Judge John Hodgman - Pedantry of My Own

Episode Date: December 2, 2015

Judge Hodgman's coda to the "A Hot Dog is Not a Sandwich" debate, plus rulings on wedding photography, urinating in public showers, pillow borrowing, and how to credit others' work on the internet.

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. I'm bailiff Jesse Thorne. We're clearing the docket this week. I'm in chambers with Judge Hodgman. Hi, Judge Hodgman. Yeah, I'm sorry that the chambers are a little smaller this week. I just learned that a madman set up my chamber walls to compress an inch every year. I think he's trying to crush me. Wow, is he just super into Star Wars and slow motion? Yep, and his name is Elliot Kalin. Oh, no. Elliot Kalin from the Flophouse? Yeah, my podcast nemesis, real-life good friend, and obviously courtroom occasional guest bailiff. What a monster.

But even though we had a good time working together here on the Judge Sean Hodgman podcast a couple weeks ago, I think he took a moment to booby trap my chambers. So who knows? Very slowly we may be crushed to death. Is it possible that he made one of those, you know, one of those kind of grease impressions of the keyhole of your chamber so that he could return later, so he could make his own

key and then return later? Look, I've worked with Elliot for a long time. No one is better at grease impressions than he. Right. Both copying keys and performing as Danny Zuko from Grease. Yeah, well, you've often told me that he was the one that you wanted. You know, do you know, I went to go see a camp production of Grease. I'm not going to tell you which summer camps I'm hanging around for children during the summer.

Let's just say it was legal for me to be there. But it occurs to me, I was not surprised, I suppose, that they edited out some of the more adult themes of Grease, including a really heart-wrenching song about Rizzo deciding whether or not to terminate her pregnancy. But I think they mainly cut those songs for time. I think mostly they were happy to have the kids performing songs as if they were drunk in one of them. When you said they cut out the adult themes,

I just assumed you meant a sort of rose-tinted nostalgia for a bygone era that actually was before civil rights and so was really deeply problematic no they they they that that wasn't at issue at all i mean the great thing about greece is that not only did it um perhaps launch at least on the broadway stage the 50s nostalgia craze that was uh that was a torch that was then taken up by the arguably great band sha na na and happy days and so forth but when we were growing up uh and we and we saw greece as children and heard the abortion songs strange it was strange then but when we were growing up the 50s of course were a million years ago, right? It was something that might as well have been ancient Roman times. And so it made be the equivalent of doing a big nostalgia kick for

the 90s it's and and what's interesting about that because there's a lot of nostalgia for the 90s but what's interesting about that is that the nostalgia for the 90s would be very subtle nostalgia because we're basically talking about more sweater vests and goatees. Do you know what I mean? Not a profound, not a profound revolution in style, in car manufacture, in fashion, in music, and in ways of thinking. You know, it's very weird that that happened. I've been using a pager. Well, there you go. But that's because you're one of those retro kids. Here's a dispute from Tom. I've got a problem with my fiance, Aaron. We have one big disagreement in our wedding planning. I believe that the wedding photos should be taken prior to the ceremony. Aaron says we should take them after

the ceremony prior to going to the reception. I believe that while the wedding is for us, the reception is for our guests. If we take photos before the ceremony, everyone will look fresh and at their very best. If we wait until afterwards, our guests will have to wait an hour for us to show up, and we'll have to pay for a cocktail hour. My fiancée wants to take them afterwards for one reason. She wants me to see her for the first time walking down the aisle and be happily surprised. I say I'll beam with happiness and love for her even if I've seen her in the dress earlier that day. Judge Hodgman, how do you rule? Well, it's a really interesting idea and certainly contra to convention to take photos before the

wedding. And I can appreciate that Tom is very cheap and doesn't want to pay extra time for a party that he can't take part in because he's having his photo taken. And I can also appreciate that Tom wants to get going after his marriage and start looking horrible as quickly as possible. Most people wait a year, but Tom wants to start looking terrible right away. year but tom wants to start looking terrible right away um but it is and you know there is some measure of uh wisdom to the idea that you would take the photos directly after getting dressed and coiffed and made up and everything else um i have an opinion on it jesse but before i give you my uh ruling what do you think i'm going to say? Or what would you say? I would say that it strikes me as another classic example of a nerd who thinks he's

got a better idea than everyone else in the entire world. A nerd who thinks that his system is, and it's almost always a dude, not always a dude, but almost always a dude, based on our experiences here on Judge John Hodgman, a nerd who thinks that his system is and it's almost always a dude not always a dude but almost always a dude based on our experiences here on judge john hodgman a nerd who thinks that his system is better than decades or centuries of social convention um and you know i don't think i don't think there's i don't think that there's nothing to be said for for his argument uh you said, I think there's some marginal difference in the amount of spiffiness before and after the ceremony. Although, in my experience, people are always racing to get ready for the wedding. And so they're more likely to have all their ducks in a row, so to speak, after the ceremony. But, you know, why?

I mean, is it really that worthwhile? And if the party is for the people, why is he so upset that he's going to get there 45 minutes late? I mean, that's like a traditional thing. That's why you make that big entrance. that big entrance. It's not like it's just like a, it's not like it's just like a, you know, a potluck at your house where you say,

come anytime from seven afterwards. You know what I mean? Yeah, he doesn't even want to pay for a cocktail hour, which is also contra the convention to be sure. Give me a break, this guy. Look, if you don't want to pay,

here's my, here's Jesse's advice for people who don't want to pay for booze at their wedding. A, give me a break. That's number one. As a non-drinker, I'm saying this as someone who doesn't drink. A, give me a break.

B, if it's so important to you, provide beer and wine and buy it yourself rather than buying it through the venue. rather than buying it through the venue. You can give people all the beer and wine they want for so much less money than the amount of money you'll spend on any other dumb thing at the wedding. Really, people are going to a party. They want to get at least a little bit drunk. So obviously I agree with my esteemed bailiff

on all points. As usual, I would dare say, Jesse, we don't usually disagree. But I would only point out that not only does this guy think he's got a system that's better than anyone else has come up with in the history of the world,

but also that his system is so fine that it must be implemented even against the wishes of his own bride. It's as if he's saying, no, I'm sorry, your feelings are not as important as the system that I have devised. It would seem to me that the bride's feelings should be taken at least as seriously as the system. And without being sexist, I would almost say, unless you have total unanimity between the two of them, I would default to the person who is not trying to innovate on centuries worth of hidebound tradition.

But that's it. which is that, yes, you will be fresher in terms of your makeup and your spiffy suit before the wedding, to be sure, by a small margin. But your photos will be terrible because you'll all be incredibly anxious because you haven't gotten married yet and you're going to be. That is, presuming you're actually in love with this person. If not, or if you're a sociopath, maybe it doesn't matter. But if you're an empathic human, you're going to be, as I was, and I suspect you were right before your wedding, Jesse, ecstatic and nervous. And it's a big piece of theater that you're about to pull off. and nervous, and it's a big piece of theater that you're about to pull off. And of course, the best wedding photos happen in that huge rush of relief and giddy excitement after the actual wedding is over.

Do you think he's worried that by the time the wedding is over, his wife is just going to be in a corner crying because she's made the worst mistake in her life marrying this guy who thinks his system is more important than she is. Yeah, I think that that may be his concern, and that's why he has to make sure to get those happy photos first. Man, you know what is something that I think is underrated in weddings? No. Other people who aren't the ones getting married. I feel like everybody thinks that weddings, I don't think any

part of the wedding is for you. I mean, I'm not saying that it should be contrary to your interests or that it isn't a wonderful experience for you, but I think that the reason that you would bring your community of family and friends and proclaim your commitment before them is because this is a communal experience. It's a fundamentally communal thing. And so honoring those people who have come to share this with you and hopefully to support you in this decision and this new path of life is very important. And yeah, I mean, I like, very important and yeah i mean i i like i even as a non-religious non-drinker i like wedding traditions and uh i i like people who respect the people who come to their wedding as well as their own kind of weird whims and desires you are giving a performance of a kind there is a theater to uh a civil union or a wedding and the performance is for an audience

and the audience uh should be the beneficiary of your generosity as a performer and that means pay for a cocktail hour so they can get drunk create suspense then show up they applaud then dancing or dinner you're also engaging in a public I mean, the fact that this is a ritual is not insignificant to what a wedding is, you know, and the fact that it's in public is not insignificant. I'm not saying that you can't just go get married by a justice of the peace or, you know, in the back room of the church with the priest or whatever. But yeah, I mean, when you have a public wedding, that community is central to it.

I don't, I'm, maybe I'm just tired of weird wedding vows. Well, yeah, no, I mean, I think that there is a kind of movement afoot as weddings, I think, appropriately are being divested of some of the more hidebound traditions, certainly the hidebound traditions of weddings being only legally between men and women, right? As weddings get divorced, as it were, through older religious forms, older social norms, different styles of weddings, different weddings at different times of people's lives, you know? Certainly there is an effort to sort of remake what a wedding ritual can be,

and done in a thoughtful way way that can be great. But one of the ways that I feel that people go wrong is when they make their wedding a celebration of themselves instead of a celebration of the friends, the community of friends and family, as you say, who have been there for them, for better or for worse, individually for many years, and maybe were essential in helping to bring them together. So all parties should be acts of generosity, not selfishness. So be generous. Get that cocktail hour. Do not, as Jesse Thorne suggested, just buy some wine and beer, or else I am not coming.

Mark says, my dispute, that probably explains why you didn't come to my wedding john mark right you not have this well i couldn't go because i you couldn't you were working i was engaged but not i mean yeah i was working not engaged i was already married but what i'm saying is did you not have uh distilled spirits at your wedding yeah we had wine and beer and everybody got super hammered we had nice wine and beer and uh there was plenty of it for everyone and we didn't have the extra five or ten thousand dollars i'm sure there was plenty of it for everyone because i certainly wasn't drinking any of that here's something i prefer i prefer distilled spirits and i would have been so happy to come to your wedding, and I'm sorry that I missed it.

It's okay. I don't feel bad about it at all. I would have brought a flask. We're better friends now. Mark writes, My dispute is with my dear friend Grady about a term I think is inaccurately used. Grady says that an astroturf sports field can be referred to as a fake field. Grady says that an astroturf sports field can be referred to as a fake field. I say the material, real or artificial, has no bearing on whether or not the field is real.

I feel it is real because it exists. A field is a field, whether it is grass, corn, hay, wheat, or astroturf. If I can support any statement, including the word fake, it would be that it is a real field made of fake grass grady believes that as the turf is designed to appear as though it were real grass it is therefore a fake field judge john hodgman what say you about the progression of the simulacrum oh my gosh i feel like i have flashback directly to Brookline High School, where it maybe, maybe a little, this feels like a little bit of a cafeteria conversation between me and my other utterly sexless friends after an AP history class. Let me settle this for you children right away. It is a field of fake grass, to be sure. But as field still connotes nature in our language,

unnatural turf of any kind makes it a fake field. But I am delighted that you have a lot of leisure time, Mark and Grady, and clearly tragedy of no kind has ever touched you such that you think this is a hair worth splitting. I can't wait to hear your next chestnut of pedantry. Just wait until they get invited to a wedding with no distilled spirits. Then it's really going to be on. Well, then I'm going to invite them on and we're going to say that at Brookline High School in the lunchroom, you and your sexless friends were discussing Walter Benjamin and like M.M. Bakhtin and stuff. Well, no, not that. That was that was that waited until I was having lunch with my sexless friends at Yale.

But at Brookline High School, we probably would have gotten pretty deep into whether or not a field of fake grass still exists. Here's something from Elizabeth. I work at a community health center, and for months, my workplace has been divided on the issue of people peeing in the shower. We have one shower on site. I'm pro-pee. It goes down the pipe, and it's actually watered down by the water. Plus, it's a pretty sterile fluid. My coworker, Michelle, ised down by the water. Plus, it's a pretty sterile fluid. My co-worker

Michelle is disgusted by the idea. She finds it unclean, despite the fact that she takes baths sitting in her own filth. The people who use the shower at work tend to stay out of the discussion, but it is a heated one. I like that they're deciding this for the people who are actually involved. Judge Hodgman, please put this debate to rest so that we can resume our workplace productivity and end these discussions. Well, as someone who goes to the YMCA gym and showers there after my strenuous workouts once a month. I do have an opinion and a ruling on this. Before I give my ruling, Jesse,

can you predict what I am going to say or do you have a thought of your own? My feeling, and I'm interested to hear what you have to say, this may be an idiosyncratic opinion. I do not think that it is gross to pee in the shower. However, I think it is important to respect other people's feeling that it's gross to pee in the shower. And I would not pee in a public shower, but I would pee in my own shower. that I did on this, which was scanning one article in Slate, I think, backs up Elizabeth's contention that urine is sterile and that there is no meaningful health risk. And certainly if you are using the shower and, you know, letting the shower run for any reasonable period of time

after you have finished relieving yourself, there will be no residue of urine to infect others who might use it after you. But as with all things, the primary concern is respecting other people in a shared space. You wouldn't pee in your lunchroom. So if people would find that gross, even though you could point to the fact that it's sterile. And the regular hosings down that your lunchroom receives would water it down, would literally water it down and wash it away. Yeah, I bet you there is a water fountain

or what we used to call in New England a bubbler in your community health center. And you could probably pee in that and make an argument that it is sterile, but it would understandably gross people out. And so I would say that if there is a meaningful contingent of people who would prefer that in this one single shared shower that people do not be in it, I think that that would be something that you would have to take seriously, even though there is no real health risk, I think, involved. No actual health risk involved. There's no health risk involved in getting on the bus naked, but I wouldn't do that.

You wouldn't? No, it's gross. I hadn't thought about getting on the bus naked before. Now I will say one of the great liberating things I ever did in my life when I was shooting my promotional video with Tom Sharpling of the best show and the best show.net. My promotional video for that is all the book was to walk through Times Square barefoot for hours and hours. And it was really just sort of like, yeah, you know what? What's going to happen? Nothing.

I'm not going to step on a syringe or a live sewer alligator. It'll be fine. I went home and I washed my feet. But I will finally say this. One part about being considerate of other people is maybe not telling them that you're peeing in the shower. It truly is one of those things where no one would ever know, and no one needs to know.

I'm not saying that that guides the decision-making in my life when I use the shower at the YMCA, because I am confident that no one has ever trod upon my urine, whether that's because I have rinsed out properly or I didn't do anything at all. I like the idea of a workplace where you're required to send out a memorandum after you use the shower regarding whether or not you peed in it. Just don't. Just don't bring it up. Maybe not bring it up.

The less we know, the better we all get along sometimes. We'll have more Judge John Hodgman when we come back in just a second. You're listening to Judge John Hodgman. I'm bailiff Jesse Thorne. Of course, the Judge John Hodgman podcast always brought to you by you, the members of MaximumFun.org.

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If you need a laugh and you're on the go. Welcome back to Judge John Hodgman. I'm bailiff Jesse Thorne. We're in chambers answering your questions, which you have submitted to us online at MaximumFun.org slash JJHO. Jesse, I was just talking about the YMCA here in Brooklyn that I go to for my rigorous exercise. And I actually go to it with some frequency, and my exercise is pretty rigorous. But do you know who I see,

you know what neighbor I see at the YMCA all the time, Jesse? Brooke Gladstone from On the Media. No, I did just see her this week, though, but that's not the one. That was my only guess. I thought that was a really good guess, though. The neighbor that I see is Mayor Bill de Blasio, who, before he was mayor, lived in my neighborhood.

And now he lives in Gracie Mansion, but he still comes back with some frequency, Jesse, to do his gentle stretches at the Park Slope YMCA. His gentle stretches and his very, his very low speed spinning. It's very low speed stationary bicycling. He's little, he's literally soft pedaling it. And it's always such a thrill to see him. But then there are moments where I'm like, why are you here in the middle of the day at the same time as stay at home moms and stay and stay-at-home dads and freelance workers? Why are you here?

It costs money, you know, to drive from Gracie Mansion to the YMCA to do some gentle stretches. You can at least maybe pick up the pace a little and sweat some more. And then one day, you know who else I saw? Who? You know who else I saw? Who? Famous comic book writer, Chris Claremont, who did not create the character Wolverine, but more or less defined the character Wolverine

in the 1980s during his legendary run on X-Men. And I had met him once before. And it was so incredible to see Chris Claremont there. And he said hello, and we were chatting. He was telling me about some of the things he had planned for his new Nightcrawler series. But all I could think about was, I wish my mutant power was to go back in time and tell my younger self I was meeting Chris Claremont. And to tell him that mutants are real.

Because we're both staring at one right now. Giraffe Man, Bill de Blasio. This guy is... This guy is not... This guy is an enhanced human when you see him doing his gentle stretches it's like watch it's like watching it's like watching a giraffe do yoga it's amazing you know anyway i love i love my mayor bill de blasio and uh and i i enjoy it when he comes to the gym but you know keep up you know maybe use the treadmill at crazy mansion from time to time

you know who i met at my ymca the san marino south pasadena ymca uh brooke gladstone from on the media uh no a nice old lady oh nice she asked me if it was my first yoga class and i told her it wasn't i was just very bad at yoga i'm sorry it can't all be as uh as uh what's the word i'm looking for thrilling yeah as i'm sorry it can't be a cavalcade of stars like the like the park slope ymca bill de blasio chris Claremont. And there you go. If I'm lucky, I might get to meet a famous South Pasadena and Oliver Wang from maximum fun.org pop rocket podcast. If I'm lucky, I might, maybe I'll make a special trip. Here's all I know.

Bill de Blasio is going to go start working out there. That's even further away. that's even further away and you know gracie mansion has like an awesome fully tiled 1895 gymnasium with like stretching bands and big leather balls and and a stern german man yeah well he just wants to show that he's still in touch with the real people of new york that is to say the citizens of Park Slope. Here's something from Martin. I'm writing in reference to the long-standing question of what constitutes a sandwich. Oh.

According to The Atlantic, which is a popular magazine, Oreos are sandwiches, which is ridiculous, since Oreos are cookies, not sandwiches. I'd appreciate a clarification on this point. Well, I certainly read that Atlantic article and many other articles about sandwichness this past couple of weeks because I finally went down to the Bell House in Brooklyn to do a live recording of Dan Pashman's podcast.

Pashman, as you know, has this podcast, The Spornful, which is about food and food culture. And he took issue with this court when we ruled in the New York Times Magazine first and then discussed on the fake internet air that a hot dog is not a sandwich. And the reasons that I gave for that was that a hot dog is very sandwich similar. And for a while, I thought that it had to be a sandwich because even though it was not a piece of bread, a piece of filling, a piece of

bread, which is your classic sandwich construction, it was almost indistinguishable from a submarine sandwich or a meatball sub or any other kind of ZEP or hoagie or torpedo or wedge. And if those things were sandwiches, and I think, Jesse, you would agree they were undeniably so. Of course, yeah. How could a hot dog not also be a sandwich? What was there to disqualify a hot dog from being a sandwich? What difference could I discern, if any? And it took me a long time to find the very subtle difference. And to some degree, this is a pedantry of my own, but it still holds true for me in my heart and in my mind, which is that one thing you would do

with all sandwiches, not all of the time, but at least some of the time, including a Zepp or a hoagie or a torpedo or a wedge, that you would never do with a hot dog is cut it in half. Cut it in half to share it, cut it in half to serve it, cut it in half by a, you know, you can get a cup of soup and a half sandwich in almost any restaurant, but if you got a cup of soup and a half hot dog, that restaurant would be shut down for weirdness. Yeah. It would probably have one of those signs in the window that says weirdness f would fit but no it'd be weirdness a because it was exceeding at weirdness oh that's true

the weird the new york city weirdness board would say a picture of a cat because why why not make it weird sure in any case um dan pashman took issue with this and we had to have a huge debate over it and so so many people and i'm very grateful to you all were sending me all kinds of uh uh documents to support one case uh or the other uh the atlantic was one of them and the atlantic you know this is one of those things where the Atlantic supported my side of the argument, but then went into madness by saying that if you define a sandwich, by their definition, an Oreo cookie is a sandwich. Let me put it this way Atlantic magazine if your definition of sandwich leads you to conclude that an Oreo is also a sandwich then your definition is faulty and your logic is wrong just apply common sense and you look at that thing you know that it's not a sandwich in the same way

that you apply common sense and you look at a hot dog and you're like this is something different and then you have to go through the steps to figure out why it is different or if your proposition that the thing is different stands up. My proposition that an Oreo is different stands up immediately because it's sweet. It's a cookie. It's a cookie in the style of a sandwich. An ice cream sandwich is not a sandwich. It is an ice cream confection in the style of a sandwich that we call a sandwich for

ease of use. A hot dog is not a sandwich. It is a bread, meat, hand-eaten delivery device that comes from a different cultural and historical tradition from the sandwiches that derive from the sandwich that was first eaten by John Montague, the fourth Earl of Sandwich. But it comes to resemble the hoagie or the zeppelin through convergent evolution. They don't share a common descendant. They are different things that look alike. And that's okay. Complexity is okay. Uniqueness is okay.

If I say the hot dog is not a sandwich, it is not to deny the hot dog anything. It is to afford the hot dog the strange mystery that surrounds it and also fills its casing. We don't know what a hot dog is on some level, and that's why this question is interesting. I don't want to call it a sandwich because once you call a hot dog a sandwich, it becomes very easy to call anything a sandwich and then all a sandwich. And I don't want a world in which all is sandwich. It's certainly not Oreo. Here's something from Carrie. A few years ago, my husband Kurt bought a pillow. It's a fantastic pillow. In the years since its purchase, I've developed sleeping issues and I can't sleep very deeply or comfortably.

The only thing that helps me get a restful night's sleep is Kurt's pillow. I searched high and low for one like this but have not found another. Kurt can sleep like a rock on any surface, in any position, even without a pillow. Sometimes his head migrates off the pillow entirely while he's sleeping. He's been kind enough to let me use his pillow temporarily, but I'm afraid my privileges will soon be revoked. Judge Hodgman, will you issue me permanent custody since I need it more? I have some questions about this one.

About this one? This about this one? This is the one that I have questions about. I never have questions, but now I have a question for, for example, is this some bespoke pillow that was made just for Kurt and, and the person who, and the, and the pillow artisan who made it has since been murdered so that no further pillow

could ever be made is it a pillow that he bought in a in a in a weird side alley in a foreign country in a small store without a name and that he went back in order to get his wife a duplicate pillow and discovered that not only was the store no longer there, but there wasn't a door where he remembered it, and no one can remember that store ever existing? What makes this pillow so unique that Carrie cannot go out and simply buy the same pillow again? I don't know the answer to that question,

but let's say for the moment that that's true. Jesse, what do you think? Should Kurt forfeit his pillow to Carrie? I think the confusion here comes in because Carrie is writing. There has to be some kind of reason that Kurt won't just give her the pillow, because presumably he loves her. Well, but it also seems as though, I mean, Carrie is anticipating. We're presuming that Carrie is a woman in this case.

Yeah. If we're wrong, I apologize. Could be Carrie Elwes, star of The Princess Bride. It could be Carrie Elwes, that's true. But presuming for the moment that Carrie iswes, star of The Princess Bride. It could be Carrie Elwes, that's true. But, presuming for the moment that Carrie is a woman, she has written that she is afraid her privileges will soon be revoked, but has provided no evidence that in fact Kurt is planning to retake his pillow territory. This may all be a delusional dispute cooked up in the mind of a sleep-addled person

who's sleeping on someone else's pillow and can't bear the guilt. She could be planning a surprise divorce, and she wants to establish ownership over this pillow before she gets the lawyers involved. Also, listen to this. In the years since the purchase of this pillow, I've developed sleeping issues, and I cannot sleep very deeply or comfortably. I don't know what these sleeping issues are. Is this a physical issue or has she developed a kind of insomnia? If it's an insomnia, if it's a psychological issue and it began the moment this pillow was purchased,

are you saying that this pillow caused it in some way? That your pillow covetousness is now keeping you awake at night. I think there are a lot of weird questions behind this seemingly simple dispute. And given that I find Carrie to be an unreliable narrator. I mean, if this were a situation where I like that, we're expanding our judgments

into the world of literary theory. Let's say this were the situation. The husband has a pillow that he inherited from an eccentric uncle. It has no label on it. It's filled with a mysterious substance, and the brand that made it doesn't exist anymore. So it is truly a unique object in time and space. And Carrie discovered that she just simply sleeps much better on this pillow and wants to keep it.

And Kurt says, no, thank you. It's my pillow. It belonged to my eccentric uncle. And because eccentricity runs in the family, I'm going to be an unloving slob and say, no, you may not have my pillow. Then I would say, Carrie, divorce your husband, get the pillow. But as Carrie is an unreliable narrator, and there are too many questions going on here, what I would say is, as an overall principle,

don't take things from your spouses. Yes, you have communal, you have communal ownership over every possession in your home, but you are still individuals who require a certain amount of individual sovereignty, especially with regard to those things that are closest to you. And I have a particular, I like to use a memory foam pillow in my life and that's good for me because none of the humans in my family want to be anywhere near that thing because it feels like

a bag of hard sand but but if they were routinely taking it because they liked it they liked it too uh i would be i would find it infuriating that this thing that is truly part of my intimate private life, which is what sleep is, was being taken away from me. And Carrie, I would guess that if you are suspecting that your privileges will be revoked, that Kurt is already thinking about it. So I think that it is wrong to take things such as from your spouses, such as pillows or toothbrushes or underwear, uh, or other intimate items, um, simply because you like them better. Uh, you should go out and find a thing you like just as well.

And let me tell you something, Carrie, there are a lot of pillows out there, and you can find the pillow that is right for you, unless you're fixated on the idea that you can only sleep when your husband is deprived of something. Here's something from Emily. Just myself and my conscience are involved in this dispute, says Emily. I have recently been given the task of managing and posting on our social media profiles at work. We don't generate much of our own original content, so I frequently post links to other sources.

What's the proper way to give credit to the originator of the items I post? Here are a few tricky examples. I post a video or article that I found from a third party, not the original author. Is it necessary to credit both the original author and where I found it? Should I say something like from Internet Guy via the Judge John Hodgman podcast, for example? This is in a situation where you and I were discussing the amazing work that Internet Guy does. Yeah, I can't stop posting stuff from that guy. I know. He just loves the internet. He knows it backwards and forwards. So that's question number one. Also, what's the correct way to format credit to another?

On Twitter, can I get by with just mentioning the source if they have a Twitter profile, or do I need to name them? Is citing anyone even necessary these days? If someone follows my link link they'll find the author and publication info on their own since sharing and reposting information that's authored by others is so commonplace am i dumb to care well you know normally i would reject disputes between someone and his or her conscience out of hand because we need two parties to have a dispute but there's an important principle here which is that if you ever get to the point where you say,

is citing anyone even necessary these days, then we need to have a serious conversation. Because yes, citing people is necessary. In the world of social media, where content is constantly being retweeted and retumbled and reblogged and linked and shared and so forth. There is a certain amount of erosion of authorship that leads some people to come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as authorship. And that's when you get into the situation of people who I will not name, but I can think of two of them off the top of my head, and I'm sure there are many more, who have gained a lot of attention for themselves and and in one case, a tremendous amount of money, either retweeting jokes that were written by other comedians without attribution,

or re-Instagramming. Same. Taking jokes and memes and images that have been posted by someone else as their original content and then posting them again and getting a lot of attention. And in certain cases, a lot of money for this. If you do any sort of, I'm just going to say who these creeps are.

One is the, this guy who goes by the charming name, the fat Jew, who is an, an incredibly savvy social media con artist. And the other was this guy named Sammy Rhodes, who is, I believe, a pastor somewhere in the mid-Atlantic states.

I may be misremembering where he was from, but he was just taking jokes from other people like Patton Oswalt and posting them as his own. And then later they would both come out and say, it's just homage, or I didn't realize it was necessary, or citing things really necessary. And particularly in the world of comedy, where there's a long tradition of joke stealing and as an oral tradition, it was something you could get away with a lot of the time because people would never be able to track down the fact that you took a joke from somebody

else. There grew up the self-serving mythology that jokes are wrong kind of to everybody now emily i know you're not just talking about jokes um but i but that's part of the reason that i feel this so keenly because i don't i don't think it just applies to jokes in this new social uh media environment but also to all kinds of other ideas and statements and things. So I would say that I'll answer your specific questions in a moment very quickly, but just in general, yes, citing is necessary. And the way you know that you're citing correctly, it doesn't matter the format.

No one's going to grade you on whether it adheres to the MLS rulebook for citations or anything else. The way you know you're doing it right is when you are making it very clear that you are not the author of the content. If that is your primary ethical mission when you are quoting or linking or sharing something that you did not create,

it may be that you don't know who the original creator of the thing is, or it's already been copied so many times that finding a true citation might be very difficult to say. But your responsibility as someone who is passing it along is to make sure it's absolutely crystal clear that this is not content that you've created, that this belongs to someone else. Whenever possible, you say who it belongs to. If you're getting it from someone else, that is to say your first example, let's see, if you're posting something that was created by Internet Guy that you found via MaximumFun.org, I think that you should say both of those things. This is by internet guy. I found it here because you want,

you don't want to be taking credit for, for mining this content yourself either. That it's not a creative act to go out and find things and share them, but it's not uncreative either. And there was one guy who got really mad at me on, on Tumblr because I was retumbling stuff from his feed. And even though Tumblr as a platform makes it very clear that I am retumbling stuff from his feed. And even though Tumblr as a platform makes it very clear that I am retumbling someone else's stuff, I had to acknowledge that it didn't make it quite clear

enough and that people could be confused about stuff that I was putting onto my tumble feed. And they might not know that it wasn't me who originated this picture of this old comic book cover or something like that. Now, this guy was accusing me of stealing from him and demanding money from me. Luckily, I think we've got it all sorted out now, but it did make me think that you do need to be clear not only about who the original content creator is, if you know it, but also where you're getting the content, if possible. And finally, just in terms of if you're on Twitter and that's your medium, you just need to credit the person via their Twitter handle because that will link back to their profile and you can find out who that is.

You don't have to give their full name, in my opinion, because by linking to their Twitter handle and saying, this is retweeted from this person or implying as much clearly, you are fulfilling your primary responsibility, which is to reveal to the world i didn't make this and if you don't reveal to the world you didn't make this you're probably implying that you did make it and that makes you a creep i agree completely but you know what there's all kinds of sociopaths on the internet i don't know why i get upset about them

all the time well if you're a sociopath on the internet and you've got a dispute with someone else, be they a sociopath or not, share it with us at MaximumFun.org slash JJHO. We take all cases big and small. Our producer is Julia Smith. Our editor is Mark McConville. I am Jesse Thorne. That is Judge Hodgman. We're on Reddit at MaximumFun.reddit.com. We are on Facebook. Just search for Judge John Hodgman. And we are on Twitter at Hodgman and at Jesse Thorne. And all of that having been said, we'll talk to you next time on the Judge John Hodgman podcast. MaximumFun.org. Comedy and culture. Artist owned.

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