YouSaid · the spoken record

Jessica Weisberg

lines on the record: 78
first: 2018-06-06
most recent: 2018-06-06
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“But it was a book about business efficiency that was taken very seriously, but he sort of wrote it in the satirical way. He's the one who said the quote, like the work fills to the time you have to complete it. Oh, yeah.”
2018-06-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Jessica Weisberg traces the history of advice in ‘Asking for a Friend’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, absolutely. I think that there are other advice givers who followed him, who followed on the line of satire. One, for instance, was this guy who wrote a book about efficiency in the 1950s C.J. Parkinson. I think I got that name right.”
2018-06-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Jessica Weisberg traces the history of advice in ‘Asking for a Friend’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So go through a couple. Oh, God. There's like, I mean, early to bed, early rise, makes a man healthy something and wine. Wealthy wise, yeah. A lot of there's a lot about not overstaying your welcome Fresh smells after three days. There's so many. There's a lot about hard work and being more important than intelligence. There's a lot about”
2018-06-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Jessica Weisberg traces the history of advice in ‘Asking for a Friend’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And it was like he was very interested. He wrote about how very ahead of his time, he wrote about how you really, like the message doesn't come across to a reader unless it comes from the right author. And instead of trying to find the right author, as editors would do today, he was just all of the authors. And so when he wrote about abortion, he wrote about it from a woman's first point of view. And then I think he's, and similarly with poor Richard, he's like, how do I get people to actually read the advice and not feel like they're being preached to or spoken down to or just feel uncomfortable with the earnestness? I'll do it for my guy. You kind of want to make fun of.”
2018-06-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Jessica Weisberg traces the history of advice in ‘Asking for a Friend’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And he didn't have a great relationship with his wife. And the idea of taking financial advice from a guy who calls himself poor Richard, a little ridiculous. And I think that he just saw, like, we all, I think, bristle a little bit with too much earnestness. And I think that's why there's a lot of embarrassment about the idea of consuming advice today. And I think Benjamin Franklin just had that sense to be like, oh, if I couch this in a sense of satire and humor, it'll be more digestible.”
2018-06-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Jessica Weisberg traces the history of advice in ‘Asking for a Friend’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Might want to thank him for, but yeah, he was a productive guy. Yeah, what he did is he wrote advice and very smartly decided. Purge's almanac. And what I didn't really appreciate about Purrich's almanac until I really wrote the book was how funny it is. And like he did have the good sense to present really earnest advice with sort of a sarcastic tone. Well, you know, like, because poor Richard, it was the idea was like he didn't know how to make any money.”
2018-06-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Jessica Weisberg traces the history of advice in ‘Asking for a Friend’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And yeah, I think that the book was super popular because it was giving people access to sort of think about things. Nothing else was really giving them access to think about. I mean, this was a time when most books were religious texts. And this was a book that was talking about things that people were thinking about even if people weren't writing about it.”
2018-06-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Jessica Weisberg traces the history of advice in ‘Asking for a Friend’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, because the advice itself, because the idea that people wouldn't be themselves and the idea that people that the best way to be was to. Hide who you are. That the book was really popular in large parts.”
2018-06-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Jessica Weisberg traces the history of advice in ‘Asking for a Friend’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah. It's like, be a man. This is how to be in society. And his advice is very strategic and very a little bit heartless. It's like never say what you think, never say what you mean. Always sort of adapt to the situation. Never reveal too much of yourself. And then what happened was when Chesterfield died and left no money to his son's widow. She was like, I'm going to get back at him by publishing all these letters. And the letters took off in America. And people were, when I say they took off, they were popular, but they were also hate read. People were really upset about it. And you can read letters between like John Adams and Abelgate Adams about how morally horrifying these letters are.”
2018-06-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Jessica Weisberg traces the history of advice in ‘Asking for a Friend’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We'll get in that later. I'll have a good story. Not really. Hugely popular. Hugely popular. And then, so that's the first chapter of the book. And then the second chapter of the book is about a guy named Lord Chesterfield. And he wrote, he didn't mean to become an advice giver, which was interesting about him. So he had a child out of wedlock, and he wrote his son letters. Basically every day to sort of try to make up for the fact that he wasn't present in his life. And then when these beers.”
2018-06-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Jessica Weisberg traces the history of advice in ‘Asking for a Friend’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, there are a lot of the same questions as people have today. It's really hard to figure out if someone likes you back. It was really hard in 1690 and really hard today. Really hard to figure out marriage, really hard to figure out sibling relationships, really hard to figure out like parent-child relationships. And then because there wasn't Google then, there was a lot of sort of informational questions that we would now post to Google, like can a witch, can you throw a witch in a pond and she'll die? Like, how does that work? Yeah, that's a big one. Yeah, you know, like now we have Google to answer these questions we have, things about food and diet, things about the stars and...”
2018-06-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Jessica Weisberg traces the history of advice in ‘Asking for a Friend’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There is always fraud involved. But people didn't care. And like, even though it seems that people were pretty suspect of the actual quality of these people's resumes, they didn't mind. They just really wanted to have their questions answered and also really wanted to see their questions in print, I think, is also a real appeal. And so the first chapter of the book just sort of looks at what kinds of questions were people asking when presented with this new opportunity to ask them anonymously And then the next chapter of the book.”
2018-06-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Jessica Weisberg traces the history of advice in ‘Asking for a Friend’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, the first chapter The first commercial, like there were, so the first chapter in my book is about a guy named John Dunton who is giving advice in the 1690s in London. And he was a guy who had a career as a publisher. Nothing ever took off. And then he decided to start this magazine that was only advice. And he started it with his two brothers-in-law and this guy. He was sort of like 50% sure was a doctor. But they pretended they were like 26 wise men.”
2018-06-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Jessica Weisberg traces the history of advice in ‘Asking for a Friend’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Have complete freedom to say whatever they wanted, and also complete freedom to sort of both ignore and idolize the person giving advice. And the way to do that was being by everyone being anonymous. And that technology has been perfected by the internet. Of course, yeah. And I think that's why it's so popular today. But and if you go through history, there's like a lot of adaptations to that system.”
2018-06-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Jessica Weisberg traces the history of advice in ‘Asking for a Friend’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so the thing that you see if you go back to the earliest advice givers is that they were using non-anonymity as technology. They were saying like, how do I put it? Like they were trying to really make this system where people can just”
2018-06-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Jessica Weisberg traces the history of advice in ‘Asking for a Friend’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right Right, right Right, exactly. So you went back. So let's talk a little bit and we're going to get into in the next section of the history of this, but let's talk a little bit about the history of advice because, again, it's something when I was making the point about advice, it's like, you know, the same as it ever was. There's an expression. There's nothing new under the sun. It's Euripides, a good piece of advice. And I think it's Euripides. I'm pretty sure it is. But the idea that this has been around for a long time, that people have been doing this in some whatever format it takes shape in forever. Forever. So talk a little bit about that, like the idea of how it's been delivered, these advice, or what the history of it is.”
2018-06-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Jessica Weisberg traces the history of advice in ‘Asking for a Friend’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That I'm watching. Yeah, so I had written that article, and then a couple years later I wrote another article about two marriage gurus. And after I did that article, I realized that I really did want to delve into the subject in a deeper way. I think part of the reason why I wanted to was because I felt like the internet was really making advice. Advice was everywhere. Right. That suddenly seemed like all of the content people consumed, whether in podcasts or online, was in some way a form of advice. And I didn't think we had put a name on that yet. Right, right. And so I'm like, this is part of a tradition and this is more popular than ever. And I wanted to examine that. Right, exactly.”
2018-06-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Jessica Weisberg traces the history of advice in ‘Asking for a Friend’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was. I mean, I think It continued Yeah, we did some stuff that was, yeah, I think the department I worked on worked on things that were a little bit slower and a little bit more took a little bit more time to come out. But I think the thing that was really exciting to me about Vice News was that it was a nightly news show where they were going to really curate the news. And it's something that I think the Daily, for instance, has done so well, that at a time when we get one million news stories a day to have a source where it was like, no, you only need these stories. This is what you need to be an informed citizen right now.”
2018-06-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Jessica Weisberg traces the history of advice in ‘Asking for a Friend’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“About Bergdale Well, I think for a bunch of reasons. One is that he... I think Beaubergdal is a person who has a very lofty idea of himself and he sort of felt like what he did was standing up to something much bigger. And when you see what he did, it seemed just like a really scared kid who was in a situation he didn't know what to do with. And I think what the series, I think the series did and hope it did was just sort of take that sort of contradiction and apply it to the whole war in Afghanistan. And what was really appealing about it is that we could take one person's story and tell a story of an entire war.”
2018-06-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Jessica Weisberg traces the history of advice in ‘Asking for a Friend’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and it was sort of this nimble organization that was going to be able to do that. So that really appealed to me. It was like combining narrative and journalism, which has always been the two things that drive me. And so I joined that company and one of the first things I did at page one was try to track down Broberg And so we had done about a year of reporting before we went out to serial, like explaining what we had. And then once we showed them our materials, they were like, that's partner. And so then I spent the next year of my time pretty much borrowed by cereal.”
2018-06-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Jessica Weisberg traces the history of advice in ‘Asking for a Friend’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I left New Yorker. I had after the New Yorker, I started grad school at Iowa, the Writers Workshop. And while I was there, I was working part-time for Mark Bowl as a researcher. And I was just like a great gig to have in grad school. And then he started a production company and asked me to come on full time. And I thought it was a really interesting idea, this idea of like. Taking specific journalistic projects and creating the most blockbuster treatment of them possible”
2018-06-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Jessica Weisberg traces the history of advice in ‘Asking for a Friend’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I wrote that piece and a couple people had said to me, Hey, this should be a book. And I was like, no, I'm not writing a book right now. But it was an idea I just kept coming back to over the years. And then a few years later, I was like, you know what? I would like to write a book about it. Right.”
2018-06-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Jessica Weisberg traces the history of advice in ‘Asking for a Friend’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And it was the kind of advice column that really is where the person giving the advice is revealing more about themselves than any of the people asking for. To the best columns. Definitely. And I thought it was interesting. And she's a really well-known writer. And so I said, hey, I'd love to review this book. And the editor was like, no, we're not reviewing that. I was like, well, that's interesting. Like, why wouldn't we review it in Facebook? This is something that has a huge history in our culture and it's advice givers or people who have wheels a lot of power. And so I didn't write a review, but I did end up writing a piece for the New Yorker's website about advice givers over time.”
2018-06-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Jessica Weisberg traces the history of advice in ‘Asking for a Friend’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The rumpus is a website that's sort of for literary types, I would say. And it's a really nice website. They have some original fiction, but it's mostly sort of interviews with writers and profiles of writers. And Cheryl Strade had anonymously written this advice column called Dear Sugar. And people had written to her often, I think it started with sort of questions on writing and questions from aspiring writers. But it turned into questions about all sorts of things, mourning, love, lost, divorce. And I just thought that she created this really incredible community online. Right, very fun.”
2018-06-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Jessica Weisberg traces the history of advice in ‘Asking for a Friend’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I was there and there was a book coming out at the time by Cheryl Strade called Tiny Beautiful Things. And I said to my editor, oh, hey, I'd like to review that one. That one's interesting to me. I read it on the website. And my editor there, who I have a lot of respect for, was like, we're not going to review an advice book. That's not what we do. Yeah. And I was like, well,”
2018-06-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Jessica Weisberg traces the history of advice in ‘Asking for a Friend’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I think so. I mean, I feel like I lucked into it, but everyone there has to speak a couple languages because they want to be able to fact check another languages. So yeah, I mean, it's a really smart group of people and I've kept in touch with all of the people I fact checked with and now they're my editors and my colleagues. And so it was a really nice community. Right. It was like grad school without having to pay for it.”
2018-06-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Jessica Weisberg traces the history of advice in ‘Asking for a Friend’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Why did you It was sort of my, it was like my first job. And basically I thought it would be a great way. I'd never gone to journalism school. Right. And I thought, like, what better way to learn? It's a hard job to get fat.”
2018-06-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Jessica Weisberg traces the history of advice in ‘Asking for a Friend’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was a fact checker and I was writing a lot for the website. And I was also writing this sort of anonymous book reviews in the back of the book, so in case you wondered who wrote those, it's fact checkers. Okay.”
2018-06-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Jessica Weisberg traces the history of advice in ‘Asking for a Friend’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT