The podcast for dumb arguments

On “No Such Thing,” three friends get to the bottom of life’s most benign mysteries.

Embedded is your essential guide to what’s good on the internet, written by Kate Lindsay and edited by Nick Catucci.

Feel free to battle it out in the comments. I know I’m right. —Kate

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There are four words no one ever wants to hear from a friend: “I’m starting a podcast.” And yet, when Manny Fidel, Noah Friedman, and Devan Joseph told me that they were coming out with

No Such Thing

, I knew they had a hit on their hands. On the podcast, which launched in November, they aim to settle the dumb arguments the three have been having for the past 10 years, like “Do audiobooks count as reading?” and “Could you land a plane in an emergency?”, with the help of experts and real-time tests.

The most recent episode, “Do horses hate running?,” is inspired by their first debate, in 2016, when the three sat next to each other while working on the video team at Business Insider. Since then, the podcast has taken a winding road, from a potential episode for The 11th that was cut to a guest episode on

PJ Vogt

’s Search Engine earlier this year.

Here we talk about getting the podcast off the ground, being male podcasters, and audition a few dumb arguments I’d like to see featured myself. At the end, there will be a poll where you have to guess which of the men I just interviewed is my brother-in-law.

This podcast has been a long time coming. How did you finally decide to take that leap?

Devan: I feel like it was post-Search Engine episode. Even before then, when we were having early talks with PJ before the show was even actually a thing, he kept asking us like, “What do you guys want to actually do?” And we're like, “I don't know.” We were like, we just wanna do this one podcast episode. We haven't thought about anything beyond that. And then after doing the show, we all had a really good time making that episode. Me and Manny were at NBC at the time, so we pitched it to them, went through a long process, and they ultimately were like, “Hey, we can't approve y'all working here and doing this.” And Manny left shortly after that. And I pretty immediately was like, “Oh, okay, I think I'm gonna have to find another job now.” It doesn't really make a lot of sense 'cause we hadn't produced anything. There was just this feeling of like, this is something I really want to do. And not letting a job get in the way of doing that.

Noah: I think we knew we didn't want to just half-ass it, where it's like, we're just gonna get together and turn the mics on and just talk. We've edited videos and done stuff close to this, so now we can actually just go for it. So once we got—not sign off from our jobs—but laid off or quit, it was like, yeah, let's do it.

Manny: Another reason we were excited to do this podcast was the election. It was hard not to notice the kinds of content in the so-called “manosphere” that played a role in getting Trump reelected. A lot of it is supposedly apolitical but ends up being pretty influential, driving kids to a kind of weird, sometimes problematic version of masculinity. I don't know if we necessarily agree that the left NEEDS a Joe Rogan, but I think penetrating that kind of content is a worthy cause. We're three normal dudes whose politics won't be hard to guess, but also won't try and convince you that you're a sad sack of shit because you aren't generating passive income or whatever.

The thing I am curious about, probably just because I experienced this with Embedded, is when the project you're starting doesn't exist yet. How did you get over that imposter syndrome?

Manny: Well, the funny thing is like, we didn't know how to make a podcast, but we're trained in video journalism. And so the behind the scenes stuff we were already good at doing. And it also is a little bit of luck. Like you're getting experts who are pretty much like, “Yeah, fuck it, why not? These three losers need help with this, I'm gonna throw them a bone.”

Devan: I think a part of it too is these people spend a lot of time working on these studies and we're legitimately interested in their work.

Noah: We just banked on them either knowing about Search Engine or seeing the parentheses of like, we worked at Wall Street Journal and NBC and just assuming that means we're real people.

Manny: As much as I was annoyed at NBC for saying no, I was definitely using their name to help get some of these experts.

How do you describe what type of stuff you cover?

Manny: Essentially the shit you would argue with your coworker about at work, that's not important enough for you to immediately Google the answer. I think PJ on that episode of Search Engine described it as like, bong rip questions, or something similar. I think we're aiming to be a little bit more highbrow than that, but it's kind of one of those things where you know it when you see it.

Devan: It is hard to describe, but I think to Manny's point, we do have strong reactions to the ones that we think work. And it's something that you can't just Google and get a one-word answer to.

It's taking something silly very seriously, which I always think is so fun, but I was kind of surprised that there is always an expert out there who is looking into it. Is it hard to find these niche experts?

Noah: There's usually someone who's done some research that's at least adjacent enough that it can be relevant, even if it's not on the topic. We talked to so many people for this horse episode and there's a bunch of people that aren't even in the episode anymore, just 'cause we've been working on that one for years. But then we're doing one about Letterboxd and how that's changed how we watch movies. There isn't a study on Letterboxd, but there is a study on how reviews and ratings and numbers can change how you perceive a movie both before and after. So finding the right thing and matching it is has been pretty easy so far.

Manny: There's kind of a mantra I always operated under when I was doing video content, which is that there's an expert for everything.

Here are my ideas for you: Why can't I eat off the kids' menu? I was at Nitehawk and I ordered—

Devan: I was just at Alamo, same thing. They're like, only for kids.

It was the most embarrassing thing that happened to me. I ordered chicken tenders, they came over and whispered during Dune like, "Hey, so that's the kid's menu. You can't order that." I wanna know why. What is the business reason why I can't do that?

Manny: There are a few places where I know they will let me order off the kids' menu, like Chipotle. It's like a tiny quesadilla with a side of rice and pico and that absolutely fills an adult up and it's half the price.

Devan: I'm assuming it's a price thing, but why does that matter? There's appetizers when you go to places.

The thing is I'm like, you're offering it, it's on your menu. And also, some places don't care. And so it's inconsistent. I just don't know the logic behind it.

Noah: We'll have to look into that.

This is becoming “pitches”-slash-“what I would say on

Kareem Rahma

’s Subway Takes,” but I think people claim cat allergies like people claim gluten allergies, when what they really mean is they just don't like cats or don’t eat bread. So people say they have a cat allergy to basically give them legitimacy to just hate cats.

Manny: This is offensive to me, specifically, as someone who both has a gluten sensitivity and is allergic to cats.

You hear so many stories, at least I do in the cat-owner community, of someone being like, "Oh, how'd you get your cat?" And they're like, "I thought I was allergic and then I got this cat and this cat is fine." I'm like, that's not a thing. You were lying that you were allergic and then had your mind changed.

Manny: What's not a thing is “hypoallergenic.” That's fake.

Noah: Wait, so you think that's fake?

Manny: Yeah. It's like there is no such thing as hypoallergenic, but there is such a thing as like, some pets are better than other ones in terms of how much hair they shed. It was a big PETA campaign where essentially the term was drummed up as a way to sell pets. But if you're allergic to dogs, you'll still be allergic to a hypoallergenic dog. It's just that the dog is a little bit better than other dogs, if that makes sense.

This actually adds to my point 'cause that's some shit a cat person who was like, "Oh, I'm allergic, but I can have this one" would say.

Manny: I wanna get your take on one of these, which is one that we're debating doing, which is why does everyone think they have blonde hair? What's your immediate reaction to that?

Okay. I have gotten in this fight before with someone where I said someone had blonde hair and they were like, “No, they don't. They're brunette.” I think we as a society have not landed on a cutoff point between blonde and brunette, and so it depends on someone's personal tolerance for blonde.

Manny: I think we've got enough anecdotal evidence that we should do this episode.

What is the most surprising thing you've learned so far? Or something that's changed your mind?

Noah: For me, the audiobooks episode, even though I was on the side of pro-audiobooks, I was surprised to learn that the actual retention and comprehension is about the same. I would've expected a much bigger difference.

Manny: Similarly with the plane episode, I was very confident that I think I could land a plane. But so much of our debates often are like, we really get into a take even if we're maybe not as sure about that take. That's just kind of the nature of arguing.

Devan: Mine isn't out yet, so it's a little bit of a spoiler, but we're doing an episode about whether or not you should wear your outside clothes on your bed. So I talked to a microbiologist and she actually said that—because I have a sheet for the dog because in my mind I'm like, there's a separation, that's not on the actual bed—and she said that actually does work. Like germs don't travel from like your top sheet to under your covers.

Like you said, sometimes you might not actually have a strong opinion, like I didn't think I cared about the audiobook versus reading debate until I listened to the episode, and then you just start to find yourself getting passionate about something you didn't think you cared about at all.

Manny: I find this a lot on Twitter, too, where if someone I don't like is making a good point, then I just do the opposite take. I've realized like three tweet threads later like, wait, I don't even agree with this. I just don't like that person.

What has the reception been like and are people like coming at you with their own little niche arguments?

Noah: Yeah I had probably 40 minutes of my cousin at Thanksgiving telling me questions. Some were appropriate ones that maybe we would tackle and then others were more just strange ideas that he's had.

Devan: Give me a strange one that we would never do.

Noah: He basically wants libraries to be like DoorDash instead of a place you go to. They should deliver the books to you and the library should just be a storage facility and there's no community events or nothing to do there. He says this and everyone was like, what are you talking about?

Manny: Yeah. That's a Subway Takes thing, I think. But more generally I've been very delighted that most of the reception I've been getting is how much people enjoy listening to the three of us have our discussions. I kind of thought people would be more interested in the more substantive part of the episode, which is always the second half, but I've been really glad that people seem to like our chemistry, especially after the haters and loser fans of Search Engine decided to disparage us.