? And before I knew it, I would speak all the languages. And my mom was a nurse, so in hospital, she would be called all the time to come and translate for the doctors who couldn't understand the language. So language just became normal.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Do you mix them up or do you stay with one language when you're speaking it?

[Eugene]

I choose to stay with one. But it becomes easy because I sometimes speak shit Onga with him. And he thinks he doesn't know Shitonga, but he speaks very well.

[Trevor Noah]

No, I understand, but. I mean, but that's. But that's fluency in the language. But here's the thing that I remember is we have 11 official languages. I would argue most people in South Africa speak two, three maximum. Yes, for the most part. So when I'm. I'm always fascinated by people who speak, like, way more languages, because I go, like, how do you. And then I'll ask him for the vocabulary and the words. But the accents that you're saying, I find super fascinating. Because it's a story.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

You know what I mean?

[Malcolm Gladwell]

We.

[Trevor Noah]

We. We forget that when somebody speaks with an accent, there's a story that comes with that accent. Like always, it.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

It.

[Eugene]

It is almost the same in South Africa, what your friend was trying to explain to you when languages and accents started losing what their value was to the people that spoke the languages. So migrant workers would try. Their kids would assimilate to where they were, so they would lose the language. So people come who speak Isseswati are from the kingdom of Eswatin, which is formerly known as Swaziland, will be closer to people that live in the Nelsprit, which is the east. But when they come to the north, they'll stop using that language. And there's also a historic kind of side to it, where King Shaga, King of the Zulus, had a brother that he sent. His name was Soshangane, that he sent up east to go to Mozambique to

[Trevor Noah]

go conquer there, northeast.

[Eugene]

Then he never. He never left. He found it interesting, and he loved it. With his little tribe, he built a nation. And those people Started speaking a dialect of what the people there were speaking, which was a mixture of Portuguese and their indigenous language. It was called Shitonga. But then when people were being derogatory towards his brother, they said Shangan. And then they. People were called Shangans. And then that language started dying out because people were ashamed to be called by the majority group that they're called. Basically, if you call someone that, you call them a defector.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Oh, I see.

[Trevor Noah]

I. I love these things.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

I do think it's fascinating.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. So to your point, one of my friends. Yeah, she, like, was, like, deep in. She studied this for acting school, like, in the uk and then came out here. Ella, you know, Ella Balinska, fantastic actress. And she, like, learned all these things. And she, like, took me on a journey, like you're saying. So she can show you how the New Orleans accent, you can trace it back to, like, an actual French accent.

[Eugene]

Wow.

[Trevor Noah]

And if someone does it, well, you'll go, that's not possible. I've even had a friend show me that, like, with Jamaican. And then, like, take Jamaican and then stitch it to parts of England, but then also stitch it to parts of India, and then you end up with a Jamaican accent.

[Eugene]

Wow.

[Trevor Noah]

And you're just like, damn. It's amazing how you're telling a story every time you're speaking.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Cause all of those. Jamaica had lots of Indians, lots of Chinese, and heavily Scottish. The white. The initial kind of white immigration into Jamaica was Scottish, largely.

[Trevor Noah]

I didn't know that.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Yeah. Yeah. So you have, like. It's why so many Jamaicans have Scottish last names. Right. But the. The. That you get that you can see the. The elements that combine to create. Actually, I knew a Jamaican girl once. Dungeon Jamaican. Well, she was. She was. Well, she's complicated. I met her. She lived. She grew up in Miami. Her parents were. Family was Jewish. Her grandparents were. Had lived in Cuba and then had moved to Jamaica. So she had. Her accent was Miami, Cuba, Jamaica, Jewish. And I could listen. She was. I could listen to this girl all day long. I just, like, everything else about her just, like, faded into. I just said, just talk. It's just incredible. And like, you know, every. Every. You know how when someone's speaking normally, I. My question. The question in my mind is, what word is coming next with her? It's not just what word is coming next. It's. What's the word gonna sound like? Because it was so utterly unpredictable. I'd never heard this before. Anyway, she was.

[Trevor Noah]

Wait. But I just realized we didn't get your answer. What was your. What's your favorite children's character? You haven't watched the movies?

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Oh, going all the way back. My favorite.

[Trevor Noah]

Cause you just watched now. So, like now.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Uh,

[Trevor Noah]

just be honest, Malcolm.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Well, I'll tell you, I'm getting annoyed.

[Eugene]

That's a good place to start.

[Trevor Noah]

This guy, I just wanted the character and then he gladwelled us.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

No, no, no.

[Trevor Noah]

I just wanted the character.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

I'm getting there. I'm getting there, I'm getting there. The whole blonde blue eyed Disney heroine thing, which I know is a cliche, is driving me crazy.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay?

[Malcolm Gladwell]

It's really, really deeply annoying.

[Trevor Noah]

But you watch.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Why are they all the fairest damsel in the land? Like, enough already. Why can't you know, in the original Cinderella, Cinderella is just like an ordinary girl. Like she's just a kind of, you know, she's no different than anybody else, but she gets lucky. And then Disney comes along and insists that she has to be a bombshell. Why does she have to be?

[Eugene]

Why does she.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

In the original fairy tale, it's way better. And it was. She's just an ordinary girl who has a fantastic thing happen to her. And so if you're a kid and you listen to Cinderella, you're like, oh my goodness, amazing things can happen to all of us.

[Trevor Noah]

Yes.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Disney comes along, makes her into Marilyn Monroe and says basically, unless you're. Unless you're drop dead gorgeous and have a heart of gold,

[Trevor Noah]

it's not happening for you.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Not happening for you. And if things don't happen for you, it's because you're not good looking enough and you've done some evil thing. So my daughter's sitting, we're watching Cinderella and I'm just thinking, oh my God, what is. What can they let up already on? Like, can someone even just have dark hair? Why does everyone have to be blonde? What is what crazy Germanic, like Aryan fantasy is being worked out in Walt Disney's mind as he's doing this?

[Trevor Noah]

I mean, you just said it. That's hilarious. You just see, you're like, what is going on in Walt Disney's mind? This Aryan? Yeah, you just said it. Anyway, we know how Walt Disney felt. So, I mean, do you know what I mean?

[Eugene]

There was that.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Yeah, I knew nothing about Walt Disney,

[Trevor Noah]

about how anti Semitic he was.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

I did not know that.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, damn. Oh, I thought like you would. Oh, yeah. Walt Disney, man. Hella problematic.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

Tell us more, Trevor.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

I had no idea. I assumed he was Jewish. Why with the last name? I mean, in Hollywood at that era,

[Trevor Noah]

did I not know that Disney's Korea.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Can I tell you?

[Eugene]

Is that Poland?

[Malcolm Gladwell]

By the way, here's the craziest. This is my personal experience of my current. So I love. I have to know where people are from.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

I have to. First question I always ask everyone is literally, I need to know where you're from. I need to know what your background is. I need to know. I do know what languages you speak. I need to know that in order. It's just. I don't know if it's a bad or a good habit, but it just is an important one. It's important for me to know. Did you grow up outside of Pretoria?

[Eugene]

I grew up in Pretoria or in Pretoria. Yes.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

That's important for me to know.

[Eugene]

My grandfather's the one who came and you're Johannesburg.

[Trevor Noah]

Johannesburg.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Okay. Important for me to know. So I'm watching the Billy Joel documentary on HBO and I don't know, I thought he was Italian. Is that crazy? I thought he was an Italian guy from Wangan. So I don't know if. Have you watched this documentary? No, I haven't. It's fantastic. So like we're 20 minutes in and it's like, of course we were Jewish. I'm like. And I suddenly wake up. Wait, you're almost Jewish? And then so I'm like, oh my God. Like this is like rocking my world. And my, my wife, who is half Jewish and from Long island and is like, you know, Billy Joel was in her hometown. She worships Billy Joel. She plays like Uptown girl for my four year old constantly. So my wife's like, you didn't know he was Jewish? I was like, no, I thought he was Italian. Then it keep going. And like in the second part you learn that his family, his grandfather was a. He comes from this high born, sophisticated, intellectual, German Jewish family. They were industrialists. They owned a big manufacture. Garment manufacturing plant in Nuremberg. The Nazis took it over and the, the stripe, you know, the striped pajamas that the Nazis turned that plant into a plant that made those. So if you look on the label of the striped pajamas, it says Joel no ways. Absolutely. And then.

[Trevor Noah]

So then I think you kept the name of the.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Yeah, of course they did.

[Trevor Noah]

That's weird.

[Eugene]

The label's already there.

[Trevor Noah]

So they only had weird that they put labels. Sorry, I'm focusing on the wrong part. This is just like a weird.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

But then you understand. So I always wondered why did Billy Joel. Because I would. There's a famous. You ever watch Inside the Actor Studio?

[Trevor Noah]

Yes.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Okay, so there's the one with him, which I saw years ago, is one of the greatest ones of all time, okay? And you realize, oh, because he would play all his classical music, you're like, he knows all this. I was like. So I was trying to. I thought he was, like, working class Italian from Long Island. How does he know Tchaikovsky? From memory. Like, it didn't make any sense to me. But now I was like, oh, his father was a classically trained pianist. Because, of course, they come from this incredibly sophisticated family in Europe. I totally located him in the wrong place. So for me, who loves to locate people, this is, like, so destabilizing. And then in the documentary, and this is the problem with the documentary, so my first thought is, okay, now that I know this fact, why isn't the whole. First of all. And he has a falling out with his fathers. The whole documentary should be about his father. The whole thing is about Billy Joel's whole life. Is kid of this insanely sophisticated, intellectual, German Jewish family who are Holocaust escapees, comes to Long island and reinvents himself as, like, a Long island street hood. But he can't pull off the reinvention quote, unquote, successfully because he's too sophisticated.

[Eugene]

The minute he plays Chicago, he's too

[Malcolm Gladwell]

smart, and he plays Chicago. So that's the story. And his father disappears from the family. And what's he doing in his whole life? He's chasing this vanished father who represents the sophisticated side that he has kind of lost contact with. And there's a moment in the dark, and they only give you 30 seconds of it, which drove me crazy. Well, you. He finds his father years later, who's living in Vienna. And that song, Vienna Waits for your. It's about his father. It's about finding his father in Vienna. I didn't know that. No one told me that. I just thought he went to Vienna on holiday. No, no, it's about his father. So then you know that song Vienna Waits for you? It's one of the most.

[Trevor Noah]

I don't know any songs by their titles.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

It's one of the most beautiful of all the Billy Joel songs. And I heard it as a kid, and I was like. I was, you know, almost moved to tears by it. But I just thought, he's random. You know, I just thought he's a random. He's a Italian kid dreaming about Vienna. No, his dad's living in Vienna. He discovers his dad in Vienna. He goes there, writes the song, and then they show you. He's at this concert and he show him. They show him saying dad, if you come up and if you want to play. And then they cut to. They have two grand pianos pushed together, and Billy's on one and his dad's on the other.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, wow.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

And it's like, we only. They give us 10 seconds of this, and they should have given us 45 minutes.

[Trevor Noah]

We need the Gladwell cut. That's what we need.

[Eugene]

We need.

[Trevor Noah]

We should actually just do this. You know what? I'm. I'm gonna pitch you a business here.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

You.

[Trevor Noah]

We just go in and we just Gladwell everything. So we Gladwell Disney movies, we Gladwell documentaries, we. Because clearly there's the Gladwell cuts.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

And.

[Trevor Noah]

And you basically go off on your own tangent.

[Eugene]

The one that you would have loved to see.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

I don't want to. It's not just the Glabel cut. I think the three of us. This should be a business for the three of us. I think you, all of us should contribute to the reimagining of these flawed classics.

[Trevor Noah]

What, the Disney ones? Yeah, but here. Okay, but have you watched the newer ones? Well, I've watched Moana because they have been reimagined.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

We did.

[Trevor Noah]

I didn't want to spoil it for you because I was watching.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

No, we did Moana the other night. Yeah, but it gets really violent.

[Eugene]

I'm like, that's what it's like. That's what it'd be like to be young, female, and black. When your friend is a chicken and one is a pig, the. And you're stuck with an older guy, and your grand is a ghost, and your grandfather ran away from your dad, and he's the spirit of the seas, the chicken.

[Trevor Noah]

Eugene watches a lot of Moana.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Do you, as you can tell, Juan.

[Eugene]

Yes.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

How old?

[Eugene]

My daughter's turning 17 this year.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Oh, are you away? You're years away from this.

[Eugene]

What?

[Malcolm Gladwell]

From Moana?

[Eugene]

We watched it the other day.

[Trevor Noah]

Can you not tell? What do you mean? You're assuming that his daughter is the one who wants to watch it.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Oh, yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

She has to put it on for him. Yeah, she's the one who's putting it up for him. I. I actually feel like, you know what? The Disney movies, one of the issues I actually have is. And maybe this is like the Gladwell part of my brain is I go, I think Disney did a major disservice to an entire generation that has grown up on it because it gave us a false idea of how things turn out. Yeah, happy endings, but not just happy endings. It's like the way things turn out. Like, I'll Talk to a lot of people who go, the world, I can't believe this. I can't believe. They can't believe Trump won. They can't believe this is still happening. They come down, I'm like, but why can you not believe it? And then for me, at least, I go, if you've grown up your whole life being told that the good guy always wins, that the damsel always gets saved, that the. You know, then when you go out into life, you're like, don't worry. You just wait, Trump. Oh, you'll see what happens to him. By the third act, you'll see what happens to him. It's only. And then it's like, it's not a matter of time. That's not actually how the world works. Do you get what I'm saying? And I think those movies are partially to blame for that. And I don't know if you would know this maybe, you know, deep. But, like, a lot of them were based on stories that didn't have those endings. You do know that, right?

[Malcolm Gladwell]

I know. They changed them, darling.

[Trevor Noah]

Walt. No, no, but. But seriously, they were not happy endings. They. Like, I think in one of them, is it Sleeping Beauty or Snow? She just dies.

[Eugene]

She is actually dead.

[Trevor Noah]

She is dead.

[Eugene]

Yeah. Sleeping Beauty.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

She is dead.

[Trevor Noah]

Damn. So they're just kissing a dead body.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

The original Grimm Brothers.

[Eugene]

There's a word for that in the English language.

[Trevor Noah]

What is it? Oh, necrophilia.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Say it only. Were there 11 languages?

[Eugene]

How was this doom book? Oh, man.

[Trevor Noah]

You know, that's another way. You know, the thought that I had about that. The thought I had about.

[Eugene]

I'm sorry.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

I'm still recovering from it. And the expressive. Do they all have. Was it you putting that on, or is. Is there something in that language that is more expressive? And. Well, because there's some languages.

[Eugene]

Half the language, but it's Doom Buddha.

[Trevor Noah]

That's definitely half in the language.

[Eugene]

It's half in the language.

[Trevor Noah]

It definitely is like the. The name for flip flops.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

That's better. That is so much better because it's

[Trevor Noah]

the sound that they make when you walk.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

So much better.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

So much better.

[Eugene]

It's doombu.

[Trevor Noah]

But that does sound like a dead body if you think about it. Okay, think. Imagine if you had a dead body and you dropped it on the ground. So, okay, I will hold the dead body. You're gonna say the word as I drop this dead body. Got it? Oh, man, this body's so heavy. Oh, goddamn dead body. Oh, no. I dropped it.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Wait, what's the literal transition of doom,

[Eugene]

boom, doom, boom, doom. It's a corpse.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Oh, I see. Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

But I'm saying, what sound does a dead body make when you drop it?

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Exactly that. There should be an aggressive program to incorporate. Like, my mother uses this. This is a Jamaican word for. It's not quite a ra. It's a lovable rascal. But it's more than that. It's jinnil.

[Trevor Noah]

Jinnil.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Ginnal.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

And she would. Some of my fondest memories as a child are doing something that was clearly wrong. My mother calling me a gentle. And what it meant was, what you did was wrong. But I still love you.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, I like that.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

No, no, it's more than I love you. It's not that I. I forgive you when I love you. It's that I recognize that the core of that behavior is something I would like to keep alive and cherish.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, wow.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

That's what it is. The jinnil is like. The jinnil is the general will save us if we're all imperiled. And like the overlord is making. The general is the one who will. You know, it's the Anansi figure. It's the classic in sort of African folklore, the idea of the mischief maker who could save the day. Right.

[Trevor Noah]

It is not inherently bad, but it causes so much mischief that we don't like it. But in a time of need, it will step up.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Exactly.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

That particular thing, that's just a lovely word. And I taught it to my daughter because she's a Jinno. So she now uses. She now. The old, the four year old. She now uses gentle. It makes me so happy. She accused her mother of being a gentleman. I was like, first of all, your mother's not a gentle. That's actually not what Kate is.

[Eugene]

Oh, man.

[Trevor Noah]

Causing chaos in the household. Oh, man.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

But like those, all those little, those little folkisms. Because this my mother would have. Who's turned 94 yesterday.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Would have learned that from, you know, the, the, the nanny she would have had in the little tiny place in the middle of jamaica in the 30s. Would have been the. Who's an older woman. Would have been probably the daughter or granddaughter of a slave of someone who might have been born in Africa because remember.

[Trevor Noah]

Yes.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

West Indian slaves were. Because they all died off. They were constantly bringing new ones. So you could actually be the granddaughter of someone who came from Africa. So that's an African term that just gets. Just, just enters straight into the Jamaican vernacular. So it's like, it's this Hilarious thing that now I'm. The language of our household is echoing.

[Trevor Noah]

That's beautiful.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

It's really beautiful.

[Trevor Noah]

I always feel like we got to do that more.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Yeah, that's my point. We need to. You guys should come up with three or four words which you just try really, really hard to introduce into the American vernacular that are better, that actually have some objective advantage.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay, we'll do that. That'll be our work.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

That will be your work.

[Trevor Noah]

That'll be like our job. We'll work through it and we'll figure. I'll. I'll make note when you say something and I'll be like, I think that's what we can get people saying.

[Eugene]

You know, when you're right. Actually, you know when I realized that it's actually. He actually speaks more languages than he lets on. And actually we miss speaking the language. And I think people that have known him for longer over here don't know that he speaks the languages. Is when we drift off and we speak isizulo or shit.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, yeah, we'll just switch into.

[Eugene]

And then you just see everyone going, no.

[Trevor Noah]

But you know the weirdest thing?

[Eugene]

He's from there. He's from there. We found him.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

And then I ice like shows up. It's like, oh, he's not in a barrel.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, man. Don't go anywhere because we got more. What now? After this.

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[Eugene]

Oh, the, the.

[Trevor Noah]

That Journal thing. Do, do you think that that is sort of what has informed how you write, how you think, how you. Because I've always felt like you were a mischievous reporter. Like, you don't. Let me tell you what I mean by this. Like, I've, I've met many reporters in my lifetime and like, even, like the old, old, old school ones, like from the Brokaw days, you know, like Tom Brokaw, like. And they have a. Well, let me tell you something. When you're searching for a fact, you have to know where a fact starts and where it ends. And you search for the story, and there's something about it that you have to. And there's like a. There's like a. Oh, okay, I get this. And then there's journalists today. You are one of the most mischievous journalists I've ever met. And I think that's part of what I like about your thinking, your writing, your vibe. But do you think you kept that because of what your mom said?

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Well, it's. I think, first of all, thank you. But I think it's because my, it doesn't feel mischievous to me because my parents were the same way. Oh, they're both. My mother is still. Who's. She's turned, just turned 94. She's in a nursing home in Canada and she writes for the nursing home newsletter. And she sends them to me. And, you know, they're, like, really interesting, thoughtful, but, like, half the time she's like, you know, picking a fight with some or doing some. And it's really. She's just, in a very nice, respectful way, she's causing trouble still. She's, she's always, she's a troublemaker. She has always been a little bit of a, you know, like this. There's something in her, and I think that's a. There's something. An immigrant is someone, you know, which. All of us at this table are immigrants. My mother was an immigrant three, three times over or twice over. I think an immigrant has that has that impulse to. Because they, they, they're willing to shake out their life. Right. And so they. Once you've made this the most, the most. Once you've made the most important of all decisions about shaking up your life, which is, I am leaving family, friends, and culture and going somewhere else, then everything else seems trivial in comparison. Right. Like, you know, you've done the hard thing. Like, what else, you know, you've. You've already thumbed your nose at what every. What everyone else in your circle is doing. You've left. So, like, now you can. It's why. Com. Why are comics so often from, you know, either immigrant groups or marginalized groups? Because they've already done the big thing right after. It's easy after that.

[Trevor Noah]

I wonder if it's augmented by whether or not you chose your immigration. Because when you were saying that, I was trying to think through and I went, I actually feel like there's almost two camps if we were going to make it binary. I think there are some immigrants who are the opposite of that. There are many immigrants who are like, no, I do not shake. I do not. There's no mischief. There's no. My only goal is to fully become this new world because I don't necessarily have another choice. You know what I mean?

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

But then I wonder if, like, you're more likely to keep that mischief when your choice was the thing.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Because if you shake up your world, you're mischievous, but if the world shakes up your. Your life, then you, not you, not. You don't necessarily have that same thing, I think. Does that make sense?

[Malcolm Gladwell]

It does.

[Trevor Noah]

Like, I think there's some people where they go, like, my parents came here because they wanted to. Da, da, da, da.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Those parents are generally more like shaking up the world. Then there's some people who go, yeah, man, my parents came here because they had to. Something happened. And I find sometimes, not always, but sometimes those people are like, listen, I. This, this is not my choice.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

And so I don't want to be shaken up again. So I'm not going to be in a position where I can be shaken up.

[Eugene]

Yeah. But there are ways that you always see how those groups that have migrated from somewhere that they loved and that they miss have always just rebelled a little bit in the way they cook food or stealing off, speaking the language inside their house and sometimes not losing their accents because my grandfather was big in not trying to lose his accent.

[Trevor Noah]

Actively trying.

[Eugene]

Actively trying.

[Trevor Noah]

That's a funny thought.

[Eugene]

Because even the friends that he kept, even well into his old age were people that came from the same province as him that spoke the same language. Then he would keep. They would play cards together and insist on speaking the language and just sounding like they were back home when they were not. You know, so there is that Little part. He would also make his own biltong. You know what biltong is like beef jerky.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Beef jerky. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Eugene]

He would insist on. Which drove my grandmother crazy. He would just hold on to those two things. Because what he hated the most was the fact that when his parents died. Right. He had to go live with his uncle.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

So when he moved in with his uncle, he lived with him for a while. And then when it was time for him to get his ID card, he couldn't use his father's surname, which was Ngomani, so he had to use his uncle's surname and. Which was Kaa, which was my sen. Yes. And then all of his life, from when his first grandchild was born, he insisted that we call him Grandfather Ngoman.

[Trevor Noah]

So he wanted to hold on to the thing that, that, that. Yeah.

[Eugene]

What his dad taught him how to make jerky. And also the language.

[Trevor Noah]

But you see, that's. That's sort of what I'm saying. If you think about it, because it was taken from him twice, he did not have the inclination to lose it or to shake it up. His inclination was hold onto it as much as possible. I want to keep that accent, that last name, that food.

[Eugene]

Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

Because it was taken from him. But I feel like there's like a. There's a mischievous luxury that comes with you being the creator of your little tornado. And it just like. You know what I mean? It's just like.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Wait, wait, I have something. This having hearing you listen, Eugene talk reminds me of this thing I've been thinking about, which is that you've talked now on several occasions about your grandfather. So part this is a two part theory. Part one of the theory is all of us explain who we are with some reference to our families. Right. It's a common thing.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

But I've noticed that when people do this, they always pick one. So you never hear someone say, rarely. I get this from my mom, and this is my dad. What you get is when they're talking about something. Oh, yeah, that comes from my father. And they talk, father, father, father, father, father, father. And then you come back to them five years later and they're like, mom, mom, mom, mom, Mom. And the dad's disappeared. You can't do both at the same time. No, no, you can't. So, and then part two of this series, I thought about this for a while, and then, because I was noticing it was so I could. This is the theory of asymmetrical parental attribution.

[Trevor Noah]

You can only do one Parent theory of asymmetrical parental attribution.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

You can only do one parent at

[Eugene]

a time at a time.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

But then I decided, no, no, no. I don't like that theory anymore.

[Eugene]

Then I decided, well, you just decided randomly.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

I kicked the theory out of it theory box. And I've decided. I think the mistake we make. I don't think parents. This is why. This is coming back to you.

[Eugene]

Right?

[Malcolm Gladwell]

I don't think parents are the right place to make sense of someone. I think grandparents are. In other words, if I were. If I'd never met you, I'd have you before and you sat down and I gave myself 10 minutes to get to the essence of you psychologically. And I had a choice. I could have you talk only about your parents or I could have you talk only about your grandparents. My point is, the grandparents is a far more revelatory conversation because there's so much noise with your relationship with your parents, there's something. You're blind to it. It's complicated for all kinds of other reasons. There's siblings in the mix. You can't figure it all out. But if I get you to talk about your grandparents, there's a kind of purity in the way we see our grandparents. And when I think about my. I can locate myself way more easily in my grandparents than my parents. And I think of my kids and I can locate them much more easily in their. In my parents and my wife's parents than I can in us. And I think grandparents, because we sort of gotten. This would have been 100 years ago, this would have been commonplace because we were living with our grandparents. But now it's like a harder thing to grasp because they're not. They're absent in a way they weren't before.

[Eugene]

But do you think perhaps maybe that's why they're called grand?

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah, they are grand.

[Trevor Noah]

They are like the ultimate of parents, the pinnacle of parents.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

But I mean. But I just loved that you were talking so much about your grandfather because it's rare that. Not rare, but people don't spend enough time, I think, talking about that layer of their heritage.

[Eugene]

I think mostly sometimes that's very. You're good. Have you thought of writing a book?

[Malcolm Gladwell]

You do. This is not a professional life.

[Eugene]

As an author, you would fail.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

This is just a random observation, but now I'm curious.

[Eugene]

You are so right.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Does that make sense?

[Eugene]

It makes 100% sense.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

It. It.

[Eugene]

You're right when you say it's the noise between yourself and the parents. And also, there's no one greater than your parents at the time that your parents are in your life. So people who have enriching childhoods, which is what I had up until the age of six, was when my grandparents were around because it almost allowed me to see my parents as children as well, because they had someone older who could tell them, you don't do that. Because disciplining was not a thing. When my grandparents were around, I would get away so much more. But then when my grandparents passed away, my parents almost had to step in to become the parents, and they became the villains of the story. Don't do this, don't do that. And also, you miss the person that let you get away so much more. And I had to pick in my memory the parts that I remember the most. You know, sitting under the table. My grandfather used to be like, you're going to end up on TV one day. And I was like, why? Because when I was five or six, we got our first television set. The news would play in English, and he would say, watch what my grandson is going to do. Then he'll say, tell us what they said there. Then I'll just listen, listen. And I'll be like, wait.

[Trevor Noah]

Would you say back in English?

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

Or would you say back in tongue?

[Trevor Noah]

So you would translate it? Yes. You see, this is what you see. I didn't even know that, but there you go.

[Eugene]

He said, you are going to end up on television one day. And my mom held on to that forever and ever and ever. She used to say it over and over again and it happened. So I remember those little moments and

[Malcolm Gladwell]

I'm like, so not only. What's interesting is not only do you see your grandparents more clearly than your parents, but your grandparents maybe saw you more clearly than your parents did they also because it goes in both directions because they don't have the clutter either, apparently. There's so much now that I'm a parent.

[Eugene]

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You can't just gladwell us and gloss

[Trevor Noah]

through that, run it back.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

There's so much clutter. When I look at even my own kids, there's so much in the way of seeing them clearly. There's so many. So much crap you bring to that relationship with your kids. Like that is irrelevant to who they are. You're so intent on turning them into versions of yourself that you forget they're not, never will be. But the grandparents, free of that, they get to see the kid for who they are. Right? That was. I remember that. I Knew my. I didn't know my. My grandparents all died before I was. And they were always living in other countries, but I always felt that they. There was a kind of clarity in the way they saw me. And it was. Yeah, it was like an uncomplicated.

[Trevor Noah]

Is there a part of you that wishes you had your kids sooner in life so that they could have had that?

[Malcolm Gladwell]

I mean, it's biggest mistake really. I may. Was not. Was waiting so long. But on the other hand, I'm chiller than I would have been. I find parenting to be completely unstressful. I think it's because I'm older. I find it hilarious when they act up. I find it. I also let them do whatever they want.

[Trevor Noah]

So you, in a way, you are the grandparents.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

I am the permissive grandparent. There's no question about that. Yeah.

[Eugene]

That is amazing.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

And you know, maybe that has consequences. Who knows? I won't be around for them. I'm kidding.

[Trevor Noah]

Wait, so, so, so, so who is your favorite kids character?

[Eugene]

Oh, I was your favorite kid. I was like, oh, my God.

[Trevor Noah]

No, I wouldn't do that.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

How dare you.

[Trevor Noah]

I wouldn't do that. Louis, you can't know this. Soon you'll know, but not this soon.

[Eugene]

Have you decided yet?

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Do I have. I'm struggling with this one. I don't.

[Trevor Noah]

That's what I'm saying. Don't think. Just. There's got to be one that makes you happy inside because you've watched them. You've watched Peppa Pig. You've watched.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

It's. Peppa Pig's grandfather is hilarious to me because Peppa Pig has a grandfather. Yeah. Oh, I didn't know that. It's so funny because he's just like. He is so there's a certain kind of. That's my, you know, my. My father's family. I feel like they were a hundred people like Peppa Pig's father and Peppa Pig's grandfather. It is just like, takes me back to going to England as a kid and like, they're all that way and they have that. They capture that really beautiful thing about kind of the way the English speak, which is they love being vague about everything. I'll just have a spot of tea.

[Trevor Noah]

Yes.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Right. What's the spot? We're not gonna. It's not a cop. They're not specifying anything. And everything is like in this kind of vague, like euphemistic language. That's what I listened to as a kid. And I just love it. I just think it's fantastic.

[Trevor Noah]

When you hear that, it just, like, takes you back to the feedback.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

My dad would do that. My dad was incredibly, delightfully inarticulate. Just couldn't.

[Trevor Noah]

Inarticulate.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Inarticulate. Like, which is why I was so obsessed with expressing myself, because I've said this very many times. If you live with a father who is completely inarticulate, what do you do? I spend my entire time as he's speaking as a kid, like, rewriting the words in my head. No, no, don't say that. What you mean is this. You should say this, like, come on, out with it. What you meant, what you're looking for is this. This is what's going on in my head as a kid. But I'm listening to him and he wasn't incredibly smart man, but just, like, not interested in mastering, you know, tell a joke. And would he? The first time he took my mother on a date, they go to some big, you know, student thing at the Universe at University College in London, and he stands up to tell a joke and he forgets the punchline. And my mother. This is a first date. My mother's sitting there, she's like, what? What just happened? This guy takes me out, this white guy. First of all, this white guy takes me out. And by the way, my father, my mother was a twin. And her twin, identical twin, went to the same UCL a year before. My father asked my mother's sister out, who turned him down, but said, my sister is coming.

[Trevor Noah]

That is hilarious.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

So you imagine the psychological kind of circumstances of my mother. So not only is she's like, I think he might. My twin, A and B, he's just made a fool of himself in front of like, a hundred of his. Anyway, they were happily married for how many years? 50, whatever. 60 years.

[Trevor Noah]

That's beautiful.

[Eugene]

Was it weird having a mom who has a twin? I could imagine the mischief that Jen Diller would get up to. What?

[Trevor Noah]

But why do you think that?

[Eugene]

Because I would have someone who looks like my mom but doesn't behave like my mom. You know how many times I'd wish my mom had a twin? Jane life. My aunt would come over and rescue me.

[Trevor Noah]

Well, you want to, like, use your mom for shenanigans, like your mom's sister for shenanigans?

[Eugene]

I want to use moms.

[Trevor Noah]

You were going. You're going to.

[Eugene]

Why we use.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

It's not that generation that's interesting. It's the next generation. So your mom's twin sister's children are your half siblings? Genetically, yes. So that's interesting.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, geez.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Right?

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, I've never thought of that.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Actually share the same mom.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, geez.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

All of my. They're first cousins who are actually half siblings. And it's just really interesting. There's a kind of comfort level that you would have with a sibling, but it's a first cousin.

[Eugene]

But how different was your mom from your aunt?

[Malcolm Gladwell]

My mom is.

[Eugene]

Or your aunt.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

They looked exactly the same to the point where. And they did that thing. My aunt was living in Jamaica, my mom in Canada, and they would independently, without telling each other, wear the same clothes, change their hairstyles.

[Trevor Noah]

We were talking about this the other day. This is so wild.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

This is a freaky twin thing that happens. So they always looked identical. So I would mistake them.

[Eugene]

You yourself.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

And then my. We would go to Jamaica to visit, and my mother would drive around with my father. And everyone in the little town would think that my aunt was stepping out with a strange man.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, man. Shenanigans was inarticulate.

[Eugene]

And who couldn't find the pipeline.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

That's him wearing a suit and tie, like, you know, an English guy with a big beard. And then.

[Eugene]

Explain yourself.

[Trevor Noah]

And he's like. Well, it appears there's quite a. An unfortunate coming together of stories that might confuse two people, or groups, rather, who think that. Ah, you're dead.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

No, no, it's lovely.

[Trevor Noah]

But my.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

But my grand. But the other flip side of it is that my mom's twin sister marries a Jamaican guy, but who is basically my father. So they.

[Trevor Noah]

No, no ways. They're not a Jamaican version of your English speaker.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

They find. Which makes sense. They're the same person. So they find they're exact. In fact, my father and my uncle knew each other before, and my uncle was actively, successfully pursued by aunt. But they looked the same. They were. They had the same interests. They. It was. The whole thing is just uncanny.

[Eugene]

In the Xhosa culture, if there's a twin, one must lose part of their pinky so people can identify them easily.

[Trevor Noah]

God damn.

[Eugene]

Yeah. They must cut part of their pinky.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

The brutal version.

[Eugene]

But there are other cultures. I'm not sure which one it is in South Africa, where if you marry one twin, you have to marry the other. Whoa. Because chances of the other one being happy without the other are very low unless they meet someone who's like you.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

So you have to do polygamy in that way to keep them together and to keep the other one from making another man miserable. So the fact that your aunt married someone similar to your dad and your dad almost dated her first is the

[Trevor Noah]

only reason she has her pinky. Don't press anything. We've got more. What now?

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[Trevor Noah]

You know the thing you're talking about, about like us taking the, the articulate thing with, with your dad. I've always wondered. There's a. I've always, I've always wanted to learn or I've tried to learn about like astrophysics and it's so complicated and math throws me. I it's too much for my brain but I like to try and learn about it. And one of the more interesting ideas for me is entropy, right? The idea that everything energy wise is always trying to get to a state of sort of like middle is the best way to describe it in my brain. And when you say that I always wonder if that's all we're doing as like species and humans and is people don't realize that their kids are supposed to sort of like balance them out. So if you are loud and crazy there's a good chance your kid might be like really quiet. Especially if you have like one kid, they might be like really quiet and timid and Then if you are inarticulate, your kid is going to be extremely precise and good and a wordsmith. And do you know, I even wondered that with. I wondered if Covid was the ultimate natural experiment, which I know you love, by the way. Just natural experiments, Joe.

[Eugene]

Not Covid.

[Trevor Noah]

What do you mean? No, not Covid. No, because. Because what Covid did, in some ways Covid showed us that the human experiment has been successful in that one thing could not wipe us all out. Yes, some people died very quickly. Some people didn't even get a sniff. And we don't really know why. You know, there's obviously things people like comorbidities and weight and age. Yeah. But once you remove that, there's some instances where people just. They were just gone. And then others on the opposite end of the spectrum and then the middle people got sick and whatever. And I was thinking about that going. It's like this fascinating, beautiful sort of like hedging of our bets that we do as a. As a species.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Where you're supposed to be a little bit different. Try this version, try that version. And then if you have multiple kids, they must all try a different version. Different version. So that the species has the best chance of surviving. Do you know what I mean? Like, I've always wondered that as like a.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

It's the great. For your. It's one of the great puzzles in psychology was trying to figure out. And it goes exactly to your point. Why are siblings so different? Because they shouldn't be different.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

They have same parents, same genes, same. Same home environment, same. But they're like wildly different. Right. And that is because. Yeah. The impulse is to differentiate, not to. Is to take the exact same experience and interpret it in radically different ways. And I see it already with my two daughters, like the younger one is fashioning from exactly the same environment, is fashioning a completely different experience for herself.

[Eugene]

Yeah. Nature versus nurture.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. But even beyond that, it's a safety mechanism. One of the rabbit holes I've been going deeper and deeper into over the past few years has been like monopolies and consolidation. I'm obsessed by it. And I'm obsessed by it because we. We were never really taught about the effects like most people in society. If you go monopolies, they'll be like, I guess it's bad because we're told it's bad. But for most of us, if you say, like, why is it bad? We don't really know, like, why, you know, someone might be like, oh, prices and whatever. One of the best examples of why it's bad sort of ties into this is in America and in many parts of the world now, if one species of chicken gets sick, okay, they are. They could all go. They could all go.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Monocultures.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like, there's one family in Germany, I think, or something that owns. I think it's a type of egg, but it's like it's basically the egg, if that makes sense. And if something goes wrong with that egg or if there's a disease that affects that strain of chicken and that species of. Yeah, yeah. But it's gone.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

This is the story in. In my last book, I told that story about the cheetahs. The cheetahs. There was an extinction event for cheetahs, like, whatever thousand years ago, and we think that the cheetah population of the world might have got down to one. What it might have been one mother who. One pregnant mother who survived. And that's why every cheetah today is genetically identical, which is why cheetahs have such incredible disease, you know? Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

They're struggling even now.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Oh, my God. They're so prone to disease. If I. Really, really hard to keep cheetahs alive in captivity because even minor infections will just. There's certain kinds of minor infections which that particular cheetah type just happens to be susceptible to, and so they're all susceptible to it. So there's a kind of coronavirus that normally animals shrug off, but it's fatal to cheetahs. And then we had a huge problem a couple years ago with keeping. But in the wild, too, cheetahs are like. They're sickly and they're. It's because they're all the same and they're. Their sperm is degraded. It's just cousins, baby mating with cousins over and over and over and over and over and over again. They're so identical like that. You can do, you know, when you do a skin graft. The reason they figured this out was they were puzzled by why cheetahs were getting so sick in zoos. And so they did a simple skin graft where they took two cheetahs, different cheetahs, and they just took skin from one and grafted onto the other. And under normal circumstances, the skin would. The graft would be rejected.

[Eugene]

Oh, rejected.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Because it's different. Like, you can't take slap on a graph.

[Eugene]

Someone's.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

You have to give them all kinds of immunosuppressive drugs.

[Eugene]

Right.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

No problem. The other cheetah just accepted the graft and they realized, oh, my God, they're twins. And it's like they're all twins, Cheetahs.

[Trevor Noah]

It's just like. It's just one family.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

It's just one big cheetah family. But those are. Those are. And I use that in that book because I was describing. I was writing about this community, this little wealthy town which is known as Pop de gro, I don't give its real name, that had a suicide epidemic at the high school, local ico, that went on for years, a very serious one. And my argument, the argument in the book and the argument of the researchers who studied it was that the problem was that the community had become a monoculture. The kids are all the same. They're all pursuing the same goals. They all wanted to go to Ivy League schools, be attractive, play sports, work really hard, win their parents approval. And that's not normal for adolescents. In a normal high school, there's 10 different social groups, each of which have different goals. And if you fail at one group, you just slide into another. There's always a home for you. Right?

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

And if you didn't, in this high school, if you didn't fit this perfect model, the one perfect model, then you were considered to be a failure. Right. And that's how the suicide epidemic got started.

[Eugene]

All these kids eliminate themselves because they didn't fit into the thinking that the general population.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

I'm not. I can't live up to the standard. Right. We. So in the pursuit of excellence. And everyone would agree this is a. One of the greatest high schools, public high schools in America, one of the loveliest places to live. In America, there was this disaster because they forgot how incredibly important this kind of diversity that you're talking about is to successfully functioning societies. You can't have, especially teenagers. You can't put a teenager into a system where there's only one model of success.

[Trevor Noah]

I think we're experiencing that with everything. And it's so one of the. You know, sometimes in life you'll have an experience that isn't necessarily special, but it has an outsized effect on you. One of those was a trip that I. I took, was my first time ever going to Paris. It was like a few years ago. You know, it's pretty late in life if you can travel. And I went to Paris and it was this whole thing. And what I found most interesting about France's history was how they imperfectly, but. But still in a. In a really beautiful way, sought to encourage the idea of the difference. Like, and what the reason it stuck with me is because it was like art. They were like, if you're an artist, you have a purpose. The French government would pay you to just make art. Just make it good or not good. We'll decide later. Your job is to make art, and then the government will buy it, and then we'll go from there. Sculptures, you name it, you name it. Sometimes it was music. Sometimes. And what I kept thinking was, what is going to happen to our society if we allow it to get to a place where the only way we measure success is one metric. What is. What is gonna happen to our society when every kid wants to be the same thing? Because the only way we measure success is through money or through a certain type of power. And so no one wants to be a teacher. No one wants to be a nurse. No one wants to be. Do you know what I mean? Like, what happens when that becomes a homogenous society? Does it mean we then lose our edge? Like when we're all the surgeon or when we're all the accountant or when we're like, what happens to us? That's what I. And when you put it that way, I go like, oh, yeah, yeah, we lose our edge.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Yeah. No, I mean, there. There are still. I mean, thankfully, there are professions. I. I do this thing as part of my kind of job where I find people who I think are interesting, and I just interview them sometimes for 20, 30 hours until I find the story. I did this last summer with this incredible woman. I'm doing it right now with this. With this anesthesia, this Canadian anesthesiologist from Atlanta who is the most. I love this guy so much. He looks like. He's so handsome, first of all. And I realize that that's not relevant, but it is kind of relevant. And he.

[Eugene]

We don't judge.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

He has. And he is. He is so articulate that sometimes I'm listening to him and I'm just like, I can't improve on this. This is. You know, because I'm used to having the voice in the head for my dad. And he just expresses himself so beautifully and just everything. I mean, it's perfection. In another era, he would be a famous rabbi or a. The. You know, he. But he's a doctor. He's an anesthesia. He's an intensive care specialist. And he describes his. And what I'm really interested in is just. I want to know what his life is like. What is it like? He goes into intensive care for shifts of seven days, where he's on, basically, and he. It's the most intensive Care is the hardest and most intellectually demanding. He says, and I think I agree with him. Of this medical specialty. Please. And you folk, you have someone who is in real trouble and you are locked in for your seven day stretch with that person and his. And the reason I'm saying this also, his metric of success is incredibly specific and is outside all these. I know, I'm sure he cares about money like all of us. But like, if he wanted to make money, this is a dude who could have made 10x on Wall Street. Right. He, he could have been famous. I'm quite sure if he wanted. He's never going to be famous. He's a doctor at a research hospital in Atlanta. Like his, the thing that he uses to judge his contribution to society is, is the degree of, kind of intellectual and physical effort he puts into keeping someone alive during his seven days on. Right. And as long as there are professions like that that allow people to have their own very specific definition of success. Yeah, we're okay.

[Trevor Noah]

As, as long as they exist.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Yeah. No, yeah. Will they always exist. But there, there are these little pockets where, you know, I, I'm about to say something incredibly morbid, which is Doombo, because. Yes, yes.

[Trevor Noah]

How do you say that word against doom? So st. You feel it like a, Oh, I see.

[Eugene]

Okay.

[Trevor Noah]

That's like a drum, like a big drum being.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

And then, and then the drum releases.

[Eugene]

Oh, there you go.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Okay. All right. All right. Okay. So My mother is 94. And I've been thinking, because I can't help myself, I've been thinking about her obituary.

[Eugene]

Right, right.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

She's not, she's a long way from dying. Knock on wood. And, but she talks about, you know, so I, I, she was talking about her, what? She wanted to be cremated. I was like, why are you doing this? Anyway, so I started. What would I, what would I say? Many, many, many people will come to my mom's funeral. So what would I say? Because it's gonna, you know, I'm gonna have to. And I, and one of the things I want to say in, about her and her life is that she's someone who lived a small life, meaning that she could have lived a big life. She could have been famous, she could have made a lot of money. She's a brilliant, driven, ambitious woman. She chose instead to define her life, much like that doctor I was talking about. She's someone who, her whole life is a series of relationships in which she has taken care of people or been important to people for decades. And there are now countless People who have been in contact with my mother in an intimate way going back 50, 60 years. I remember as a kid, there would be people coming into our living room who I'd never seen before just to sit with my mother. And I would listen to these conversations, very personal things about them. Things. That's her life. That's what. It's the way she chose. And she. So she chose to live a small life. And the idea of valorizing the small life is, I think, really important. And a society that, that. That loses sight of the. In many ways, the contribution of the people who live small lives is greater than the contribution of people who live big, big lives. Society doesn't work without, like, that. That layer. Right. So that's what I. I've been thinking about. That's what I would like to say is I, by choice, she lived a small life and it was. She's not dead. It's horrible. Why am I doing this? But that's what I would like to say. That's her about her. That's her legacy, I think. And it's a really beautiful one. And it's not done. She's still doing that thing. Only in a nursing home in rural Ontario.

[Eugene]

I think what. What you speak about is what a lot of people crave now, the simplicity of life as well.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

You know, sometimes we're like, no, we wanted organic. You know, I want that real small farmer that makes those. You know, if it's not in season, then I will not have it. I think ultimately, inside, with all the conveniences that we have now and all the abundance that we have now, we still crave to forage. We want to go and find out. We want to sit for 30 hours with a human being and just hear what they have to say and go through the weeds until we find the treasure, you know, And I find that with great friendships. That's what friendships are about. We're having this conversation about how to approach anything, whether it's an episode or comedy. And we're saying that if you're not willing to go and whack the weeds until you found the Garden of Eden, then you've just lost what he likes to call the friction of life.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Yeah, it's.

[Trevor Noah]

But it's the small. I. I like the poetry that you've expressed it with me, because. No, Malcolm.

[Eugene]

Oh, yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Yours as well.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Yours as well.

[Trevor Noah]

Yours as well.

[Eugene]

Definitely.

[Trevor Noah]

No, but I mean, in talking about your mom specifically, because, like, there's a beautiful. To go back to football. Sorry, Eugene.

[Eugene]

No, no, no.

[Trevor Noah]

But to Go back to football. One of my favorite things about, about Liverpool.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Is how many opposing players and teams will say, man, you don't want to play at Anfield. And they don't just mean you don't want to play the away game. They often refer to the fact that the Fans are a 12th player on the field. And Mikel Arteta, the coach of Arsenal, who used to be. I mean, he's one of the best players who's played the game, talks about his playing days and they asked him about where to play and what was tough. And he, he, he has the story where he, he recounts how tough going to Anfield was. And what made Mikel Arteta brilliant was that he could see the whole game. He could always see where players were. He was that kind of player. You know, he's the point guard in that way. And he says when he went to Anfield, the fans would start singing. The fans would start chanting. And he says you would lose your teammates. Yes, he said you would just lose them. You'd be like, I'm alone. He'd be like, wait, where's everyone?

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

And in that.

[Eugene]

What.

[Trevor Noah]

I think that's another thing that I loved about Liverpool and I think a lot of football fans will have this with their teams generally, if it's a great team and great fans, is there's a beautiful synergy between the big and the small. Every football player, every basketball player, every. Doesn't matter what athlete they are, they will tell you that when they had to perform their sport with nobody around, there wasn't a thing.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, you could hit the ball. Yeah. You could shoot. Yeah, you could jump. It wasn't the same. But the little people, they were doing the biggest thing. It's just that we sometimes don't see it that way because of how we like, aim the lens. Does that make sense?

[Eugene]

Yes. Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

Like the fans are making, to your point, English football. One of the reasons I think it is the biggest of the leagues in the world, the biggest, is because of the fans. It's because of what they make it. It's because of what they. Yeah, there's people playing football all around the world. People kicking that soccer ball, doing their thing. But like that, that, that little. And that's what I mean by the valuing. I love that you said that because I. Not to be ominous about it, but I just worry that we'll get to a place where there is no valuing. There is no. You know, I do, I do think of like, as a child, I love how Many fights kids used to have. In my school, when we're talking about what do you want to be? Lots of fights. What do you want to be? I want to be this. I'm going to be a fire. I'm going to drive a fire. I'm gonna. There was this idea that society had that like all of these avenues can provide you with a value that is valorous in its, in its pursuit. And then like now, and it's not the kids fault, but a lot of the kids, you go, what do you want to be? And they'll be like, famous, rich, rich. And I'm like, what are, what are we showing them and teaching them? Because rich and famous is a byproduct of doing a thing well, I often think, but they aren't aiming for that. Oftentimes they go like, famous, rich, what not? And then a person who's in that position has to be like, oh, but what of that? Do you want? What of that Are you looking for what of that? You know what I mean?

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

And so I like, I would love to know like with your, with your girls, do you have a preconceived notion? How do you think you're gonna do it? Are you like, are you already going, oh, I hope they would be this or not? Or are you seeing things in them?

[Malcolm Gladwell]

We.

[Trevor Noah]

Because I'm sure you can't, you can't like resist it. But is there something where you go,

[Malcolm Gladwell]

with my girls, I'm doing the thing that I swore I would not, which is that I all I, I'm obsessed with how well they'll do at sports and will they be good runners. And so I spent a lot of time scrutinizing their running form and I took my. I've decided my little one who is super focused and who by the way, is ripped. I mean, it's a horrible thing to say about a two year old, but I'm sorry, she is ripped. I've never seen this. Oh my God. I've never seen a child like this. She looks like this is. And she loves like lifting heavy things and she's super kind of disciplined. And we took her to the track and she got in her lane and ran the. She ran 200 meters in her lane at 2 and stayed in the. There was lane discipline and she ran the curve hard and eased up on a straight. I mean it was like instinctually. It was, it was the single greatest moment of my, of my brief parenthood career. So all. That's all I care about. Do they, you know, because you know, if you're running, you want to be a forefoot striker. You want. You should land on the front of your foot.

[Trevor Noah]

Yes. So you can.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

So I've been looking very closely to make sure the natural forefoot strikers, they are, and I'm trying to make sense of, you know, are they quarter milers, half milers, or distance? You know, that's an important thing because I gotta focus and I'm terrified they're gonna be good at the sports. I don't want them to play, like, pickleball, tennis. Well, tennis. I don't want the time suck. Sports. This is the big mistake one makes. Swimming, tennis, gymnastics, any of these things that require tons of travel and like, six hour practices.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

No. You destroy their childhood.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

All right.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Why are you doing that? Soccer. Fine. I'd accept soccer because I think it'll be fun to play, but I really. I mean, track's perfect. It's just ideal. It's like one hour a day. It's like fun hanging out with other runners. Runners. That's what I want for them. So that's all I do, is I think about their running form. Really?

[Trevor Noah]

I love that you admitted you're like, I turned into what I promised.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Everything I have become.

[Trevor Noah]

Everything. Actually, this is something I wanted to ask you. So the.

[Eugene]

The.

[Trevor Noah]

The podcast thing that you did, talking about, like, trans women in sports. Yes. Oh, God. You should put your hand on your head.

[Eugene]

How ripped were they? Because.

[Trevor Noah]

So talk me through this a little bit, because I like you as a person. I love your writing. And I know. I think I know you as like the. Let me call you the artist separate from, like, the human. But when I was watching this, I even said to Eugene, I was like, this is like the least Gladwellian way to handle a situation. I was just like. And then I was like, do you think like this now because you have daughters? Do. Do you think it shaped you? Explain to me what happened there. Did people get something wrong? Tell me. Tell me what happened there.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Four years ago, five years ago, there was a pan. There's a sports conference that happens every year.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

A sports analytics conference. They were going to have a panel on trans participation in sports. And they said, do you want to be the moderator of the panel now? Right there. Any intelligent person would have said, of course not. There's zero upside to moderating.

[Trevor Noah]

This is a landmine.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

It's a landmine.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

What does Malcolm say? Yeah, sure. So I'm the moderator of the panel, and there's a guy named, a South African Ross Tucker is the sports scientist who believes very strongly that trans women should not participate in the female category. And there are two, Joanna Harper and another people who are arguing the opposite side. I'm the moderator, and they tell me beforehand, do not get us in trouble. Whatever you do, just, like, get through this. I was like, all right, through this. So I sit there and the audience is like, split in half. Half or so. Whenever one side says something, they go, it's just a minefield. And I'm sitting there like, what did I get myself into? So we managed. There's a moment in this conversation when Joanna Harper, one of the. One of the pros. Pro participation people, says something which would have been. You know, when you're interviewing someone and there's a. There are moments when someone says something which is an opportunity to jump in and, like, it gets to the heart of the matter.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, yeah, okay.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

She said something that got to the heart of the matter. And my instinct as a journalist was to say, oh, this is the moment. This is what people were. This is. And I said. And I was like, man, I could say it's too complicated. I don't. The crowd's nuts. I sit on my hands, nothing happens.

[Trevor Noah]

Do you remember what she said?

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Yes. She said to Ross Tucker, ross, you have to let us win. And what she meant was she was conceding the point that trans women have a genetic advantage over biological women. Trans women have a biological, genetic advantage over biological women. And. But what she was saying was, that's not the issue here. The issue is it's a broader, symbolic thing for transaction. And it crystallized the whole argument because it was why the argument can't be one, because they're both after different things. One side are people who are trying to protect the purity of women's sport, as they would say. And the other side is someone who's trying to make a human rights argument about a disadvantaged group. It's two arguments. They're never, ever going to meet. And in that moment when she said that, it crystallized why this was an impossible problem to resolve. My inclination at that moment was to say, oh, I could have jumped on that. We could have had. I could have used this to explain the fact that this is an irresolvable argument. I don't say anything. Fast forward four years. Ross Tucker, who has out of his place in Johannesburg, has this podcast which is listened to by a very, very small number of people. It's this super fast. It's my favorite podcast, super fascinating, nerdy podcast about the science of sport. Lots of rugby talk. Lots of. You know, he did a whole episode once on shoes, which was amazing. So I'm on Ross's thing, and I say in minute, we have. We spend 45 seconds reminiscing about this panel. And I say to Ross, you know, that moment, I really should have. I regret not. That would have been an incredible moment to jump in. And then we go on and talk about other things. And then I wake up and I'm like, I don't know what happened. They did five minutes on me on Sean Hannity.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, yeah, you were everywhere.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

I was everywhere.

[Trevor Noah]

No, you were everywhere.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

And I had no idea what happened. I was like, what? Just what's going on here?

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, no, you were everywhere.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

J.K. rowling, like, tweets at one point, like, oh, my goodness. And I was just paralyzed. I was like, nothing. I was reading all the stuff that was saying. I said stuff they didn't say, people going nuts about it. And I was like, oh, Jesus. So I just shut up.

[Trevor Noah]

And, you know, every. Every time I see that happen, there's like a. Like a thing inside me that, like, does like a. You know, because there's a. There's a specific knowledge you have about how these situations unfold, if you've been a part of it.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

You know what I mean? I've experienced this before where literally, like, I've woken up and half of the world has an opinion of me. Then I'm like, wait, what did I say? Where did. And then it expands beyond what you've ever said or what you've ever done. And by the time. And it's that old Churchill quote, right? That a lie is halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to put its pants on.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

You helpless is a perfect world. Cause you just sit there going, like, wait, what? No, no. And it expands and it goes and it goes and it grows and it grows and it grows and it grows. And then now people are using it to say, you know, like, people who are very anti trans are like, ah, you see, he agrees. Gladwell agrees. And not only does he agree, he shows you that he's terrified of telling the truth. He's. And I was like, malcolm Gladwell is not terrified of telling the truth.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

That's a moderate on a panel. I mean, and they under strict instructions not to ruffle any feathers. And then made. And didn't think I was on Ross Tucker's. I didn't think anyone would listen to Ross Tucker's podcast other than people who were. Who were Good for Ross. I mean, I love Ross. He's. I think he's brilliant, and I've been following him for years, but I didn't think it would be. You know, who thought that? Podcasts recorded in Johannesburg or Cape Town. By the way, this is my. This is Johannesburg, Cape Town. Can I just pause on this for a moment? Just subtly change the subject. There's this thing that always irks me, which is Sao Paulo. Rio.

[Trevor Noah]

Yes.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Right. Sydney, Melbourne.

[Trevor Noah]

Yes.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Johannesburg, Cape Town.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

In all these instances, people have this urge to say, yeah, Melbourne is New York and Sydney's la. Sao Paulo is la, and Sao Paulo is New York. Yeah, Rio is la. Sao Paulo is New York. Or Johannesburg is New York and Cape Town is la. Cape Town is. Cape Town is not la. The only thing that LA has in common with Cape Town is there's a beach and a lot of rich white people. That's it.

[Eugene]

That's it.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

The urge to make everything about that's New York, and that's. That just drives me to distraction. Have you never. Is there no other way we can describe these places?

[Trevor Noah]

But is the word a heuristic? Is that what it is? It's just like a shortcut that people

[Malcolm Gladwell]

are using, but it's not a. It's not even. They're only useful. Heuristics are useful when they actually have some basis in reality. In what universe would you go to Johannesburg and say, this feels like New York to me?

[Trevor Noah]

No, I'll tell you how. Okay, I'll tell you how to join in with him. I'll tell you how. I'll tell you how. So I think what people mean by that is that the vibe and the energy of the cities are generally defined in one way versus another way. So, okay, I'll give you an example. So Johannesburg, New York, Sao Paulo, those are like the hubs of business. That's where the people consider life to be fast. That's where there is no lounging about. That's. That's where there is no chilling. That's where. You know what I mean? There's this idea of, like, you come here, you do business, you get things going, you keep it moving. You got it? Rio, Cape Town, Louisiana. Eh, tranquilo. You know what I mean? It's like a. There's a feeling of, like, beach vibes and chilling and. No, no, no. But it's all in relation to the other.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Oh, I see.

[Trevor Noah]

And by the way, I'm not. You're not crazy for thinking this, because I. I feel like that when ever people Would say it would always irk me when they would go like, it's the size of 20 elephants. Then I was like, hey, man, stop doing this.

[Eugene]

But Americans love is the size of five football fields. But, like, who's.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

But I'm like, hey, man, out here. So in that regard, I also. I'm just like. I don't get why you use. But I do understand why people do it. Because those cities. Let's put it this way.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

If you loved LA and you were leaving it, you had to leave.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

And you were gonna go live in Johannesburg or Cape Town, and you loved everything about la, you would be better off betting on Cape Town.

[Eugene]

You love Malibu.

[Trevor Noah]

And if you love Rio, you would be better off betting on. And if you loved Sydney. That's all I think it is. Even if it's 51 49. No, no, no. You would just. There's just a bet you would have a better chance of.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

But this is. I will. I will just say that this is a case where the heuristic gets in the way.

[Eugene]

Effect it.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

I like, like, I like heuristics when they help us.

[Eugene]

Cool.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Get over the hump and sort of. All right, then we can go from there. But sometimes they block us and they get in the way.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

And I feel like this is getting in the way. And like, what do you think it's

[Trevor Noah]

getting in the way of?

[Malcolm Gladwell]

It's getting in the way of appreciating another culture for what it really is. So as opposed to saying, what's offensive to me about this with Johannesburg in Cape Town, for example, because you guys know these cities very well, is like, these are. The people who use this heuristic don't know anything about this. And I think in expressing that heuristic are creating an obstacle to learning more.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Right. It's like, oh, it's just New York is a way of saying, okay, I've satisfied my. So I can go. I'll see a couple sites and I'll leave. As opposed to really, like, thinking in a complicated and interesting way about what is. This is a city unlike any other. All these cities are unlike themselves, fundamentally. And the. The. The. The biggest obstacle is outsiders coming in and pretending they have an understanding of something that they have no understanding of. That's what I object to. Like, I don't pretend to understand Cape Town. I went there once. All I know is a lot of insane real estate, right? Yes. And a nice beach. And that hill. Walk up and down.

[Trevor Noah]

And that hill that you walk up and down. You Know one thing I don't want to let go of, because I think you said something that's nuanced, difficult, and, in my opinion, very important. You said something about the conversation that was happening on that stage when people were talking about trans women and sports. And I think it's something that people don't like to acknowledge. In many conversations that we have in society, it's that people on two different train tracks acting like they're fighting about the same thing, but they're not actually. Cause I. That the way you, the way you framed it there, I was like, yeah, people are arguing across each other. And so you can never reach a conclusion if you're not arguing. It is impossible, but you're not arguing the same thing.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

It's irresolvable. It's irresolvable. It's like there's two competing values, and you have to pick which one in this moment you think is more important. And if you're going to pick one, then I think you have to accommodate the interests of the other side.

[Trevor Noah]

Right.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

In other words, if you're someone who thinks that trans women should not participate in the female category, you have to go out of your way to be an advocate for all other aspects of the trans agenda.

[Eugene]

Yes.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

That's your obligation. You're going to. You have to be able to say, okay, I am. I know that this is something that means a lot to you. I. I'm not going to back you on this, but I promise you, I'll back you on everything else. And the flip side is also true. I think that if you are someone who wants that kind of participation, you have to go out of your way to acknowledge the importance that you're basically saying to people who care a lot about sports and women's sports in particular, that I. I'm asking you to give up something here. And I will go. I will bend over backwards to make that sacrifice easier for you. There has to be that accommodation. And like I said, I don't. There's no. I. You know, I'm. My position on this is I acknowledge both sides. It's really hard. I happen to be a huge track and field fan, so it's really hard for me to make the sacrifice of giving up the female category in that same way. But I also understand that that's a problematic position to hold, particularly for a group that is under. That is imperiled. And, and so, you know, my. My answer is for the moment, because I also acknowledge that my mind might change. Right. I was writing About Caster Semenya 10 years ago, and I had a different position than I had now.

[Trevor Noah]

How did it change?

[Malcolm Gladwell]

The science of people at that moment did not understand the degree to which the. Quite. This is a technical question. If I. If I. She was. She's not trans, she's dsd. So she was intersex. The question was, if I. If you suppress the. The testosterone of someone in that condition, do you equal the playing? Do you level the playing field? With biological women? There was a belief back then that you could level the playing field. Now the science seems to be that you. There's still a considerable historic kind of historical advantage.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, that.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

So it's more complicated. Right. But that side is. It's super complicated. All you can say is if you're going to pick one side, you have to accommodate the other.

[Trevor Noah]

I think it, you know, for me, where it lies is I often find that we're stuck in these situations and these conversations because we allow ourselves to suffer from a lack of imagination. And the reason I say that is because we act like what is always was and will always be.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay, So I look at people now arguing hard, the women's sports, and I go, if I was to rewind time and go back decades and decades and decades, I would argue that those same people would be the ones going, women can't do sports. Women can't. And we would see that. Do you know what I mean? There was a time when women were stopped from getting into sport. Like, people were like, no, a woman can't box, a woman can't run, a woman can't. No, no, no, no, no.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

What do you mean?

[Trevor Noah]

Women's sports, Women's public bathrooms. That was the one that, like, blew my mind the most was in America, people used to fight against women using a public toilet. They were like, no, you go, what are you doing? That's for the men. You go home. What are you doing?

[Eugene]

Was that to stop them from not going too far?

[Trevor Noah]

No, it was just like this idea of, like, it. It just didn't make sense because of the way things were. Same thing with black people. There was a time when people were like, so you're saying black people. Quick story. My dad at some point ran, like, a small little restaurant, would be a strong term. He cooked food for people and they came and, like, ate it. It was a tiny little place in Johannesburg, just outside of Johannesburg, actually. And I asked him, I was like, oh, what happened to the place? He's like, oh, it got shut down. I was like, what happened? He's like, they shut it down because I wanted to serve black patrons and white patrons. Then I immediately was like, ah, my father, the saint. Oh, what a legend. Then he was like, no, no, no, I don't care about the race thing at all. He's like, I don't care. He's like, it just didn't make sense to me. And he's a very, like, He's Swiss, German. He was like, this makes no sense. Black people and white people eat the same things and use the same cutlery and are the same. What are you doing? It's also terrible for a business. And what the apartheid government wanted is they wanted my father to build an additional bathroom just for black people because they were like, white people and black people should not use the same bathroom. This is scientific. That's what they even said. It's science. And then my dad was like, no, sorry, I'd rather shut down the restaurant because this is crazy to me.

[Eugene]

Right?

[Trevor Noah]

So he had his own reason, which I guess aligned with good, but he was. He doesn't even accept it. When I go, that was a good choice. He's like, no, it just doesn't make sense. Now when I come back to the world of imagination, I go, if we acknowledge that the things that are weren't always, then we acknowledge the possibility that something new could be right. The Paralympics is an example. I remember when the Paralympics first started, like, first. First started, people went, this is crazy.

[Eugene]

Have they changed their minds now?

[Trevor Noah]

Now, have you seen how big the viewership is? Have you seen how big the endorsements are? You go to a city or a town when the Paralympics is on, the advertisements change, there's major campaigns. It's no longer even. It's not a. It just moves over to the Paralympics. You get what I'm saying? And in the Paralympics, I found some of the most creative thinking because they went, how do we. To your point, how do we find a measure of fair in a thing that we've also invented in terms of fairness? So they're like, how do you say that? A person missing a leg from the knee down, who do they run against? Somebody with the same thing. But what if that person has no legs, but it's only from the hip or not from the hip or an eye or a hand? And they were like, you know what? We're just gonna work to figure this thing out. We're just gonna work to figure this thing out. Because I think they. Whoever was organizing this remembered the original idea of what the sport was supposed to be. It was a Competition between people and they were participating in something that we've imagined. It's not real, guys. Like, this is not. Do you know what I mean? It's not gravity. The rules and the lines that we draw in a field.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

There's a wonderful quote to this very point. That sport is the willing acceptance of arbitrary constraints.

[Trevor Noah]

Yes, that's exactly it. So here's an example I was thinking of when I was going through this. I went, we make it seem like in some sports it's just man, woman, man, woman. Right, that's it. But then in another sport we'll go, no, no, it's not just man, woman. It's also age. Age is important. Yes. The under, the under 16 World Cup. Oh, why do we have a different category for. Well, they're younger, so who says they should get a different category? But we accept that, right? Boxing, for me, is probably one of the craziest with the classes, guys. At some point, and you can clearly see when people want to make concessions, they'll make them. If you think about it, technically, boxing should have just been, you fight him, the winner's the winner. And then at some point someone went, bro, I'm skinny, man. Come on, this is not fair. I can't beat that guy. And they didn't go like, well, then you're out. They went, all right, all right, we're gonna make a class skin into skin for these feather light people, you guys who. As light as feathers.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

I love that about boxing.

[Trevor Noah]

But that's my. But this is what I'm trying to say.

[Eugene]

Running.

[Trevor Noah]

No, but this is. But this is what I'm trying to say is like imagine we, we have a sport where you can come in weighing feathers all the way to heavy weight. We've given. And it's not one, it's not two, it's not three, it's not four, it's not five. The weight divisions do this. They do this, they do this. And no one would say to you, like, that's crazy. That's so many divisions.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

I wonder why we never engaged in these conversations.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

You know who the worst offenders are? The swimmers who they've just created a sport to maximize the number of medals they give out. There's like the 50 meter freestyle, the 100 meter freestyle. That's what I mean. It's arbitrary. It's like what they could have, like they're gonna have before it's all over. Like 10 different freestyles, the 150.

[Trevor Noah]

Can you do it like a butterfly? Can you do I have a whole Stand up. Bit about that where I'm just like, what is this? You're doing it less efficiently and you get more medals.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

No one ever uses those strokes outside of competition. That should tell you something.

[Trevor Noah]

You see? So now, what I'm saying about these conversations, you're getting strangely quiet on the question. No, no, no. But what I'm saying about these things is we. We forget. I think we forget that everything exists in the time that it exists, and it becomes the norm, because that's what it is in any given time. But if we stop imagining possibilities, then we're gonna be tied to what is now, but not what could ever be. And so when I. When I. That's funny enough. That's like, When I. It's. I think that's where you've influenced me in my life is like. Like a Gladwell way to think. I always think is like, yeah, but. But where was it? And what is it? And what is it trying to be? The fundamental thing sports is trying to be is fair. However, some sports, if we're honest, are inherently unfair. Like, to use, like, the Caster Semenya thing, I remember going, people would say, oh, but she has an unfair advantage. I'll be like, yeah, so does LeBron James. If you are, like, 7ft tall, you have an unfair advantage in basketball. We should ban you from the sport. You know what I mean? If you are Michael Phelps, you have an unfair advantage that your body doesn't produce as much lactic acid. We should ban you from the sport. But we don't. We celebrate those people because we go, you're a freak of nature. Well done. But then when other people are the same freak of nature, then all of a sudden, you know what I mean? And so I think that that's, like, the thing that frustrates me in some of these moments is I'm not saying there's a right way and a wrong way and a this way and a that way, but it's like, yo, man, if you can find a way for more people to participate and you can make it as fair as possible, like the UFC does, like boxing does. I will fight. I will watch two skinny men fighting, and then I will watch two of the bulkiest men fighting, or, for that matter, women in ufc, and I don't go like, yeah, this.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

You should have been the moderator of this panel. You would have survived much. Jesus, what was it? Do you have a good. What was I thinking?

[Eugene]

But, no, but I.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

No good deed goes unpunished.

[Trevor Noah]

No, but I actually think that's what it is.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

That's what it is.

[Trevor Noah]

But I think.

[Eugene]

I think in. In institutions mainly, and which I think sports federations and sports organization are big, long institutions that have institutional memory of how things were done.

[Trevor Noah]

Exactly.

[Eugene]

Two things will always alter the course of any institution is either the people dying out or commercialization coming in. Because I think when you add money, there's incentive now to accommodate and find creative ways to extract money from sponsors to sponsor the Paralympics.

[Trevor Noah]

You're not wrong.

[Eugene]

You have the same with. Let's add more backstroke, side stroke, kickstroke, knee stroke.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. Because they would get rid of them if people stopped watching it and there was no money. They would be like, all right, absolutely.

[Eugene]

And that's what people are finding a problem with now, with the Olympics. People watch the Olympics and go, what am I watching? What is this? Yeah, because also, it doesn't equal out. So you see, if every discipline that exists in the Olympics. Right. Exists in the Paralympics, then I would be sold if there was. If there was shooting and. And for. But with people with something that they normally wouldn't have if they were doing, I would be. I'd be fully in. But when I feel like there's concessions being made and I'm like, I'm not watching the full thing. And that's the thing that I find with soccer fans is they watch male soccer. Yeah, but then female soccer is on. They don't watch fully. You guys are not fully participant in football.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, but I think you're missing the point.

[Eugene]

No, but are you.

[Trevor Noah]

No, but I think you're missing the point, though. See, I think this is where I think you're missing the point. Right. There are some people, like Joseph Op, our friend, we had him on the podcast. He watches everything. Everything, everything, everything, everything. But you see, before you run to that and you go like, oh, a football fan is inconsistent because they watch men's soccer, but they don't watch women's soccer. I also don't watch other leagues. I don't watch the Turkish League. They've got great teams. Galatasaray, Besiktas. They've got great teams that I see in the Champions League. I don't watch the Portuguese League. I don't watch the Italian League. Serie A has had some of the greatest champions that have ever existed. I don't watch the Serie A. I don't watch the South African league. There's many leagues that I don't watch. So I don't think we can quickly say, oh, you are. You are not supporting women's Sport, because you don't watch that, but you also don't watch other leagues. Do you get what I'm saying? I think the more important thing to ask ourselves is why people are or aren't allowed to just like be part of a thing before we even get to commercialization. Cause I, I'm not saying that everybody must watch the same thing, the same. What I'm saying. What I'm saying is if a skinny ass man is allowed to be a boxer, a man who weighs less than a bag of cement is allowed to be a professional boxer. A man that I can pick up and throw to the other side of the room. He'll beat me in a fight, boxing, but I can lift him if that person gets accommodated. Why can we not accommodate a trans woman is what I'm saying. That's all I'm saying.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Because I've never thought of. Boxing is the most egalitarian. Any human being can dream of growing up and being a boxer.

[Trevor Noah]

Can I tell you something? Golf is one of the most egalitarian sports ever invented. I know you hate it, but it's one of the most egalitarian, I think golf courses. Courses, of course. No, no, no.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Yeah, almost like the PGA coming for you.

[Eugene]

As if you haven't been enough trouble.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

I'm in enough trouble, like.

[Trevor Noah]

And you can speak your mind. Malcolm, you don't say that we scared you. You can speak your mind. No, I look at golf. Golf has one of the craziest systems ever invented. The handicap system, where you as a golfer who has just started can go and play against somebody who's a professional and you can beat them on the same course hitting the same ball. How did they do that? They adjusted the scoring system to account for what your level is versus what this other person's level is.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

It's beautiful.

[Trevor Noah]

It's beautiful and it's imaginative. Because what golf could have easily done is said. No how. That's how it works. But they realized in the strangest egalitarian way, which no one thinks of as golf being because it's like the rich sport, et cetera. They went. We want people to be able to have as much fun as possible playing with and against whoever.

[Eugene]

Yes, but there's a difference between hitting something and hitting someone.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, but what I'm saying is you can.

[Eugene]

A 19 year old can hit a ball same as a 65 year old.

[Trevor Noah]

Not true.

[Eugene]

But then. No, I'm saying that it's a ball that they're hitting.

[Trevor Noah]

No, but it's not true.

[Eugene]

Punching to our Faces.

[Trevor Noah]

Yes, but what I'm saying is you can make those. That's exactly what I mean by accommodations. Why do we have a youth division? Why do we have a seniors division? Why did we even do that? I can tell you now, a seniors division did not always exist in sports,

[Eugene]

and then it did enter commercialization.

[Trevor Noah]

But that's. So that's what I mean by imagination is I go, if we think to ourselves that it stops where we are currently in time. I don't care what it is. Technology, you know, education. Then I go, like, man, Then we. We've, like, We've become that homogenous society. We've become that high school that all thinks the same way. Like, I go, there is. You. You can find a way. If you believe that you can find a way. I'm not saying it'll be easy. I'm not saying it'll be obvious. But if you say no, if your answer is no completely, then I'm like, no.

[Eugene]

Two skinny men fighting. So you men, you see? No.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, but what I'm saying is. What I'm saying is we can create a category where skinny men fight skinny men. And that's what they've done. And so I go, then how are we. And we can.

[Eugene]

Category. Do you think we should create now to solve everything else?

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, no. You see, to lie and say that I have the answer now. I don't have it.

[Eugene]

You know what I love about you? Your dimples. 1.

[Trevor Noah]

I knew you're going to say that. Like, where am I?

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Yeah,

[Trevor Noah]

no, but I. But that's. That's. That's exactly what I mean is like, I go, I don't. But we. To your point, we can't get there if we don't have the messy, bumbling along discussion this. This season in the Premier League. I don't know about all the leagues. The rules changed, right? Do you know how old football is as a sport? But the rules changed now. They said if a goalkeeper holds the ball for longer than eight seconds, it's now a corner kick.

[Eugene]

No way.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. I didn't grow up with those rules.

[Eugene]

Eight seconds.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

He acts like that's defined as changing the game. It changes everything. Eight seconds.

[Eugene]

We shaved off eight seconds from the hogging.

[Trevor Noah]

Yes.

[Eugene]

Wait, so that wasn't. That wasn't a thing before.

[Trevor Noah]

That wasn't a thing before.

[Eugene]

So the goalkeeper was allowed.

[Trevor Noah]

The goalkeeper could hold the ball. Once they caught it, they could still do that thing. Technically, you were just supposed to get rid of it, but there was no time. The ref would just Be like, you took too long. But they made it a rule. Now. Now I'm saying if an old sport like football can still introduce new rules in 2025, then I think all sports can look at introducing ideas that can include everyone. I don't think a kid who has one leg. Yeah, let the kid run. Let's find a way for that kid to run.

[Eugene]

No, technically, they.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, but you can find a way for them to run. Yeah, that's what. That's what I'm saying is magical. For me, there was this thing I remember, like, you know, I love video games, and I remember when I was. When I was at Microsoft, like, I've worked with them for a while, like in, you know, the hardware and all of that stuff. One of my favorite things was helping them think about, like, controllers that kids with disabilities could use. And they were showing me this stuff as, like, they'd bring a kid in who has a disability, and the kid would go like, I now use my feet to play Street Fighter. Which seems ridiculous. It seems crazy. And then you see them and you're like, damn, you know what I like in this moment? You're a gamer and I'm a gamer.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

The point of a controller wasn't that you could only play a game with if you had hands. The point of a controller was that it helped you to control something that was happening on the screen.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

And once we realized, like, the moderator

[Eugene]

at five years ago, you feel like Malcolm.

[Trevor Noah]

No.

[Eugene]

Outside playing with other children.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

But when they're finding ways to play more inside by themselves.

[Trevor Noah]

But that's not the. No, they're not playing by themselves. Most of their kids are online. And now if you're the only kid.

[Eugene]

Other people. Other kids with disabilities are online.

[Trevor Noah]

What I'm saying is if you can't be online with your friends who are online, you're now isolated.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

They change the rules in a way that allowed the person who previously had a disability can no longer have a disability.

[Trevor Noah]

Yes. And so what I'm saying is, if we are gonna live in a simplistic binary world, so should trans women compete with women? Then I'm like, why are you making it seem like there's only two? And I mean this honestly, like, as categories.

[Eugene]

So you'd want to have a category.

[Trevor Noah]

This is how crazy it would be. Imagine if you rewound time. There was someone who said, ah, people who swim butterflies shouldn't be able to swim with people who swim. And they were like, yeah, let's just do butterfly category and a breaststroke Category.

[Eugene]

Why is it in your voiceovers people who are stopping things sound boring? And the people that.

[Trevor Noah]

Because people who stop that let things happen? Like. Yeah, because people who stop things are boring, Eugene. That's why we've gotta imagine.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Bro.

[Trevor Noah]

You've got to imagine.

[Eugene]

Yeah, okay, let's. Let's imagine it. No, but you have to stop saying that.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, because that's. Yeah, but let's imagine. You know why? Disney movies. That's why I have those voices.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

It all comes back.

[Trevor Noah]

It does, though. It's Disney movies.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

They've ruined us.

[Trevor Noah]

It's Disney movies.

[Eugene]

Malcolm feels like he was at the part where he was watching no white. There was a rat and 30 minutes long.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, this was the cat and the mouse that went off for 20 minutes.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

I loved that with the zigzag.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay, so wait, wait.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Otherwise.

[Trevor Noah]

Wait.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Otherwise.

[Eugene]

Otherwise.

[Trevor Noah]

So now, before we let you go.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

Who is your favorite between the two animated character? Oh.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Oh, I can't answer. Why am I having such difficulty?

[Trevor Noah]

No, I'm just asking.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

No, I told you. Oh, yeah. Peppa Pig is Peppa Pig's grandfather.

[Trevor Noah]

Peppa Pig's grandfather who brought back.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Yes. Peppa Pig's grandfather is my reigning current. And it might be. I'm also fond of Maleficent, who my daughter describes as magnificent, which is so great. She's the witch. And what is she the witch in which one?

[Trevor Noah]

She's got the curly.

[Eugene]

She's got the horns.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

What is. Is.

[Eugene]

Yeah, Maleficent. It's no white. It's no white.

[Trevor Noah]

No. Is she from.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

No, she's in Sleeping Beauty.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, she's in Sleeping Beauty. Got it.

[Eugene]

Yes.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

And for some reason. So today, my daughter went to school in a dress that was festooned with just. Just with Maleficent.

[Trevor Noah]

Huh.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

I don't know who.

[Trevor Noah]

What has she watched the spin off or she just likes her as the villain.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Well, she's fast. Which. What happens is every time Maleficent comes on the screen, who she calls magnificent, she. She turns to me, she goes. And I'm not speaking. She goes, hush, Daddy, don't say anything she doesn't want. She's so riveted by the possibility of drama involving Maleficent that she wants to make sure that I don't step in and, like, rain on her parade. Meanwhile, she's watched it, like, seven times. I'm like, I'm not saying anything. I'm just sitting here. But no, she's quite militant in her. In her watching of Sleeping Beauty.

[Eugene]

What's your favorite cartoon character?

[Trevor Noah]

Me yeah. Of all time.

[Eugene]

Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

Ah, you now you put me on the spot because I haven't been watching them recently like Malcolm has.

[Eugene]

Yeah, but old school, new school.

[Trevor Noah]

Let me think, let me think. Do you have a favorite?

[Eugene]

Absolutely.

[Trevor Noah]

Who?

[Eugene]

Remy from Ratatouille.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, that's an interesting choice.

[Eugene]

I mean, I was like, I can create a human joystick.

[Trevor Noah]

Huh? I see what you did there. I see. I see.

[Eugene]

Stop him.

[Trevor Noah]

I see what you did there. Nicely done.

[Eugene]

I thank you.

[Trevor Noah]

Nicely done.

[Eugene]

You know what I like about you? You're willing to admit when I'm right.

[Trevor Noah]

Malcolm Gladwell, thank you for joining us.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Thank you. This is very fun.

[Trevor Noah]

This has been a lot of fun. I hope to see you again.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

This is really great. Thank you.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Thank you. That was fun.

[Trevor Noah]

What now with Trevor Noah is produced by DayZero Productions in partnership with SiriusXM. The show is executive produced by Trevor Noah, Sanaz Yamin and Jess Hackle. Rebecca Chain is our producer. Our development researcher is Marcia Robiou. Music mixing and mastering by Hannis Brown. Random other stuff by Ryan Hardooth. Thank you so much for listening. Join me next week for another episode of what Now.

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[Netflix Peaky Blinders Announcer]

By order of the Peaky Blinders Academy Award winner Cillian Murphy returns alongside an all star cast including Rebecca Ferguson, Tim Roth, Sophie Rundle. With Academy Award nominee Barry Keoghan and Emmy award winner Stephen Graham. In Netflix's upcoming film Peaky Blinders, the Immortal Man, Tommy Shelby must face his own demons and choose whether to confront his legacy or burn it to the ground. Peaky Blinders, the Immortal man is in select theaters March 6 and on Netflix March 20. Rated R.