How Kickstarter Works

but I'm just kidding. We don't fundraise or crowdsource or crowdfund. No, we just to put stuff out. We have corporate sponsorship. Not everybody does, though not all creatives do have corporate sponsorship. And so luckily, since what two thousand nine, there's been something to help people like that out, artists, creatives who want to get a project underway but can't do it, called Kickstarter that don't have the funds. I'm a big

fan of Kickstarter. Yeah, it's pretty cool. I remember when it came out, I was like, this is gonna revolutionize um independent artists because one of the problems if you're an independent artist and you don't want to cow tow to the man is to just do your own thing, because it's the future is now as far as um accessibility to equipment, and you can you can make a movie right there in your in your own neighborhood and home. Right. Yeah, there's been a d I Y spirit. Well, yes, if

you have the skills, it's important. Well there's always been that d I Y spirit. But it's just the accessibility. This equipment is like never before. Right, It's it's they've caught up to one another. Yeah, it's cheaper, it's you don't have to get film developed. You can edit off your laptop. Um, it's all there for the taking, except that it's still cost some money. Yeah, actors didn't come free. Nope,

that's one thing. Wardrobe like craft services. Sure, you gotta have some peanuts and coffee, and that's just for you know, a movie. There's also like theaters. Um, there's music. Yeah, I want mine. I want to do mine. I want to travel the world and photograph all the remaining rhinoceros rh I I don't know. I think rhinoceros is. It's a photo book. It's a photo project about the rhinoceros in felt and I want to do that. You can do that. That's an art project. You can get funded.

You can if everybody thinks that that's a good idea, Which is the cool thing about Kickstarter, that's right, So Chuck, let's talk a little bit about this, right. Kickstarter is crowdfunding, which is a a play on crowdsourcing, which is originally basically just tapping into the hive mind. Yeah, thanks to the Internet. Right, there's a lot of people out there.

If you take their collective brains or allans or thoughts or efforts together, put them together through the Internet, you can do massive, awesome things like Wikipedia's Originally there is an original, great example of crowd sourcing. That's right. Now, if you take all those people and say, hey, just hold on to your time, hold on to your volunteering, hold on to your effort, just give me money instead. Yeah, that's crowdfunding, and Kickstarter is one of the better examples

of it. But it's not the first. No. No, it's called micro patronage if you want to get specific, and it's been around since the mid nineties. Uh Kiva dot org. Yeah, we've done a podcast on micro ending and we have our own Kiva team. We've got a killer Kiva team that just surpassed a hundred thousand loans and we're coming up on three million dollars in loans made. That's right. So if you if you're interested in helping out, I know we talked about it a lot, but it's been

a little while. If you're interested in helping out a business owner, either in the United States or abroad, you can do so. Ats off you sure, Keiva dot org, slash teams slash stuff. You should know, that's right, and you can do it as as a team. It's just fun. So Kiva is one great example. Um donors two dot org. I remember when that started when teachers started posting projects where their school because schools are ridiculously underfunded and teachers had to like ask the public to help pay for

a field trip or something. Yeah, you know, I've seen Waiting for Superman Man. I saw seen that. It's been on my list for years. Very rarely have I seen documentary that just got my hackles up like that one. It's really well done. Well that's because can anyone make an argument that education isn't worth funding and supporting? Uh No, But this, this, this does just a great job of like getting all sides of the issue out you got it. It's one of the best documentaries ever made. Yeah, I

need you to see that. And that wasn't on my top documentary list because I haven't seen it. I got to see it. Oh, and also feedback on that. I want to say thank you very much to all the people who rode in with suggestions in answer to my complaint that I've seen all the good horror movies. Oh yeah, apparently I was wrong. Boy, we got a lot of good suggestions. Yeah. I can't wait to see some of them. Yeah, most of them are foreign. It seems like, hey, they're

making the takes the whole world. Takes a global village to scare jows. It does, uh, indie go go and sell a band or a couple of other other early crowdfunding sites um for music and movie making. I think indie go Go does lots of projects now, though it's not just movies anymore. Kickstarters emerged as like the go to site for what what's supposed to be creative projects. Yeah, well,

let's let's talk about this. Uh. In two thousand two, co founder Perry Chen said, I want to do this concert here in New Orleans, but it costs a lot of money to throw a big concert, and UM, let me talk to my partners Yancey Strickler and Charles Adler and see if we could and figure out a way how to do this. And they said, you know what, we know we can get people to donate a little bit of money to this thing, a lot of people.

But how can we do that? You know? I think they met Perry Chan was waiting tables and was one of the other guys waiter and they struck up a conversation about it. I believe that's how kickstarter got started. That's pretty cool. Yeah, So they had the idea obviously based on um like we said, Indigo Go and some other h crowdfunding sites out there, to start kicks Starter in two thousand nine. But they said, you know what

we're gonna do exclusively creative projects. You can't um raise money to like pay your rent or pay off your house or anything weird like that. And it wasn't you can't just do like a vague plan or something like that. It had to be here is what I'm going to accomplish, here's my project, here is the end result, this is what it's gonna be here's the timeline. I want to get this done within and this is my Kickstarter project. Yeah, this is what I'm gonna hopefully go get funded my campaign. Yeah,

but it's creative. Yes, that's right. And uh, they you know, they wanted to different differentiate themselves and be unique, and being creative only was one of the ways that they did that. Another way they did so was two And I thought this was a stroke of genius. It's all or nothing. Yeah, this this makes sense. Now unless you get of your funding, um, you're not going to get

any funding. And Kickstarter is only going to collect of course, they make money by collecting a little piece of it five percent commission only if you reach that funding goal though, which uh sets it apart from the crowd And I think it's pretty genius. The whole reason is genius is this. If you are a creator and you have a project, and you get halfway to your goal, your monetary goal, and you take that money, you are obligated still to those people who gave you just half of the money

you need to create something. But what you're going to create is inherently inferior to what you would have created had you had all the money. You figured out you needed for this project, Sue. If you if you can take less than all, you're going to set yourself up

to make something that you're not proud of. Yeah, Or if you don't get funded, you might think, all right, well, maybe that wasn't the best idea, or you know, maybe go another route, or say maybe that wasn't the best idea, let me try something else, which is like a crowdsourcing aspect of Kickstarter. You're also saying to the to the

hive mind, is this a good idea? Yeah? And the other cool thing about the percent or nothing is as a as a donor or an investor, you're not you know that what you're going to end up with is this finished movie or this finished record album or this finished photo project. It's not just gonna be like, well, I just lost that five dollars to something that was thirty funded and I don't even know where what I'm

going to get out of it. Now, you know, you're just basically like through a five dollar bill into a buskers um guitar case or something, you know, which is something you should do to. Yeah, there's nothing inherently wrong with that, but the point of kickstarter is there's a project that this person has approached you on and you have said that is worth five dollars of my money, even if I don't get anything back. Sure, I feel good about this project. Not the fact that you're an

artist in general or you're a musician in general. This is this project that I'm investing in. That's right. Another interesting, uh facet to kickstarter is that they do offer rewards. As a backer, They require people to offer rewards. So it's not just hey, you're gonna feel good about yourself for supporting the arts in my finished movie. Um, you're gonna get a copy of the D D D or the c D may be signed by the artist. Maybe

it's a poster. Maybe it's a pin or a button for a two dollar donation, right, or maybe it's lunch with me if you kicking a hundred thousand dollars, or maybe there the executive producer if you kick in all the money. Right. Yeah, we're not all the money. But you know they have different tiers set up and different rewards that align with those tears. Yeah. The thing is that there's rules with this, like you can't offer a financial stake in the project or equity you can't say

you kick in twenty five dollars. Now you'll get fifty bucks back when I sell this thing to you know, Carol co Film. You know where'd you come up with that? That's the go to of mine, Carol Go. Yeah, haven't they been out of business for like twenty years? They had a good logo glowed, I believe. And then the other So when this, when this stuff is all done and up on Kickstarter, the the basically the creative has said I'm responsible for two things. One, I will complete

this project if I get funded. Fully, that means this project has to be done. I can't just take the money and rotten. No. Legally I think they can, yes, but I think the public shaming that would insue it would just not be worth it. That would be your only Kickstarter project exactly. And then secondly you have to fulfill whatever your rewards were. Right, and we'll get into the nuts and bolts about actually creating a Kickstarter project right after this. Okay, so we said it has to

be a creative project. What does that mean, Josh? I think if I uh far at the Star Spangled banner on YouTube, that's a very creative project. I can't believe you just use the F word. Uh, you know what, you probably could get that funded pretty easily, could um. And the key is that Cooper would pay her that by himself. By himself, he would liquidate everything he has. Just as long as you did that, you were right. The thing is to get onto Kickstarter site, you have

to get past the Kickstarter staff. And it's actually not just any Joe Schmo can come along and be like, I define creativity And as a matter of fact, there are definitions for what makes a creative project. And then on the other end of that is the staff that has to look over a proposal and say, yeah, this meets our standards. Yeah. They define it on their website as art, comics, dance, design, fashion, film, food, games, music, photography, publishing, technology,

and theater and um. They they admit that it is an ever evolving definition because creative people are kind of wacky and they'll submit things that they that walk the line that they'll have to decide. Hey, this Chuck Bryant guy, he's gonna be a big podcaster. He wants to fart the star spangled banner um on the front lawn of the White House. Oh man, that sounds pretty good to me. You could very easily get onto the front lawn of the White House these days too. Yeah, you just jumped

the fence. And so the thing is, I think in that sense, on that end of the spectrum, they're a lot more liberal. Like I don't think the Kickstarter staff is interested in saying that's art or I don't agree with that art, so that's not really art. What they're more concerned with is having basically becoming an as seen on TV website. So the author of this article is Dave Ruse. He puts it like, um, it's not it's it's a proposal for a project, not for a finnished product.

So it's not hey, by my DVD, it's hey, invest in this project and you'll get a DVD when it's finished. Yeah, that's a huge distinction because if not, it would just be an online marketplace. And Kickstarter suffers a lot of criticism because it's evolved in that way. But apparently they're cool with that to a certain degree. Yeah, there was one case, Um, I think it's a couple of years ago, uh, for a watch band that held the iPod nano. I remember when that came out they wanted to raise fifteen

thousand dollars and they raised a million dollars. That's the other cool thing about Kickstarter. I don't think we mentioned if you go over then great, good for you. Um. But basically what happened was your twenty five dollar donation got you that watch band that you can now get online or Apple stores for forty bucks. Uh. And they did take you know, they took some flak for that, saying isn't this just a way to buy something before it comes out? Pre order? Yeah? Pre order? Is that

what it's called? Preorder this thing? Yeah? I know. Right now. I think the biggest um success they've had is that cooler, the coolest cooler. Have you seen that thing? Thirteen point to eight five million dollars and I think their original goal was like fifty Yeah. I mean I remember when I first saw the uh, the little ad for this thing on Facebook. It was awesome. I was like, man, that is one cool cooler. Yeah, it has like bluetooth waterproof,

bluetooth speaker, has a ice crushing blender built in. It is a cooler to um. And again, like we said, like this is the crowdsourcing aspect of it, Like these people came up with the coolest cooler and the world said, yes, that product needs to come into existence, and they voted by saying, here is way more money than you need.

And now yes, it's basically a pre order. Not only that this company now can sell out to whoever they want to and sell coolest coolers for the rest of eternity or somebody right, because it's not a gamble at all. It's already proven itself on the in the retail market, so there's no gamble whatsoever. So they can they can just keep making them themselves, or they can expand and attract outside capital. And it's all because Perry Chin and his fellow co conspirators created this website that has all

these dimensions to it. Even though it's so simple, when placed into the context of the Internet, it has complications but also expansions. It's pretty cool. Even though there are products like that. Um over six products that are successfully funded are music, film, and video. So I that's a little I mean, that's that's true, but it's flip flops

them apparently. So this article, I think it was two thousand eleven from what I saw, the most popular by far as as far as funded projects go as film and video, then music, then publishing, then art, and then games. Got you like, what was games mean? Well, there's a lot of role playing games that get created on Kickstart. It's another thing too, it's a it's a great um

it's a great marketplace for non traditional stuff. Like yeah, you probably think of going on to Amazon to look for that, and you might find something too, But you're not going to find a game that doesn't exist yet on Amazon. I don't know. You just blew my mind. I got a few more stats for you. These are current as of today. UM one point three eight is that a billion billion dollars pledged to projects, almost seventy

three thousand successfully funded projects. By the time this comes out, it will probably pass that UM eighteen point five million total pledges. I'm having trouble with my commas today, but that's basically the public saying we believe in donating small amounts of money to projects that we believe in. And I think that's great. I do too. I think it's a pretty neat concept. And so we were talking about, um,

how odd Kickstarter can get. Sometimes there's like no dearth whatsoever of very weird kickstarters that have resulted in some pretty cool stuff like Zach Danger Brown's potato salad. Oh that guy. He was looking for some money to just make potato salad one day and got wildly funded, well past his goal and ended up holding potato stock in his town of Columbus, Ohio. And he made something like three fifty or four d and fifty pounds of potato salad. So like, if you donated, you could come and eat

this potato salad. That was a hit. That was the kickstarter. If that's not conceptual art, I don't know what is. Is that how he categorized it. That's how I categorize it, because food is a category too. Maybe it was both a straddle of the line, the food art project. Uh they do. Um, there are some tips we can give you, though, um kickstarter successful kickstarter, kickstarters, kickstarters, what do they call themselves? Kickstarters, kickstarters,

kickstart people, kickstart people. They say that, Um, obviously you have to start with a very catchy, unique, fun, and or inspiring IDEA potato salad is pretty inspiring. Um, well, that can be fun or catchy at least. Uh. They say you should have a good story, because what you're gonna do is you'r you don't have to, but you're encouraged to make a video pitching your idea. And if you've watched some of these, they're all usually just kind of off the cuff and tongue in cheek and fun

and low budge. You know, you don't want to, like look like you have a lot of money, probably by making some big production um. And you want to appeal to someone if you've got a great story about why you're doing your project, and that's certainly gonna help you get funded. Yeah, And that's one of the things about Kickstarter two is that you hear about the potato salad thing that became basically an internet meme. It became so popular, the coolest cooler you could find out about on Good

Morning America. You can really count the number of of Kickstarters on both hands. Maybe if you had a third hand, that would be helpful that you've heard about if you're not like a Kickstarter donor don't really go to Kickstarter, but that leaves seventy thousand and change that you've never

heard of. And that's the thing with Kickstarter. You create your Kickstarter Projects page and the first thing you do is send it to family and friends say hey, want to invest in this, And then you take it out to your social media context. And then if if it is a really good idea, theoretically it should take off on its own. It should just spread by word about. Somebody should say this is really cool and I'm going to share it, And Kickstarter makes it easier for you

to share. Well, I just sounded like I was pitching Kickstarter. I was just thinking, man, they should like it in touch with us. But that video aspect, that in and of itself is very sharable. So if you can come up with a cool video to put on your Kickstarter page, then that could easily be shared. And that's a really good way to to make the rounds on social media too. Yeah, they say that, Um, every successful campaign begins with an

anchor audience, is what they call it. Uh. It doesn't necessarily mean you have to have a popular podcast, although we could probably get something funded if we wanted to, especially your idea. Yeah, exactly, the f word. Your anchor audience could be, uh, just your social circle, your friends in your family, uncle, Yeah, your rich uncle. I just got him first before I even went to Kickstarter. I see what happens. Um, but you should have a good

anchor audience. If you're not on social media, if you don't have a solid support group in life, then unless you really catch on somehow, you're probably not gonna get funded. Yeah. Well, it's well, you should be relying on your idea and the catchiness of your pitch anyway. Yeah, but the fact that you have access to social media is probably a pretty big leg up over somebody who doesn't know how

to use Twitter or Facebook at least. Um, You're not gonna be left alone in your experience though, because once you do get approved, you will be working with Kickstarter. Um, they're gonna have a representative get in touch with you, and they're gonna work with you and say, you know what, you might want to think about these rewards, or your rewards aren't great, or maybe you should have these price points,

uh to tie into these rewards there there. They want you to succeed because they make their five percent if you succeed exactly. And then you know, I'm sure they want to encourage the arts too. That's how it started,

you know. Uh. But we're gonna talk a little bit more about those reward levels and a little bit of math and some more controversies right with this break math maths and say say in England, and we used to say it here too until I think the nineteenth century, and then we started saying, why are we saying it like that when you say math that Hodgeman Hodgman always his math. Yeah, he's he's got a little bit of

the British in him. He likes to think so um. Alright, So the math of rewards levels, they've done a little bit of tinkering just to kind of find out what succeeds and what doesn't. The pledges the most popular, about eighteen point four percent of pledges are in the twenty five dollar range. Fifty bucks is the next most close to UM. And you know that's if you set your levels like you can have a dollar be your lowest

donation level. Yeah, if you want, but you you're going to count on You have to think about your audience. If you think I've got lots and lots of people, but they may not want to throw up a bunch of money, throw in a bunch of money, um, then maybe I should do the dollar level. Well. Plus also you should sit down and think about exactly how much you need to achieve your project. They say the minimum amount that you need, and you really need to sit

down and crunch the numbers. This you need to crunch the numbers, know the minimum amount you need, because even if you threw a number out, you might find down the road like, oh and this isn't actually enough. So um, you want to take that number and then add they suggest at least the five percent commission that they're going to take from it. Oh yeah, I never thought about that, right.

But say your project is to eat a Chipotle burrito, a chicken burrito and then describe its deliciousness on a graph. You need eight bucks for that. And some guy did that. He set his goal for eight dollars. He made way more than that. I think he he got like he exceeded his funding by, which is the record holders still. And he created a graph of the deliciousness of Chipotle chicken burritos and sent him out to like all two

hundred and seventy donors. Yes see, naysayers will say that's just a waste of everyone's time and money sexual art, and you should donate that to some like important cause. But you know what, it's their money. If people want to donate a dollar for that, then that's they're right, right, you know what I'm saying, that's true. A hundred dollar pledges have the biggest impact UM on total dollars raised.

It they make up less than ten percent of pledges, and they recommend you get super creative with your prizes, make them really personalized. You know, if you're um, a filmmaker and any kind of creative artists like a musician, it would really help if you personally, we're offering something like a signed copy or maybe a phone call, uh leaving your your voicemail outgoing message or you know, something silly like that a lot of people would donate to.

And you put that and it's like the highest possible goal and they say that you don't. You're probably not going to get one of those, but why not put it out there in case somebody does want to show out, like fifty grand or something on something silly like that. Yeah, and a good idea is a good idea because of successfully funded projects exceed their goals, So that means if you're onto something, then you're gonna get get that money

plus some um. But there have been some controversies right there have So Veronica mar was canceled because a TV show that was canceled with stuff you shanellist Kristen Bell, right, and they brought it back. They said everybody wanted a movie, and uh, what's his name? Rob Thomas, the guy from from what Matchbox one? A different guy, the great uh Rob Thomas. He did the TV show Party Down, which is my like, I got you okay, top five all times? Cool,

cool dude. Then so he basically said we're gonna make a movie and we're gonna use this Kickstarter thing to do it. And they did. They raised like five and five and a half million dollars for the movie just from Kickstarter. Uh and I think it's the fifth uh most funded project and Kickstarter history. Yeah, but there was some controversy with the way that they offered downloads. Apparently they use Flixer, which a lot of people were like, O don't use Flixer, I use iTunes or I use Amazon, Like,

just give it to me through that. I gave you guys money to go make this movie. Give me the download the way I want to. So apparently he got in touch with them, the studio Warner Brothers. I think that's and they said, okay, well we'll make this right. Because he was saying refunds, I believe, because the idea was if you donated a certain amount, you got the movie within days of its theatrical release on your devisive choice. Yeah,

and he had a pretty good blog post. And this is actually kind of a good indicator of what you're supposed to do on Kickstarter. You're supposed to post updates after you you reach your goal, Like that's not that you don't walk away and then come back when it's done, like you want to post updates about production, just keep

people involved. He had a blog post um when all of this hubbub was going on, he said, you know what, like I'm really sorry, he said, more than anything else, I want this day to be perfect for you guys, because this is the day of the Veronica Mars movie that we've all wanted for so long. It gets released, so it's supposed to be a great day. So what if you guys need to just get in touch with

Warner Brothers customer service and they'll set it right. So he he it's a good example of handling controversy through Kickstarter, but it also kind of underscores the ownership that people who invest in Kickstarter projects feel in the final product. Yeah for sure, Like they're like, hey, man, I'm an investor in your your movie. I should be treated better than this. Yeah. And along with Zach Brath, who raised about more than two million dollars for his most recent film,

which I was here. Um, he got a lot of flak because he raised, like I said, over a couple of million bucks and then got another like eight million or so from Worldview Entertainment, a film financier, and a lot of people said, hey man, that ain't cool. Like you basically said, you know, you don't have the money to do this yourself, so you're gonna raise the money via Kickstarter because you don't want to give up your

final cut or your casting decisions to some film financers. Right, Like we understand that, Like you're avoiding the man and doing it all yourself. So here's some money, and then you go to a film financer and uh, they can give you completion funds or finishing funds because all these people have already proven they're willing to pay money for it to see this made. And he basically said, you know what, I'm not making some different movie. I still

have final cut. Um. I never said that wouldn't happen. Um. And so he defended himself, I think fairly successfully. But a lot of people on the independent creation level here about Zach Braff making a movie and they're just ticked off about the whole situation. They're like, kickstarters should be for the really the starving artist, not the guy who made a ton of money on Scrubs who could either throw in his own money or get financing. And he already had financing lined up, he said, and he bailed

on it because they did want final cut. So I kind of get both sides on this one. You know, like, good for Zack Braff if he can find a way to do it without giving up final cut. Yeah, but I mean he does. He does serve as a cautionary tale, like you don't change the terms after the kickstarters funded. Yeah, And he says that he didn't. He said the whole time, he said that he was going to take the kickstarter funds, some of his own money and then get um foreign

distribution money to fill out the rest. And apparently that's what he said he did. Yeah, And again though people wanted to donate to see another Zach Braff directed, written, and directed film, then great. But that's a separate issue like if he if he wants to come to Kickstarter and use it, then yeah, he's not gonna if he shouldn't be, or if people disagree with that, they're not gonna fund it. If people do fund it, then has nothing to do with you, exactly. You know. So I

found an interesting thing here from Cambridge University UM. They have some computer scientists that say they have found a way, may have found a way to uh direct your Kickstarter project to the right audience. They basically examined three months worth of worth of data from Kickstarter UM a researcher name just soon On and then plugged it into an algorithm. After they found two categories basically frequent investors and occasional investors.

Occasional funders built an algorithm to say which projects attracted which type of funder, and what they came up with was,

uh the following. If you are a frequent funder, you're more likely to UM fund projects where that displays good management, like if you, like you said, if you're frequently updating the page, if it's really well designed, UM and it makes sense kind of like someone who would invest in a company if they really look like they're buttoned up, they're more frequently going to invest um high stakes, they said.

Frequent Kickstarter investors are more likely to invest in something with a high fundraising goal, not the eight dollar Chipotle graph, which makes sense as universal appeal um. They said, the local projects are more likely to get funded by UH infrequent investors. Long term investors are more likely to fund something with universal peel and if it's fast growing um, if they see a lot of people are investing the more frequent and most heavily investors heavy investors. Sure everybody

wants to get in on that exactly. Um, But they did say in the end, it's really all about the quality. That's the one caveat of the project. At the end of the day, it still has to be a quality project or catch fire in a meme sort of way. Like meat soap. Exactly have you heard of that one? I already know what it is. Uh, And then there's one the Grizzly Coat. Well, what is meat soap. It's soap made from the fat rendered from meats. It smells

like meat. It's basically bathing in meat meat. Uh. And then there's the grizzly coat, which is a coat with a hood that looks like a grizzly bear's head. It's pretty cool. Nice. Um, there's a lot of weirdness out there on Kickstarter. It's wonderful little marketplace of idea exchange. Yeah. I mean, if if I didn't have my if I didn't have my job doing what we do with our great uh company that we worked for, like paying the bills and keeping the lights on, I would definitely go

this route. Like if it was around in the in the early nineties, I would have been all over this junk because I was out there on the streets making films panhandling for nothing and the result was indicative of that. Uh, you got anything else. If you want to know more about Kickstarter, go to kickstarter and follow all the rules you will be funded. You can also learn some more about it by typing Kickstarter into the search bar at how stuff works dot com and uh, that will bring

up this article. And I said article, So it's a listener mail time. Yeah, I'm gonna call this that won't play in Peoria. Remember during our m p A a podcast. I don't think I could remember the name of the city or something like that. So we had quite a few follow ups, and this one is from Nate Malore and Nate said, um, so, Nate works in a temper as a temper in a greenhouse, which is interesting. And um he said, he's fallen behind lately, but wanted to

reply about the mp A podcast. Chuck was struggling to remember the phrase that Willer won't play in Peoria. Someone who has probably let you know this, But if none has enlighten you as to the origins, I will. I'm told it was in a book at some point in the late eighteen hundreds, but even before that, theater groups burlesque and vaudeville would use Peoria to workshop shows on the way to Chicago, as it is a fairly large city on the Illinois River. Um. When I was a kid,

it was a test market. Even have you had Have you ever had a McDonald's pizza? I remember the Mick pizza? He says no. If no, then you're lucky because they're terrible. Uh. It's supposedly is representative of the Midwest, and according to my father, it was one of the most economically diverse cities in the Midwest, so Peory, I guess was just kind of that every place near Chicago, which explains the

phrase exactly. Anyway, I love the show and your sister show stuff you missed in history class, which we also recommend, by the way, listen to every episode, even the pre Chuck era, except the ten or so I have to catch up with. So that is from Nate Malore and

Nate's his ps. Every time you ind a commercial and say go to the search bar and type in stuff to get your whatever, it makes me want to go to whichever site you're plugging, type a bunch of random keys into the search bar and send you an email calling you jerks in my head using Josh's voice. That's what that means. I think it's that face value. Well, Nate, I think you've been in the tempting in that green household too long. What kind of greenhouse are you in there? Nate? Yeah?

Is it in Humboldt County, California? Uh? Yeah, thanks a lot, Nate. That was very nice of you. If you want to get in touch of this, you can tweet to us at s Y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff You Should Know. You can send us an email to Stuff podcast at how stuff Works dot com and has always joined us at our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, is it how stuff Works dot com.