Stick Nation

Anyone who has been a kid before knows that there are few joys in life like finding a really cool stick. That is the basis of Official Stick Reviews, a viral account on Instagram that has amassed 2.5 million followers in just a year and a half. But what is it about sticks that inspires this universal enthusiasm? In this episode, Amory and Ben join producer Frannie Monahan for a walk in the woods to look for answers, and some sticks of their own. Show notes: Official Stick Reviews https://www.instagram.com/officialstickreviews/?hl=en (@officialstickreviews) Sticks. And the People Who Love Them. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/02/style/sticks-instagram-boone-hogg-logan-jugler.html (NYT) Earliest Evidence of Wooden Construction Uncovered https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earliest-evidence-of-wooden-construction-uncovered/#:~:text=The%20surprising%20find%20suggests%20that,to%20work%20with%20tree%20trunks. (Scientific American) Credits: This episode was produced by Frannie Monahan. Mix and sound design by Paul Vaitkus. It was hosted by Frannie Monahan, Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Support for this podcast comes from Is Business Broken?, a podcast from the Marotra Institute at BU Questrom School of Business. A recent episode explores the intersection between fashion and sustainability. Stick around until the end of this podcast to preview the episode.

• 0:18Amory Sivertson?

  Ugh, I hate Mondays.

• 0:20Speaker 02

  King's Hawaiian cinnamon swirl bite?

• 0:22Amory Sivertson?

  Uh, Taylor Hansen? Sure, I'll try one. Mmm.

• 0:27Speaker 03

  Hey, let's get back to work, please.

• 0:29Amory Sivertson?

  But Taylor Hansen's making my day way better with these new soft and swirly King's Hawaiian cinnamon bites.

• 0:33Speaker 03

  Taylor Hansen? Nice. Try one. Mmm.

• 0:41Speaker 04

  King's Hawaiian cinnamon bites. There's nothing like it.

• 0:49Amory Sivertson?

  WBUR Podcasts, Boston.

• 0:57Ben Brock Johnson?

  How are you? What's your dog's name?

• 1:00Amory Sivertson?

  The other day, Ben and I took a trip to Franklin Park in Boston. We were there so that a human golden retriever, named Ben, could connect with other dogs.

• 1:11Ben Brock Johnson?

  We're from WBUR in Boston.

• 1:13Amory Sivertson?

  Oh, wow. This is Marty.

• 1:14Ben Brock Johnson?

  Marty?

• 1:15Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah.

• 1:16Ben Brock Johnson?

  We're doing a segment about Stick Nation. Do you know what that is?

• 1:20Amory Sivertson?

  Um, I'm not sure. Does that have to do with dogs?

• 1:24Ben Brock Johnson?

  It's people reviewing sticks.

• 1:26Amory Sivertson?

  Oh.

• 1:28Ben Brock Johnson?

  Marty, are you part of Stick Nation?

• 1:31Amory Sivertson?

  Hi, Marty. He's an elderly gentleman. Does Marty like a stick?

• 1:35Ben Brock Johnson?

  That is producer Frannie Monahan. She is the reason we are today accosting elderly dog gentlemen named Marty and asking them how much they like sticks.

• 1:45Amory Sivertson?

  He's not so into sticks. No, he likes to sniff. He's really into just like...

• 1:49Ben Brock Johnson?

  He's part of Sniff Nation.

• 1:50Amory Sivertson?

  Sniff Nation, absolutely. But it's always adorable when you see a dog with a giant stick like that in their mouth.

• 1:57Ben Brock Johnson?

  That's true. That's true.

• 1:59Amory Sivertson?

  Trying to fit through doorways.

• 2:01Ben Brock Johnson?

  Well, thank you for letting us interrupt your walk.

• 2:02Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah, no worries. It's a lovely day. It is.

• 2:05Ben Brock Johnson?

  All right.

• 2:06Amory Sivertson?

  Bye, Marty.

• 2:07Ben Brock Johnson?

  Bye, Marty.

• 2:07Amory Sivertson?

  Nice to meet you.

• 2:08Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah.

• 2:10Ben Brock Johnson?

  Good luck with Sniff Nation, Marty.

• 2:13Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah.

• 2:20Ben Brock Johnson?

  I'm Ben Brock Johnson.

• 2:21Amory Sivertson?

  I'm Amory Sivertson.

• 2:23Speaker 07

  And I'm Frannie Monahan. And you're listening to Endless Thread from WBUR in Boston. Today's episode?

• 2:31Ben Brock Johnson?

  Stick Nation.

• 2:38Speaker 07

  Do you guys understand the assignment for today, what we're doing?

• 2:43Amory Sivertson?

  I believe it to be we are traversing into the woods to find sticks that catch our eye and make us excited to be alive.

• 2:53Speaker 07

  Can I look over your shoulder while you're doing the assignment? Because I didn't, I didn't. I didn't read the assignment. Classic, classic Ben.

• 3:03Speaker 07

  You've got most of the assignment down. We're going into the woods and we are looking for sticks and we are going to review these sticks. We are doing this because there has been a movement on the internet recently, a community on Instagram called Official Stick Reviews. They refer to themselves as Stick Nation and...

• 3:21Ben Brock Johnson?

  Sub-Stick Nation.

• 3:22Speaker 07

  Yes, Ben's got that part down.

• 3:28Speaker 04

  Hello, Stick Nation. From the jungle of Arambol, Goa, this is my stick. Hello, Stick Nation. I'm Awen Sinclair from Hamilton, New Zealand. What's up, Stick Nation? I'm here in Dahlana in Sweden and this is my stick. Hello, Stick Nation. I'm from Indonesia.

• 3:50Ben Brock Johnson?

  And look here, what I found. A wonderful stick, looks like a witch's top. I'm Dee from Kenya and I want to show you my stick that I found at the beach. Hi, guys. Hello from Greece. Look at my magic stuff.

• 4:03Speaker 04

  Hello, Stick Nation. I found this really cool stick at my granddad's house.

• 4:13Speaker 07

  Over the last year and a half, there's just been this explosion of folks online going out into the woods, finding sticks and sharing their sticks that they found on the internet for people to kind of like give their own assessment.

• 4:27Ben Brock Johnson?

  Is it always a five-star system?

• 4:29Speaker 07

  No, not necessarily.

• 4:31Amory Sivertson?

  Are we following anyone else's criteria other than our own? Or it's just, it's five stars if we say it's five stars as long as we explain thoroughly why?

• 4:41Speaker 07

  The metrics by which to judge a stick are purely in your heart and in your imagination.

• 4:47Ben Brock Johnson?

  Carriability, pointability, nubbiness, wizardness, what else?

• 4:56Amory Sivertson?

  I'm usually looking at how well it will burn in a fire pit. That's my...

• 5:01Ben Brock Johnson?

  Burnability?

• 5:02Amory Sivertson?

  Burnability, yep. That's what I want.

• 5:04Ben Brock Johnson?

  Okay.

• 5:05Amory Sivertson?

  Or a good, a fun shape.

• 5:06Ben Brock Johnson?

  Shape-liness?

• 5:07Amory Sivertson?

  A unique shape, yep. Shape-liness.

• 5:09Speaker 07

  On Instagram, there's about 2.4 million people who are part of Stick Nation officially followers of this account.

• 5:17Ben Brock Johnson?

  2.4 plus three.

• 5:19Speaker 07

  Plus, plus the three of us. So, and they also have a TikTok account, which is where I come in most contact with their content. But if you guys just look at the feed, can you just like describe what you see?

• 5:32Ben Brock Johnson?

  There's a lot of different people in very different locations, holding very different sticks of all types. And it's cool because I was watching some of these earlier today. It feels like it knows no age, knows no gender, knows no nation, actually, even though it's called Stick Nation. It seems to be a global movement, for sure.

• 5:53Speaker 07

  How did this start, Frannie? Yeah, so Stick Nation really just started as a bit, as a lot of viral things on the internet do. Its creators are a couple of dudes called Boon Hog and Logan Juggler.

• 6:09Ben Brock Johnson?

  Extremely surprising. Psych. A couple of dudes with silly names.

• 6:15Speaker 07

  Internet names, or these are real? These are their names as listed in the New York Times.

• 6:20Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah.

• 6:21Speaker 07

  Okay. But yeah, so this basically started as a bit. The guys were taking a hike, found a stick, thought it'd be funny to talk about a stick as if you would, like antique at an antique show, or a dog at a dog show. And then it grew from there and the internet just like took it and ran with it, basically. Obviously, it's a scythe model. The only thing that's missing for me is this curve I wish had a little bit more to it. I'm gonna go ahead and rate it about a 6 out of 10 on the Tennyson curve. I just really like the shape of it.

• 6:55Amory Sivertson?

  And it's a multi-purpose stick. So I've got a little bit of hand grip in this end. This end we can use for lifting a pot off of the fire. Good for poking at mushrooms and digging in the dirt and holding plants aside. Just a really good oil stick.

• 7:22Speaker 07

  There's a few different ways that people engage. You know, they make their own videos posted online. Tag Stick Nation, Official Stick Reviews, the actual account. And they repost, or you can like submit it on a Google form. There's a lot of kids who submit videos, I know. So there's like a parental permission aspect of it. And then people in the comments assess the stick for their own. And everybody kind of has their own metrics. But I want you guys to look at some of the comments and just sort of like the imaginativeness of them. But here is a stick review.

• 7:52Ben Brock Johnson?

  Hello, Stick Nation. This is my coffee stirring stick. Oh, she's stirring coffee with a stick. Just stirred the coffee.

• 8:02Speaker 07

  Short and thin and beautiful. Here are some of the...

• 8:06Ben Brock Johnson?

  Oh, this is cool. So this commenter, Faison Cadri, says the name of the stick is the Brew Whisperer.

• 8:15Speaker 07

  Rarity.

• 8:16Amory Sivertson?

  But irreplaceable.

• 8:18Ben Brock Johnson?

  Type: Coffee stirring wand.

• 8:21Amory Sivertson?

  Material: Weathered birch.

• 8:23Ben Brock Johnson?

  Origin: Nordic forest. This is a very D and D description, I would say Dungeons and Dragons description. It also has an aura.

• 8:32Amory Sivertson?

  The brew whisperer carries a unique aura of calm mornings and crisp forest air. The faint earthy scent embedded in its fibers adds an unspoken depth to every coffee it stirs.

• 8:44Ben Brock Johnson?

  Wow. And stats, wow, it's got stats. Balance, five stars. Durability, three stars. Cozy factor, five stars.

• 8:52Amory Sivertson?

  Skill: Infusion of Serenity. There's a lore written up around the stick. This is a very detailed comment. Someone spent three times as long writing this comment as that woman did finding that stick.

• 9:05Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah.

• 9:11Speaker 07

  But for the most part, most comments do just look like, hey, nice stick.

• 9:15Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah.

• 9:16Speaker 07

  And like, there are some people who are bound to chime in and be like, hmm, I don't know if that counts as a stick. I think it may be more of a log.

• 9:26Amory Sivertson?

  Oh, stick versus log.

• 9:27Ben Brock Johnson?

  Stick versus log versus still a live tree that you're chopping down right now versus twig.

• 9:33Speaker 07

  And some, some materials out there, you know, I've seen people use a palm frond that's like all the way rolled up into a stick-like way. Or this guy in Antarctica who doesn't have access to any sticks, but has a huge icicle and people are like, hey, that counts as a stick, I guess. If it's a stick to you, so it really.

• 9:50Ben Brock Johnson?

  The guy in Antarctica who's stuck in Antarctica. Don't tell that guy his icicle is not a stick. He's he's on thin ice, so to speak.

• 10:01Amory Sivertson?

  It's funny that you say that because I was thinking about, you know, if the question is why sticks of all things, sticks, unless you're in Antarctica, are everywhere. It's like an equal opportunity thing to review because no matter what your socioeconomic status or background is, you can find a stick usually.

• 10:23Speaker 07

  But not everyone has to be a part of Stick Nation. They could start Rock or Cloud or whatever nation. I did look at those Instagram accounts and they don't typically have more than like 10 or 12 followers. But those efforts are there and I think that people should go out and support them. But to this question, why sticks? I was thinking about this a lot. I feel like a universal experience is like playing with a good stick as a kid. Like, people have to be appreciating sticks elsewhere on the internet through time. I did also find the rstick subreddit from 2011, which is still active, posts most days. People are sharing sticks, pretty much the same stuff, and has about 49,000 members.

• 11:04Ben Brock Johnson?

  Whoa, I was thinking about this too, coming to this excursion. Like, what, why sticks? To me, it feels very primordial, where it's sort of like, I wonder if you went all the way back. I think about this kind of thing all the time. If you went all the way back, are sticks the first tool? Like, is that the first thing that, that like, a monkey picked up and was like, "I'm gonna do something with this stick"?

• 11:29Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 11:30Ben Brock Johnson?

  Or was it more rocks?

• 11:31Speaker 07

  So I was, I was looking into this a little bit because dogs are not the only animal that love sticks. Monkeys also use sticks, crows use sticks. They all use them. Anteaters use sticks. Um, they do?

• 11:42Ben Brock Johnson?

  I think so.

• 11:43Speaker 07

  Okay, fact check that one.

• 11:49Speaker 07

  Narrator, anteaters do not use sticks. But anyway, if so many creatures of this earth can look at a stick and see a tool, right? We know that early humans were using stone tools, but wood would not last in the same way. And there's some, there is some evidence that I did find in a report from the Scientific American that says there is evidence of wood structures that hominids made predating Homo sapiens. So like, that's us. So like, more ancient ancestors were potentially using wood, and that makes a lot of sense.

• 12:25Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah, it does make a lot of sense.

• 12:27Speaker 07

  And so I just want to connect like this idea of the primordial love of sticks with Stick Nation and something that I think... Is really evident of that is just how creative people get with the descriptions of their stick. People find sticks that look like animals. They find sticks that look like weapons. They find sticks that look like regular tools, a little ladder. I am partial to magical item sticks. I love it when people find a stick that is not shaped like a weapon or associated with a weapon immediately. But that said, the ability to like, look at a stick and see anything, I think, is just this return to our roots.

• 13:07Ben Brock Johnson?

  Oh, return to our roots!

• 13:10Speaker 07

  That was not scripted, y'all.

• 13:12Ben Brock Johnson?

  Well done, Frannie. Cook. Keep cooking, Frannie. You're barking up the right tree, if you know what I'm saying.

• 13:18Speaker 07

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 13:26Speaker 07

  I feel like you've set up a scavenger hunt for us. Yes, we should go look for some sticks. We need to find some sticks. A stick that looks like a weapon. I mean, this is a shiv right here.

• 13:34Ben Brock Johnson?

  That's very shivy.

• 13:35Speaker 07

  I could mess someone up with this.

• 13:37Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah.

• 13:37Speaker 07

  Um, we need to find one that looks like an animal, one that looks like

• 13:42Ben Brock Johnson?

  Oh my gosh.

• 13:43Speaker 07

  A magical item. A magical, I don't really know what that means, but sure.

• 13:48Speaker 07

  The leaves, the leaves are gonna make us work for it in finding good stick content.

• 13:55Ben Brock Johnson?

  I think deeper.

• 13:56Speaker 07

  Deeper?

• 13:57Ben Brock Johnson?

  Deeper. We go deeper into the woods in search of our Stick Nation sticks in a minute.

• 14:21Speaker 00

  Support for this podcast comes from Is Business Broken?, a podcast from the Marotra Institute at BU Questram School of Business. Is sustainability in fashion a selling point for consumers? I think the sustainability gets advertised as being a big driver of fashion.

• 14:39Speaker 00

  When in fact, I think it's way down on the list of purchase criteria for consumers. Follow Is Business Broken wherever you get your podcasts and stick around until the end of this podcast for a preview of a recent episode on whether consumers can be both fashionable and sustainable.

• 15:00Amory Sivertson?

  I hate Mondays.

• 15:02Speaker 02

  King's Hawaiian cinnamon swirl bite?

• 15:03Amory Sivertson?

  Taylor Hanson? Sure, I'll try one.

• 15:07Speaker 02

  Mmm.

• 15:09Speaker 03

  Hey, let's get back to work, please.

• 15:11Amory Sivertson?

  But Taylor Hanson's making my day way better with these new soft and swirly King's Hawaiian cinnamon bites.

• 15:15Speaker 03

  Taylor Hanson? Nice.

• 15:17Speaker 02

  Try one.

• 15:19Speaker 03

  Mmm.

• 15:22Speaker 00

  King's Hawaiian cinnamon bites. There's nothing like it.

• 15:31Amory Sivertson?

  I'm Alison Aubrey, longtime health and science correspondent with NPR, and I've got a new podcast all about the science and wisdom of life after 50. It's called Your Turn with Alison Aubrey. We want to take you on a journey to help you explore all the opportunities to make change and feel good as you step into middle age and beyond from WBUR and NPR.

• 15:55Ben Brock Johnson?

  Your Turn with Alison Aubrey from NPR and WBUR, supported by AARP. New episodes every Thursday.

• 16:05Ben Brock Johnson?

  I don't feel like I've found my stick yet. Have you guys?

• 16:07Amory Sivertson?

  I certainly have not, but I'm holding on to this.

• 16:09Speaker 07

  Yeah, just looking.

• 16:11Amory Sivertson?

  To encounter any, any ruffians, any pirates trying to steal our stick.

• 16:17Ben Brock Johnson?

  Ruffians. That's such a good word.

• 16:20Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah. So did I tell you guys, my dad is very partial to a stick.

• 16:28Ben Brock Johnson?

  Mmm.

• 16:28Amory Sivertson?

  And he and my mom, if they go on walks, even just around the neighborhood, he will pick up sticks as they walk. And he just likes to kind of fiddle with them or break them or, yeah, usually he's breaking them into smaller pieces. But my mom, who is a crafty lady, she sewed a little, a stick quiver for him.

• 16:54Ben Brock Johnson?

  Whoa.

• 16:56Amory Sivertson?

  I don't think he actually uses, but it's adorable because he can take this little, this little quiver to put his sticks in while they walk.

• 17:04Ben Brock Johnson?

  That's lovely.

• 17:11Amory Sivertson?

  I just had to stop because there's an interesting site here.

• 17:13Ben Brock Johnson?

  Oh, yeah.

• 17:14Amory Sivertson?

  Where I was going to disturb this, not realizing that it was actually holding up two other sticks. But one thing that I was gonna be looking for was a good slingshot.

• 17:24Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah. You break that off.

• 17:26Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah, is that allowed in Stick Nation?

• 17:28Ben Brock Johnson?

  Sure.

• 17:28Amory Sivertson?

  To reshape a stick? No, probably not.

• 17:30Speaker 07

  I mean, it depends on your school thought.

• 17:34Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah.

• 17:34Speaker 07

  Because some people, you know, will judge a stick based on its naturiness and some people will carve a little design into a stick. It really, the modifications are...

• 17:43Amory Sivertson?

  I could break off this part and I would have a pretty good makings for a slingshot. But I'll leave it here.

• 17:50Ben Brock Johnson?

  Y-sticks are really good for lots of different things. You could also make a bed with Y-sticks. Because you use those as the corners and then you put sticks inside the Y-sticks and then you lay sticks across those cross-sticks.

• 18:04Amory Sivertson?

  That makes sense.

• 18:05Speaker 07

  Sounds like you've done that before.

• 18:07Ben Brock Johnson?

  No, I've just watched a lot of Naked and Afraid.

• 18:14Amory Sivertson?

  Okay, onward.

• 18:15Ben Brock Johnson?

  Okay. Frannie's got a really good specimen, I would say.

• 18:18Speaker 07

  Yeah, I think I found my stick, I gotta say. I am trying to decide what it is because I see in it at once, a thing that struck me was like, I feel like this looks like some kind of weird bird creature trying to escape.

• 18:33Ben Brock Johnson?

  Oh, yeah.

• 18:34Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah, is it a stick if it's, if it's shaped, that's shaped kinda like...

• 18:40Speaker 07

  This is a stick in my heart, Amory.

• 18:41Amory Sivertson?

  Oh, that's right, in your heart, okay.

• 18:45Amory Sivertson?

  It's shaped kinda like, like Sicily or Iceland.

• 18:49Ben Brock Johnson?

  It's the meeting of three sticks.

• 18:51Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah.

• 18:51Speaker 07

  It is a jointed, it is the joint of what, of a stick.

• 18:56Ben Brock Johnson?

  Stick joint, it's very good, it's very wise and has some I Am Groot vibes.

• 19:00Amory Sivertson?

  I'm glad you found your stick, I don't think I've quite found mine. Although this, I will say, it is very strong.

• 19:07Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 19:07Amory Sivertson?

  It's very pointy. But it's just a little too straight. I mean, it looks like a perfect pencil. I don't know, I'm saying that, but I'm falling more and more for this stick as I hold on to it.

• 19:21Speaker 07

  It was the first stick that caught your eye.

• 19:23Amory Sivertson?

  My self-defense stick. Yeah, because it's so sharp. Look at that.

• 19:29Amory Sivertson?

  And it's really old, I can tell. This has seen some things. This has maybe killed some things, you know? Well, we lost Ben. Which is not surprising. That's him? Yeah, that's him.

• 19:47Amory Sivertson?

  He has something in hand.

• 19:50Ben Brock Johnson?

  I did find this kind of light, straight pine branch.

• 19:56Amory Sivertson?

  Like you could do a martial art.

• 19:58Ben Brock Johnson?

  The balance is good.

• 19:59Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah, the balance is good. You could twirl this over your head.

• 20:03Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yep.

• 20:03Amory Sivertson?

  You know? And...

• 20:05Ben Brock Johnson?

  You could throw it.

• 20:06Amory Sivertson?

  You could whack a fool.

• 20:07Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah.

• 20:09Ben Brock Johnson?

  Or a ruffian. I'm really focused on ruffians now.

• 20:16Amory Sivertson?

  This one, I'm just gonna hold on to this one. It's got, it's got a little curve to it. In some ways, it's a very basic stick.

• 20:21Ben Brock Johnson?

  That's a whippy stick.

• 20:23Amory Sivertson?

  A whippy stick?

• 20:24Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah, what I would do with that is this. Can I, can I, may I borrow it?

• 20:29Ben Brock Johnson?

  Oh, it didn't work. Too, too dead. I would do that.

• 20:34Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah, okay, to get a whipping sound.

• 20:38Speaker 07

  I'm feeling really good right now on this little walk, and it's reminding me that another part of Stick Nation that I really love is like, every time that one of those videos comes across my feed, I kind of feel like it's a little break from the rest of the world. It's just like someone in nature sharing a, something ordinary, like a stick that they have decided is extraordinary.

• 21:08Ben Brock Johnson?

  It feels like Stick Nation is like, it's got some like harmless silly.

• 21:12Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 21:13Ben Brock Johnson?

  Going on, and I feel like we all need some harmless silly right now.

• 21:16Speaker 07

  We really do. And like, I think one thing that I really like about it is, I feel like really overwhelmed a lot of the time, and everything feels really complicated, but sticks aren't complicated.

• 21:26Ben Brock Johnson?

  No, Stick Nation's not complicated.

• 21:29Amory Sivertson?

  I feel like your, your comment though, Frannie, about how...

• 21:34Amory Sivertson?

  Rock Nation, or these other types of natural things that you might find, and the online presence for those items not being as strong, sort of disproves a, an inkling that I had that maybe Stick Nation is not really about sticks, per se, as much as it is about connecting around something that is, in many ways, the antithesis to the internet and all of the bells and whistles and constant,

• 22:07Ben Brock Johnson?

  Constant car alarms beeping and like...

• 22:09Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah, right. It's, it's something so simple and so accessible to everyone that reminds us, just go pick up a stick, and look at how amazing it is, and look at how old and pointy and oddly shaped and sun-kissed and weathered and useful and simple it is.

• 22:33Speaker 07

  No, I think that's definitely what it is, and I think like, a part of it that makes me feel really good, like what Ben was saying earlier, is like Stick Nation is a country with no borders, you know, and it's a place where disagreements are silly and low stakes and...

• 22:51Ben Brock Johnson?

  Low sticks. Sorry. Please go on.

• 22:55Speaker 07

  I keep walking right into them.

• 22:59Ben Brock Johnson?

  As one would, with a stick, potentially.

• 23:01Speaker 07

  Or a pole, or a branch.

• 23:06Speaker 07

  Uh, but yeah, it's something low stakes in a moment where everything is, the stakes have never felt higher, you know?

• 23:14Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah.

• 23:16Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah.

• 23:16Amory Sivertson?

  You mentioned a wizard in a tree, Frannie, and I feel like if we were going to see a wizard, it would be inside of this tree that is a head. So I just think we should walk to that tree and poke around for any other sticks.

• 23:35Ben Brock Johnson?

  Did you say the wizard tree?

• 23:37Amory Sivertson?

  I say the wizard.

• 23:40Ben Brock Johnson?

  Whoa, the wizard tree.

• 23:43Amory Sivertson?

  Okay, we're walking up to a tree that the base of it is hollowed out and...

• 23:49Ben Brock Johnson?

  And there's a stick in there next to the wizard.

• 23:51Amory Sivertson?

  Oh, and someone has drawn a wizard, painted? It's hard to tell how they did that. Has drawn or painted a wizard's face inside of this tree. And there is a stick in there, although I feel like, I feel like if I grab that stick, that's like grabbing the chalice or whatever it is in Temple of Doom. And I'm gonna set off a gauntlet of things trying to kill us, so I'm not gonna do that.

• 24:18Ben Brock Johnson?

  Narrator, it was not Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. It was not a chalice. It was a golden idol at the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

• 24:28Amory Sivertson?

  This is very cool.

• 24:31Amory Sivertson?

  This is the Wizard of Franklin Park. Gotta take a picture.

• 24:38Ben Brock Johnson?

  Producer Frannie Monahan, thank you for introducing us to the world of Stick Nation.

• 24:43Amory Sivertson?

  Thank you for joining me in Stick Nation and this beautiful squeaky forest.

• 24:53Ben Brock Johnson?

  Next to a big squeaky tree.

• 24:54Amory Sivertson?

  What an end that would be to our Stick Nation episode.

• 24:57Ben Brock Johnson?

  Killed by a stick?

• 24:58Amory Sivertson?

  Killed by a branch. The sticks come for us. Yeah, no, this was really lovely. We got out of the office. We got into the sunshine.

• 25:07Ben Brock Johnson?

  Check.

• 25:07Amory Sivertson?

  We found some sticks. Now let's go back to the office, sit in front of our computers and not talk to each other for the rest of the day.

• 25:13Ben Brock Johnson?

  Okay, sounds good. That's gonna be hard for me, but I'll try.

• 25:29Ben Brock Johnson?

  This episode was produced by Frannie Monahan. It was co-hosted by Frannie Monahan, Amory Seaberton, and Ben Brock Johnson. It was sound designed by our production manager, Paul Vikas.

• 25:41Amory Sivertson?

  Our managing producer is Sumit Ajoshi. The rest of our team is Dean Russell, Grace Tatter, and Emily Jankowski.

• 25:48Ben Brock Johnson?

  Endless Thread is a show about the blurred lines between the classification of sticks versus logs and also Amory's fear of ruffians.

• 25:57Amory Sivertson?

  If you've got an unsolved mystery, untold history, or an otherwise wild story from the internet, email us at [email protected].

• 26:07Ben Brock Johnson?

  Also, if you want to send us your weird or awesome stick, safe for work, people, we also accept stick pics. See you next week.

• 26:31Speaker 00

  Support for this podcast comes from Is Business Broken?, a podcast from the Marotra Institute at BU Questram School of Business. Follow Is Business Broken? wherever you get your podcasts and listen on for a preview of a recent episode featuring fashion and culture journalist and author Dana Thomas on the origin of fast fashion.

• 26:51Speaker 02

  In the 1990s, during the early days of globalization, a small brand out of Spain called Zara was deciding to spread its wings beyond Spain and move throughout Europe and roll out its stores of not expensive, kind of fashionable clothes, middle-market, accessible fashion. And what they did for their business model was they would go to fashion shows and see what was the hip thing and then reinterpret it in less expensive fabrics, just like Gap was doing. But at the time, Zara was embracing this business model called QR, quick response, which was in fact invented by the

• 27:33Amory Sivertson?

  US apparel industry, basically you'd put in a few items of a collection in the store. And if it did really well, then you put more into production and you've put them in the store. And if they didn't do so well, then you stopped it and you moved on to the next thing. It was like, almost like doing a focus group drop of clothes in the store and seeing what works, what doesn't, and what does, you play. So they started moving into this area of quick response and turning out more collections more quickly and getting them onto their store floor faster. And they saw that by doing this, by upping the number of times they did drops in the store to every two weeks as opposed to four times a year, that their numbers of visits from

• 28:18Amory Sivertson?

  consumers went up dramatically.

• 28:21Speaker 00

  Find the full episode by searching for Is Business Broken wherever you get your podcasts and learn more about the Marotra Institute for Business Markets and Society at ibms.bu.edu.

• 28:34Amory Sivertson?

  Ugh, I hate Mondays.

• 28:35Speaker 02

  King's Hawaiian cinnamon swirl bite?

• 28:37Amory Sivertson?

  Uh, Taylor Hansen? Sure, I'll try one. Mmm.

• 28:43Speaker 03

  Hey, let's get back to work, please.

• 28:44Amory Sivertson?

  But Taylor Hansen's making my day way better with these new soft and swirly King's Hawaiian cinnamon bites.

• 28:49Speaker 03

  Taylor Hansen? Nice.

• 28:51Speaker 02

  Try one.

• 28:52Speaker 03

  Mmm.

• 28:56Amory Sivertson?

  King's Hawaiian cinnamon bites. There's nothing like it.