Numlock Sunday: Manny Fidel on No Such Thing

Photo by Eric Ward on Unsplash

By Walt Hickey

Welcome to the Numlock Sunday edition.

This week, I spoke to Manny Fidel, co-creator of the upcoming podcast No Such Thing. Manny and I overlapped at Business Insider, I’m such a big fan of his work and think he’s incredibly talented, and when I’d heard the plan to strike out and him to kickstart his own shingle I was really excited, it’s bound to be a favorite of mine.

We spoke about the inspiration for the show and some of the topics they investigate, like do horses enjoy running, does listening to an audiobook count as reading, and could someone land a plane under duress?

Fidel can be found on Substack, and the podcast will be found wherever you get your podcasts.

This interview has been condensed and edited.

Manny, thank you so much for coming on. Congratulations on the launch of No Such Thing.

Absolutely, and thank you for having me.

I am obviously such a huge fan of your work. We overlapped at Business Insider. I really dig your video work. Do you want to talk a little about the history of the show? I know you had a brief residency on a very good show called Search Engine, but how did this come together? I'll just throw it to you.

We had this idea for a really long time, actually. Back in the BI days in the old office on Fifth Avenue, the three of us sat right next to each other and ended up getting into these really stupid arguments. Arguments like “is water wet,” that kind of stuff. We realized that we just had this chemistry. The arguments weren't in bad faith, and we weren't trying to insult each other or anything. Maybe a year later, we decided, why don't we do some kind of podcast based on this where we can argue and then use our actual skills as journalists to find an answer to these arguments, as dumb as they are.

You guys are incredibly talented journalists. Just to be clear, you're very good at this. We'll get into the things you cover in a bit, but you take a very assiduous perspective on deeply silly things.

Back then we were video producers, we found ways to fill up our day, and we realized these arguments would just end and we wouldn't get a real answer. That became apparent to us when we'd been arguing about the same things for years.

We came up with the idea to do a podcast, but we never actually pulled the trigger on it until pretty recently, when P.J. Vogt was doing his show, Search Engine. They did a call for questions on the show, and instead of just sending in a question, we sent in a whole pitch. “Here's our question, and also, let us do the episode.” I think he found that hilarious, and we ended up doing it.

Why are there so many chicken bones on the street? | THE DVD EXTRAS (PART 1)

Let's talk a little about that, because I think people might recognize your work from that. You attacked what I think is one of the most pervasive mysteries of modern urban life: Why the hell are there so many chicken bones on the street?

Yes. It was one of about 10 questions that we sent into Search Engine, with the idea that we would be doing the investigation. That question stood out to them the most. You walk down the street and, especially if you have a dog, you see the chicken bones everywhere. It was funny for me. I don't have a dog; I've never had a dog, so I never saw the chicken bones. They are everywhere, but I didn't clock them. But if you do have a dog, you're constantly looking out for these hazards that your dog might consume. I think that resonated with people, because a lot of people have dogs.

So we went on and did the episode. It was fun. It got a lot of great reviews. Funnily, it got some bad reviews on their Reddit page, where people were saying things like, “Who the hell are these guys?” Or, “This whole episode is an excuse for P.J. to hang out with these guys.” At the end of that whole process, the team at Search Engine and the three of us both thought we could make this into something. Aside from the Reddit reviews, we'd heard that a lot of big names in podcasting listened to the episode and loved it. That was enough motivation to finally pull the trigger on the podcast.

Why are there so many chicken bones on the street? (Part 2, the finale!)

I know you had a gig at NBC for a while that you ended up leaving to start this. You're taking it very seriously. What are some of the things on your mind for this coming season?

Like you mentioned, I was working at MSNBC as the face of their TikTok channel. I pitched to them, hey, here's a podcast I want to do. Is that okay? And they said no. Essentially, I felt so strongly about this that I was like, okay, bye. We're going to go make this thing and hopefully we won't regret it.

As for what's coming up on our docket, the first two episodes come out on Tuesday. The first is about whether audiobooks count as reading, which is a huge debate that we've been seeing for the past couple years.

Fascinating.

Yeah, there's a lot of drama there. I play this mediator role, but one feels strongly that it counts as reading and one feels strongly that it doesn't. We talked to an expert; we do some experiments. It's a lot of fun.

The second episode is about whether you could land a plane in an emergency if you were given instructions by air traffic control. It ends up being this whole thing about overconfidence, who's overconfident, which demographics are overconfident. We talked to an expert psychologist called David Dunning. You might recognize his name because he's the founder of the Dunning-Kruger effect. We have a great conversation with him. Then I actually go to a flight school and do the simulator to see if I could land a plane in a simulator. I won't spoil it, but it's a lot of fun.

I follow this polling closely. Readers of my newsletter will probably know, I write about this class of poll whenever it comes up. The other one — and I don't know if you covered this in the episode; I haven't had a chance yet to listen to the one coming out this week — is whether you could fight a bear or something, right? That's the other genre of these.

I want to be clear: I don't think that I would win in a fight against a chimpanzee or a bear. I am not a maniac. But I do think I could probably land the plane.

Join the club, man. This episode is about me and Noah defending the idea that we could land a plane.

It's a little bit different than a bear, too. If you're fighting a bear or chimpanzee, it's just your brute strength. You're going band for band with a wild beast. Whereas in the plane scenario, as much as is possible in the air, your hand is being held by air traffic control. They're telling you exactly which buttons to press, exactly how far to turn the wheel. So it's a little different than fighting an animal, but obviously, this is also a hard task. And in the episode, I personally find out how hard it actually is.

I love that. I love the idea that you stand by the courage of your convictions and are actually capable of testing them.

I would encourage you to ask your audience, see if they think they could land a plane in that scenario. It's a lot of fun.

Terrific. I really appreciate the idea of following through on some of these things. You don't half-ass it. Again, even with the chicken bones investigations, you essentially did a days-long stakeout to figure out exactly what is the creature responsible for this disgraceful action. What was some of the most fun that you had over the course of recording the season?

If you follow me online loosely, it might appear that I just have unlimited time on my hands, doing these stakeouts and going to flight schools and all this. It actually takes up a lot of my time. But I think the most fun was an episode that's going to be coming out in a few weeks. It's about whether horses enjoy the act of running. The question comes from this idea that's planted in our heads about horses and how much they love running. You grow up reading books about it, and it's in our pop culture, in movies.

This idea came from one of use who grew up around horses — not that he grew up on a farm. He grew up in New Jersey — you drive past them and he's like, I've never seen these guys run of their own volition. So we do a big investigation on that. We go to this horse sanctuary in New Jersey. We talked to an activist. That was probably the most fun we've had recording this show so far. I feel like just the premise of the show itself will create a lot more opportunities for that.

Now that you mention it, I've never thought about it, but there's an entire person whose job it is to make the horse run.

Yes. One of us essentially argues that the idea that horses like running is a conspiracy — it's just so people can make them do work for humans.

I'm just so excited for the show. You attack some of the goofiest angles. I believe I am on an episode this season, unless I didn't make the cut.

Yes, you are. You're on the episode about twin films, which is this concept that two very similar films come out in the same year. We wanted to know why that keeps happening.

We're trying to stick the landing on that specific episode. We've got a great interview with you and we've got some good research in there, but we're just trying to figure out where to take it. I imagine that will come out in the New Year.

Delightful. Again, your curiosity is amazing, and I've been such a fan of yours for so long. It's great to see you burn the ship and start the thing. It's exciting. I'm very happy for you guys.

Thanks, I really appreciate it.

@theonionTim Walz: ‘I Have Killed, And I Will Kill Again’ // With reporting from @Manny Fidel

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Before we wrap it up, I did want to ask, because I know you'd been doing work with NBC. It seems like you've been doing a little freelance video work with the finest news source in America: The Onion. Am I wrong about that?

You're right, I am doing some freelance work with them. I became friends and associates with Ben Collins while we were both at NBC at the same time. I was as shocked as everyone else when I found out he bought The Onion, and that was right when I quit. I hit him up and the stars kind of aligned on that one. Now that they have Infowars, I'm going to be pitching some truly stupid shit. I can't wait.

Amazing. It's been great to watch you. I'm very, very excited for the show's launch. Where can folks find it? Where can they get ahold of it?

Me, personally, I'm @MannyFidel on every social media app. For the show specifically, we are nosuchthing.show on Substack, Instagram, TikTok, all the apps.

I am very excited to listen, and depending on your determination for the audiobook question, I guess technically read it. It'll be very fun.

Sounds good.

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Edited by Susie Stark.

If you have anything you’d like to see in this Sunday special, shoot me an email. Comment below! Thanks for reading, and thanks so much for supporting Numlock.

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Send links to me on Twitter at @WaltHickey or email me with numbers, tips or feedback at walt@numlock.news.