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Men 2010, audio producer Roman Mars launched 99% Invisible, a podcast about hidden designs and products that most of us ignore. At that time, he did not have high hopes. Not only was the subject matter intentionally vague – early chapters included the sounds and ergonomics of toothbrushes – but the sessions were only four minutes long. However, audience numbers grew rapidly and the segments grew. Sixteen years later, 99% Invisible is now a podcasting organization that has collected over 660 episodes, exploring everything from political logos to the brand of margarine. “It’s taking something that seems boring and going, ‘No, no, no, this is fun,’ and being satisfied with that,” says Mars.
Mars, 51, speaks via videophone from the small, bubble-wrapped studio at his home in Berkeley, Northern California, where he taps the show. His voice – warm, fun, gently interrogative – matches the American podcasting style that’s familiar but unsettling. There’s a reason why Mars likes to speak up close to the microphone rather than announce it from a distance. The effect is to make the audience feel like they are broadcasting inside their heads.
This month, Mars is launching another pod mission. A History of the United States in 100 Objects is a joint production between BBC Studios and 99% Invisible, and is a sequel to the series A History of the World in 100 Objects, which was broadcast on Radio 4 in 2010. It was the same time as the 250th anniversary of the 250th anniversary of the Independences 0 series of the US Independence’s Declarations. Broadcasting for two years, each showcases products and designs that tell a great story about the United States.
When the BBC producers first came up with the idea, one might say something, but they found out that 99% Invisible had already made an episode. Later, he called Mars and asked him to lead the series; he did not hesitate to say yes. “After years of doing 99% Invisible, and using design as a lens to look at things, it’s good to look at it differently and look at other things and ask: what does this say about America?”
Among the first topics is the hot thread, the circular fasteners that allow the fastening of metal on metal, and its suspension across US factories and, later, in the world. “It’s a perfect thing,” says Mars, “because it’s not received at all, and yet it says a lot about what the modern empire of the United States is about.” Elsewhere, there will be stories of the Bundy Clock, used by shift workers to punch in and out; a gold coin found on the SS Central America, which sank in 1857 and started the gold crisis; and Billy Possum, a soft toy named after president William Howard Taft that tried and failed to replace the Teddy Roosevelt-inspired teddy bear.
For Mars, the experience of researching this series has been like “committing myself to the American Studies major”. Finding out if a story has legs requires hours of research. “I’m always reading three books at once and listening to audiobooks quickly while walking my dog.”
A career in listening was not the plan for Mars who, encouraged by his teachers, dropped out of high school at the age of 15 to pursue a degree in biology. After graduating at 19, he started a PhD in plant genetics; His expertise was in the genetics of corn. Soon he realized that “he wanted to learn new things all the time. So I left school. For a while I thought I might be a science teacher. But all this time (my studies) I was listening to the radio, so I thought maybe I could explain things on the radio.”
After performing gigs on radio stations in San Francisco and Chicago, and on NPR’s long-running series Snap Judgment, Mars created 99% Invisible, named after a quote from American architect Buckminster Fuller: For the first few years, he created the show himself; now they have a team of employees, many of whom started their services on the 99% Invisible feed.
Mars doesn’t believe his broadcasting career would have taken off without the rise of podcasting. He also says his voice isn’t a good fit for traditional radio, which prefers a higher-pitched, lower-pitched tone than Mars’ low-pitched tone. Despite that, she said: “I found my voice and became more comfortable behind the microphone.” Now I feel more comfortable talking into a microphone than talking to people.
Are you disillusioned with the proliferation of video games and their encroachment on what used to be the audio space? Mars sighs: “I just think it’s more fun to make a great radio show than a bad TV show.”
So it’s no surprise that 100 Things and 99% Invisible are audio-only prides. “These are shows where we connect a lot of people’s voices in different ways. It couldn’t be done any other way,” says Mars. “To have my face in it all of a sudden? It’s not me. I like being the voice in your head.”
Life from Mars: podcast content
The Bundy Clock
“The Bundy Clock was the first worker’s clock – introducing the concept of clocking in and out. But it also represented a change in the way we measured work and our importance as people, as we moved towards a more practical message. Much of the American work force: our compulsion to turn workers into machines, and how we change time ‘Time is money’ was captured in Bundy’s clocks.
A gold coin from the sinking of the SS Central America (large image)
“The Gold Train of 1857 sank in a hurricane off the east coast of the United States, carrying hundreds of millions of gold,” says Mars. “After eight years of the gold boom, the economy started to heat up and the New York banks were waiting for that gold to close their bottles.” The ship sank, carrying hundreds of lives and millions of dollars, causing the Panic of 1857, the world’s first financial crisis. eventually he was imprisoned rather than reveal the whereabouts of the last money.”
The 60-degree screw
“(Actress) Daniel Radcliffe and I share two things in common: a great beard and we both love the book Daniel Immerwahr’s How to Hide an Empire. One of Radcliffe’s favorite books, is the story of how the US built a hidden empire by creating permanent structures. In the middle of the 20th century, the stop lights were not green in Manhattan and New York. The hydrants were not always enough: the fire engines arrived unable to get water.
The Century Safe
“One of my favorite historians of all time, Jill Lepore, gave us a gift when she wrote about the Century Safe. It makes the perfect object #1. It was a time capsule, sealed in 1876 and opened by the president during the bicentennial celebrations of 1976. Inside the safe were supposed to be meaningful things: things that tell us, which were opened randomly, instead they were opened randomly. It is a shameful story of how difficult it is to tell our story. and the impossible difficulty in choosing the things that represent our history.”
Webster’s Blue-Backed speller
“By creating a chapter in Imani Perry’s Black in Blues, we have the story of the most famous school book that was a paper, until the newly freed black Americans turned it into a tool of liberation.” We trace how it went from white schools to the hands of people who read it was scornful, and meet two great figures, Booker T Washington and WEB DuvoBatal, what happened at the Blues Duvotal.
Billy Possum
“This is the story of two animals combined: one you have heard of, the other you have not.” When Teddy Roosevelt’s decision to save the bear’s life was commemorated in a political cartoon, diligent puppeteers turned the story into a giant stuffed animal, called Teddy’s Bear. give bears a hug The Billy Possum – his follow-up to the failed toy, named after the successor to the president William Howard Taft – shows how our stories about animals can turn into symbols of power, or not.
A History of the United States in 100 Objects will be published weekly from 19 May on BBC Soundtrack and 99% Invisible.
