Secretly Incredibly Fascinating - Glitter

Episode Date: January 23, 2023

Alex Schmidt is joined by comedy writers/podcasters Andrew Ti (‘Yo, Is This Racist?’, Sub-Optimal Pods) and Moujan Zolfaghari ('Mission To Zyxx', 'Tooning Out The News') for a look at why glitter is secretly incredibly fascinating. Visit http://sifpod.fun/ for research sources, handy links, and this week's bonus episode.

Glitter. Known for being sparkly. Famous for being everywhere. Nobody thinks much about it, so let's have some fun. Let's find out why glitter is secretly incredibly fascinating. Hey there, folks. Welcome to a whole new podcast episode, a podcast all about why being alive is more interesting than people think it is. My name is Alex Schmitz, and I'm not alone. I'm joined by Andrew T. and Mujan Zulfagari. Andrew T. co-hosts the podcast Yo! Is This Racist?, which has a live show coming up. SF Sketch Fest, February 4th.

You can see Andrew T. and his co-host Tawny Newsome doing a show there. The two of them also run their own independent network called Suboptimal Pods. Go to Suboptimal Pods for the optimal place to subscribe to all the awesome audio they're doing. And then Mujan Zulfagari, an amazing improviser and podcaster. She also has a live show coming up. It's called The Female Gaze.

It's a supersized parody of The View, and it's at Caveat in New York City on February 16th. She's also part of the cast of Mission to Zix, and part of the cast of Tuning Out the News on Paramount+, and all kinds of other amazing stuff. I'm so glad both of them are here to throw a glitter party. Also, I've gathered all of our zip codes and used internet resources like native-land.ca to acknowledge that I recorded this on the traditional land of the Canarsie and Lenape peoples. Acknowledge Andrew and Mujan each recorded this on the traditional land of the Gabrielino-Ortongva and Keech and Chumash peoples. And acknowledge that in all of our locations, native people are very much still here.

That feels worth doing on each episode, and today's episode is about glitter, which is chosen by supporters of this show over at SifPod.fun. Thank you very much to Michael Bucciaroni for that fantastic idea. I had never thought about glitter so much, and boy, is there a lot to know. So, please sit back or take a closer look than ever before at your boat. Either way, here's this episode of Secretly Incredibly Fascinating with Andrew T. and Mujan Zulfagari. I'll be back after we wrap up. Talk to you then. Andrew, Mujan, it is so good to have you both back on. And of course, I always start by asking guests their relationship to the topic or opinion of it.

Either of you can start, but how do you feel about glitter? Ah, man. Glitter reminds me of childhood. It's like the joys and colors of childhood. fun and parties and glitz and glamour and pop stars. And yeah, I tend to not put glitter on myself, although I wish I did more often. I wish I was a person who did. I feel like I think I'm a person that just gets like stuff everywhere. And so like glitter is like right up there with just like, I'm like always a little bit of a mess. And so like little pieces of, I assume we're going to find out,

but in my head, glass is like not, just kind of like always does me like sort of wrong. Cause I'm just like, yeah, find stuff and then am irritated by little, little things. I'm sort of an Anakin Skywalker in that way. Oh, it's like, I just hate it. Yeah. I'm just a big whiny, whiny brat who hates stuff and fun. Well, I feel like glitter gets, I've had instances in my life where like there's glitter on me and I have no recollection why, like I wasn't anywhere to be near glitter. I was always in business professional settings. And yet there's like, why is there glitter around my eyes? I don't

know. In, in researching this, I was kind of excited to learn that nobody is way better at glitter removal or cleanup than the average person there's not like a genius of this or a secret hack for it like i found it was i found an interview with her name's francesca tallow and francesca tallow is the makeup artist for beyonce and she said like in that line of work she has glittered beyonce many times has occasionally done like head to toe glitter on Beyonce and she says there's just no simple or perfect way to get it off and her go-to is scotch tape like just painstakingly scotch taping it line by line off of her but even then it doesn't all come off and that's a pro like she knows and it's not easy. Yeah. I guess my only thought would have been a slightly stickier tape. Feels like, feels like a masking or a, you know, show a gaffer's tape.

Let's really get in there. True. And the pain threshold is probably okay. Right. Yeah. You can go for it. Yeah. Just peel your skin off.

Right. Just. Yeah. I think I'm in the opposite off, right? Just, you know. I think I'm in the opposite boat, which is like, I'm so irritated by things like glitter and sand, but like, there's no amount of tape paint that is a problem. It's just like, yeah, let's just go. I don't know. I just trust them.

I figure Beyonce and whoever her staff member is have truly figured out any problem that they're facing. And I feel like if you have a client like Beyonce, there'll be like all the glitter needs to be off. There's no. That's a fact. It will be off of my body. I'm Beyonce. Is there like some kind of like ionizing thing you could do? Is there like some kind of like ionizing thing you could do? I feel like if you have like a big enough like balloon or something, you could like use the power of electricity to get it off. Kind of. I just. I think that.

Oh, OK. That leads us into our bit. I'm going to do like a set of big takeaways here before the numbers, because because like you said, Andrew, is it glass? Great question. The basics of what this is, that's where to start. And starting with takeaway number one. Modern glitter is made of thin plastic wrapped in thin metal. What? Oh, no.

So it's usually a combination of plastic and metal. There's various recipes and stuff, but that's it. This is coming from whatever worse, like whatever higher ignorance level than a layman is, but isn't that just glass? I feel like glass is if you took plastic and metal and put them together. Yeah. I mean, I'm pretty sure glass is sand, but with a lot of processing. Right. So we're back to Anakin Skywalker there.

Yeah. Yeah. Same thing. That's right. I'm consistent at least. Yeah. But, you know, the thing about glitter, it's visually so attractive and it doesn't matter if you're like, it's made out of gremlins or something.

I'm like, it's so pretty. It makes things shiny and sparkly. It doesn't matter if you're like, it's made out of gremlins or something. I'm like, it's so pretty. It makes things shiny and sparkly. Yeah. Yeah, and also, like, of those of us who have had glitter on us, it doesn't totally feel like especially metal. It feels very different from that. So it's surprising that it's made of this stuff. Yeah. That's it's, I imagine it's bad for the environment. Oh,

I was going to say your lungs. And our lungs. Yeah. Yeah. And I bet there's glitter in the water. Like we'll get that in like the next couple of takeaways too. Yeah. Cause the,

as far as like what it's made of the, the key sources here are an amazing piece for the New York times by Katie Weaver, and then a piece for vice by Lauren Euler and a piece for mental floss by Linda Rodriguez McRobbie. There's surprisingly some secrecy around glitter manufacturing. The companies are very cagey about it, but we know the basics and the basics are, you start with a large sheet of plastic. It's usually a polyester, something like mylar. You take that plastic, overlay it with metal, usually a metal like aluminum, something light.

And then within that process, you pick other plastics or metals to make it colorful, like either additional layers of polymer or a metal that has a pigment like titanium dioxide. But then you layer the plastic and metal and then shred it. And that's glitter. That's it. Right. Is there any possibility that the secrecy is because glitter is simply an industrial runoff of something?

Like, it seems like there's certain grinding floors where you're like, yeah, I don't know, after, like, shaving down this sheet of cadmium, we basically have glitter. Yeah, all the rejected, like, experiments of the Manhattan Project are, like... Yeah. They just need to do something with it. What you're describing seems like something that also makes bigger things, I guess, is what, you know, whatever it is.

Yeah, it's really an amazing story here with the invention of modern glitter, which is that it was a guy trying to make a better machine to grind up trash. And then he just noticed that as he ground up all kinds of trashes in the 1930s, Some of them had a glittering effect as they like fell to the floor. And he was like, oh, I think I invented glitter. Great. Good. That feels right. That's glitter. That's where it came from. Yeah. It's gorgeous. That's like, so like, you take your trash and you create whimsy and trash. That's what America is, baby. And it was an American. It's a New Jersey machinist named Henry Rushman, who was in northern New Jersey and was doing this.

And like he did it in 1934, which is when we were starting to have more plastic trash than we had had before, too. And so he was like that trash specifically. I think that can be a product of a runoff of something. Yeah. Oh oh so it's just trash but like very tiny trash yeah a little trash it's just a little trash but it's pretty the little trash friends yeah and then it's not like we could throw out the glitter right because we can't like recycle the glitter. So it just continues the process.

It's like, wait, hold on. My brain ended. Sorry. No, recycling, recycling the glitter is recycling. Right. All you can do is re re grind it. Yeah, because it's like it's mixed materials in a way where I couldn't find any ways to recycle standard glitter. And the main way to reduce the environmental impact is to not use it. Yeah. That's pretty much it. Yeah. But when I think about glitter, I don't really think about like the companies that make glitter. Glitter just exists somehow. Are there like major, not a monopoly, but they're like competing glitter companies.

Like, yeah, I think I think we can hit that now. It turns out this is going to be takeaway number two for the main show. Takeaway number two. The glitter industry is extremely secretive and centered on two companies in New Jersey. There are two main companies, but they're not famous. Hell yeah. Based on the information we can get, despite their secrecy and being cagey, they make basically all glitter in the U.S. It's two companies down the road from each other in New Jersey.

Two companies we can't talk about. Some are in New Jersey. They create all of the glitter, but we can't talk about them. They Jersey they create all of the glitter but we can't talk about them. They don't disclose information. That sounds good. You're sort of implying that glitter is like still the remains of Jimmy Hoffa to this day.

Hey, he was a sparkly guy. What are you going to do? You can't waste a sparkly guy like that. Holy moly. Yeah. But it feels like the secrecy is just that, like, if people knew the source, they would be turned off. In the same way that most food, most, like, any packaged food, you're like, I know, but it's really fine. packaged food. You're like, I know, but it's really fine. It's that same where people are like, did you know this burrito contains the same antecedent as like, you know, toxic waste? It's

like, well, yeah, but that's water. So like, okay, you know, whatever. Oh, this article just came out. I think consumer report did it on like, there's lead and all sorts of terrible things in like the top dark chocolate in the world and all my friends and i were just like yeah well yeah must be why it's good yeah yeah what are you gonna do yeah lead famously sweet that's why children love it. Exactly. That's why children and Romans love it. It's great. Right. And with the glitter secrecy, like, I think it's partly that it is this plastic stuff,

but it seems like it's almost more a competitive trade secret kind of thing. Like the companies want to hold on to the hacks and the mixtures of materials that have made them good at glitter. And also like none of us think of a famous brand name of glitter, like we said, going into this. So, you know, they can get away with it. They can just be secretive about everything. But you'd think literally like Beyonce slapping her name on it for a 20% share of this company would be money for everyone, honestly. Yeah, I'm thinking of Rihanna's Fenty company. Why hasn't some celebrity just blown these companies out of the water?

Yeah. This glitter is not made of toxic waste. Wink. Here's a conspiracy. What if one of the ingredients and the reason why none of them share is something that if disclosed would cause pandemonium like it is squirrel like it's something that's like oh it's it's needed in glitter it's it's just part of it like you need it for it to shine and it's like a blood of a squirrel like it's just it is what it is but i think that's all stuff all stuff is like that i guess

yeah like weirdly we both do and don't know a lot about the making of it like even with the trash element there's one part of vice's article about this where they talk about how oddly the glitter makers are aiming to waste as little of the like materials as possible. And so apparently all glitter gets cut into a shape that you can use up a whole sheet with geometrically, like either a square or rectangle or hexagon. And then these two companies, they each have a pretty interesting origin story because one of them is the inventor of modern glitter,

Cashing In. He personally founded the company. So his name's Henry Rushman. He's in Northern New Jersey, specifically Bernardsville, New Jersey. When he came up with this basic process of accidentally inventing glitter, he immediately got a company going called Meadowbrook Inventions. The original slogan was, our glitter covers the world. Yeah, you can't take it out.

You can't take it out. And he just did a good job. You can't wash it away. That is like, that's like a supervillain. That's like kind of just like Lex Luthor was like, wow. Yeah, like it's like if a crime went super good. It's like, yeah, we just want that everywhere now. He wins. Like the New York Times says that he invented this in 1934. And by the 1940s, there were widespread written mentions of like glitterous Christmas decoration as a popular product in the U.S. He just did a really good job.

Yeah. I mean, even though there's no like sure way to take it off adhesive or whatever, it's just so pretty and fun and sparkly. Like, it's worth it. Yeah. And it, like, kind of just falls off eventually, too, right? Like, it's not like a tattoo. You'll move on, you know? Yeah, I'll move on.

It's okay. Yeah. Minus the lead and the cobalt. Like, you know, it's all good. And then the other competitor is hilariously down the road in Cranford, New Jersey. It's a company called Glitter X. And that was founded by an entrepreneur named Babu Shetty, who immigrated to the U.S. from India with a Ph.D. in polymer science. And then started Glitter X in the 1960s.

And again, both companies super secretive. I cannot get like market share numbers or anything, but everybody interviewed about this says they dominate the market in the U.S. Right. I feel it's like it's because there's like a crack in reality in Northern New Jersey from which glitter flows. Just like a tiny mine. You know, it's like a hell mouth, but just slightly glittery. Right. It's like that mine in Pennsylvania that's still on fire. You just go look at it like a tourist.

The trade secret is how big a vacuum can you bring to this font of glitter? bring to this font of glitter. And with their secrecy, they also by accident started a big thing on Reddit where people got super interested in what the main glitter purchasing industry is, like what industry in the US buys the most glitter. Because in 2018, writer Katie Weaver for the New York Times, she does an amazing piece where she interviews people at Glitter X. Also, she barely got that interview and Meadowbrook Industries refused to talk to her at all. Like this is an interview, but also they would basically tell her nothing. And in one chunk of the interview, the plant manager for Glitter X, Lauren Dyer, totally refused to answer the question, what industry is Glitter X's biggest market? And was also like kind of cagey about it,

especially if you just read that part. Like she was just super secretive. Like, I can't tell you, I can't tell you off the record, like no information. And then people on Reddit investigated and tried to figure it out. What did they figure out? Reddit was guessing all kinds of stuff. They said, like, maybe it's automotive paint. And that does contain glitter. That's true.

Oh, right. They guessed cosmetics. Oh, right. They guessed greeting cards. And then the most extreme guess was the U.S. military. Yeah. I was going to say, like, medical. Oh. That's interesting. Yeah. I was going to say like medical. Oh.

That's interesting. Yeah. My guess. Well, that was not a true guess. Yeah. Oh. But maybe. But maybe.

My guess based on the refusal to answer would be adult entertainment because that feels like bad PR but possible. Yeah, that's a really plausible guess too uh yeah i mean that that feels like exactly why you wouldn't answer because it's like you know mostly people who are swinging swinging their bits well i'm on their website which looks like it was made in 1999 and the three major tabs are inks and paints, fashion and cosmetics. So I think it's neither of those. I think it's, I mean, you're going to tell us in a moment, right? Yeah, because it turns out the real answer, and it's an amazing show called Endless Thread. It's also a podcast.

And the team there, it's Ben Brock Johnson, Amory Sory sivertson and then their producer josh swartz they managed to track down a glitter x client who wasn't a big client but then the client asked secretly on wbr's behalf like hey what glitter x who do you sell the most to and the answer was boat paint like marine craft the paint for that is so sparkly if you get a close look at it because it's got a really high glitter content yeah apparently that's far and away the biggest buyer of glitter in the u.s i just don't understand why that would be a secret right but yeah and it turns out they were secretive for like I guess they don't want a competing company to muscle them out of the boat industry or something like it's very ordinary. It reminds me of like KFC keeping

the chicken recipe secret. Like it's simply they don't want somebody else to start a KFC. That's it. Right, right. Yeah. Or given how boats are so frequently, you know, a thing of severe income disparity, I wonder if it's simply one person's boat. That is most of the glitter. It's not just the boats. It's the boat. And that man should be divvied up to the people. Gonna assume it's a man. Just give it a state to the people. Gonna assume it's a man. Just give it to the world.

Look, Lisa Frank is allowed to buy an aircraft carrier. All right. She's allowed to do whatever she wants. Decorated how she wants. Honestly, pretty, pretty sick. Yeah. And, you know, when we first started talking about this topic a couple of minutes ago, my mind only had like three things in my mind that had glitter on it.

I think at this point it's, like, my brain's starting to be, like, wait, everything has glitter in it. Like, if you, like, all the big things in our lives, yeah. It turns out. Yeah. Because we like stuff that sparkles. Yeah, and it sometimes, it isn't very obvious sometimes, but it has, like, that like that, like exactly like cars. It has that sheen. There's glitter in it. Like some metals, even like on computers have a little bit of glitter in it. Like it's everywhere. Truly. I had never thought about it, but it turns out if a car looks extra good in the sun

or when you're moving, when you're looking at it, that's an amount of glitter. It's less than boat paint, but it's a thing. And that's part of why Reddit got so into this is that there's a lot of reflective technology that is then separate from glitter. One of the biggest reasons Redditors said, hey, maybe the secret buyer of glitter is the U.S. military is there's a thing with fighter planes called chaff. And chaff is a burst of reflective material that a plane can shoot out of itself, distract an incoming missile, and try to throw off the targeting of the missile by reflecting a bunch of light at it in a bunch of patterns. And that is just different from glitter. I'm playing Top Gun 1987 on Nintendo. Perfect, yeah. Yeah, we just watched Top Gun Maverick yesterday and it's uh full of chaff it's a lot

of chaff in that movie like all the time so if people have seen that uh you're ready that's a quote on the on the poster but it is essentially it is hilarious to imagine that essentially the way to fight a missile is the same way that you'd think a whimsical elf would leave a scene, which is just throw glitter in the air and bounce. Yeah. Yeah. And that champ is like technologically different from glitter, but not in an easy way to understand. And it's still kind of doing the same thing as glitter.

So like that's how people got so into like who's buying the glitter because there are so many reflective technologies and things in the world. It could be anything. We like a sparkle. We're into it. Yeah. I started just Googling because I wanted to be like, what's glitter used in?

And I started in Google's autocomplete. First thing was glitter used in euphoria. So it seems like. like oh like that's the number that is the number two the cast of euphoria right after boats yep see now i now i like to imagine them rolling drums that would end because there's a there's a stat here wbur once they were told that the answer is the boat paint industry glitter x still refused to comment or confirm it but wbur talked to the former manager of a bass boat manufacturing company and this guy said that they're like very small bass boat manufacturer went through 300

gallons of glitter per week so like boat paint is just packed with it i guess i haven't looked at a boat closely lately but it's like okay a bunch of glitter on the side of that thing if it's a boat here here's the other okay but like and i guess it is clearly how the hell is boat paint different than automotive paint i genuinely guess if you told me before this got into my head there are types of vehicle paint that are different and i guess it's waterproof or light or buoyancy but like so should cars right yeah right yeah yeah i think it also like the boat paint looks cool with the water you know in a car that's not such a concern right i think it's partly style more glitter more glitter yeah i guess that makes sense i guess right because when you're in a car that's not such a concern. I think it's partly style. More glitter. More glitter.

Yeah. That makes sense, I guess. Right. Because when you're in a boat, you're on, boats drive on a big thing of glitter and cars just drive on boring old roads. Okay. You talk to me into it. I like thinking of boating as like being on the Rainbow Road track in Mario Kart.

Like it's all glitter and colors, baby. That's what water is. That's what water is. Little pro tip if you're in Los Angeles at all when you're listening to this. If you ever drive down the 105 freeway any time before Fourth of July, it is identical to being in the Mario Rainbow Road because fireworks are coming up around you in a way that is terrifying, but amazing. Anyway, next summer. I can confirm. I've had that experience. Yeah, it's great. You think the Dodgers won a game everywhere in the city. Yeah. Constantly.

They just love baseball. Off of that, we are going to a short break, followed by a whole new takeaway. I'm Jesse Thorne. I just don't want to leave a mess. This week on Bullseye, Dan Aykroyd talks to me about the Blues Brothers, Ghostbusters, and his very detailed plans about how he'll spend his afterlife. I think I'm going to roam in a few places, yes. I'm going to manifest and roam. All that and more on the next Bullseye from MaximumFun.org and NPR. Hello, teachers and faculty. This is Janet Varney.

I'm here to remind you that listening to my podcast, The JV Club with Janet Varney, is part of the curriculum for the school year. Learning about the teenage years of such guests as Alison Brie, Vicki Peterson, John Hodgman, and so many more is a valuable and enriching experience, one you have no choice but to embrace, because yes, listening is mandatory. The J club with janet varney is available every thursday on maximum fun or wherever you get your podcasts thank you and remember no running in the halls linda and there's a couple more takeaways here about especially glitter material science kind of stuff because the next one is takeaway number three. Glitter partly sticks to your skin through electricity.

Hell yeah. Okay. And we were talking about, hey, can you like charge yourself to knock it off or something? Glitter especially sticks to human skin because of a combination of static electricity and also an electrical phenomenon called Vanderwall's forces that I had never heard of. Wow. So there's a lot of like science to why it's extra sticky on our skin. Isn't Vanderwall's forces, is that not surface tension? Is that the water thing?

Yeah, it's related to that. Yeah. That's another like iteration of it. Yeah. You know. Wow. Take chemistry and or physics. I don't remember which about 20 years ago.

And you kind of remember two things. But it brought you here to this point now. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's, that's right. And the, cause this key source here, it's a piece for Popular Science by Sam Eifling. They say that van der Waals forces are something that happens, especially between very small things. It is a weak electrostatic charge that builds up between or in otherwise neutral objects. Like a molecule can be electrically neutral, but still have a slightly positively charged side and a slightly negatively charged side. And one of the biggest ways that happens is the forming of water droplets. That's why the water comes together is just those little charges interlocking.

Yes. So now it feels like if you filled like a water pick, but with ionized or deionized water, I don't know which, maybe you can get that glitter off. Wow, maybe. I just think, I feel like I have one client specifically that I could pitch this to. And then, yeah, and then the other electric thing here is static electricity, because that's just an imbalance of electrical charges within something. It's called static because it's not flowing currents. It's not like electricity through a power cord or something. particularities. And so especially those bumps are prone to having these little charge imbalances. And the same goes for the tiny amounts of water on your skin. So like human skin, even more than other surfaces, the glitter and the water on your skin really come together through this electrical

phenomenon. And so that's like an additional reason it sticks to you other than it being tiny and just hard to get off. And it cares about us, you know? Yeah. Yeah. It's there for us. It's not going anywhere. Okay.

All right. Now, okay. Now my new pitch for glitter removal, sort of like a, a back to tank style bath with the positive charge on one end negative charge on the other yeah low enough to not kill you but high enough to just you know whisk whisk some glitter away we're gonna figure this out i feel like when you buy like a small packet of glitter it should also come with a box that has all those elements to attach to your shower yeah one or the other yeah all of those elements to attach to your shower. Yeah, all of it. I'm starting to imagine the big shower in Austin Powers after he's unfrozen.

There's a lot of different hoses and angles and chambers. Yeah. Only, listen, obviously you can't reach the scale of the glitter industry, but the glitter removal industry really feels like an opportunity here that we're all sleeping on. Glitter bombing, though, is a thing, right? Oh, right. They do that protest and stuff. Oh, yeah.

Which is just like, yeah. I don't know whether what side does it, the good side or the bad side, but it's just to do it to like annoy the other people because they have just a lot of glitter on them. Right. That's a perfect segue here because we do have a number section that gets into it a little bit. And so our next fascinating thing is a quick set of fascinating numbers and statistics. And this week that's in a segment called stats,, Stats, Stats, Stats, Stats, Stats, Stats, Stats, Stats, Stats, Stats, Stats, Stats,

Stats, Stats, Stats, Stats, Stats. Here's your statistics. Proud of you. Thank you. That name was submitted by Megan Moraga. Thank you, Megan. We have a new name for this segment every week. Please make them as silly and wacky as possible.

Submit to SifPod at gmail.com. I'm checking Twitter much less than I used to, so I might miss it there. Send to SifPod at gmail.com. Because the first number here is a date. It is February 2012. And February 2012 is when a Colorado student got arrested and charged with a misdemeanor for glitter bombing Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Oh. Which is one of the more significant glitter bombings in the history of glitter bombing.

Yeah. Is it if they had done it with like water bombing, like if they threw a cup of water, then this wouldn't have happened. Right. bombing. Like if they threw a cup of water, then this wouldn't have happened, right? It's like, is this something specific about, or is it because it is like a politician and it's a crime of some sort to even do that? I think it's both things. There's a famous person. So they bothered to like press charges and bring the police. There's a starting to form legal school around whether glitter bombing is like assault, basically. And Republicans in particular are pushing for yes, it is mainly because most glitter bombings are a statement of this person is anti-gay, anti-LGBTQ. Got it. And so then Republicans are bothering to be like, I just don't do this to me.

It's assault now is kind of the argument they're pushing. I guess, right. It's like the it's assault, but not battery. Right. Because I as you say it, I mean, anything up to and including throwing a fist

full of nothing at Mitt Romney probably counts as assault in some views. Yeah. And there's also like more recent cases of people like dumping milkshakes on politicians right and then oddly glitter seems to be in kind of a different space because

you know i want to be like i guess fair and balanced or whatever but there are also doctors who say that glitter is like not fantastic for you if you're getting glitter bombs right yeah yeah you could breathe it in uh there are optometrists who say that it can irritate the eyes it could cut the eyes and yeah like you say there's doctors saying you could breathe it in get it into your sinuses like yeah you know it's not it's not like fantastic for the human body it's plastic and metal so i see something there yeah yeah i mean it is literally like all the shit that you really should not breathe in, in the exact size that will not leave your body. Yeah. So like fair.

Yeah. Which is interesting because like, you know, they're being glitter bombs. This is happening to them without their consent in a way. But I feel like there are events in which people celebrate by exploding glitter, which is the same effect. But in those cases aren't considered the same, like, you know, causing harm or like, yeah. That's true. Yeah. I feel like especially, maybe it's a launch angle thing, like the celebration, they're tossing it over you.

Right, right. Yeah. Like maybe that's the difference, but it's such a fine line. Yeah. I mean, just to throw this out there for some protesters, and this is a thousand% will never work, but something akin to like a landmine, but just glitter. But also posting like one of those things that they put up when you're recorded in public space that says like, if you enter this area, you'll consent to being glitter being used in your vicinity.

Just like a little, just a little indemnification. Just post it. See what happens. It'll probably work. This is definitely, there's not a Supreme Court case about this. It's still a pretty gray area. Ironically, because glitter's so colorful.

Am I right? That was pretty and cute and fun. But like, yeah, like especially 2012 seems to have been the peak of this going on. Like NPR says that one glitter bombing where the student got charged, that was not Romney's first glitter bombing of that campaign. And there were more to follow. Rick Santorum got glitter bombed. Newt Gingrich got glitter bombed and then told the press that should have been charged as assault. I think it's just a less common form of protest

now. It kind of came and went, but especially about 10 years ago, it was huge. Probably unlike milkshaking, but like many weapons of war, it is also just like probably just about as bad for the perpetrator as the victim. A glitter bomb. Whereas like, you know, a milkshake is much more coherent. You're not going to get as much blowback on a milkshake. Or a political policy. Yeah. Yeah, like I'm not a lawyer, but I feel like a milkshake is liquid

and not the like inhaling plastic and metal issue. Unless, you know. Right. But someone might be lactose intolerant and might get into their mouth. Oh, yeah. Yeah. But it's also like Glitter Bombing makes it's such a visual statement to like milkshake. It's strong. It's just, yeah, glitter. It's like it's everywhere.

It's it's the glitz, the glitz. Especially those who are anti, sorry, the cat is meowing. Exactly. The cat agrees. But people who are, you know, who don't believe in the good things. I like, it does, it puts that lens on them. Yeah. Yeah.

When the next number here is, it's another year, but it's the past. It is the 400s AD. 400s AD. That is when Mayan builders added natural glitter to one of their temples. Oh. Because like glittery stuff predates this American in New Jersey who put plastic and metal together. And Professor Rosemary Goodall of Queensland University of

Technology, her team did an analysis of decorative masks built into the walls of a Mayan temple in Honduras. And they found that the masks were decorated with ground up mica. And mica is a mineral. It's a silicate mineral that produces a glittering effect when you grind it up. It's one of many things people have used for glitter before the the petroleum-based plastic kind little glass baby that's what i'm talking about yeah now we're getting to the weird piece of glass and stuff yeah that's right um i just i just did a search because limestone kind of sparkles right am i there's some metamorphic rock that's like kind of like weirdly sparkly even though it's kind of sparkles, right? Am I, there's some metamorphic rock that's like, kind of like weirdly sparkly, even though it's kind of boring otherwise. Yeah. A lot of kind of the other, other, other element of making glitter in general is just getting it to a shape where there's a lot

of little tiny surfaces because then that catches light very easily. And so, yeah, it turns out a lot of minerals can, can do this in a way that's handy like a lot of our favorite precious metals and precious jewels you know especially before glitter was easily accessible from a factory that was sort of uh like a bonus feature of gold and diamonds and stuff like oh just look at the glittery effect i get this thing like glitter is almost more of a phenomenon than an object in a lot of ways yeah that's interesting it makes me think of just or wonder about the verb and then the noun of it like what came first glittery or the thing being glitter it seems to be the verb yeah yeah we had that and then just applied it to this substance

that a guy in new jersey made a guy in new jersey just took it over. Yeah, and apparently one of the oldest common kinds was in ancient Egypt. They used a ground-up mineral called green malachite, and in particular for cosmetics. It would be a thing people put on their faces or bodies, and often green. Yeah, that feels familiar. We like to party. Smash up some rocks. Yeah, we've always liked to party. Put it in oil or animal fat and put it on your body.

Yeah. I like how humans experiment with their faces, you know? Like, take that thing on the ground and put it on your face. It's fun. We should do it more. Yeah. And speaking of the environment, there is one last takeaway for the main episode here. Okay.

That brings us into the future. This is takeaway number four. Takeaway number four, there is a new push for biodegradable glitter. Because traditional glitter is pollution. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. There should be. Yeah.

What is it made out of? Or what would it just reuse the classic things you use that are biodegradable? It turns out the main thing is replace the plastic with cellulose, like wood cellulose from trees. Okay. So we can just grow more trees. The trees are good, too. I mean, listen, Mother Nature's been making snow since forever, people. And that's just natural glitter right there.

That's all you need. I would like to go up to someone using glitter and be like, oh, so you don't appreciate snow? You're just taking it for granted? You're not into water? Okay. Okay. That's on you, I guess. I definitely think, no, this is good.

I think this should be biodegradable. I feel like as, you know, as lovely and fun and cute and sassy and wonderful glitter is, in the future, definitely people are going to be looking back and be like, they did what? With what? For why? What? None of it makes sense. Yeah.

Right. Like, I hope it was for something essential. Oh, it was for parties on the sides of boats. Okay. Yes, for boats. Okay, great. Okay, cool. Yeah.

Yeah. Cellulose is a, it's a biopolymer, it's called. And there's like caveats with biodegradable glitter made of it. Like it doesn't degrade super fast and it's not great for local wildlife to eat, but it's still not plastic. And the New York Times looked into the plastic and glitter. They interviewed Dr. Victoria Miller, a materials science and engineering professor at NC State University. And she said the plastic and regular glitter takes about 1,000 years to completely biodegrade.

So this is way better than the kind made of wood. We may perish. Our history will be lost. But glitter will always be there. This is where the glitter removal. Listen, all you need is like a little nanobot about the size of a piece of glitter that just looks for other pieces of glitter and fuses it together. And just makes big pieces of plastic this is gonna be fine this is gonna work out fine we'll never mistake a human cell or anything like that for a piece of glitter to

also assimilate into the goop it's gonna be fine no it won't gain sentience and turn on that purse little nanobot no like a like a republican gets glitter bombed and then suddenly eaten by robots it's like oh okay that was too much i apologize yeah that's that's fair just feel like this is doable feels like this is doable yeah it's like it's said yeah i was gonna say that all this being said i did buy eyeshadow recently that had glitter. So I'm sorry. No, that's all the way back to the Egyptians. I'm sorry. Oh, OK.

I take it back. Quite a history. Quite a history. The positive side of this story is basically that glitter is a microplastic form of pollution, but it is a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of our plastic pollution. In a way where, like when the New York Times talked to that expert from NC State, she said that like glitter takes a thousand years to biodegrade. But even knowing that, she would not push for something like a ban on glitter because, quote, we've got bigger fish to fry. Like glitter is is just an basically infinitesimal portion of our overall plastic pollution as humans. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. And also it's is it micro?

I mean, it's visible to the naked eye. It's compared to the other we're putting in plastic. It is actually bigger and visible at least right it's like lead you can see as opposed to the secret in in our water yeah and our chocolates and our pants and our lasagnas and yeah well because with the with the thing of is glitter microplastic it turns out our plastic pollution all kind of has the same trajectory because what happens is all of our like larger bigger plastic pollution like a plastic bottle or something the way that pollutes is it breaks down into smaller and smaller and smaller pieces and so that becomes

a microplastic eventually, and that's why it's pollution mainly. And so glitter is just kind of already that, but when you compare the mass of our glitter to the mass of all our other plastic, the Guardian says it's far less than 1% of what's polluting the environment. It's really just a minor thing.

Yeah. Yeah, like one soda bottle is like how much glitter. Yeah. I guess they could tell us at the factory because that's what that's exactly the calculation they use. I like to think that the end of that person's quote, that's like it's, you know, it's less than 1%. Like it's it is an impact, but it's not that big of an impact compared to other things. And also it's fun. Right. It is an impact, but it's not that big of an impact compared to other things. And also, it's fun! Right?

Have a can of soda and have some fun glitter. Like, come on. Yeah. Yeah. And, like, other good news is there's a broad move away from lots of microplastics. Apparently, one of the first ones governments worked on is the little plastic microbeads in rinse-off cosmetics and shampoos and stuff, too. The U.S. banned those in 2015. The U.K. banned them in 2018.

But then as far as glitter, we're also starting to see a move away from that, too. And The Guardian says Christmas 2020 in the U was a big like landmark of it because all at once several retailers, including Morrison's, Waitrose and John Lewis, they all announced there would be no glitter in their like store brand Christmas products and said it was specifically because of the environment. And they said, you know, please enjoy the holidays without glitter. And so, yeah, I do feel like if even if it is less than 1% or whatever, if it's something that could be changed, that's good. Like, they should. Yeah. Right. Just to set it off for everybody else.

Like, you know, just because if you can, do it. Yeah. Yeah. It might be one of our first wins in plastic pollution is glitter either going away or or also i'll like yeah people can just google it i don't think i even need to link it like i did a quick shopping search for biodegradable glitter and i could just buy it and it was like 15 to 20 bucks for a couple ounces of it it was pretty reasonable and you can just do it all right i wonder oh sorry i wonder if this is what this is is my friend actually went to a brewery near me in Los Angeles and they had like, I assume for Instagram, like some kind of beer that appeared to have like a, I don't know what,'s edible gold you know you could eat a lot of

basically inert stuff that won't exactly destroy your digestive system so i was like is that just normal glitter but maybe it was cellulose or whatever oh yeah i just uh the common ingredients in edible glitter or dust as it's called include sugar gum oh sure yeah just all the things all those little things it's just sugar yeah sugar is sparkly also that makes sense wow yeah truly like replacing our glitter is such an easy win like i feel like virtual reality could replace glitter you know what i mean like it's the same oh yeah it's fine sure yeah just like pretend it's happening. Right. Well, because all you do is you see it. The good part is seeing it. The bad part is feeling it.

So. Yeah. It's actually perfect. Although there is on some like recipe website for kids, like you can make your own glitter by using just sugar and food coloring. And I guess sugar is sparkly, but I don't know if that pays off. Yeah. That's tough.

I don't think that's it. I guess we'll wrap up taping. We'll all go experiment in our kitchens. Yes, yes. I know. We'll all really upset our significant others who'll be like, what's going on? You've made such a mess.

Well, it sparkles, though. Oh, it doesn't? Sorry. Folks, that is the main episode for this week. My thanks to Andrew T. and Mujanzul Faghari for being down for a lot of material science and a lot of corporate intrigue. Who knew glitter would do that? There you go. Anyway, I said that's the main episode because there is more secretly incredibly fascinating stuff available to you right now. If you support this show on patreon.com. Patrons get a bonus show

every week where we explore one obviously incredibly fascinating story related to the main episode. This week's bonus topic is the extraordinary overwhelming secrecy of the glitter industry and how that sparked a fake 2022 glitter shortage. No glitter shortage, but TikTok said there was. Visit SIFpod.fun for that bonus show, for a library of more than 10 dozen other bonus shows, and to back this entire podcast operation. And thank you for exploring glitter with us. Here's one more run through the big takeaways.

glitter with us. Here's one more run through the big takeaways. Takeaway number one, modern glitter is made of thin plastic wrapped in thin metal. Takeaway number two, the glitter industry is extremely secretive and centered on two companies in New Jersey. Takeaway number three, glitter partly sticks to your skin due to electricity. And takeaway number four, there's a new push for biodegradable glitter because traditional glitter is pollution. Those are the takeaways. Also, please follow my guests. They're great. And I particularly want to highlight upcoming live shows for both these wonderful people. Andrew T and his co-host Tawny Newsome are doing a live Yo Is This Racist podcast episode at SF Sketch Fest in San Francisco February 4th. Mujan Zulfagari is on the satirical improv comedy show Female Gaze at Caveat on

February 16th in New York City. Link and lots more stuff for both these guests beyond that, but I'm just so glad they're here and also out doing amazing stuff. Check it out. Many research sources this week. Here are some key ones. And the most key one was an amazing piece for the New York Times in December 2018 by journalist Katie Weaver, who went to Glitter X in person. Also a lot of scientific help from a piece for Popular Science

by Sam Eifling, a piece about the future of glitter for The Guardian by Adrian Maté, and more stuff from Mental Floss, Vice, NPR, Find Those, and many more sources in this episode's links at sifpod.fun. And beyond all that, our theme music is Unbroken Unshaven by The Budos Band band our show logo is by artist burton durand get that on a t-shirt at sifpod.store which is a merchandising partnership with zapotico special thanks to chris souza for audio mastering on this episode extra extra special thanks go to our patrons i hope you love this week's bonus show i am thrilled to say we will be back next week with more secretly

incredibly fascinating. And since you listened this far, there's big news on that next episode. It's good news. It's keeping the podcast on going and I can't wait for you to hear it. So like I always say, how about that? And talk to you then. you