Things for Rich People (that were Originally for Poor People)

rich simpleton. His name was Bertie Wooster. He was always getting into silly trouble and Stephen Fry played his genius butler who was always saving him. And his name was Jeeves, and he was actually a valet. Isn't it proounced valet mango? Not if you're British? Apparently there it's valet, But it's a gentleman's gentleman. The reason I'm bringing it up is that Jeeves in these stories is the proper one, and he's always shuddering at these like new fangled ideas that

Bertie Wooster has. And in this one episode, Bertie gets his pajamas monogrammed and Jeeves just can't stand this, like he thinks it's super low class and toddrey to put your initials on things, and he keeps wondering if it's because like Bertie'll forget who he is or or whether he owns pajamas. So he kind of scoffs at it disapprovingly through the show, which is pretty funny because today, you know, if you've got a monogram on a shirt or especially a towel mango, I mean, that is seen

as like real high class definitely. So the thing is they are all these like strange customs and sports and traditions that we sort of revere today's elite and we see them as high class, but actually they started out with much more humble origins. And today on the show, we're gonna take all that stuff down to peg and that's what we're talking about it. So let's dive in. Hey,

their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good friend Mangesh how Ticketer and on the other side of the soundproof glass, I just I can't stop looking over at him because he is looking so damper. He's in a top hat and tails. That is our friend and producer Tristan Michiel. I don't think I've ever seen him looking so fancy dressed up. No, it's amazing, man. And as you know, Tristan did say he'd be dressing up as

a quote wealthy elite to that. That's what he's been saying all week for today's show, So I imagine that's what's going on here. I have to say, I don't know what you. I feel like he looks a little more like a stage magician maybe, but but whatever I mean, he looks good. I know if he had a pack of cards, you could go in one direction, and if he had like a monocle and caine, he'd looked like Mr Peanut, which feels like a little less elite to me. But I do admire Tristan style. Well. To be fair,

people have drastically different ideas about what is elite. So you can ask a dozen people on the street and

get twelve completely different answers. And you know, while things like wealth and privilege crop up, and most people's definitions, the specifics on how that wealth and privilege are displayed, you know, varied a lot over the years, and things that were once considered a lead or high class are now seen as tacky, and things that started out with this more mass appeal of since only been set aside

for the rich. And I think it's that second kind of shift that will probably focus on today, you know, that lower class things that have sort of graduated to the upper cross. So I feel like this is maybe our Beverly Hillbillies episode, you could say. So, you know, we're gonna check out some of the food, the sports, the cultural norms that started out humbly and later became these symbols of wealth and status. So let's dive right in. You know, Mega, what what do you think is your

first rags to riches story for the day. So I thought I kicked things off with the farmhouse origins of one of the world's fanciest sounding beers, and that, of course is the Belgian, says on, oh man, that does sound fancy, although maybe that was just your impeccable French accent there. I know, we pronounced valet valets. We've got it's pretty amazing. But you could say that Sazon's kind of taste kind of fancy too, like they're typically on

the dry side in terms of deer. In fact, I was at a wedding some years ago where we drank Sayson for the wedding toast instead of champagne. But historically Szan's were most popular among the working class, and that was true right up until the nineteen fifties when they sort of fell out of favor all together. And if you cut to today, you know, there's kind of a Sason revolution that's been going on. About a dozen or so craft brewery started it and they started making it again.

And of course the flip side is that the beer is now viewed as kind of niche and not as approachable as it should be to the average drinker. Well, and I feel like it doesn't help that Sezans aren't served usually in these regular pint classes. I mean it feels like that you really coming these wide stem glasses, right, like a brandy glass or something like that. Yeah, that can definitely be true. The presentation changes and sometimes people

like to swirl them. But despite the fancy modern reputation, Sazan's actually have these really humble roots. So they first came on the scene during the eighteenth century when they were brewed by farmers and Wallonia, which is I guess this French speaking region of southern Belgium. But rather than being brewed for its taste or it's intoxicating effects, sazon began as a product of necessity more than anything else. And and that's really because the water in more rural

regions wasn't portable at the time. It contained way too many of these pathogens that that made it unfit for drinking. So in order to keep their workers hydrated through those busy summer seasons, farmers started brewing sesans. All right, But but hadn't people have been doing that a long time? Like that's kind of the origin of beer in general, isn't. I mean, you could go all the way back to

ancient Egypt. I think it was fuel for you know, the laborers there when water was either scarce or contaminated. So I feel like that's something that's been around for a long time. That's definitely true. And Willonian farmers definitely weren't the first to have this beer dependent workforce. To trouble for them was how to keep enough beer on

hand to last through the hot summers. And you've got to remember this was all prior to refrigeration, So getting beered for men and not spoil was pretty tricky during the months when heat and all this airborne bacteria was at its peak. So sesons were kind of the solution to this problem. Like they were brewed during the cooler autumn and winter months and then stored until summer rolled around.

And it's actually from the strong association with the certain time of year that the beer gets its name, since Sezan is actually French first season. Hm. Well, I mean that makes sense, but I'm curious though. Was was this beer any different from other kinds being made at the time or was it just the time of year that made its stand out. Yeah, saesons were actually set apart

in a few ways. Like one thing is that they were much hottier than the other beers, and that's because the hops act as a natural preservative, and they also possessed these antiseptic properties, which again was super helpful in fighting off those pathogens. The other standout trade is that Sayson saw we're really adaptable, Like farmers typically used whatever they had on hand at the end of a harvest

to make the next year's says on. So the base ingredients and the spices varied from farm to farm and even barrel to barrel. Like these differences made the beer hard to categorize, but it also made it a bit more personal. And since the average farm worker drank as much as uh, I think it's like five leaders of says on every single world day. Yeah, I'm guessing they

didn't mind a little variety in that flavor. Five leaders a day, I mean imagining this couldn't have been that alcoholic, right, unless I'm actually picturing all these farmers just passed out in their fields by noon. But that's that's crazy. Yeah. I read that most daisons were originally around three percenters though, which would be enough to give him a buzz, but

you know, not so strong as to incapacitate them. And of course the alcohol content went up a little over time as other people began, you know, during thinking them too. It wasn't just the workers. In fact, many small farms from the era were eventually turned into family breweries, and the different saisons became kind of especially drink for their

respective towns. All right, So if they were this popular, why did they disappear for a while, Because I think you said they kind of vanished, what was it in the in the fifties or so, Yeah, this was really due to industrialization. So by the fifties, refrigeration and like access to drinkable water, that all it eliminated this need for these summer specific ales. So demand dried up pretty quickly, and what was kind of the de facto beer of

the working class became this artisanal product instead. And you know, even in today's saisons, you can still find traces of the beer's farmhouse roots because you know, aside from the notes of fruit and spice, you'll also taste this kind of like earthy funkiness in the bruise, and that really harkens back to those like grab bag ingredients that those Wallonian farmers were using. You know. Um, it's kind of funny, like the description that's used for that barnyard flavor is

actually horse blanket. Like horse blanket is sup was like what makes sasan so appealing? I have to admit that horse blanket isn't generally a flavor. I think I would seek a horse blanket pringles horse. Alright, Well, since we're on the subject of elite dining, you know, I do want to talk about lobster for a minute, because this is one of those that I just found super interesting and didn't know a whole lot about before we were

researching for the episode. But I believe it or not, there was actually a time when lobster meat was the lowest priced item on a New England menu, and it was about half the costs of chicken that was pound for pound at least, and five times cheaper than Boston

baked beans. Of all things, cheaper than beans means something, as it does, so I actually read that lobsters used to be so abundant on the East Coast, and this is back in the six hundreds that it wasn't uncommon to find like two foot high piles of them just washed up on the beach. I mean, that is incredible to think about. Yeah, And you know, and people who stumbled on those lobster piles probably left them right where they were, because back then most people wanted nothing to

do with lobsters. They were considered disgusting, and you know, partially because they look like insects, and partially because of their reputation as being these bottom feeders. And honestly, none of that is too far off. I mean, lobsters really are distant relatives of cockroaches and spiders, and in fact, their name actually comes from the Old English word lop, which which actually means spider. So I do like lobsters

because they're so funny. I'm sure you remember how my roommate in college, Adam, and I wanted to get a pet lobster because it would be fun to walk around on a leash. And we even had a name, Hector the Lobster. But of course that's where our efforts stopped because we didn't really do things. We just talked about things. It didn't stop you guys from talking about it a lot, though,

I remember that. So I do feel like we give lobsters this giant pass because they live in the ocean, right, Like like if you came across lobster the forest and it's not climbing out of a hole in the tree, you think it was like some kind of giant monster bug and dipping it in butter would be like the furthest thing for your mind. But you know, that's even before you get into how weird lobster anatomy is, like their brains are in their throats, their teeth are in

their stomachs. There the whole thing is a mess. Like I can't argue with you on that, but you know, as unpopular as lobsters were in the seventeenth century, some people did eat them anyway. I mean, you look at Native Americans, for instance, they ate lobsters by wrapping them in seaweed and then baking them over hot rocks. But to be fair, lobster wasn't their first choice. I mean, they also used the meat to fertilize their crops and bait their fishing hooks, and they were doing that in

hopes of catching something less disgusting than lobster. Well, you know, some colonists must have eaten them too. Write like, I know, food was scarce in those early days, so I can't imagine everyone had the luxury of being picky. What lobster was plentiful and as alid source of protein. So people did eat it, just not happily and always with a certain degree of embarrassment I guess when they were eating it.

But you know, times were tough and only the wealthiest residents could afford chicken or pork, and that's how lobster became a poor person food. And so you know, lobsters were a common meal for people like prisoners or apprentices or enslaved people and even cats mango. I mean, that's what it was like. And this didn't go over well, of course, except with the cats, who weren't as worried

about what other people thought. And you know, some indentured servants actually had a clause in their contracts saying that they could be fed lobster no more than three times a week. I mean, that's how undesirable it was. I mean it's insane because you think of like how people crave lobster today, right, yeah, and lobster is one of the top requested last meals for prisoners on death row now, so clearly these perceptions have changed significantly over the years.

So I am curious what mark that change and thinking, because like, going from a trash meat to this like posh delicacy is a pretty big leap, even for something with ten legs, which, uh, you know, I only just realized they have ten legs. What they had ten legs? Yeah, I've never been counting the clause. I guess they have two pictures and then those like eight legs beneath. And apparently this is pretty common. Like I saw this piece in Slate that almost every image of a lobster in

a cartoon or drawing. And this is even on road signs, for like, lobster places all have eight legs instead of ten, and uh, it's anatomically incorrect everywhere you look. So you know, I I got his off track, but I did want to make a point of that. But that was that was very important to talk about, you know, to understand. Well, now you're gonna see it everywhere. But how did lobsters get so fancy? Tell me about that? All right, Well, it actually all comes down to railroads, believe it or not.

So go back to the eighteen seventies, and trains gave rise to this seasonal tourism in America with wealthy residents of places like New York or d C. They would head off to you know, to Boston or to Maine

to get away from that summer heat. And it was this travel boom that led to a realization for railroad managers, namely, you know that many passengers were clueless about how hated lobsters were by the people on the coast, and so this allowed the trains to serve up lobster as though it was this kind of like an exotic delicacy, even though it actually cost the railroad much less than other meats would have, and this russe seemed to work, and passengers,

soon we're heading home from vacation raving to their neighbors about this delicious boiled lobster that they'd had while they were out on their fancy travels. And so word of mouth grew from there, and lobster canning became a thing, and it actually launched a whole industry around this. That's

pretty incredible, you know. Uh, What's interesting about that though, it makes it seem like the popular opinion was really the only thing holding lobsters back, right, Like, it's almost like, add that there were people who are actually liking eating lobster, it suddenly made the food tastier. Yeah, I mean that

that's true. But there actually was more to it than that, because once there was really a market for lobster, it gave the chefs an opportunity to start experimenting with different preparations. And so you fast forward a bit, and by the eighteen eighties they'd stumbled across a real game changer. So they discovered that lobster looked more appetizing and tasted a whole lot better if it was actually cooked alive rather than being killed and then cooked, and that's kind of

when it went gourmet. So by the nineteen twenties, the demand outweighed supply for the first time in history, and the going rate for lobster rose to about what it

is today now. That said, lobster was still viewed as food for the poor, and Maine and other parts of New England where you know, kids were embarrassed to go to school with lobster meat sandwiches, and that really only changed during World War Two because lobster wasn't subject to rationing like other forms of protein, and so that meant that people from all regions and social classes began to find out just how tasty these you know, these sea bugs could be. So did did that egalitarian streak last

for long? No? I mean, by the time the war was over in the nineteen fifties, rolls around, lobster had fully become an American delicacy, and this was obviously seen as a meal fit for movie stars and the one percent rather than the prisoners and the poor people that it had been seen as before. So we've definitely been talking about this from a New World perspective. But I am curious what Europeans thought like, did they hate lobster

as much as the North Americans? Did? You know? I was looking into that because I actually had no idea. And it seems like there's always been a market for European blue lobster. It's it's it's a lot more rare and expensive than the kind that we eat here, because you know, Europeans never had the same reservations about eating them.

In fact, it was kind of the opposite. I mean, lobster was believed to have these medicinal qualities during the Middle Ages, even the Renaissance, and it was served pretty often at these upper class feasts. And I fought your story about wanting to walk a lobster on a leash

actually has a bit of a legacy. Maybe you and Adam have been doing your reading on this, but I was reading about this French poet named Gerard d Nerval, and he supposedly had a pet lobster and he would sometimes put a leash on it and take it for walks at the Royal Palace in Paris. And you know, when he got weird looks, he'd respond by saying, quote, how is a lobster more ridiculous than a dog? A cat, a gazelle, a lion, or any other animal. I have

an affinity for lobsters. They're easy going and serious, they know the secrets of the sea, and they don't bark. So other than the very last part of that, I don't understand any of that. But I love the quote. Well, I do feel like I'm in a good company, and I like how he's marketing them not just as an elite food, but also as an elite pet. Perhaps relutely.

But now that we've covered fancy food and drink, what do you say we shift a little bit and talk about maybe a couple of athletic past times that had more modest beginnings. Absolutely, but first let's take a quick break. You're listening to part Time Genius and we're talking about sports that made the switch from low brow to high class. So all right, Mago, you're up first. What comes to

mind when you think about posh sports. Well, we mentioned this in our Winter Olympics episode, but most of the cold weather sports are still pretty elite, and that's largely because of the travel costs, the expensive equipment that goes along with sports like skiing or ice skating. But you know one sport that seems needlessly elite to me is squash and uh, it's a little like racketball. It's a racket sport, but it's played with this hardball that you

have to warm up. Have you ever seen this? I've seen. I've actually never played, So the first time I went onto the squash court, I watched this guy just like squishing the ball under his foot and just rolling it vigorously to warm the ball up, because the ball actually doesn't bounce until it's warm. It's pretty ridiculous. Yeah, and then they played a lot in India, so I've seen

it there. But but you know, there's nothing that sophisticated about the sport except where the courts are located, Like mostly they're in well to do neighborhoods or in these sort of elite country clubs, which is just where you're hanging out all the time. So it makes sense that

you would have played at some point. But you know, in our Titanic episode, we mentioned that the ship actually had its own regulations squash corps for those first class passengers, and I feel like that's a pretty good testament to the game's reputation as being this elite sport. But since you bring it up today. I'm guessing squash didn't start out quite so fancy. Definitely not, so I do want to clarify. In Brooklyn, in bourm Hill, there's a New

York Sports club. You can rent a squash court for five dollars, so you can get on the squash court from very I like, how worried you are that people are gonna think you're just hanging out a country class.

I can't get into country class. So squash was actually derived from this game called rackets, which you know, had been invented by prisoners in the early nineteenth century, and the inmates at this Dinner's prison in London started getting their exercise by hitting a ball against the prison walls with tennis rackets, and from there the game sort of spread beyond the prison, with many of England's lower class citizens playing in the alleyways behind pubs, and then the

game spread to schools where the first four wall courts were specifically built just for the game. And it was at one of these schools where students invented a spinoff rackets game called squash, and I guess rackets was played with this hard, hollow rubber ball that tends to be pretty predictable, you know when bounced off a wall, while the squash ball is is so much softer and it

really makes for a greater variety of shots. So what made the students switch to the softer ball, Like where the school seeing it as a as a safety thing with the harder balls or what you know? That's what I was wondering at first, But it turned out the switch happened more organically. So this was in around the

eighteen thirties. Students at Harrow School in London realized that rackets was much much more challenging when you played with a punctured ball because it just became like harder to predict where the ball would bounce, and you have to pay closer attention, You had to run around the court more and and you weren't just waiting for it to bounce back to you. And the squeezeable ball became sort of the defining feature of their game. And that's supposedly

where the sport you know, got its name from. From the way the ball kind of squashes on impact with the wall. That makes sense. That's that's pretty cool, And I'm guessing that the new game kind of took off, and you don't hear too much about rackets these days, but squash does still seem pretty popular. Yeah, I mean it was so popular that it clips its parents sport

of the early twentieth century. And while squash now has this reputation of being sort of an uppercross sport, it is worth noting that more than twenty five million people play squash in a hundred eighty five different countries, and that includes a good deal of underprivileged kids to like, Like, there's this one program out in Harlem called Street Squash, and they promote the sport as kind of a youth enrichment program in low income communities. This is in New York,

New Jersey and around that area. But the kids not only like developed hand eye coordination and teamwork, but they get a pretty good workout. You know. Part of the reason I picked up squash is that, you know, just forty five minutes of playing is really really intense. Um actually have the stats here what one hour of squash can burn between six hundred and a thousand calories, and that puts it well above the calory account for most

other sports. Oh that's really interesting. All right, Well, I want to talk about another exercise, and it was an elite exercise that developed in a British internment camp. Believe it or not. Now, this was back during World War One. The was when the British government began to worry about German born residents and that they might defect and become

German soldiers if they were deported from England. So instead, all these German men between the ages of seventeen and forty two were just rounded up and sent to these camps throughout the country. Now, one of these camps there was a German boxer and just kind of all around great athlete in his name was Joseph Pilates, and he had been pulled away from his life working for a

British circus. Now you can probably guess that during his time in the camp, the fitness system that he created, it actually helped improve the lives of countless fellow inmates. So I'm curious, like Pilates was created at an internment camp, because like, you know that that's way more intense than I ever would have expected. You know, obviously today we see plates is kind of like this yuppie activity in

a way for movie stars to flatten their stomachs. But how did Pilates convince these people at the camp to start doing stretches and controlled breathing exercises? You know, believe it or not, it didn't take that much convincing. I mean, the camp they were at was severely overcrowded, and so much so that it eventually required its own railroad just to handle the influx of detainees. And as you can imagine, these conditions and the general indignity of their situation, it

drove a lot of inmates to depression. So many of them honestly kind of lost the will to live and quickly found themselves bedridden or even hospitalized in many cases. But the sight of this suffering really struck a chord in Pilates. And as a child, he had been incredibly sickly. He'd racked with everything from asthma and rickets to rheumatic fever, and this made him a natural target for bullies who made his life really unpleasant as an adolescent. And the

way Pilate's recovered was devoting his life to fitness. So he took up gymnastics and bodybuilding, martial arts, you name it. The guy did it all, and his rehabilitation went so well that by the age of fourteen, he was so off and so fit that he was asked to pose for anatomical charts. And anyway, it's you know, pretty amazing. But when Pilate saw the other men in the camp in such dire straits, he decided to try and help them through the same means that he had helped himself.

That's pretty amazing. So had he already developed all these exercises or were they something he came up with specifically in the camp. Well, I think that emphasis on breathing and core strengthening was already in place, but he also came up with new techniques, Like he noticed the way certain animals performed these fluid stretching movements while they're lying down, and it made him wonder like if the same moves could be applied to those who were stuck in bed.

So to that end, Pilates gathered some straps, bunk bed springs, and you know a few other odds and ends and started to build this this really kind of a crude home fitness machine that could provide prisoners of workout while they were lying down. I mean, that is incredible, and obviously it feels like it must have worked, because we're still talking about lites today. But how did this actually impact the inmates there? Well, the morale and the camp improved,

and supposedly the prisoners overall help improved. And in nineteen eighteen, a nasty case of influenza swept through England, as many us know from our history classes. And while of course tons of people died from the pandemic, not a single one of Pilate's trainees succumbed to the disease. I mean, that's the fact that Pilates took his clear evidence of

the effectiveness of his system. So he was then buoyed by this success, and so we continued developing his techniques after he was released, and a little bit later he made his way to the United States, and that's where his unique methods helped spark of fitness craze that was really focused on this connection between the muscle and the mind, and the yoga pants crowd was forever grateful, right, you know, But you know now that we've seen how the other

half exercise. But what do you say we check out a couple of cultural norms that have shifted social class over the years, all Right, well, before we do that,

let's take one more quick break. Okay. Well, so, one of the biggest status symbol shifts I've noticed in recent years is fashion, and there are a whole lot of movers and shakers supporting this, like CEO casual look these days, like instead of the Armani suits and Gucci dresses or whatever, Silicon Valley moguls have been supporting sneakers, jeans, t shirts, and not just at the gym, but in these professional settings and at high profile events. All right, So, but

what are you suggesting? I mean that dressing down is being co opted by the elite. I mean it feels like plenty of people still dress casually. But you know, just because the wealthier loosening up a little doesn't mean the rest of us have to start dressing fancy, does it? Because that that makes me a little bit nervous if I'm supposed to start dressing up. No, that's definitely true. But what interested me is how different the results of dressing down are for high status people compared to the

rest of us. What do you mean by that? Well, think about what would happen if you wore sweatpants and a hoodie to like a fancy investment meeting or or trying to get a mortgage or something right, like, you'd probably get some disapproving glances. But you know, there are these unridden rules and social norms that we feel compelled to go along with, and if we don't, we know

it would reflect poorly on us. So we tend to pay attention to things like etiquette dress codes because we don't want to be excluded and we want to maintain our social standing. You know, people like you and I like we play by the rules as much as possible.

But people with wealth and power have a lot more wiggle room when it comes to social norms, Like they can afford to risk this disapproval that comes with wearing red sneakers to a meeting or you know, jim clothes to a nice restaurant, and studies have shown that rather than hurting their reputation, it actually improves these people standings, like in the eyes of others. That's interesting to think about. So why do you think that is? Like when RK.

Zuckerberg wears jeans and a T shirt to a meeting where everybody else is in a really fancy suit, like,

why would his social standing go up? Well, it's really because of how aware we all are of the social expectations that typically, you know, someone of his wealth and influence would follow, Like we know that he knows we expect him to dress well and behave a certain way, so when he doesn't conform, it comes off as this display of power, like he can afford to risk losing status by dressing down because he just has that much

status to spare. Yeah, I mean that that is interesting, But I mean, and I kind of can't believe I'm saying this, But isn't it possible we're being a little too hard on the Mark Zuckerberg's of the world, Like who's to say he's dressing down as some kind of a power play and not just because he likes comfortable clothes. That's fair, But you know, whether he's bucking expectations on purpose or not, he's still reaping the benefits of this

high status nonconformity. Right. There's this study I read about in courts where researchers set up all these experiments to see how non conforming behaviors enhanced the perception of status and listen to the breakdown of what they found. So quote, in one study, participants perceived that a guest wearing a red bow tie at a black tie country club party was a higher status member of the club and a better golf player than a conforming individual wearing a black

bow tie. This assumption is based on the belief that the red bow tie wear has enough status and autonomy to follow his preference even when they deviate from the norm. So, in other words, all that matters is that the public perceives someone is choosing not to conform, and since social expectations are so ingrained, most of us assume that someone like Zuckerberg actually knows what he's doing and is subverting expectations on purpose, you know, once you lay it all out.

It reminds me of this other trend I read about, where having lots of kids is now viewed as something of a status symbol, because you know, looking back in history, it's been just the opposite. Really, Like, the long running stereotype is that, you know, the poor, the un edged catd they tend to have the most children, while affluent couples stop at maybe one or two kids. But I was looking at this sociology professor at the University of Maryland.

His name is Steven Martin no relation to the Steve Martin. I know he's a very talented guy, but he's not a professor there. But those trends have been gradually shifting since the late nineties seventies, and now the families having the most kids are those with incomes in the top one to one and a half percent. And so is the idea that these people are having more kids as a way to show off how rich they are. I mean, I'm hoping that's not the main appeal of having kids

for them. But just like what you were saying about public perception and casual dressing, the average person might look at a big, well to do family and see it as a sign of good fortune, and you know, the inference being that parents must have plenty of time and money to go around if they choose to have so many kids. But I think the real takeaway is that it's finally time for that posh Brady Bunch remake everybody has wanted for so long. That's the main thing I've

been thinking about recently that has to come out. Well. It is a strange thing to see, like kids almost be seen as a status symbol, right, Yeah, And you know I never would have guessed that just wearing sneakers and a hoodie into a boardroom might help you qualify as an elite. But let's go back to that term elite for just a second if you don't mind, because I think the word itself is an interesting example of

these shifting perceptions. So at the top of the show we mentioned how it's been stretched to mean so many different things over the years, and I'd actually argue that the word has almost lost its meaning as a result of that. Like, you know, at one point, elite was just a word that meant the best or the best in a group, So it started out as kind of a generic compliment, and then over time it came to refer specifically to people who were wealthy or influential, though

not necessarily in a derogatory way. But cut to today, and that word can be used really more as a slur, Like most people don't want to be perceived as elitist. Yeah, I mean, elite now seems to come with a feeling of like not one of us, Like squash isn't actually superior to handball or batman or other sports. You know, it's weird and fun, but it should actually be played by everyone, and the same for lobster rolls and says on like, don't let people tell you that these elite

things aren't for you. That's certainly a way to look at things, but for now that what do you say? We head off to the fact off and share a few other shifting norms we came across this week. Yeah, let's do it. So I and I did this great list of things that used to be status symbols, and at the top of their list was rotting pineapples. So apparently in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, pineapples and particularly

like homegrown pineapples, were a massive investment. It costs about five thousand pounds at the time, so if you had any of these fruit, you definitely put on show instead of devouring it. And in fact, pineapples used to be displayed on mantles for months, just rotting there. But the best part is that if you weren't rich enough to have your own pineapple, there was a rental market for them, so you could actually pick them up for parties or just rent one for the evening. So strange, but maybe

not as strange as this fact I'm about to share. So, according to the site British Path and the Victorian era, it was actually fashionable to have rotting teeth because it showed you were rich enough to afford sugar products and confection areas, and so this actually led to plenty of imitation to you would find upper class citizens that would often paint their teeth black just to fit in or show that they were spending their money on candy too.

So here's a quick one. A friendly X rays just took over the world in the early twentieth century, and Americans were so enamored with them that the wealthy would just like line up to get their X ray taken and basically seen your own bones and owning your own antle. X ray picture became a crazy status symbol. That's so good, all right. Well, this is from the Telegraph. Apparently when lobster became too expensive in England, it was replaced with

a different ugly creature, which is the monk fish. In fact, the article states it was branded as lobster but for the poor. And while it was considered an easy and cheap and you know, even tasty meal for fishermen and families, the fish was actually banned in French markets because it was considered too ugly and on appetizing for display. That's amazing.

So our pal Nick Green found these great original rules for golf, and golf's obviously one of these elitist sports, but when you look back at the old rules, it actually makes the sport sounds so much less civilized. Uh. And this rule is that if the player's ball strikes his adversary or is caddy, the adversary loses the whole. If it strikes his own caddy, the player loses the whole.

And this is from an eighteen twelve rule book at St Andrew's course, so it's like a prestigious golf course, but basically meant that if you were a ruthless player and you're good enough at aiming, you could turn golf into dodgeball with a much harder ball. Of course, I mean that just takes the sport to another level. I think more people would watch it if they were still

trying this kind of thing. For that fact, Mango, I know we've shared a lot of really fun stuff today, but I feel like that bit of rare violence from you, even Mango talking about that, means you deserve the trophy. So congratulations, thank you so much. I truly appreciate it. All right. Well that's it for today, So from Gabe, Tristan, Mango and me, thanks so much for listening. Thanks again

for listening. Part Time Genius is a production of how stuff works and wouldn't be possible without several brilliant people who do the important things we couldn't even begin to understand. And Christa McNeil does the editing thing. Noel Brown made the theme song and does the mixy mixy sound thing. Jerry Rowland does the exact producer thing. Gay Bluesier is our lead researcher, with support from the Research Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown and Lucas Adams and Eves Jeff

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