WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.100 Hello and welcome back to another deep dive. 00:00:03.299 --> 00:00:05.160 We are so glad you're here with us. We really 00:00:05.160 --> 00:00:07.960 are. Because today we are doing something that 00:00:07.960 --> 00:00:11.259 I honestly think is one of my favorite formats 00:00:11.259 --> 00:00:13.339 we do. It's a bit of a change of pace for us. 00:00:13.439 --> 00:00:17.480 It is. Usually we take a big topic. You know, 00:00:17.539 --> 00:00:20.079 a huge historical event, a complex scientific 00:00:20.079 --> 00:00:23.620 concept, and we drill all the way down. We narrow 00:00:23.620 --> 00:00:25.859 the focus, we find the single thread. Exactly. 00:00:26.059 --> 00:00:28.480 Today we are doing the complete opposite. We 00:00:28.480 --> 00:00:31.579 are taking something microscopically small, a 00:00:31.579 --> 00:00:34.439 single five -letter word, and we are blowing 00:00:34.439 --> 00:00:36.439 it up. We're going to see the entire universe 00:00:36.439 --> 00:00:39.369 contained inside it. Yes. It's like an inverted 00:00:39.369 --> 00:00:42.009 deep dive. It is, isn't it? Instead of narrowing 00:00:42.009 --> 00:00:44.670 our focus from the macro to the micro, we are 00:00:44.670 --> 00:00:47.310 expanding it outward from a single point of data. 00:00:47.530 --> 00:00:50.469 And that single point, that word is heist. H 00:00:50.469 --> 00:00:52.969 -E -I -S -T. Word you definitely know. Oh, for 00:00:52.969 --> 00:00:55.450 sure. You've heard it. You've probably used it. 00:00:55.490 --> 00:00:57.509 And if you have walked past a movie theater in 00:00:57.509 --> 00:00:59.570 the last 50 years, you have definitely seen it 00:00:59.570 --> 00:01:02.850 printed in some big, bold, red font. It's a deceptively 00:01:02.850 --> 00:01:05.230 simple word, though. It feels sharp, doesn't 00:01:05.230 --> 00:01:08.280 it? It has that sort of percussive clipped ending 00:01:08.280 --> 00:01:11.560 heist. It does. It sounds like what it is. But 00:01:11.560 --> 00:01:13.159 when we started looking at the source material 00:01:13.159 --> 00:01:15.500 for this, which let's be honest is. basically 00:01:15.500 --> 00:01:18.939 a massive disambiguation compilation, it became 00:01:18.939 --> 00:01:21.099 so clear that this word is doing a lot of heavy 00:01:21.099 --> 00:01:24.359 lifting. So much heavy lifting across so many 00:01:24.359 --> 00:01:26.319 different disciplines. It's critical. It's a 00:01:26.319 --> 00:01:28.400 total workhorse. I mean, we are looking at a 00:01:28.400 --> 00:01:31.620 stack of notes here that connects 1970s French 00:01:31.620 --> 00:01:35.319 cinema to, what, municipalities in northern Germany? 00:01:35.519 --> 00:01:37.359 And that's just the start. Yeah. We have connections 00:01:37.359 --> 00:01:41.340 between 19th century immunologists and 21st century 00:01:41.340 --> 00:01:43.959 hip hop albums. It is a complete and utter mess 00:01:43.959 --> 00:01:46.879 of data. But our mission, our job for the next 00:01:46.879 --> 00:01:49.340 hour, is to untangle it for you. And the goal 00:01:49.340 --> 00:01:51.340 here isn't just to, you know, list a bunch of 00:01:51.340 --> 00:01:53.859 things named heist. That would be really boring. 00:01:54.079 --> 00:01:57.319 Right. This isn't just a trivia dump. No. We 00:01:57.319 --> 00:02:00.359 want to understand why. Why does this word travel 00:02:00.359 --> 00:02:03.400 so well? Why does it work as a surname for a 00:02:03.400 --> 00:02:05.879 scientist or an athlete? Why does it function 00:02:05.879 --> 00:02:09.219 as a location name in Belgium? And why, oh why, 00:02:09.460 --> 00:02:11.979 is Hollywood so clinically obsessed with it? 00:02:12.120 --> 00:02:14.539 Right. We're going to see how language gets recycled, 00:02:14.759 --> 00:02:17.240 how it gets repurposed. We'll connect the dots 00:02:17.240 --> 00:02:21.620 between, say, an 1886 immunologist and a 2011 00:02:21.620 --> 00:02:24.740 Macklemore album. That's the journey. But before 00:02:24.740 --> 00:02:26.879 we get into all the weird connections, the geography, 00:02:27.139 --> 00:02:29.580 the pop culture, I think we need to do a little 00:02:29.580 --> 00:02:31.819 bit of housekeeping on the definition itself. 00:02:32.120 --> 00:02:33.919 That's a good idea. We need to ground ourselves 00:02:33.919 --> 00:02:36.780 in the core term. Because heist is one of those 00:02:36.780 --> 00:02:38.800 words that everyone knows, but if you actually 00:02:38.800 --> 00:02:41.849 ask them to define it... Technically, they might 00:02:41.849 --> 00:02:44.469 stumble a bit. It's true. In the common vernacular, 00:02:44.530 --> 00:02:47.169 we use it pre -interchangeably with robbery or 00:02:47.169 --> 00:02:50.270 theft or burglary. Right. There was a heist at 00:02:50.270 --> 00:02:51.830 the convenience store. You might hear someone 00:02:51.830 --> 00:02:53.909 say that. But that's not technically correct. 00:02:54.169 --> 00:02:57.030 There's a specific nuance to a heist that distinguishes 00:02:57.030 --> 00:02:59.949 it from, say, a mugging or a simple break and 00:02:59.949 --> 00:03:02.009 enter. It's the Ocean's Eleven factor, isn't 00:03:02.009 --> 00:03:04.599 it? Essentially, yes. That's the perfect pop 00:03:04.599 --> 00:03:07.879 culture shorthand for it. A heist is specifically 00:03:07.879 --> 00:03:12.659 a robbery from an institution. So a bank, a museum, 00:03:12.800 --> 00:03:15.879 a casino, a jewelry exchange. Exactly. A high 00:03:15.879 --> 00:03:19.259 -value target. But the real key differentiator 00:03:19.259 --> 00:03:22.979 is the level of organization. A heist implies 00:03:22.979 --> 00:03:26.620 a plan. A blueprint scene. There's always a blueprint 00:03:26.620 --> 00:03:29.020 scene. There has to be a blueprint scene. It 00:03:29.020 --> 00:03:32.409 implies a team. with specialized roles. The hacker, 00:03:32.530 --> 00:03:35.289 the driver, the muscle. It implies a complex 00:03:35.289 --> 00:03:38.330 execution against a secured, defended target. 00:03:38.530 --> 00:03:40.530 So if I see a laptop sitting on a park bench 00:03:40.530 --> 00:03:43.030 and I just grab it and run? Not a heist. That's 00:03:43.030 --> 00:03:46.090 just larceny, petty theft. Correct. That's a 00:03:46.090 --> 00:03:49.169 crime of opportunity. A heist is a project. It 00:03:49.169 --> 00:03:51.310 literally has project management. It has logistics. 00:03:51.530 --> 00:03:53.490 It has a timeline. It has risk assessment. Has 00:03:53.490 --> 00:03:55.610 a budget probably for equipment. It's a difference 00:03:55.610 --> 00:03:57.629 between impulse and architecture. Okay. And that 00:03:57.629 --> 00:03:59.469 distinction is so important because that sense 00:03:59.469 --> 00:04:02.819 of Planned chaos is exactly what makes the word 00:04:02.819 --> 00:04:05.659 so attractive to movie producers and songwriters, 00:04:05.800 --> 00:04:07.580 which we will definitely get to later. It's the 00:04:07.580 --> 00:04:09.780 professionalization of crime. That's it. Which 00:04:09.780 --> 00:04:11.979 is a fascinating concept on its own. But here's 00:04:11.979 --> 00:04:14.080 the hook that really got me when I was prepping 00:04:14.080 --> 00:04:16.220 for this. The thing I couldn't get out of my 00:04:16.220 --> 00:04:19.560 head. Okay. We think of heist as this gritty 00:04:19.560 --> 00:04:23.120 American kind of noir style word, right? Sure. 00:04:23.139 --> 00:04:26.459 Humphrey Bogart. Guys in fedoras. Exactly. Getaway 00:04:26.459 --> 00:04:28.899 cars. But while we're sitting here picturing 00:04:28.899 --> 00:04:31.339 all that, there are literally thousands of people 00:04:31.339 --> 00:04:35.420 in Europe right now calmly writing heist as their 00:04:35.420 --> 00:04:37.939 return address on their holiday cards. And they 00:04:37.939 --> 00:04:40.379 are not, in fact, career criminals. Well, presumably 00:04:40.379 --> 00:04:42.579 most of them aren't. No. One would hope not. 00:04:43.259 --> 00:04:45.540 So let's do that. Let's put heist on the map. 00:04:45.660 --> 00:04:48.939 Literally. Because the geography aspect of this 00:04:48.939 --> 00:04:52.589 was the first big aha moment for me. It really 00:04:52.589 --> 00:04:55.129 highlights that concept of false friends in linguistics. 00:04:55.230 --> 00:04:57.610 Oh, explain that. It's when you have words that 00:04:57.610 --> 00:05:00.089 look or sound identical in two different languages 00:05:00.089 --> 00:05:02.889 but have completely different meanings. So for 00:05:02.889 --> 00:05:06.410 an English speaker, heist means crime. In a German 00:05:06.410 --> 00:05:09.250 or Dutch context, it's a toponym. A place name. 00:05:09.389 --> 00:05:11.610 A place name. Nothing more, nothing less. Okay, 00:05:11.689 --> 00:05:14.230 so let's start in Germany. There is a municipality 00:05:14.230 --> 00:05:17.470 that is actually literally called Heist. Yes, 00:05:17.529 --> 00:05:20.290 in the district of Pinneberg in Schleswig -Holstein. 00:05:20.490 --> 00:05:22.470 Which is way up north in Germany. Right near 00:05:22.470 --> 00:05:24.889 Hamburg. It's a legitimate administrative district, 00:05:24.970 --> 00:05:27.850 part of the Giest and Marsch Südholstein, a real 00:05:27.850 --> 00:05:29.930 place with a mayor and everything. And if you 00:05:29.930 --> 00:05:31.709 look it up, if you look at photos, it's this 00:05:31.709 --> 00:05:35.689 lovely green kind of rural area. It's got a population 00:05:35.689 --> 00:05:38.430 of what, a few thousand people? Just under 3 00:05:38.430 --> 00:05:40.939 ,000, I think. Can you just imagine the... cognitive 00:05:40.939 --> 00:05:44.199 dissonance for an English speaker moving there. 00:05:44.259 --> 00:05:46.680 You get a job transfer from your company. Great 00:05:46.680 --> 00:05:49.279 news, honey. We're moving to heist. It sounds 00:05:49.279 --> 00:05:50.939 like you're moving into the plot of an action 00:05:50.939 --> 00:05:53.199 movie. It really does. But you get there and 00:05:53.199 --> 00:05:56.100 it's just efficient German recycling schedules 00:05:56.100 --> 00:05:59.360 and really nice bakeries. And that dissonance 00:05:59.360 --> 00:06:01.759 exists because the etymology is, of course, completely 00:06:01.759 --> 00:06:05.110 different. The English heist is pretty recent. 00:06:05.170 --> 00:06:08.449 It comes from American slang in the 1920s, likely 00:06:08.449 --> 00:06:10.750 derived from the word hoist. To lift something 00:06:10.750 --> 00:06:13.670 up, like you're hoisting a bag of cash. Exactly. 00:06:13.910 --> 00:06:16.829 But the German heist likely comes from a much 00:06:16.829 --> 00:06:19.769 older, low German word. It could be related to 00:06:19.769 --> 00:06:22.589 heister, which means a thicket or a place with 00:06:22.589 --> 00:06:25.449 shrubs. So it just means the place and the brush. 00:06:26.189 --> 00:06:28.949 That's the theory. It's agricultural, not criminal. 00:06:29.420 --> 00:06:31.199 Which makes perfect sense when you see the pictures 00:06:31.199 --> 00:06:33.040 of the countryside there. That does make sense. 00:06:33.199 --> 00:06:35.319 But then you cross the border into Belgium and 00:06:35.319 --> 00:06:37.579 it feels like they just double down. I do. They 00:06:37.579 --> 00:06:39.399 don't just have one heist. They have variations 00:06:39.399 --> 00:06:41.779 on a theme. Belgium is where it gets really descriptive. 00:06:42.180 --> 00:06:45.740 So first we have Heistanzi. Heistanzi. Now my 00:06:45.740 --> 00:06:49.649 Dutch is, let's say, rusty. By which I mean completely 00:06:49.649 --> 00:06:52.410 non -existent. But Z is sea, right? Like the 00:06:52.410 --> 00:06:55.730 Zyder Z. Spot on, yes. Heist on Z is in West 00:06:55.730 --> 00:06:57.889 Flanders on the coast. It's actually part of 00:06:57.889 --> 00:07:00.290 the larger municipality of Naki Heist now. So 00:07:00.290 --> 00:07:03.189 Heist by the Sea. Heist by the Sea. That sounds 00:07:03.189 --> 00:07:05.629 like a cozy murder mystery title. You know, like 00:07:05.629 --> 00:07:08.389 Agatha Christie's The Body in the Dunes at Heist 00:07:08.389 --> 00:07:11.269 by the Sea. It has that ring to it. But in reality, 00:07:11.449 --> 00:07:14.930 it's promenades and waffles and North Sea tourists. 00:07:15.310 --> 00:07:17.639 It's a resort town. It's a place of leisure, 00:07:17.839 --> 00:07:20.980 not larceny. Precisely. But then you have the 00:07:20.980 --> 00:07:22.899 other one, which I think might be my favorite 00:07:22.899 --> 00:07:25.040 place name on this entire list. Let me guess. 00:07:25.860 --> 00:07:30.339 Heist -Optenburg? Heist -Optenburg. It's so much 00:07:30.339 --> 00:07:32.439 fun to say. It has a real rhythm to it. It does. 00:07:32.519 --> 00:07:34.439 What's the translation on that one? The translation 00:07:34.439 --> 00:07:37.180 is Heist on the Mountain, or more accurately, 00:07:37.339 --> 00:07:40.199 Heist on the Hill. Which, knowing the general 00:07:40.199 --> 00:07:43.240 geography of Belgium, implies a very, very generous 00:07:43.240 --> 00:07:46.480 definition of the word mountain. Belgium is notoriously 00:07:46.480 --> 00:07:49.420 flat, yes. So any slight elevation gets celebrated 00:07:49.420 --> 00:07:51.160 with a place name. This one's in the province 00:07:51.160 --> 00:07:53.139 of Antwerp. And again, you have to imagine being 00:07:53.139 --> 00:07:55.639 a local there. This name is completely mundane. 00:07:55.660 --> 00:07:57.800 It's just where the post office is. It's where 00:07:57.800 --> 00:08:00.600 you go to school. But for us, hearing it cold, 00:08:00.819 --> 00:08:04.199 the heist on the mountain. Sounds like the sequel 00:08:04.199 --> 00:08:06.459 to a Sylvester Stallone movie. It absolutely 00:08:06.459 --> 00:08:08.540 does. It sounds like a mission objective in a 00:08:08.540 --> 00:08:10.800 video game. Your first objective, rendezvous 00:08:10.800 --> 00:08:12.560 at the heist on the mountain. It just proves 00:08:12.560 --> 00:08:16.600 that context is everything. Meaning is not intrinsic 00:08:16.600 --> 00:08:20.420 to the letters H -E -I -S -T. Meaning is projected 00:08:20.420 --> 00:08:23.639 onto it by the observer, by the culture they 00:08:23.639 --> 00:08:26.800 come from. To a Fleming, it means home. To an 00:08:26.800 --> 00:08:29.209 American tourist, it means... Lock your doors. 00:08:29.490 --> 00:08:31.910 I love that. It's such a great reminder that 00:08:31.910 --> 00:08:34.629 our language is just a map. And sometimes the 00:08:34.629 --> 00:08:36.590 map definitely does not match the territory, 00:08:36.809 --> 00:08:39.330 especially when you start crossing borders. Very 00:08:39.330 --> 00:08:42.389 true. But OK, let's leave the map. Let's look 00:08:42.389 --> 00:08:45.250 at the phone book or I guess what's the modern 00:08:45.250 --> 00:08:48.610 equivalent? LinkedIn. LinkedIn. Yeah. The biographical 00:08:48.610 --> 00:08:50.929 section. This is where we run into some really, 00:08:50.990 --> 00:08:53.129 really fun coincidences. Some of them are almost 00:08:53.129 --> 00:08:55.149 too good to be true. We have to talk about Al 00:08:55.149 --> 00:08:57.950 Heist. We have to. Al Heist. There's that concept, 00:08:57.990 --> 00:09:00.309 right? Nominative determinism? Right. Where your 00:09:00.309 --> 00:09:02.549 name seems to determine your job, like a dentist 00:09:02.549 --> 00:09:06.110 named Dr. Payne or a baker named Baker. Right. 00:09:06.169 --> 00:09:08.309 Al Heist is almost the opposite of that. Or maybe 00:09:08.309 --> 00:09:10.950 it's just too perfect. I can't decide. It's wonderfully, 00:09:11.090 --> 00:09:14.730 beautifully ironic. So Al Heist was a Major League 00:09:14.730 --> 00:09:16.629 Baseball player. An outfielder, right. Played 00:09:16.629 --> 00:09:18.750 for the Chicago Cubs, a few other teams. Yes. 00:09:18.889 --> 00:09:23.360 Back in the mid -20th century. 1950s, 60s. Now, 00:09:23.460 --> 00:09:26.720 in the sport of baseball, there is a very specific, 00:09:26.919 --> 00:09:30.080 very famous statistic. Stolen bases. Exactly. 00:09:30.240 --> 00:09:34.759 Can you imagine the absolute joy of the sports 00:09:34.759 --> 00:09:39.639 writers in, say, 1960, if Al Heiss gets on first 00:09:39.639 --> 00:09:42.960 and then successfully steals second base? The 00:09:42.960 --> 00:09:45.259 headline just writes itself. It's a gift from 00:09:45.259 --> 00:09:47.759 the heavens for a copy editor. Heiss pulls off 00:09:47.759 --> 00:09:51.379 Heiss. Heiss steals second. A daring heist at 00:09:51.379 --> 00:09:54.259 Wrigley. It's almost two on the nose. Do you 00:09:54.259 --> 00:09:56.240 think he got tired of it? Or do you think he 00:09:56.240 --> 00:09:58.019 leaned into it like, yeah, I'm heist. I take 00:09:58.019 --> 00:09:59.840 what I want. I've always wondered that. Given 00:09:59.840 --> 00:10:01.720 the era, he probably took some good -natured 00:10:01.720 --> 00:10:03.600 ribbing for it in the clubhouse. For sure. But 00:10:03.600 --> 00:10:06.000 you know what? It makes his name memorable. He 00:10:06.000 --> 00:10:07.500 wasn't a Hall of Famer. He wasn't a superstar. 00:10:08.000 --> 00:10:10.679 But we're sitting here talking about him in 2026 00:10:10.679 --> 00:10:12.840 purely because of his name. That's a kind of 00:10:12.840 --> 00:10:14.779 legacy in itself. That is a very good point. 00:10:14.879 --> 00:10:17.179 His name gave him immortality. Okay. But then 00:10:17.179 --> 00:10:19.639 we pivot to a very, very different kind of heist. 00:10:19.639 --> 00:10:21.539 A very different field. George Heist. George 00:10:21.539 --> 00:10:24.080 Heist, the immunologist. And this is a much more 00:10:24.080 --> 00:10:27.100 somber story just looking at the dates. 1886 00:10:27.100 --> 00:10:31.320 to 1920. He died so young, 34 years old. 34. 00:10:31.440 --> 00:10:34.399 And look at that death date, 1920. That is right 00:10:34.399 --> 00:10:37.019 in the immediate aftermath of the 1918 Spanish 00:10:37.019 --> 00:10:40.379 flu pandemic. It's highly likely his work and 00:10:40.379 --> 00:10:42.899 maybe even his death. was connected to that whole 00:10:42.899 --> 00:10:46.700 era of intense infectious disease research. He 00:10:46.700 --> 00:10:49.000 was an immunologist. This was a time when that 00:10:49.000 --> 00:10:51.600 field was the absolute frontier of medicine. 00:10:51.779 --> 00:10:54.220 We were just beginning to properly understand 00:10:54.220 --> 00:10:57.379 how the body defends itself, how vaccines really 00:10:57.379 --> 00:10:59.500 worked. He was on the front lines of that battle. 00:10:59.679 --> 00:11:02.639 So here, the name Heist isn't about taking something 00:11:02.639 --> 00:11:05.399 away. It's about defending. It's a surname attached 00:11:05.399 --> 00:11:08.000 to research that, you know, likely saved countless 00:11:08.000 --> 00:11:10.399 lives or at least advanced our understanding 00:11:10.399 --> 00:11:12.960 of the immune system. And it just shows the randomness 00:11:12.960 --> 00:11:15.879 of surnames. A name like Heist probably comes... 00:11:15.879 --> 00:11:18.000 from that same German root we talked about, some 00:11:18.000 --> 00:11:20.980 ancestor who lived near a thicket, a heister. 00:11:21.139 --> 00:11:23.100 And it's just traveled down through the generations. 00:11:23.320 --> 00:11:25.600 Exactly. To land on a baseball jersey in one 00:11:25.600 --> 00:11:28.139 instance and a lab coat in another, it's pure 00:11:28.139 --> 00:11:30.639 chance. There's also that weird little outlier 00:11:30.639 --> 00:11:32.779 in the science world. It's not a surname, but 00:11:32.779 --> 00:11:36.759 it's an abbreviation. Ah, yes. The botanical 00:11:36.759 --> 00:11:39.480 citation. This is a deep cut. Heist, but with 00:11:39.480 --> 00:11:41.980 a period, with a dot at the end. Right. In the 00:11:41.980 --> 00:11:43.940 world of botany, they have standard abbreviations 00:11:43.940 --> 00:11:46.480 for the authors of plant names to keep things 00:11:46.480 --> 00:11:49.299 consistent in academic papers. So if you see 00:11:49.299 --> 00:11:52.620 L, it means Carl Linnaeus, the father of taxonomy. 00:11:52.720 --> 00:11:55.460 The big one. The big one. And if you see heist, 00:11:55.559 --> 00:11:59.399 it refers to Lorenz Heister. Heister. Which is 00:11:59.399 --> 00:12:01.720 even closer to the criminal term. It's got the 00:12:01.720 --> 00:12:05.340 er on the end, the person who heists. It's true. 00:12:05.440 --> 00:12:08.200 He was a very serious German anatomist and botanist 00:12:08.200 --> 00:12:11.379 back in the 1700s. But again, in the very dry, 00:12:11.639 --> 00:12:15.159 very academic world of plant taxonomy, the text 00:12:15.159 --> 00:12:18.100 string heist appears constantly. It's a citation. 00:12:18.139 --> 00:12:20.320 It's a credit. It's a footnote. So if you're 00:12:20.320 --> 00:12:22.730 a botany student cramming for an exam. Seeing 00:12:22.730 --> 00:12:24.990 heist doesn't trigger a dopamine rush of action 00:12:24.990 --> 00:12:27.269 movie? No, it triggers... Oh god, I need to memorize 00:12:27.269 --> 00:12:29.730 the characteristics of the genus Hysteria. Exactly. 00:12:30.049 --> 00:12:32.769 Hysteria is actually a genus of plants in the 00:12:32.769 --> 00:12:35.129 Olakeshi family named after him. I would totally 00:12:35.129 --> 00:12:37.470 buy a plant called Hysteria. It sounds chaotic, 00:12:37.690 --> 00:12:39.610 like a plant that steals water from the other 00:12:39.610 --> 00:12:41.750 pots when you're not looking. I think it's actually 00:12:41.750 --> 00:12:44.809 a fairly unassuming tropical plant, but I have 00:12:44.809 --> 00:12:47.120 to say I like your version much better. We also 00:12:47.120 --> 00:12:49.000 have the arts represented in the Heist family 00:12:49.000 --> 00:12:52.200 tree. We have Hans -Jothim Heist. A German comedian 00:12:52.200 --> 00:12:54.960 and actor. He's quite famous in Germany, isn't 00:12:54.960 --> 00:12:57.480 he? Particularly for a character he plays who's 00:12:57.480 --> 00:13:00.559 just like perpetually angry. A satirical character. 00:13:00.879 --> 00:13:03.480 So a heist who steals the scene, perhaps. But 00:13:03.480 --> 00:13:06.750 intended. Always. And then to round out the family, 00:13:06.850 --> 00:13:10.029 we have Monique Van Heist. The fashion designer. 00:13:10.289 --> 00:13:13.029 Dutch, based in Rotterdam. And this fits that 00:13:13.029 --> 00:13:15.210 pattern again, that Dutch and German prevalence 00:13:15.210 --> 00:13:18.750 of the name. It does. But Van Heist as a fashion 00:13:18.750 --> 00:13:22.059 label, that actually works really well. It sounds 00:13:22.059 --> 00:13:24.720 chic. It sounds luxurious. A little bit edgy. 00:13:24.840 --> 00:13:27.500 I'm wearing the new Van Heist. It implies you 00:13:27.500 --> 00:13:29.639 maybe acquired the clothes by illicit means, 00:13:29.799 --> 00:13:32.159 but you look fantastic doing it. It has a certain 00:13:32.159 --> 00:13:34.480 cachet. It sounds expensive. It does. So we have 00:13:34.480 --> 00:13:37.480 a baseball player, an immunologist, a botanist, 00:13:37.600 --> 00:13:40.299 a comedian, and a fashion designer. The surname 00:13:40.299 --> 00:13:43.000 Heist really transcends disciplines. It's all 00:13:43.000 --> 00:13:45.559 over the place. So we've established that in 00:13:45.559 --> 00:13:48.899 the real world, in geography and biography, Heist 00:13:48.899 --> 00:13:52.269 is just a label. It's a neutral, if sometimes 00:13:52.269 --> 00:13:55.370 very interesting, identifier. Right. But now, 00:13:55.750 --> 00:13:58.909 now we have to enter the world of fiction. The 00:13:58.909 --> 00:14:01.409 world of cinema. And this is where the word heist 00:14:01.409 --> 00:14:04.470 stops being a label and starts being a weapon. 00:14:04.610 --> 00:14:07.710 A marketing weapon. A powerful one. I was looking 00:14:07.710 --> 00:14:10.950 at the list of movies titled Simply the Heist 00:14:10.950 --> 00:14:15.049 or Heist. And it is, it's just staggering. It's 00:14:15.049 --> 00:14:17.610 not a list. It's a cry for help from the screenwriters 00:14:17.610 --> 00:14:20.120 guild. It is the ultimate default title. We have 00:14:20.120 --> 00:14:23.039 to ask why. Why is this word so sticky for filmmakers? 00:14:23.440 --> 00:14:26.580 Is it just laziness or is it a form of brilliance? 00:14:26.740 --> 00:14:28.899 I think it's brutal efficiency. Think about a 00:14:28.899 --> 00:14:30.639 movie poster. You're walking by. You have two 00:14:30.639 --> 00:14:32.460 seconds, maybe three, to capture someone's attention. 00:14:32.679 --> 00:14:34.440 You have to make the sale instantly. Instantly. 00:14:35.000 --> 00:14:37.500 If you call your movie the ingenious and complicated 00:14:37.500 --> 00:14:39.850 robbery of the First National Bank. That's a 00:14:39.850 --> 00:14:42.009 mouthful. No one's reading that. No. If you just 00:14:42.009 --> 00:14:44.889 call it heist in big red letters, you have communicated 00:14:44.889 --> 00:14:47.669 the entire plot, the tone, the genre, and the 00:14:47.669 --> 00:14:51.169 states in five letters. It promises a very specific 00:14:51.169 --> 00:14:53.409 experience. You know there's going to be a team. 00:14:53.509 --> 00:14:55.590 You know there will be a scene with blueprints 00:14:55.590 --> 00:14:57.610 spread out on a table. You know there will be 00:14:57.610 --> 00:14:59.350 a double cross at some point. You know someone's 00:14:59.350 --> 00:15:02.309 going to say, we're in. It's a contract. It's 00:15:02.309 --> 00:15:05.470 a perfect contract with the audience. But because 00:15:05.470 --> 00:15:08.299 it's such a good, efficient contract. Everyone 00:15:08.299 --> 00:15:11.100 started using it. And that leads to the incredible 00:15:11.100 --> 00:15:13.460 saturation we see when we look at the timeline. 00:15:13.740 --> 00:15:15.799 Let's walk through this timeline because it really 00:15:15.799 --> 00:15:18.139 tells a story about film history in and of itself. 00:15:18.320 --> 00:15:21.120 We start in the 1970s. Which is really the golden 00:15:21.120 --> 00:15:24.240 age of the gritty crime thriller. Okay, so 1970, 00:15:24.480 --> 00:15:26.679 we have a French -Italian film, The Heist. A 00:15:26.679 --> 00:15:29.360 year later, 1971, we have The Heist, which was 00:15:29.360 --> 00:15:32.399 also known as Dollar. That 1971 film is interesting 00:15:32.399 --> 00:15:34.919 because it stars Warren Beatty and Goldie Hawn. 00:15:35.240 --> 00:15:37.720 It's a comedy crime caper directed by Richard 00:15:37.720 --> 00:15:40.019 Brooks. So right away, the word is being used 00:15:40.019 --> 00:15:43.080 for both serious, gritty drama and for lighthearted 00:15:43.080 --> 00:15:45.519 capers. It has a range. It has range from the 00:15:45.519 --> 00:15:49.820 very beginning. Then 1976, a Mexican film called 00:15:49.820 --> 00:15:53.480 The Heist. A year after that, 1977, The Heist, 00:15:53.480 --> 00:15:56.080 also known as The Squeeze, a thriller by Michael 00:15:56.080 --> 00:15:59.919 Apted. It was a global phenomenon. Every country's 00:15:59.919 --> 00:16:02.100 film industry was making a movie called The Heist. 00:16:02.240 --> 00:16:04.299 Well, and it reflects the mood of the time, right? 00:16:04.360 --> 00:16:08.179 In the 70s, cinema was moving away from the polished, 00:16:08.200 --> 00:16:11.139 moralizing tales of the 50s and 60s. We were 00:16:11.139 --> 00:16:13.679 into anti -heroes. The anti -establishment vibe. 00:16:13.980 --> 00:16:16.220 Exactly. We wanted to see people fighting the 00:16:16.220 --> 00:16:18.860 system, sticking it to the man. And what is a 00:16:18.860 --> 00:16:21.500 heist if not the ultimate anti -establishment 00:16:21.500 --> 00:16:23.700 act? You're stealing directly from the institution. 00:16:24.279 --> 00:16:26.139 That's a great point. Stealing from the bank 00:16:26.139 --> 00:16:28.340 is a proxy for fighting the government or corporate 00:16:28.340 --> 00:16:31.620 power. Precisely. So the title, The Heist, became 00:16:31.620 --> 00:16:34.659 a flag for that countercultural grit. Then we 00:16:34.659 --> 00:16:37.000 hit the 80s and there's a bit of a lull, but 00:16:37.000 --> 00:16:39.759 it comes back strong with the TV movie from 1989 00:16:39.759 --> 00:16:42.539 called The Heist. And I have to pause here because 00:16:42.539 --> 00:16:44.840 of the casting. This is a great piece of casting 00:16:44.840 --> 00:16:47.740 history. Pierce Brosnan. Pre -Bond Pierce Brosnan. 00:16:47.879 --> 00:16:49.899 This is him fresh off of Remington Steel. He 00:16:49.899 --> 00:16:51.759 hasn't been announced as James Bond yet, but 00:16:51.759 --> 00:16:54.179 everyone knows he's in the running. He is essentially 00:16:54.179 --> 00:16:56.899 auditioning for the role of the world's greatest 00:16:56.899 --> 00:17:01.080 spy in public. And a heist movie is the absolute 00:17:01.080 --> 00:17:03.480 perfect vehicle for that. It is. You have to 00:17:03.480 --> 00:17:05.720 be suave. You have to be capable. You have to 00:17:05.720 --> 00:17:08.000 look good in a tuxedo. You have to handle a gadget 00:17:08.000 --> 00:17:10.400 or a gun. It's a training ground. It's his resume. 00:17:10.599 --> 00:17:13.960 If you can believably pull off the heist on TV, 00:17:14.200 --> 00:17:16.380 maybe you can pull off Goldeneye in the theater. 00:17:16.720 --> 00:17:20.400 It's his proof of concept. But then, then we 00:17:20.400 --> 00:17:24.039 fast forward to 2001. And this, to me, is the 00:17:24.039 --> 00:17:26.759 most fascinating, most bizarre data point in 00:17:26.759 --> 00:17:29.480 this entire stack of notes. The great heist anomaly 00:17:29.480 --> 00:17:32.839 of 2001. The year of the double heist. It's incredible. 00:17:33.000 --> 00:17:35.559 In the year 2001, we have two completely different 00:17:35.559 --> 00:17:38.460 movies released. One is titled Heist. The other 00:17:38.460 --> 00:17:40.720 is titled The Heist. How does this happen? I 00:17:40.720 --> 00:17:43.079 mean, seriously, do the studios not talk to each 00:17:43.079 --> 00:17:45.640 other? Is there no central database for movie 00:17:45.640 --> 00:17:48.220 titles? You would think so. But let's look at 00:17:48.220 --> 00:17:49.960 the films themselves because they're very different. 00:17:50.079 --> 00:17:52.259 The first one is Heist, directed by the great 00:17:52.259 --> 00:17:55.200 David Mamet. Which is a huge deal. Mamet is a 00:17:55.200 --> 00:17:57.559 Pulitzer Prize winning playwright. He's a master 00:17:57.559 --> 00:18:00.319 of dialogue. You've got Gene Hackman, Danny DeVito, 00:18:00.380 --> 00:18:03.259 Delroy Lindo, Sam Rockwell. This is a film lover's 00:18:03.259 --> 00:18:06.910 heist movie. It's all about the craft. It's cynical. 00:18:07.069 --> 00:18:10.569 The dialogue is famously sharp and stylized. 00:18:10.710 --> 00:18:14.650 It deconstructs the genre tropes. It's Mamet 00:18:14.650 --> 00:18:17.250 doing what Mehmet does best. A prestige picture. 00:18:17.549 --> 00:18:19.049 Absolutely. And then you have the other one. 00:18:19.150 --> 00:18:22.309 The Heist. With it? Directed by Kurt Voss. It's 00:18:22.309 --> 00:18:24.150 more of a straight -to -video style thriller. 00:18:24.450 --> 00:18:26.750 Much lower budget, different tone, different 00:18:26.750 --> 00:18:30.450 audience. But imagine being the consumer in 2001. 00:18:30.809 --> 00:18:33.450 You go to Blockbuster Video. Remember Blockbuster? 00:18:33.569 --> 00:18:35.430 Vaguely. You go to Blockbuster. You want to rent 00:18:35.430 --> 00:18:38.630 the new Gene Hackman movie. You scan the H section 00:18:38.630 --> 00:18:41.269 on the new release wall. You see a box that says 00:18:41.269 --> 00:18:43.410 The Heist. You grab it. You get home. You pop 00:18:43.410 --> 00:18:46.430 it in the VCR. And it's not Gene Hackman. It's 00:18:46.430 --> 00:18:48.150 the Kurt Voss movie you've been hacked. It's 00:18:48.150 --> 00:18:50.950 the mockbuster phenomenon or maybe just unfortunate 00:18:50.950 --> 00:18:53.869 parallel thinking. But it shows that by 2001, 00:18:54.170 --> 00:18:57.599 the word heist. had lost its specificity. It 00:18:57.599 --> 00:19:00.099 was no longer a unique descriptor. It had become 00:19:00.099 --> 00:19:02.099 a commodity. It was like calling a movie comedy 00:19:02.099 --> 00:19:04.859 or explosion. It's just a generic label for a 00:19:04.859 --> 00:19:07.000 product category. It's like buying a generic 00:19:07.000 --> 00:19:09.519 store brand. You want Coca -Cola, but you get 00:19:09.519 --> 00:19:12.160 cola. And yet, despite that obvious confusion, 00:19:12.500 --> 00:19:14.960 the industry didn't stop. They just kept doing 00:19:14.960 --> 00:19:18.140 it. It's amazing. It is. 2008, The Heist from 00:19:18.140 --> 00:19:21.799 director Campbell Cooley. 2015, Heist with Robert 00:19:21.799 --> 00:19:25.539 De Niro, which was also known as Bus 657. Another 00:19:25.539 --> 00:19:27.640 one with an alternate title. That's a pattern. 00:19:27.799 --> 00:19:31.859 2024, the heist by Aditya Awande. They just keep 00:19:31.859 --> 00:19:34.119 churning him out, banking on that name recognition. 00:19:34.579 --> 00:19:36.819 It proves that the marketing value of the word 00:19:36.819 --> 00:19:39.440 is believed to outweigh the potential for confusion. 00:19:40.380 --> 00:19:42.500 Studios are betting that you want a heist movie 00:19:42.500 --> 00:19:44.819 so badly that you don't even care which one it 00:19:44.819 --> 00:19:46.920 is. Just give me the heist -flavored content. 00:19:47.079 --> 00:19:49.420 Exactly. There's also that really weird case 00:19:49.420 --> 00:19:52.460 of international title changes. The Morgan Freeman 00:19:52.460 --> 00:19:56.339 movie. Ah, yes. The Maiden Heist, 2009. Now, 00:19:56.339 --> 00:19:58.539 The Maiden Heist is a clever title. It's a comedy 00:19:58.539 --> 00:20:00.680 with Morgan Freeman, Christopher Walken, William 00:20:00.680 --> 00:20:03.039 H. Macy. Great cast. It's about three museum 00:20:03.039 --> 00:20:05.359 guards who are in love with the art they guard, 00:20:05.420 --> 00:20:07.500 and when they find out it's being moved, they 00:20:07.500 --> 00:20:10.359 decide to steal it. So the title is a pun. Maiden 00:20:10.359 --> 00:20:13.579 Voyage. But it's a heist. It suggests character. 00:20:13.859 --> 00:20:16.539 It suggests humor. It has personality. It's a 00:20:16.539 --> 00:20:18.680 great title. And yet, for the UK release, they 00:20:18.680 --> 00:20:21.740 changed the title to... Let me guess. The Heist. 00:20:22.140 --> 00:20:26.480 Just the heist. Why would you strip all the flavor 00:20:26.480 --> 00:20:28.440 and personality out of it like that? It's pure 00:20:28.440 --> 00:20:31.059 risk aversion. The international distributors 00:20:31.059 --> 00:20:34.200 likely had a meeting and thought, will the British 00:20:34.200 --> 00:20:37.039 audience get the maiden pun? Will they think 00:20:37.039 --> 00:20:38.940 it's a period piece about a medieval maiden? 00:20:39.059 --> 00:20:41.259 Let's just... Call it what it is. They dumbed 00:20:41.259 --> 00:20:43.220 it down to the lowest common denominator. They 00:20:43.220 --> 00:20:45.740 absolutely did. And it turns what was a unique 00:20:45.740 --> 00:20:48.720 piece of art into a generic product on a shelf. 00:20:48.980 --> 00:20:51.579 Here is your unit of heist entertainment for 00:20:51.579 --> 00:20:53.460 the evening. It creates this sort of gray goo 00:20:53.460 --> 00:20:56.279 of content. When everything is named the same, 00:20:56.359 --> 00:20:58.720 nothing stands out at all. But there is one exception 00:20:58.720 --> 00:21:01.240 on this list where the generic title is actually 00:21:01.240 --> 00:21:04.200 used in a very powerful metaphorical way. The 00:21:04.200 --> 00:21:07.180 2011 documentary. Heist. Who stole the American 00:21:07.180 --> 00:21:10.589 dream? Now, this film is not about guys in ski 00:21:10.589 --> 00:21:13.769 masks with duffel bags. Not at all. This is a 00:21:13.769 --> 00:21:16.109 serious documentary about the 2008 financial 00:21:16.109 --> 00:21:19.509 crisis. It's about deregulation, corporate lobbying, 00:21:19.750 --> 00:21:23.119 outsourcing, the growing wealth gap. So by using 00:21:23.119 --> 00:21:25.420 the word heist in the title, what are the filmmakers 00:21:25.420 --> 00:21:27.299 doing there? What's the argument they're making? 00:21:27.500 --> 00:21:30.440 They are reframing decades of economic policy 00:21:30.440 --> 00:21:32.859 as a deliberate criminal act. They are saying 00:21:32.859 --> 00:21:35.160 this wasn't an accident. This wasn't just a market 00:21:35.160 --> 00:21:37.400 correction. This was a robbery. It provides a 00:21:37.400 --> 00:21:40.039 villain. A heist needs a perpetrator. If the 00:21:40.039 --> 00:21:42.339 economy just crashed, that's passive. It's like 00:21:42.339 --> 00:21:44.880 a weather event. But if the economy was heisted, 00:21:45.039 --> 00:21:47.000 then someone took it. Someone is responsible. 00:21:47.279 --> 00:21:49.700 Exactly. It uses the deep emotional weight of 00:21:49.700 --> 00:21:52.799 the word, that sense of violation. of unfairness, 00:21:52.859 --> 00:21:55.039 of something being stolen from you, to make a 00:21:55.039 --> 00:21:57.220 very strong political point. It's an incredibly 00:21:57.220 --> 00:21:59.660 powerful rhetorical device. It's amazing that 00:21:59.660 --> 00:22:02.420 one five -letter word can cover Gene Hackman 00:22:02.420 --> 00:22:05.839 in a fedora and a complex documentary about derivatives 00:22:05.839 --> 00:22:07.759 trading. That is the range we're talking about. 00:22:07.920 --> 00:22:10.059 Okay, so let's shift gears from the cinema to 00:22:10.059 --> 00:22:12.720 the living room. Television. The small screen. 00:22:13.099 --> 00:22:15.740 TV loves a heist. I would argue maybe even more 00:22:15.740 --> 00:22:18.299 than movies do. I think that's true. And I think 00:22:18.299 --> 00:22:20.720 it's because of the format. A movie has two hours 00:22:20.720 --> 00:22:23.660 to set the plan and execute it. That's it. A 00:22:23.660 --> 00:22:26.680 TV show has years. Or conversely, it can do a 00:22:26.680 --> 00:22:29.200 heist of the week, the procedural heist. And 00:22:29.200 --> 00:22:32.180 just like with film, we have actual shows named 00:22:32.180 --> 00:22:35.819 heist. There was a U .S. series in 2006 on NBC. 00:22:36.160 --> 00:22:39.019 Which didn't last very long, if I recall. It 00:22:39.019 --> 00:22:40.880 was from the director of Mr. and Mrs. Smith. 00:22:41.000 --> 00:22:43.859 Right. And then a British comedy drama series 00:22:43.859 --> 00:22:47.500 in 2008, also called Heist. The Brits often take 00:22:47.500 --> 00:22:49.299 the caper angle with this stuff. They make it 00:22:49.299 --> 00:22:52.440 funny, a bit shambolic, lovable rogues. Whereas 00:22:52.440 --> 00:22:54.480 the Americans usually go for high -tech, sleek, 00:22:54.599 --> 00:22:57.140 and serious. It's a cultural difference in storytelling. 00:22:57.480 --> 00:23:00.079 But more recently, Netflix did heist in 2021, 00:23:00.460 --> 00:23:02.519 and this wasn't fiction at all. This was true 00:23:02.519 --> 00:23:05.519 crime. Which is, of course, a massive genre right 00:23:05.519 --> 00:23:07.900 now. We are obsessed with true crime. We are. 00:23:08.119 --> 00:23:10.839 And this series looked at real historical heists. 00:23:10.940 --> 00:23:13.740 The sex magic money murder heist. The bourbon 00:23:13.740 --> 00:23:16.660 king heist. The airport robbery. What's interesting 00:23:16.660 --> 00:23:18.940 to me there is the shift in audience perspective. 00:23:19.319 --> 00:23:21.859 It moves from look at how cool these fictional 00:23:21.859 --> 00:23:25.279 robbers are to look at how unbelievably crazy 00:23:25.279 --> 00:23:27.579 these real people were. It grounds the fantasy. 00:23:27.819 --> 00:23:30.880 We realize that real heists are rarely as smooth 00:23:30.880 --> 00:23:33.839 as Ocean's Eleven. They are messy. People make 00:23:33.839 --> 00:23:36.220 stupid mistakes. They get greedy. They get caught. 00:23:36.420 --> 00:23:38.700 It's the human element. Speaking of real people, 00:23:38.859 --> 00:23:41.779 reality TV. Oh, this is a fascinating rabbit 00:23:41.779 --> 00:23:44.099 hole. We have to start with Darren Brown, the 00:23:44.099 --> 00:23:48.079 2006 special. The heist. Darren Brown is a mentalist, 00:23:48.099 --> 00:23:51.160 an illusionist. He plays with psychology. His 00:23:51.160 --> 00:23:53.299 whole thing is showing how easily our minds can 00:23:53.299 --> 00:23:56.000 be manipulated. And his premise for this special 00:23:56.000 --> 00:23:58.740 was just mind -boggling. He asked, can I take 00:23:58.740 --> 00:24:01.980 a group of reputable, middle -managing, law -abiding 00:24:01.980 --> 00:24:04.960 business people? Normal people. And through a 00:24:04.960 --> 00:24:07.000 series of psychological conditioning exercises, 00:24:07.400 --> 00:24:10.180 manipulate them into willingly robbing an armored 00:24:10.180 --> 00:24:13.059 security van with a toy gun. It was a fascinating 00:24:13.059 --> 00:24:15.960 and deeply unsettling experiment. It deconstructed 00:24:15.960 --> 00:24:18.059 the whole idea of the criminal mind. It wasn't 00:24:18.059 --> 00:24:21.880 about greed. No. It was about obedience to authority. 00:24:22.650 --> 00:24:26.650 Social pressure, groupthink. He proved that under 00:24:26.650 --> 00:24:29.250 the right circumstances, being a criminal in 00:24:29.250 --> 00:24:32.349 a heist isn't a personality type. It's a situation 00:24:32.349 --> 00:24:36.630 you're put in. That is terrifying. The idea that 00:24:36.630 --> 00:24:39.349 any of us could be pushed into that. It is, but 00:24:39.349 --> 00:24:41.250 then you have the much more lighthearted version, 00:24:41.450 --> 00:24:44.440 the competition show. Also called a heist, there 00:24:44.440 --> 00:24:47.119 was a British one on Sky One. This is the one 00:24:47.119 --> 00:24:49.380 where a group of regular people are given a pile 00:24:49.380 --> 00:24:51.880 of cash and they have to hide it and evade a 00:24:51.880 --> 00:24:54.359 team of detectives for a few weeks. It's essentially 00:24:54.359 --> 00:24:57.500 cops and robbers for adults played out across 00:24:57.500 --> 00:24:59.880 a whole town. It's the complete gamification 00:24:59.880 --> 00:25:02.369 of crime. Why do we want to watch that? Why do 00:25:02.369 --> 00:25:04.490 we want to watch Gary the accountant try to outrun 00:25:04.490 --> 00:25:06.690 a former police chief in Yorkshire? It's the 00:25:06.690 --> 00:25:09.329 fantasy of competence. We all sit at home and 00:25:09.329 --> 00:25:11.069 like to think, you know what? I could get away 00:25:11.069 --> 00:25:12.730 with it. I'm smarter than these guys. They wouldn't 00:25:12.730 --> 00:25:14.410 have hidden the money in the attic, you rookie. 00:25:14.529 --> 00:25:17.289 That's the first place they look. Exactly. Watching 00:25:17.289 --> 00:25:19.490 these shows allows us to test that hypothesis 00:25:19.490 --> 00:25:22.390 safely from our couch. We become the mastermind 00:25:22.390 --> 00:25:24.930 shouting advice at the screen. That makes perfect 00:25:24.930 --> 00:25:27.569 sense. But beyond the shows that are actually 00:25:27.569 --> 00:25:30.799 named heist, there is. The phenomenon of the 00:25:30.799 --> 00:25:34.240 heist episode. The trope. It's a TV staple. I 00:25:34.240 --> 00:25:36.059 was looking at this list and it is just hilarious 00:25:36.059 --> 00:25:39.059 how widespread it is. The amazing world of Gumball. 00:25:39.200 --> 00:25:42.240 A cartoon. Chowder. Another cartoon. American 00:25:42.240 --> 00:25:45.640 Dragon. Jake Long. A Disney cartoon. Okay, so 00:25:45.640 --> 00:25:49.009 kids shows love it. But then, MacGyver. The Outer 00:25:49.009 --> 00:25:51.930 Limits. There was even an episode of the sports 00:25:51.930 --> 00:25:54.869 documentary series 30 for 30 called It's Not 00:25:54.869 --> 00:25:57.390 Crazy, It's Sports, directed by Errol Morris. 00:25:57.549 --> 00:25:59.829 And the segment about the racehorse Shurgar was 00:25:59.829 --> 00:26:02.289 titled The Heist. It spans every conceivable 00:26:02.289 --> 00:26:05.349 genre, cartoons, sci -fi, action, prestige documentary. 00:26:05.750 --> 00:26:08.210 Why? Why does every writer's room eventually 00:26:08.210 --> 00:26:10.849 at some point in a show's run say, OK, season 00:26:10.849 --> 00:26:13.109 three, episode eight, we're doing a heist? It's 00:26:13.109 --> 00:26:15.589 a structural crutch. And I mean that in a negative 00:26:15.589 --> 00:26:18.750 way. It's a perfect, ready -made. narrative skeleton. 00:26:18.990 --> 00:26:20.849 What do you mean by that? Think about what every 00:26:20.849 --> 00:26:24.450 script needs. It needs a clear goal. We need 00:26:24.450 --> 00:26:27.210 to steal the thing. It needs a team with diverse, 00:26:27.269 --> 00:26:30.009 specialized skills. You're the tech guy. You're 00:26:30.009 --> 00:26:32.490 the smooth talker. It needs a series of obstacles 00:26:32.490 --> 00:26:35.230 to overcome. The lasers, the guards, the vault. 00:26:35.369 --> 00:26:38.170 And it needs a twist. The guy we hired to be 00:26:38.170 --> 00:26:40.990 the muscle was an undercover cop all along. A 00:26:40.990 --> 00:26:43.569 heist plot provides all of that instantly. It's 00:26:43.569 --> 00:26:46.109 a kit. It's a story in a box. So if you have 00:26:46.109 --> 00:26:48.630 a cartoon about a cat and a goldfish -like gumball, 00:26:48.730 --> 00:26:51.009 you give them a target, maybe the cookie jar 00:26:51.009 --> 00:26:52.930 on top of the fridge, you assign them roles, 00:26:53.089 --> 00:26:55.730 and the episode basically writes itself. It forces 00:26:55.730 --> 00:26:57.750 the characters to work together in a new way. 00:26:57.809 --> 00:26:59.849 It highlights their specific skills. It's the 00:26:59.849 --> 00:27:02.750 ultimate ensemble -building exercise for a writing 00:27:02.750 --> 00:27:05.130 staff. Exactly. It's like the beach episode in 00:27:05.130 --> 00:27:07.890 anime or the musical episode in a sitcom. It's 00:27:07.890 --> 00:27:10.269 a format break that everyone understands and 00:27:10.269 --> 00:27:12.569 enjoys. And it allows for parody and homage. 00:27:12.829 --> 00:27:15.809 You can do the split -screen montage of everyone 00:27:15.809 --> 00:27:17.789 getting ready. You can do the slow -motion walk. 00:27:17.990 --> 00:27:19.890 You can do the scene where someone is dangling 00:27:19.890 --> 00:27:22.769 from the ceiling on a wire. It's visually distinct 00:27:22.769 --> 00:27:26.109 and fun to direct. Even MacGyver did it. Although, 00:27:26.170 --> 00:27:29.329 with MacGyver, the heist probably involved stealing 00:27:29.329 --> 00:27:32.170 microfilm using a paperclip, a stick of chewing 00:27:32.170 --> 00:27:35.109 gum, and a broken radio. And a lot of duct tape. 00:27:35.289 --> 00:27:37.329 Right. But the fundamental structure remains 00:27:37.329 --> 00:27:40.680 the same. The heist is a universal language of 00:27:40.680 --> 00:27:43.160 storytelling. Which brings us to the medium where 00:27:43.160 --> 00:27:45.779 you don't just watch the story, you get to play 00:27:45.779 --> 00:27:49.180 it. Video games. The interactive heist. And we 00:27:49.180 --> 00:27:52.980 have to talk about Payday. The heist. 2011. That 00:27:52.980 --> 00:27:55.839 game was massive. It really changed the landscape 00:27:55.839 --> 00:27:58.819 of cooperative online gaming. For sure. Before 00:27:58.819 --> 00:28:00.799 Payday, a lot of first -person shooters were 00:28:00.799 --> 00:28:02.599 just run and gun. You and your friends just kill 00:28:02.599 --> 00:28:05.099 all the bad guys. Payday was completely different. 00:28:05.450 --> 00:28:07.730 It required genuine coordination. It wasn't about 00:28:07.730 --> 00:28:09.849 who had the fastest trigger finger. You had to 00:28:09.849 --> 00:28:12.250 control the civilian crowd. You had to set up 00:28:12.250 --> 00:28:14.710 and defend the drill on the vault. One person 00:28:14.710 --> 00:28:16.930 had to watch the back door, while another person 00:28:16.930 --> 00:28:19.109 bagged the money. If you didn't work together, 00:28:19.329 --> 00:28:22.609 you failed. Immediately. It simulated the stress 00:28:22.609 --> 00:28:25.630 and the teamwork of a heist. I remember playing 00:28:25.630 --> 00:28:27.710 it and literally shouting at my friends through 00:28:27.710 --> 00:28:30.210 the headset, The drill is jammed! Someone needs 00:28:30.210 --> 00:28:33.210 to fix the drill now! That anxiety is part of 00:28:33.210 --> 00:28:35.289 the appeal. It puts you directly in the shoes 00:28:35.289 --> 00:28:37.470 of the robber. It fulfills that fantasy we talked 00:28:37.470 --> 00:28:40.190 about with the reality shows, but in a much more 00:28:40.190 --> 00:28:42.869 visceral first person way. You get the adrenaline 00:28:42.869 --> 00:28:45.450 without the, you know, prison time. The major 00:28:45.450 --> 00:28:48.349 downside of a real heist. There was also. a game 00:28:48.349 --> 00:28:50.509 just called Heist that was supposed to come out 00:28:50.509 --> 00:28:53.650 in 2010 but was canceled. The irony is just palpable. 00:28:53.769 --> 00:28:56.049 The planned heist that never actually went down. 00:28:56.170 --> 00:28:58.869 The rumor has it that the game was just too ambitious. 00:28:58.950 --> 00:29:01.309 They couldn't pull it off. Life imitating art 00:29:01.309 --> 00:29:04.730 in the most meta way possible. It is. But Payday 00:29:04.730 --> 00:29:07.049 proved that the genre works as a game mechanic. 00:29:07.309 --> 00:29:10.009 It spawns sequels. It has a huge community to 00:29:10.009 --> 00:29:13.450 this day. People love that feeling of organized 00:29:13.450 --> 00:29:16.759 chaos. There's that phrase again. Organized chaos. 00:29:17.200 --> 00:29:19.940 That is the absolute core of the heist appeal 00:29:19.940 --> 00:29:23.619 across all media. Now, we can't do a full cultural 00:29:23.619 --> 00:29:25.980 deep dive without talking about music. And you 00:29:25.980 --> 00:29:27.940 might think, heist, that's not a very musical 00:29:27.940 --> 00:29:31.519 concept. But you would be very, very wrong. It 00:29:31.519 --> 00:29:34.799 turns out heist is a surprisingly popular word 00:29:34.799 --> 00:29:37.460 for musicians. The biggest one, the unavoidable 00:29:37.460 --> 00:29:41.119 one, is Macklemore and Ryan Lewis. The album 00:29:41.119 --> 00:29:45.099 The Heist. 2012. The album that had thrift shop. 00:29:45.470 --> 00:29:48.190 and can't hold us it was a cultural juggernaut 00:29:48.190 --> 00:29:50.650 it was everywhere it was so why call the album 00:29:50.650 --> 00:29:52.829 the heist there are no songs on it about robbing 00:29:52.829 --> 00:29:55.049 banks no but think about their narrative at the 00:29:55.049 --> 00:29:57.759 time They were independent artists. They didn't 00:29:57.759 --> 00:29:59.940 have a major label backing them when they made 00:29:59.940 --> 00:30:01.880 that record. They broke into the mainstream. 00:30:02.119 --> 00:30:05.180 They won Grammys. They dominated the radio, all 00:30:05.180 --> 00:30:07.500 without the traditional industry machine. So 00:30:07.500 --> 00:30:10.019 they heisted the industry. They stole the spotlight. 00:30:10.279 --> 00:30:12.940 Exactly. They took the fame, the chart positions, 00:30:13.099 --> 00:30:15.240 and the accolades that were supposed to go to 00:30:15.240 --> 00:30:17.859 the manufactured pop stars, signed to multimillion 00:30:17.859 --> 00:30:21.160 -dollar deals. The title is a statement of intent. 00:30:21.789 --> 00:30:24.490 It's a mission statement. We are here to take 00:30:24.490 --> 00:30:26.869 what's ours. That is a really cool interpretation. 00:30:26.990 --> 00:30:29.509 It totally recontextualizes the whole album. 00:30:29.630 --> 00:30:32.410 It adds that layer of rebellion, of being the 00:30:32.410 --> 00:30:35.150 underdog who outsmarted the system. We also have 00:30:35.150 --> 00:30:37.490 individual songs. Lindsey Stirling has a track 00:30:37.490 --> 00:30:40.410 called Heist. The dubstep violinist. Which is 00:30:40.410 --> 00:30:42.390 a phrase that would have made absolutely no sense 00:30:42.390 --> 00:30:45.950 to anyone in 1990. The what now? Her music is 00:30:45.950 --> 00:30:49.009 incredibly high energy. It's frantic. It's precise. 00:30:49.210 --> 00:30:52.369 The title, Heist, just fits that vibe perfectly. 00:30:52.569 --> 00:30:54.829 It sounds like the soundtrack to a chase scene. 00:30:55.029 --> 00:30:58.730 Fast -paced, intricate, exciting. And then on 00:30:58.730 --> 00:31:01.410 the complete other end of the spectrum, Ben Folds. 00:31:01.430 --> 00:31:04.009 Heist from the Over the Hedge soundtrack. Right. 00:31:04.089 --> 00:31:07.349 Over the Hedge. The animated movie about a raccoon, 00:31:07.509 --> 00:31:09.910 a turtle, and a squirrel stealing chips and cookies 00:31:09.910 --> 00:31:12.380 from a suburban housing development. So this 00:31:12.380 --> 00:31:14.660 is the most literal use of the word in music. 00:31:14.980 --> 00:31:18.400 It's a fun, quirky, piano -driven song about 00:31:18.400 --> 00:31:20.380 a group of animals committing a burglary for 00:31:20.380 --> 00:31:22.900 junk food. It is easily the cutest heist on our 00:31:22.900 --> 00:31:25.039 entire list. But look at that range again. We 00:31:25.039 --> 00:31:27.619 have Macklemore's anti -establishment swagger, 00:31:27.819 --> 00:31:30.160 Lindsey Stirling's electronic intensity, and 00:31:30.160 --> 00:31:32.940 Ben Fold's whimsical, family -friendly storytelling. 00:31:33.220 --> 00:31:35.539 The word heist fits all of them. It's a chameleon 00:31:35.539 --> 00:31:38.180 word. It adapts to the container you put it in. 00:31:38.880 --> 00:31:41.339 It can be serious. It can be intense. It can 00:31:41.339 --> 00:31:43.599 be funny. We also have to mention literature 00:31:43.599 --> 00:31:48.079 quickly. Daniel Silva, The Heist. 2014, part 00:31:48.079 --> 00:31:51.640 of the Gabriel Allen series. Spy thrillers, international 00:31:51.640 --> 00:31:56.539 intrigue, art restoration. And again, it's using 00:31:56.539 --> 00:31:58.779 the title to signal the genre loud and clear. 00:31:59.279 --> 00:32:01.680 If you buy a book called The Heist at the airport 00:32:01.680 --> 00:32:03.900 newsstand, you know exactly what you were getting 00:32:03.900 --> 00:32:06.069 for your six -hour flight. It's a promise of 00:32:06.069 --> 00:32:08.730 adrenaline and a fast -paced plot. Job done. 00:32:09.410 --> 00:32:11.170 So we've covered the globe. We've covered the 00:32:11.170 --> 00:32:12.829 library. We've covered the cinema and the living 00:32:12.829 --> 00:32:14.630 room. I want to bring it back to where we started 00:32:14.630 --> 00:32:16.529 for a full circle moment. The connection between 00:32:16.529 --> 00:32:19.309 the geography and the culture. The grand unified 00:32:19.309 --> 00:32:21.589 theory of heist. Exactly. We talked about that 00:32:21.589 --> 00:32:24.329 town in Belgium, Heistoptenburg. Yes, heist on 00:32:24.329 --> 00:32:26.190 the hill. And we talked about how the English 00:32:26.190 --> 00:32:29.210 word heist implies a team, an organized group 00:32:29.210 --> 00:32:31.490 working together. Yes, that's crucial to the 00:32:31.490 --> 00:32:33.269 definition. Well, in the town of Heistoptenburg, 00:32:33.369 --> 00:32:36.569 there is a professional football club, a soccer 00:32:36.569 --> 00:32:40.670 team. KSK Heist. A team from the place named 00:32:40.670 --> 00:32:43.210 Heist. It's the perfect synthesis of everything 00:32:43.210 --> 00:32:45.750 we've talked about. Can you imagine? Do you think 00:32:45.750 --> 00:32:50.029 their fans chant, Heist? Heist! Heist! From the 00:32:50.029 --> 00:32:52.390 stands, because that would sound fairly intimidating 00:32:52.390 --> 00:32:54.430 to the visiting team. It would sound like a command 00:32:54.430 --> 00:32:56.650 to go rob the concession stand. The referee blows 00:32:56.650 --> 00:33:00.349 the whistle. Ref, he stole the ball! What did 00:33:00.349 --> 00:33:03.940 you expect? The team is called Heist. It really 00:33:03.940 --> 00:33:06.119 does tie it all together, though. It shows that 00:33:06.119 --> 00:33:09.720 this five -letter word is woven into the fabric 00:33:09.720 --> 00:33:12.500 of daily life in that region, just as deeply 00:33:12.500 --> 00:33:14.900 as it's woven into our pop culture fantasies, 00:33:14.900 --> 00:33:17.940 two completely separate, parallel evolutions 00:33:17.940 --> 00:33:19.980 of the same word. It has been quite a journey 00:33:19.980 --> 00:33:22.740 through five letters. It really has. We started 00:33:22.740 --> 00:33:25.440 with a dry technical definition of institutional 00:33:25.440 --> 00:33:28.460 robbery. We ended up with Belgian soccer chants. 00:33:28.720 --> 00:33:31.309 We visited the botanical gardens of the... 1700s 00:33:31.309 --> 00:33:33.890 with Lorenz Heister. We watched Pierce Brosnan 00:33:33.890 --> 00:33:36.990 basically audition for James Bond. We analyzed 00:33:36.990 --> 00:33:39.750 the bizarre marketing failures of 2001. We looked 00:33:39.750 --> 00:33:41.950 at how Macklemore used the word to declare war 00:33:41.950 --> 00:33:44.450 on the music industry and how Darren Brown used 00:33:44.450 --> 00:33:47.049 it to expose the fragility of human psychology. 00:33:47.369 --> 00:33:51.430 It's exhaustive. The word is everywhere. So if 00:33:51.430 --> 00:33:54.990 we step back, if we look at this huge, chaotic 00:33:54.990 --> 00:33:58.630 mosaic we've built, what is the big takeaway? 00:33:58.789 --> 00:34:01.740 What is the theory of Heist? I think heist is 00:34:01.740 --> 00:34:04.440 a word that vibrates. It has an inherent energy. 00:34:04.680 --> 00:34:07.000 Whether it's a film genre, a place name that 00:34:07.000 --> 00:34:10.420 sounds strange to us, or a song title, it implies 00:34:10.420 --> 00:34:13.239 action. It implies a break in the status quo. 00:34:13.380 --> 00:34:15.320 A break in the status quo. I really like that 00:34:15.320 --> 00:34:17.679 phrasing. A robbery breaks the social contract 00:34:17.679 --> 00:34:21.079 and the law. A municipality in Germany named 00:34:21.079 --> 00:34:23.579 Heist breaks the expectation of the English speaker. 00:34:23.920 --> 00:34:26.559 A movie named Heist breaks the boredom of a Friday 00:34:26.559 --> 00:34:28.940 night. It's a disruptor word. And it's a word 00:34:28.940 --> 00:34:31.300 that cuts through the noise. In a world of just 00:34:31.300 --> 00:34:33.539 constant information overload you need words 00:34:33.539 --> 00:34:36.099 that snap. Heist snaps. It does. It grabs you 00:34:36.099 --> 00:34:38.420 by the lapels and demands your attention. I honestly 00:34:38.420 --> 00:34:39.960 don't think I'll ever be able to look at that 00:34:39.960 --> 00:34:41.679 word the same way again. I'll see it on a movie 00:34:41.679 --> 00:34:43.659 poster and I'll immediately think of Al Heist 00:34:43.659 --> 00:34:45.719 stealing second base for the Chicago Cubs. Or 00:34:45.719 --> 00:34:48.460 the quiet green hills of Schleswig -Holstein 00:34:48.460 --> 00:34:51.340 in Germany. Exactly. So that is our challenge 00:34:51.340 --> 00:34:54.679 to you, the listener. The next time you see or 00:34:54.679 --> 00:34:56.599 hear the word heist, and now that we've done 00:34:56.599 --> 00:34:59.340 this, you will probably in the next 24 hours, 00:34:59.360 --> 00:35:02.019 thanks to the bottom Meinhof phenomenon. You'll 00:35:02.019 --> 00:35:04.440 see it everywhere. Don't just glaze over it. 00:35:04.460 --> 00:35:06.960 Stop for a second. Ask the question. Ask yourself, 00:35:07.239 --> 00:35:12.159 are we talking about a bank vault, a Belgian 00:35:12.159 --> 00:35:16.380 football team, a German town, a Dutch fashion 00:35:16.380 --> 00:35:19.840 designer, or a genus of tropical plants? Context 00:35:19.840 --> 00:35:22.039 is key. Context is absolutely everything. Thank 00:35:22.039 --> 00:35:23.940 you so much for joining us on this deep dive. 00:35:24.079 --> 00:35:26.360 It's been a blast unpacking this with you. Always 00:35:26.360 --> 00:35:27.679 a pleasure. We'll see you in the next one.