WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.319 Welcome back to The Deep Dive. We are so glad 00:00:02.319 --> 00:00:04.320 to have you here. It's good to be back. You know, 00:00:04.339 --> 00:00:06.080 usually when we sit down for one of these, the 00:00:06.080 --> 00:00:09.960 topic is, well, it's huge. It's sprawling. Oh, 00:00:09.980 --> 00:00:12.820 yeah. World -spanning stuff. Exactly. We'll be 00:00:12.820 --> 00:00:15.220 looking at something like... You know, the collapse 00:00:15.220 --> 00:00:18.760 of the Bronze Age or the the intricacies of black 00:00:18.760 --> 00:00:21.539 hole thermodynamics. The history of global trade 00:00:21.539 --> 00:00:24.120 routes. Big, big picture topics. Things that 00:00:24.120 --> 00:00:26.079 take up a lot of mental real estate, as they 00:00:26.079 --> 00:00:29.019 say. But today. Today is different. Today we 00:00:29.019 --> 00:00:31.100 are doing something completely different. We're 00:00:31.100 --> 00:00:34.820 sort of. Inverting the telescope, we are zooming 00:00:34.820 --> 00:00:38.240 in. Way in. Way, way in on just a single word. 00:00:38.399 --> 00:00:41.219 Just one word, six letters. And the word is tenant. 00:00:41.579 --> 00:00:43.979 Tenant. And I can almost hear the listener right 00:00:43.979 --> 00:00:46.759 now. I can feel the skepticism radiating through 00:00:46.759 --> 00:00:49.259 the headphones. They're probably thinking, okay, 00:00:49.340 --> 00:00:53.780 really? An hour on rent checks. Are we going 00:00:53.780 --> 00:00:56.259 to talk about security deposits and arguing with 00:00:56.259 --> 00:00:58.439 your landlord about a leaky faucet? Which is 00:00:58.439 --> 00:01:00.939 a completely natural reaction. I get it. It sounds... 00:01:02.030 --> 00:01:05.510 It feels like paperwork. It feels like that thing 00:01:05.510 --> 00:01:07.469 you have to deal with on the first of the month. 00:01:07.569 --> 00:01:09.069 And then you just try to forget about it for 00:01:09.069 --> 00:01:11.250 the next 29 days. Right. It feels like a chore, 00:01:11.430 --> 00:01:13.549 an obligation. But here's the thing. And this 00:01:13.549 --> 00:01:15.129 is why I got so excited when I started digging 00:01:15.129 --> 00:01:17.530 into the sources for this one. When you actually 00:01:17.530 --> 00:01:22.189 peel back the layers of this word, it's something 00:01:22.189 --> 00:01:25.370 else entirely. It really is. We're using the 00:01:25.370 --> 00:01:28.530 Wikipedia disambiguation pages, our map today. 00:01:28.810 --> 00:01:31.219 And you realize that... Renting an apartment 00:01:31.219 --> 00:01:34.140 is just the absolute teeniest tip of the iceberg. 00:01:34.299 --> 00:01:35.939 It's the surface level. It's what we all know. 00:01:36.060 --> 00:01:38.799 But underneath that, the concept of the tenant, 00:01:39.000 --> 00:01:43.170 it's massive. It's ancient. It is. I was honestly 00:01:43.170 --> 00:01:45.569 shocked by the sheer variety of definitions we 00:01:45.569 --> 00:01:47.930 found. I mean, we go from feudal law in the Middle 00:01:47.930 --> 00:01:50.870 Ages to the architecture of modern shopping malls 00:01:50.870 --> 00:01:53.870 to the way we build software in the cloud. And 00:01:53.870 --> 00:01:56.189 then somehow it takes a hard left turn straight 00:01:56.189 --> 00:01:59.430 into psychological thrillers and modern cinema. 00:01:59.469 --> 00:02:02.370 It is a journey. And what's so fascinating to 00:02:02.370 --> 00:02:04.469 me is that while all these things seem totally 00:02:04.469 --> 00:02:07.430 disconnected, I mean, what does a medieval farmer 00:02:07.430 --> 00:02:10.919 have in common with... A piece of software code. 00:02:11.139 --> 00:02:12.900 Right. Nothing on the surface. But they're actually 00:02:12.900 --> 00:02:15.300 operating on the exact same fundamental logic, 00:02:15.379 --> 00:02:18.379 the same core principle. So, OK, that is our 00:02:18.379 --> 00:02:20.919 mission for this deep dive. We're going to explore 00:02:20.919 --> 00:02:24.580 how this single label tenant applies to farmers 00:02:24.580 --> 00:02:27.840 and lawyers and digital users. And yes, even 00:02:27.840 --> 00:02:30.099 a horror movie protagonists. We're going to find 00:02:30.099 --> 00:02:32.180 the connective tissue. We are. We're going to 00:02:32.180 --> 00:02:34.139 figure out why we use the same word for all of 00:02:34.139 --> 00:02:35.960 these people and all of these things. And, you 00:02:35.960 --> 00:02:38.830 know, if I had to give. a high -level synthesis 00:02:38.830 --> 00:02:41.030 right at the top, just to sort of frame the whole 00:02:41.030 --> 00:02:43.689 conversation. Yeah, please. It's this. The concept 00:02:43.689 --> 00:02:47.250 of a tenant is, at its heart, about holding or 00:02:47.250 --> 00:02:50.069 occupying a space. That's the key verb, to hold. 00:02:50.189 --> 00:02:52.169 Hold, bang. But, and this is the part that defines 00:02:52.169 --> 00:02:55.030 everything, you're holding it without owning 00:02:55.030 --> 00:02:57.370 the underlying structure. Holding without owning. 00:02:57.449 --> 00:02:59.330 Okay, that's the core DNA right there. That's 00:02:59.330 --> 00:03:01.729 it, in a nutshell. And it doesn't matter if that 00:03:01.729 --> 00:03:04.930 space is a physical plot of land with, you know, 00:03:04.949 --> 00:03:08.949 doot and grass. or a legal status in a courtroom 00:03:10.199 --> 00:03:13.219 Or even a virtual slot on a server farm in some 00:03:13.219 --> 00:03:15.379 data center in Virginia. You are the occupant. 00:03:15.419 --> 00:03:17.400 You're the occupant. You're not the creator and 00:03:17.400 --> 00:03:19.259 you are not the owner of the foundation. And 00:03:19.259 --> 00:03:22.099 that dynamic, that little gap between occupant 00:03:22.099 --> 00:03:24.379 and owner, that's where all the interesting stuff 00:03:24.379 --> 00:03:26.000 happens. That's where it all comes from. It creates 00:03:26.000 --> 00:03:28.759 economic value, for sure. Yeah. But it also creates 00:03:28.759 --> 00:03:31.199 tension. It creates drama. It creates vulnerability. 00:03:31.300 --> 00:03:33.879 It creates a huge amount of vulnerability. And 00:03:33.879 --> 00:03:35.879 as we're going to see when we get into the arts 00:03:35.879 --> 00:03:38.919 and film, vulnerability is, well, it's a fantastic 00:03:38.919 --> 00:03:41.469 engine. for storytelling. We are definitely going 00:03:41.469 --> 00:03:43.370 to get to the drama. We've got anchor tenants 00:03:43.370 --> 00:03:46.310 going head to head with tenant farmers. And we 00:03:46.310 --> 00:03:48.870 have a shocking number of films that are all 00:03:48.870 --> 00:03:51.969 titled simply tenant. Yeah, that list is something 00:03:51.969 --> 00:03:53.909 else. It really is. But let's start where the 00:03:53.909 --> 00:03:56.310 word is most at home. Let's start in the physical 00:03:56.310 --> 00:04:00.650 world, real estate and and land law. The bedrock 00:04:00.650 --> 00:04:03.030 definition. This is ground zero for the word. 00:04:03.389 --> 00:04:06.469 OK, so our source material starts with the primary 00:04:06.469 --> 00:04:08.909 definition that, you know, we all. Basically, 00:04:08.909 --> 00:04:12.669 no. A tenant is the holder of a leasehold estate 00:04:12.669 --> 00:04:16.389 in real estate. Now, I want to pause on that 00:04:16.389 --> 00:04:19.569 phrase right away. Leasehold estate. It sounds 00:04:19.569 --> 00:04:22.009 incredibly fancy, doesn't it? It sounds like 00:04:22.009 --> 00:04:23.790 something out of a Dickens novel. Like you should 00:04:23.790 --> 00:04:26.170 be wearing a powdered wig to discuss it. Right. 00:04:26.209 --> 00:04:27.870 It sounds like I should have a monocle and a 00:04:27.870 --> 00:04:30.459 top hat. But what does that actually mean? Why 00:04:30.459 --> 00:04:33.120 not just say renter? Why holder of a leasehold 00:04:33.120 --> 00:04:36.540 estate? Well, because words matter, especially 00:04:36.540 --> 00:04:40.379 in law. An estate is a very specific legal concept. 00:04:40.620 --> 00:04:43.959 It's not just a place. A leasehold estate means 00:04:43.959 --> 00:04:46.199 you aren't just staying somewhere temporarily. 00:04:46.579 --> 00:04:49.889 You hold an estate. In the eyes of the law, for 00:04:49.889 --> 00:04:52.670 the duration of that lease, you possess a valid 00:04:52.670 --> 00:04:55.370 defendable interest in that property. An interest. 00:04:55.449 --> 00:04:57.069 So it's more than just permission to be there. 00:04:57.189 --> 00:04:59.370 Much more. For the duration of my lease, let's 00:04:59.370 --> 00:05:01.850 say it's one year, I actually own a slice of 00:05:01.850 --> 00:05:04.730 time in that property. You own the time. I like 00:05:04.730 --> 00:05:08.750 that. You own the time. And with that comes the... 00:05:09.419 --> 00:05:12.139 Right to exclusive possession. That's the magic 00:05:12.139 --> 00:05:14.459 phrase. You can lock the door. You can keep people 00:05:14.459 --> 00:05:16.779 out. Even the landlord. Even the landlord in 00:05:16.779 --> 00:05:19.199 most cases, unless there's a genuine emergency 00:05:19.199 --> 00:05:21.519 or they've given you proper notice, you have 00:05:21.519 --> 00:05:23.839 dominion over the space. But only temporarily. 00:05:24.220 --> 00:05:26.060 But only temporarily. That's the leasehold part. 00:05:26.220 --> 00:05:29.379 Your estate has an expiration date. Which, okay, 00:05:29.480 --> 00:05:31.379 that leads directly to the next term, the source 00:05:31.379 --> 00:05:35.139 lists, which is tenancy. And it's defined simply 00:05:35.139 --> 00:05:38.660 as the resulting status. Yes. And I think... 00:05:38.910 --> 00:05:40.910 It's actually worth pulling those two apart for 00:05:40.910 --> 00:05:42.389 a second. Why do we have two different words 00:05:42.389 --> 00:05:44.449 there? You have the tenant and the tenancy. It 00:05:44.449 --> 00:05:46.269 seems like a minor grammatical thing, right? 00:05:46.589 --> 00:05:49.470 One is the person, one is the condition. But 00:05:49.470 --> 00:05:51.149 you're saying there's more to it. I think there 00:05:51.149 --> 00:05:54.050 is, yeah. The tenant is the person, the actor. 00:05:54.509 --> 00:05:57.410 It's the human being with a heartbeat who signs 00:05:57.410 --> 00:05:59.949 the paper and moves their couch in. Okay. The 00:05:59.949 --> 00:06:02.769 tenancy is the status. It's the legal condition 00:06:02.769 --> 00:06:05.439 of being a tenant. It's the abstract concept. 00:06:05.680 --> 00:06:08.120 So it separates the individual from the legal 00:06:08.120 --> 00:06:12.480 situation. Exactly. The tenancy is like a legal 00:06:12.480 --> 00:06:15.139 container. It's a framework that exists independently 00:06:15.139 --> 00:06:17.699 of you. You step into the tenancy, you occupy 00:06:17.699 --> 00:06:20.259 it for a while, and then eventually you step 00:06:20.259 --> 00:06:22.399 out of it. And someone else steps in. Someone 00:06:22.399 --> 00:06:24.579 else steps in. But the framework, the container 00:06:24.579 --> 00:06:27.480 itself, remains. That makes you feel a little 00:06:27.480 --> 00:06:30.040 bit... I don't know, interchangeable. Like the 00:06:30.040 --> 00:06:32.699 apartment is the prominent thing. The lease is 00:06:32.699 --> 00:06:34.819 the permanent structure. And we are just these 00:06:34.819 --> 00:06:37.180 temporary figures passing through. That is the 00:06:37.180 --> 00:06:40.439 quiet existential dread of renting, isn't it? 00:06:40.540 --> 00:06:43.000 I guess it is. You are a temporary component 00:06:43.000 --> 00:06:45.879 in a permanent structure. Your name is just written 00:06:45.879 --> 00:06:48.660 in pencil on the mailbox. Now, if we want to 00:06:48.660 --> 00:06:52.079 talk about permanent structures and deep hierarchies, 00:06:52.100 --> 00:06:55.180 the source takes a turn here that I absolutely 00:06:55.180 --> 00:06:58.420 was not expecting. Ah, yes. Here we go. It lists 00:06:58.420 --> 00:07:00.839 tenant in chief. Now we're traveling back in 00:07:00.839 --> 00:07:03.160 time. Buckle up. Tenant in chief. The context 00:07:03.160 --> 00:07:05.860 provided is feudal land law. We're going way 00:07:05.860 --> 00:07:08.500 back. We're talking Middle Ages. It just sounds 00:07:08.500 --> 00:07:12.180 so archaic. Yeah. But also kind of powerful. 00:07:12.259 --> 00:07:14.819 Like, I am the tenant in chief. It doesn't sound 00:07:14.819 --> 00:07:16.000 like someone who's worried about their pipes 00:07:16.000 --> 00:07:18.540 freezing. No, it certainly doesn't. And that's 00:07:18.540 --> 00:07:21.620 because in the context of feudalism, the tenant 00:07:21.620 --> 00:07:24.759 in chief was an incredibly big deal. But to really 00:07:24.759 --> 00:07:27.300 get it, you have to sort of rewire your brain 00:07:27.300 --> 00:07:30.579 about what owning land even means. OK, lay it 00:07:30.579 --> 00:07:33.939 out for us. How did feudal land law work? All 00:07:33.939 --> 00:07:37.000 right. So in a modern democracy. You can go buy 00:07:37.000 --> 00:07:38.959 a piece of land. You get a deed. You register 00:07:38.959 --> 00:07:41.100 it with the government and you own it. It's called 00:07:41.100 --> 00:07:43.420 a lodeal title and legal jargon, but basically 00:07:43.420 --> 00:07:46.139 it's yours. Right. Free and clear. In a feudal 00:07:46.139 --> 00:07:48.680 system, particularly in England, after the Norman 00:07:48.680 --> 00:07:52.079 conquest in 1066, that concept just didn't exist. 00:07:52.379 --> 00:07:55.439 There was only one true owner of all land. Who 00:07:55.439 --> 00:07:57.720 was it? The king. The sovereign. The sovereign. 00:07:57.839 --> 00:08:00.100 The crown. Technically, from the top of the highest 00:08:00.100 --> 00:08:02.240 mountain to the mud in the lowest ditch, all 00:08:02.240 --> 00:08:04.860 land belonged to the king. So nobody else could 00:08:04.860 --> 00:08:07.540 actually own land in that absolute sense. Nobody. 00:08:07.579 --> 00:08:09.360 You could only hold it from the king. Everyone 00:08:09.360 --> 00:08:12.120 was, in effect, a tenant. So even the powerful 00:08:12.120 --> 00:08:15.019 dukes and the earls, they were just renting from 00:08:15.019 --> 00:08:17.240 the crown. Effectively, yes. That's the perfect 00:08:17.240 --> 00:08:19.480 way to put it. And a tenant -in -chief was a 00:08:19.480 --> 00:08:23.180 powerful baron or a high -ranking lord who held 00:08:23.180 --> 00:08:25.379 their land directly from the king. They were 00:08:25.379 --> 00:08:27.500 at the very top of the feudal pyramid, right 00:08:27.500 --> 00:08:30.199 below the monarch. So in this context, tenant 00:08:30.199 --> 00:08:33.539 isn't about being powerless. It actually implies 00:08:33.539 --> 00:08:36.019 a direct connection to the ultimate source of 00:08:36.019 --> 00:08:39.720 power. A direct connection, yes. But, and this 00:08:39.720 --> 00:08:41.679 is the absolute key to the whole feudal system, 00:08:41.860 --> 00:08:45.460 it also implies obligation. Oh, okay. The rent. 00:08:45.659 --> 00:08:47.720 The rent. But you weren't paying your rent in 00:08:47.720 --> 00:08:50.440 cash or, you know, with a check. You were paying 00:08:50.440 --> 00:08:52.759 rent in service. Military service, I'm guessing? 00:08:53.039 --> 00:08:55.139 Primarily military service. It was called knight 00:08:55.139 --> 00:08:58.080 service. If the king decided to go to war with 00:08:58.080 --> 00:09:00.600 France, the tenant -in -chief had an obligation 00:09:00.600 --> 00:09:03.240 to provide a certain number of knights, fully 00:09:03.240 --> 00:09:05.980 armed and ready to fight for, say, 40 days a 00:09:05.980 --> 00:09:08.460 year. So that was the rent. A squadron of knights. 00:09:08.700 --> 00:09:11.179 That was the rent, or it could be council or 00:09:11.179 --> 00:09:13.659 political loyalty. But if you failed to pay that 00:09:13.659 --> 00:09:16.259 rent, if you committed treason or refused the 00:09:16.259 --> 00:09:19.240 call to arms, you could be evicted. Evicted from 00:09:19.240 --> 00:09:21.659 your lordship? I mean, that is a high -stakes 00:09:21.659 --> 00:09:24.120 eviction notice. The highest stakes imaginable. 00:09:24.139 --> 00:09:26.320 You don't just lose the land, you lose the title, 00:09:26.440 --> 00:09:29.259 the power, and in all likelihood, you probably 00:09:29.259 --> 00:09:31.799 lose your head. It's just a wild shift in perspective. 00:09:32.379 --> 00:09:35.440 We usually associate the word tenant with being 00:09:35.440 --> 00:09:37.419 somewhere on the lower rungs of the economic 00:09:37.419 --> 00:09:40.980 ladder. But here, the tenant is the lord of the 00:09:40.980 --> 00:09:43.559 man. It just shows that tenancy is always relative. 00:09:43.639 --> 00:09:46.120 It just depends on who is above you in the chain. 00:09:46.340 --> 00:09:49.720 In a feudal system, everyone is a tenant to someone 00:09:49.720 --> 00:09:52.100 all the way up to the king, who is arguably a 00:09:52.100 --> 00:09:54.679 tenant to God. That is actually pretty profound. 00:09:55.000 --> 00:09:58.139 We're all just holding space for someone. Or 00:09:58.139 --> 00:10:00.419 something higher up the chain. Exactly. The whole 00:10:00.419 --> 00:10:03.080 world is a leasehold estate. Now, speaking of 00:10:03.080 --> 00:10:05.240 words that have kind of shifted meaning dramatically 00:10:05.240 --> 00:10:09.940 over time, the source also lists tenement with 00:10:09.940 --> 00:10:12.799 a specific note. Tenement law. This is a good 00:10:12.799 --> 00:10:14.440 one. It is. Because I have to be honest, when 00:10:14.440 --> 00:10:17.320 I see the word tenement, I have a very, very 00:10:17.320 --> 00:10:19.580 specific image that pops into my head. Let me 00:10:19.580 --> 00:10:22.159 guess. Lower East Side, New York City, turn of 00:10:22.159 --> 00:10:25.159 the century. 100%. I'm picturing those old black 00:10:25.159 --> 00:10:27.559 and white photos by Jacob Rees. I'm picturing 00:10:27.559 --> 00:10:30.360 crowded rooms, laundry lines strung between buildings, 00:10:30.519 --> 00:10:33.500 maybe not the best sanitation. Right. In our 00:10:33.500 --> 00:10:36.940 common modern usage, tenement has become almost 00:10:36.940 --> 00:10:41.700 synonymous with slum or at best low income, somewhat 00:10:41.700 --> 00:10:44.720 dilapidated housing. It has a very negative connotation. 00:10:44.799 --> 00:10:47.460 But the legal definition provided in the source 00:10:47.460 --> 00:10:49.720 is completely different. It's almost shockingly 00:10:49.720 --> 00:10:53.379 neutral. It defines tenement as essentially that 00:10:53.379 --> 00:10:56.679 which is held. Exactly. Or any property that 00:10:56.679 --> 00:10:58.580 can be held. That which is held. It all goes 00:10:58.580 --> 00:11:01.000 back to the Latin root, tenere, which simply 00:11:01.000 --> 00:11:04.279 means to hold. So in the pure original eyes of 00:11:04.279 --> 00:11:07.299 the law, a tenement is just any kind of property 00:11:07.299 --> 00:11:09.899 interest that you hold. It could be land, a building, 00:11:10.139 --> 00:11:12.720 an office, even an intangible right attached 00:11:12.720 --> 00:11:15.879 to land. But wait a minute. Technically, a billionaire's 00:11:15.879 --> 00:11:18.919 penthouse apartment on Park Avenue is... Legally 00:11:18.919 --> 00:11:21.320 speaking, a tenement. Legally speaking, yes. 00:11:21.460 --> 00:11:23.639 It is a tenement. It is a holding of real estate. 00:11:23.740 --> 00:11:26.220 A castle is a tenement. A factory is a tenement. 00:11:26.340 --> 00:11:29.320 That is fascinating. So how on earth did we get 00:11:29.320 --> 00:11:33.220 from this broad, neutral, legal term, any property 00:11:33.220 --> 00:11:37.100 holding, to the very specific negative image 00:11:37.100 --> 00:11:40.450 of a dilapidated urban apartment building? It's 00:11:40.450 --> 00:11:43.009 a classic linguistic process. It's often called 00:11:43.009 --> 00:11:46.049 semantic narrowing, or in this case, peduration, 00:11:46.309 --> 00:11:49.929 where a word takes on a more negative meaning 00:11:49.929 --> 00:11:52.899 over time. It got worse. It got worse. The word 00:11:52.899 --> 00:11:55.379 started out broad and neutral. But then during 00:11:55.379 --> 00:11:57.279 the Industrial Revolution, people started using 00:11:57.279 --> 00:12:00.600 it specifically to describe these massive new 00:12:00.600 --> 00:12:03.279 multifamily rental buildings that were springing 00:12:03.279 --> 00:12:06.179 up in cities to house factory workers. And because 00:12:06.179 --> 00:12:07.899 those buildings were often built cheaply, they 00:12:07.899 --> 00:12:11.019 were overcrowded, they were unsanitary. The word 00:12:11.019 --> 00:12:12.980 tenement started to absorb the characteristics 00:12:12.980 --> 00:12:15.139 of the thing it was describing. So the word itself 00:12:15.139 --> 00:12:17.179 got dirty. The word got dirty. It absorbed the 00:12:17.179 --> 00:12:19.279 poverty, the struggle. But the original legal 00:12:19.279 --> 00:12:21.620 definition remained pure, just locked away in 00:12:21.620 --> 00:12:23.559 law books. It's still just about the fundamental 00:12:23.559 --> 00:12:26.460 concept of holding. I love that. It really is 00:12:26.460 --> 00:12:28.960 like verbal archaeology. You're digging down 00:12:28.960 --> 00:12:31.159 through the layers of slang and common usage 00:12:31.159 --> 00:12:34.059 to find the original clean meaning of the word. 00:12:34.200 --> 00:12:36.600 And when you find it, it helps you see the world 00:12:36.600 --> 00:12:39.559 and the law a little more clearly. Okay. Let's 00:12:39.559 --> 00:12:42.200 move from the purely legal abstracts to more 00:12:42.200 --> 00:12:45.779 concrete economic roles. Because the source lists 00:12:45.779 --> 00:12:48.879 two types of tenants here that on the surface 00:12:48.879 --> 00:12:51.220 seem like total opposites, but they share that 00:12:51.220 --> 00:12:53.440 same label. I want to put them in the ring together 00:12:53.440 --> 00:12:55.340 and see what happens. I like this. Which ones 00:12:55.340 --> 00:12:56.799 are you looking at? I'm looking at the tenant 00:12:56.799 --> 00:12:59.740 farmer and the anchor tenant. Oh, that is a brilliant 00:12:59.740 --> 00:13:03.120 contrast. Yes. The rural past and the retail 00:13:03.120 --> 00:13:05.100 present. Let's start with the tenant farmer. 00:13:05.299 --> 00:13:08.450 The definition is simple and stark. A farmer 00:13:08.450 --> 00:13:11.330 residing on land owned by another. This is one 00:13:11.330 --> 00:13:14.090 of the oldest and most common forms of tenancy 00:13:14.090 --> 00:13:16.230 in all of human history, right up there with 00:13:16.230 --> 00:13:19.950 just renting a room. It feels very earthy, very 00:13:19.950 --> 00:13:22.129 fundamental. You are literally working the soil. 00:13:22.370 --> 00:13:25.110 You live where you work. Your whole life is tied 00:13:25.110 --> 00:13:28.570 to this specific plot of land. But you don't 00:13:28.570 --> 00:13:30.970 own the dirt under your boots. And that's the 00:13:30.970 --> 00:13:33.809 rub. That is the crucial tension of the tenant 00:13:33.809 --> 00:13:36.700 farmer. You have to think about the psychology 00:13:36.700 --> 00:13:39.440 of that for a moment. You are the one pouring 00:13:39.440 --> 00:13:42.100 your sweat, your labor, your knowledge into that 00:13:42.100 --> 00:13:44.259 land. You are the one making it bloom. You're 00:13:44.259 --> 00:13:46.980 the one generating all the value, the crops, 00:13:47.059 --> 00:13:50.120 the livestock. But the ultimate profit, or more 00:13:50.120 --> 00:13:53.159 importantly, the long -term security. The security 00:13:53.159 --> 00:13:56.179 is practically non -existent. It's incredibly 00:13:56.179 --> 00:13:58.879 precarious. If the landowner decides to sell 00:13:58.879 --> 00:14:01.299 the property or decides they don't like the look 00:14:01.299 --> 00:14:04.340 of you or just decides to raise the rent to an 00:14:04.340 --> 00:14:07.740 impossible level. You're gone. And you lose everything. 00:14:08.100 --> 00:14:10.820 Not just your home, but your livelihood. Everything. 00:14:10.940 --> 00:14:13.679 The tenant farmer is the very definition of economically 00:14:13.679 --> 00:14:16.519 vulnerable. They are absolutely essential to 00:14:16.519 --> 00:14:18.240 the land's productivity, but they have almost 00:14:18.240 --> 00:14:20.960 no power over the land's destiny. Right. They 00:14:20.960 --> 00:14:22.820 are serving the land, but they don't control 00:14:22.820 --> 00:14:24.759 it. They are serving the land, and by extension, 00:14:25.019 --> 00:14:27.279 they are serving the landlord. Okay. So let's 00:14:27.279 --> 00:14:29.539 hold that image of precariousness and vulnerability. 00:14:29.879 --> 00:14:32.519 Now. Let's completely flip the script. Let's 00:14:32.519 --> 00:14:34.600 look at the anchor tenant. The definition in 00:14:34.600 --> 00:14:38.259 our source is one of the larger stores in a shopping 00:14:38.259 --> 00:14:40.840 mall. So we have officially moved from the wheat 00:14:40.840 --> 00:14:44.220 fields to the food court. We have. And the visual 00:14:44.220 --> 00:14:47.600 here is just perfect. An anchor. What a great 00:14:47.600 --> 00:14:49.480 word. Yeah. Why do we use that specific word? 00:14:49.519 --> 00:14:51.759 What is it anchoring? Well, think about a ship 00:14:51.759 --> 00:14:54.919 in a storm or even just in a harbor. What is 00:14:54.919 --> 00:14:57.629 the anchor's job? It holds the ship in place, 00:14:57.750 --> 00:14:59.590 it keeps it stable, it stops it from drifting 00:14:59.590 --> 00:15:02.090 away and crashing on the rocks. Exactly. Now, 00:15:02.110 --> 00:15:04.830 apply that metaphor to a shopping mall. The mall 00:15:04.830 --> 00:15:07.509 itself is the ship. It's this big, expensive 00:15:07.509 --> 00:15:10.610 structure floating in a vast sea of asphalt parking 00:15:10.610 --> 00:15:13.350 lots. Okay, I'm with you. The small stores, you 00:15:13.350 --> 00:15:16.070 know, the Sunglass Hut, the Pretzel Stand, the 00:15:16.070 --> 00:15:18.610 little boutique that sells scented candles. They're 00:15:18.610 --> 00:15:20.669 like the passengers on the ship. They're important, 00:15:20.909 --> 00:15:23.350 but they can't steer it. They can't keep it stable. 00:15:23.629 --> 00:15:25.049 They're just along for the ride. They're along 00:15:25.049 --> 00:15:28.009 for the ride. But the anchor tenant, the massive 00:15:28.009 --> 00:15:30.509 department store like a Macy's or a Nordstrom, 00:15:30.769 --> 00:15:34.830 the big grocery chain, the multi -screen cinema, 00:15:35.070 --> 00:15:37.129 they are the heavyweights. They are the ones 00:15:37.129 --> 00:15:39.149 with the gravity. They're the reason people come 00:15:39.149 --> 00:15:40.990 to the mall in the first place. They draw the 00:15:40.990 --> 00:15:44.200 crowds. That's it. Nobody drives 20 minutes out 00:15:44.200 --> 00:15:46.639 of their way just to go to a sunglass kiosk. 00:15:46.899 --> 00:15:49.960 They drive to the mall to go to the anchor. And 00:15:49.960 --> 00:15:52.240 then while they are walking from the parking 00:15:52.240 --> 00:15:54.820 lot to the anchor, they happen to pass by the 00:15:54.820 --> 00:15:57.600 kiosk and buy the sunglasses. So in this ecosystem, 00:15:57.840 --> 00:16:00.120 the anchor tenant is actually the one with all 00:16:00.120 --> 00:16:03.000 the power. Tremendous, almost total power. And 00:16:03.000 --> 00:16:05.360 this is where the dynamic flips completely on 00:16:05.360 --> 00:16:07.639 its head from the tenant farmer. A tenant farmer 00:16:07.639 --> 00:16:10.700 is usually in a position of asking almost... 00:16:10.970 --> 00:16:14.789 begging for a lease an anchor tenant the mall 00:16:14.789 --> 00:16:17.629 developer is begging them really That much power. 00:16:17.789 --> 00:16:20.250 Oh, absolutely. It's an open secret and commercial 00:16:20.250 --> 00:16:24.049 real estate. Anchor tenants often pay very, very 00:16:24.049 --> 00:16:26.730 little rent per square foot compared to the small 00:16:26.730 --> 00:16:29.970 shops. Sometimes they pay next to nothing. Sometimes 00:16:29.970 --> 00:16:31.850 a developer will actually pay them millions of 00:16:31.850 --> 00:16:34.230 dollars in incentives just to build a store there. 00:16:34.330 --> 00:16:36.509 They'll pay their own tenant. They will because 00:16:36.509 --> 00:16:38.529 they know that without the anchor, the mall is 00:16:38.529 --> 00:16:42.409 dead. The ship drifts out to sea and sinks. That 00:16:42.409 --> 00:16:44.889 is such a cool inversion of the power dynamic. 00:16:45.190 --> 00:16:48.210 They are both called tenants. They are both occupying 00:16:48.210 --> 00:16:50.889 a space that is armed by someone else. But one 00:16:50.889 --> 00:16:53.950 is powerless and one is a kingmaker. It's all 00:16:53.950 --> 00:16:56.669 about leverage. It boils down to one question. 00:16:57.090 --> 00:17:00.850 Who needs whom more? The tenant farmer needs 00:17:00.850 --> 00:17:04.069 the land. The mall needs the anchor tenant. It 00:17:04.069 --> 00:17:06.130 really shows how incredibly flexible this word 00:17:06.130 --> 00:17:08.609 is. It can describe someone just scraping by 00:17:08.609 --> 00:17:11.710 or a massive corporate entity that gets to dictate 00:17:11.710 --> 00:17:14.509 all the rules. But the common thread is still 00:17:14.509 --> 00:17:16.869 there. They are both operating within a box, 00:17:17.049 --> 00:17:19.890 a field, or a retail space that was built and 00:17:19.890 --> 00:17:22.190 is ultimately owned by someone else. Okay, so 00:17:22.190 --> 00:17:24.329 let's leave the world of physical property behind 00:17:24.329 --> 00:17:26.809 for a moment. Because the source has a section 00:17:26.809 --> 00:17:29.549 for... other uses that takes us out of the mall 00:17:29.549 --> 00:17:31.710 and off the farm and into some really unexpected 00:17:31.710 --> 00:17:34.170 places yes this is where the concept starts to 00:17:34.170 --> 00:17:36.190 get really metaphorical and honestly this is 00:17:36.190 --> 00:17:37.809 where it gets really interesting for me the first 00:17:37.809 --> 00:17:40.029 one on the list under other uses is the door 00:17:40.029 --> 00:17:42.509 tenant the door tenant i have to admit when i 00:17:42.509 --> 00:17:45.490 first saw this phrase i had a really funny image 00:17:45.490 --> 00:17:48.109 in my head i thought it meant like someone who 00:17:48.109 --> 00:17:50.920 literally lives in a doorway a squatter Or maybe 00:17:50.920 --> 00:17:52.859 someone who guards the door. I just I pictured 00:17:52.859 --> 00:17:55.400 a bouncer at a club. I am the tenant of the door. 00:17:55.660 --> 00:17:57.859 None shall pass. Yeah, exactly. You're not on 00:17:57.859 --> 00:18:00.579 the list. No, it's a very specific and I think 00:18:00.579 --> 00:18:03.740 very elegant term from the legal profession, 00:18:04.000 --> 00:18:06.920 specifically in the UK. OK, so the definition 00:18:06.920 --> 00:18:10.660 says lawyers who work from the premises of a 00:18:10.660 --> 00:18:13.339 barrister's chamber. Right. But it's the nuance 00:18:13.339 --> 00:18:17.619 of that phrase work from that matters. To understand 00:18:17.619 --> 00:18:19.839 this, you have to get a little bit about how 00:18:19.839 --> 00:18:22.259 British barristers operate. They're different 00:18:22.259 --> 00:18:24.200 from American lawyers, right? Very different. 00:18:24.259 --> 00:18:26.160 They don't typically work for big corporate law 00:18:26.160 --> 00:18:28.480 firms in the same way. They're essentially independent 00:18:28.480 --> 00:18:30.960 practitioners who band together in what are called 00:18:30.960 --> 00:18:34.920 chambers. And a chamber is like a co -op for 00:18:34.920 --> 00:18:36.960 lawyers. That's a great way to think of it. It's 00:18:36.960 --> 00:18:39.660 a collective, a group of independent lawyers 00:18:39.660 --> 00:18:42.759 who share a building. They share administrative 00:18:42.759 --> 00:18:45.680 staff called clerks. They share a library. They 00:18:45.680 --> 00:18:49.220 share expenses. Being a full member of a prestigious 00:18:49.220 --> 00:18:53.059 chamber is a huge part of your professional identity 00:18:53.059 --> 00:18:55.779 and your brand. OK, I get it. So what is a door 00:18:55.779 --> 00:18:59.579 tenant in that system? A door tenant is a barrister 00:18:59.579 --> 00:19:03.289 who is affiliated with the chamber. but doesn't 00:19:03.289 --> 00:19:05.789 actually live there, professionally speaking. 00:19:05.990 --> 00:19:07.930 They aren't fully inside the house. They aren't. 00:19:07.930 --> 00:19:10.150 They don't have a dedicated room or office there. 00:19:10.369 --> 00:19:13.009 They don't pay the full rent or the full share 00:19:13.009 --> 00:19:16.109 of the expenses. But, and this is the key, their 00:19:16.109 --> 00:19:19.200 name is on the door. Okay, hence the name. It's 00:19:19.200 --> 00:19:21.359 literal. It's literal. Their name is listed on 00:19:21.359 --> 00:19:23.079 the plaque outside with all the full members. 00:19:23.220 --> 00:19:25.579 They have the right of access. They can use the 00:19:25.579 --> 00:19:27.980 chamber's address on their letterhead. They can 00:19:27.980 --> 00:19:30.720 have their mail sent there. They can book a conference 00:19:30.720 --> 00:19:33.000 room to meet clients there. But they're not there 00:19:33.000 --> 00:19:35.799 day to day. Exactly. They are usually based somewhere 00:19:35.799 --> 00:19:38.140 else. Maybe they work primarily from home in 00:19:38.140 --> 00:19:40.980 the countryside, or they're semi -retired, or 00:19:40.980 --> 00:19:43.740 they work in another city. It gives them a prestigious 00:19:43.740 --> 00:19:46.900 London address and a network without the overhead. 00:19:47.390 --> 00:19:50.730 So it's all about access and affiliation without 00:19:50.730 --> 00:19:53.410 the burden of full residency. It's almost prestige 00:19:53.410 --> 00:19:55.589 as a service. You're a tenant of the institution 00:19:55.589 --> 00:19:57.710 of the brand, not just the physical building. 00:19:57.890 --> 00:20:00.150 It's kind of like a subscription model for your 00:20:00.150 --> 00:20:03.000 career. pay a smaller fee, get access to the 00:20:03.000 --> 00:20:05.660 platform? In a way, yes. It's a very modern way 00:20:05.660 --> 00:20:07.920 of working, flexibly and remotely, even though 00:20:07.920 --> 00:20:11.099 the term itself is quite old. It recognizes that 00:20:11.099 --> 00:20:13.519 you can belong to a place without having to be 00:20:13.519 --> 00:20:16.099 physically present there from nine to five. Which 00:20:16.099 --> 00:20:18.380 is the absolute perfect segue to the very next 00:20:18.380 --> 00:20:20.680 definition, which is literally about the modern 00:20:20.680 --> 00:20:23.200 way of working, the digital tenant. The digital 00:20:23.200 --> 00:20:25.480 tenant. This is the big one for our era. The 00:20:25.480 --> 00:20:27.839 source defines this one very simply. It says, 00:20:27.980 --> 00:20:30.420 a group of users who share a common... access 00:20:30.420 --> 00:20:33.420 to a multi -tenancy software system. Multitenancy. 00:20:33.779 --> 00:20:36.240 If you work in the tech industry, you hear this 00:20:36.240 --> 00:20:39.039 word every single day. It is standard fundamental 00:20:39.039 --> 00:20:42.619 jargon. But if you're not in that world and you 00:20:42.619 --> 00:20:44.599 just step back and look at it as a linguist, 00:20:44.680 --> 00:20:48.279 it is a really bold and brilliant metaphor to 00:20:48.279 --> 00:20:50.359 steal from real estate. It really is. It feels 00:20:50.359 --> 00:20:52.940 like a massive leap. We went from feudal land 00:20:52.940 --> 00:20:56.509 law to cloud computing. How did that word make 00:20:56.509 --> 00:20:58.509 that jump? Well, you have to think about the 00:20:58.509 --> 00:21:00.509 problem that software engineers were trying to 00:21:00.509 --> 00:21:03.589 solve 20, 25 years ago. Back in the day, let's 00:21:03.589 --> 00:21:05.670 say the 1990s, if a company wanted to buy some 00:21:05.670 --> 00:21:07.809 software, how did they do it? You'd get a box 00:21:07.809 --> 00:21:10.650 with a CD -ROM in it. Or a stack of floppy disks. 00:21:10.930 --> 00:21:13.390 Exactly. And they would take that disk and they 00:21:13.390 --> 00:21:15.730 would install that software on their own server, 00:21:15.829 --> 00:21:18.390 in their own server room in the basement. It 00:21:18.390 --> 00:21:20.509 was like building them a custom single family 00:21:20.509 --> 00:21:23.609 house. They own the house. They maintain the 00:21:23.609 --> 00:21:26.509 pipes. If the roof leaked, metaphorically speaking, 00:21:26.829 --> 00:21:29.329 they had to call their own IT guy to fix it. 00:21:29.390 --> 00:21:31.210 It was totally isolated and self -contained. 00:21:31.589 --> 00:21:34.329 Completely isolated. That's called a single tenancy 00:21:34.329 --> 00:21:36.970 architecture. But that is incredibly expensive. 00:21:37.210 --> 00:21:40.839 It's inefficient. And it's a nightmare to update. 00:21:40.960 --> 00:21:43.500 You'd have to mail out a new CD to every single 00:21:43.500 --> 00:21:46.359 customer. Right. So the industry shifted to the 00:21:46.359 --> 00:21:48.319 cloud. To the cloud. And that's where the concept 00:21:48.319 --> 00:21:50.779 of multi -tenancy comes in and changes everything. 00:21:51.099 --> 00:21:53.640 So explain the metaphor. Okay. Imagine a giant 00:21:53.640 --> 00:21:58.039 apartment building. A huge skyscraper. That skyscraper 00:21:58.039 --> 00:22:00.940 is the software application. Let's say it's Salesforce 00:22:00.940 --> 00:22:03.400 or Google Workspace. The building is the code. 00:22:03.519 --> 00:22:05.259 The building is the code. It has one foundation, 00:22:05.519 --> 00:22:09.400 one set of water pipes, one electrical grid, 00:22:09.599 --> 00:22:12.220 one security system at the front door. It's all 00:22:12.220 --> 00:22:15.400 shared infrastructure. OK. Now, instead of building 00:22:15.400 --> 00:22:17.720 a separate house for every single customer, you 00:22:17.720 --> 00:22:19.839 just give each customer a key to their own apartment 00:22:19.839 --> 00:22:22.500 inside the skyscraper. They become a tenant in 00:22:22.500 --> 00:22:24.680 the building. They become a tenant. You have 00:22:24.680 --> 00:22:27.240 company A on the third floor. Company B is on 00:22:27.240 --> 00:22:29.680 the fourth floor. They are all using the same 00:22:29.680 --> 00:22:32.079 elevator to get to their floor. You're all using 00:22:32.079 --> 00:22:34.299 the same water pressure from the same pipes. 00:22:35.039 --> 00:22:38.160 But, and this is the absolute critical part of 00:22:38.160 --> 00:22:40.519 the whole design can company A just walk into 00:22:40.519 --> 00:22:43.579 company B's apartment and look around. No, of 00:22:43.579 --> 00:22:46.359 course not. The door is locked. The door is locked. 00:22:46.500 --> 00:22:49.519 That is multi -tenancy. It's built on the idea 00:22:49.519 --> 00:22:52.400 of shared infrastructure, but strictly private 00:22:52.400 --> 00:22:55.640 separated data. So my data, my private emails, 00:22:55.980 --> 00:22:59.519 my customer list, my documents. That's all my 00:22:59.519 --> 00:23:01.539 furniture inside my private apartment. That's 00:23:01.539 --> 00:23:03.819 your furniture. And the software provider, the 00:23:03.819 --> 00:23:06.299 Google, the Microsoft, the Salesforce, they are 00:23:06.299 --> 00:23:08.180 the landlord. They take care of building. They 00:23:08.180 --> 00:23:10.619 fix the pipes. They upgrade the elevator. They 00:23:10.619 --> 00:23:12.539 make sure the lights stay on. You don't have 00:23:12.539 --> 00:23:14.019 to worry about any of the maintenance. You just. 00:23:14.440 --> 00:23:16.299 Pay your rent. Monthly subscription fee. The 00:23:16.299 --> 00:23:18.799 subscription fee. And with that, we have moved 00:23:18.799 --> 00:23:21.660 almost entirely from a world of software ownership, 00:23:21.960 --> 00:23:24.940 buying the box with the disk, to a world of software 00:23:24.940 --> 00:23:27.279 tenancy. It's just fascinating that the word 00:23:27.279 --> 00:23:30.779 tenant migrated so perfectly here. Because it 00:23:30.779 --> 00:23:32.819 implies that in the digital world, we don't really 00:23:32.819 --> 00:23:35.920 own the tools that we use every single day. We're 00:23:35.920 --> 00:23:38.500 just renting space inside them. That is the profound 00:23:38.500 --> 00:23:41.299 and maybe slightly unsettling shift of the last 00:23:41.299 --> 00:23:44.140 20 years. We are all digital tenants now. Think 00:23:44.140 --> 00:23:46.339 about your music. You used to own records and 00:23:46.339 --> 00:23:49.420 CDs. Now you rent access to Spotify's massive 00:23:49.420 --> 00:23:52.319 library. Right. Think about your photos. They 00:23:52.319 --> 00:23:55.299 aren't in a shoebox under your bed anymore. They 00:23:55.299 --> 00:23:58.319 are in a rented space in the iCloud or Google 00:23:58.319 --> 00:24:02.279 Photos. tenant farmers laughs you know in the 00:24:02.279 --> 00:24:05.720 very real and not at all funny way yes we are 00:24:05.720 --> 00:24:08.700 working the land creating data creating content 00:24:08.700 --> 00:24:11.279 posting our lives on a digital platform owned 00:24:11.279 --> 00:24:14.380 by a massive invisible digital landlord that 00:24:14.380 --> 00:24:16.599 is a little terrifying yeah but it also makes 00:24:16.599 --> 00:24:18.559 perfect sense from an efficiency standpoint it 00:24:18.559 --> 00:24:21.150 is efficient it's incredibly convenient But it 00:24:21.150 --> 00:24:24.049 means we have traded ownership and control for 00:24:24.049 --> 00:24:27.029 that convenience. We are occupants, not owners, 00:24:27.150 --> 00:24:29.990 of our own digital lives. Okay, speaking of things 00:24:29.990 --> 00:24:32.890 that are a little terrifying, let's move to part 00:24:32.890 --> 00:24:37.130 three of our deep dive. Tenet in the arts. Film 00:24:37.130 --> 00:24:40.309 and literature. The spooky part. I was looking 00:24:40.309 --> 00:24:41.890 at the list provided in the source material, 00:24:42.089 --> 00:24:44.950 and I have to say, the word tenant is surprisingly 00:24:44.950 --> 00:24:48.470 popular as a title for creative works. It is 00:24:48.470 --> 00:24:50.690 strikingly ubiquitous, isn't it? It just keeps 00:24:50.690 --> 00:24:53.430 showing up. It does. We have a novel. Then we 00:24:53.430 --> 00:24:58.190 have a 1957 film, a 1976 film. Then we jump forward 00:24:58.190 --> 00:25:01.930 and there's a 2023 film and a 2024 film. It just 00:25:01.930 --> 00:25:03.970 keeps coming back decade after decade. So why 00:25:03.970 --> 00:25:06.329 do you think that is? What is it about this specific 00:25:06.329 --> 00:25:08.990 six letter word that just screams movie title? 00:25:09.170 --> 00:25:10.569 I think it goes right back to what we were just 00:25:10.569 --> 00:25:12.470 discussing about the tenant farmer and the digital 00:25:12.470 --> 00:25:14.970 tenant. It's about vulnerability. Vulnerability. 00:25:15.130 --> 00:25:17.529 Explain that. Well, think about the inherent 00:25:17.529 --> 00:25:20.710 position of a tenant. You are in a space that 00:25:20.710 --> 00:25:23.390 is not truly yours. There are rules you might 00:25:23.390 --> 00:25:25.670 not know. There's a history to the place you're 00:25:25.670 --> 00:25:28.210 not aware of. There's an owner, a landlord, who 00:25:28.210 --> 00:25:31.890 has power over you. Or you can flip it. From 00:25:31.890 --> 00:25:34.890 the landlord's perspective, a tenant is a stranger, 00:25:35.029 --> 00:25:38.180 a complete unknown that you have invited. into 00:25:38.180 --> 00:25:40.019 your property, into your personal space. Oh, 00:25:40.039 --> 00:25:42.099 that's a great point. It's an intrusion. Exactly. 00:25:42.299 --> 00:25:45.200 So from either side of that relationship, it 00:25:45.200 --> 00:25:47.539 is inherently filled with tension and suspicion. 00:25:48.019 --> 00:25:51.279 Is the tenant safe? Is the tenant a threat? Is 00:25:51.279 --> 00:25:54.660 the landlord watching me? It's a perfect prepackaged 00:25:54.660 --> 00:25:58.599 setup for drama or mystery or horror. Let's look 00:25:58.599 --> 00:26:01.160 at the specific entries in the source. It starts 00:26:01.160 --> 00:26:03.920 with a novel by Roland Topor called The Tenant. 00:26:04.160 --> 00:26:07.119 Yes. And I would argue this is basically a foundational 00:26:07.119 --> 00:26:10.960 text for the entire creepy tenant subgenre of 00:26:10.960 --> 00:26:12.920 psychological horror. And the source notes that 00:26:12.920 --> 00:26:15.539 the 1976 film, also called The Tenant, which 00:26:15.539 --> 00:26:18.200 was directed by Roman Polanski, is based directly 00:26:18.200 --> 00:26:20.299 on Topor's novel. Right. So this is a direct 00:26:20.299 --> 00:26:22.400 cross -media translation of the concept. You 00:26:22.400 --> 00:26:24.680 have the book, then you have the film. And without 00:26:24.680 --> 00:26:26.240 giving away anything that's not in the source, 00:26:26.460 --> 00:26:28.980 the mere fact that it's a Topor story directed 00:26:28.980 --> 00:26:30.859 by Polanski tells you a lot. This isn't going 00:26:30.859 --> 00:26:34.119 to be a lighthearted comedy. No. It signals psychological 00:26:34.119 --> 00:26:37.619 intensity. It's going to be about identity and 00:26:37.619 --> 00:26:40.359 paranoia and the feeling of the space itself 00:26:40.359 --> 00:26:42.940 closing in on you. It's that quintessential feeling 00:26:42.940 --> 00:26:45.920 of I don't belong here, but I can't leave. Or 00:26:45.920 --> 00:26:49.420 the walls have eyes. It perfectly captures that 00:26:49.420 --> 00:26:51.900 specific kind of urban isolation where you can 00:26:51.900 --> 00:26:53.720 be surrounded by hundreds of people and you're 00:26:53.720 --> 00:26:55.660 building your neighbors, but you are totally 00:26:55.660 --> 00:26:58.680 terrifyingly alone. Then we have a much earlier 00:26:58.680 --> 00:27:02.619 film, a 1957 film, also called The Tenant. But 00:27:02.619 --> 00:27:04.920 the source is very specific here. It describes 00:27:04.920 --> 00:27:08.119 this one as a Spanish drama film. Drama. That 00:27:08.119 --> 00:27:10.259 word implies a very different flavor than the 00:27:10.259 --> 00:27:12.779 psychological thriller. It does. A drama about 00:27:12.779 --> 00:27:14.900 a tenant is probably going to be less about ghosts 00:27:14.900 --> 00:27:17.240 in the walls and more about the real world struggles. 00:27:17.579 --> 00:27:19.339 Right. A drama is likely going to be about the 00:27:19.339 --> 00:27:21.480 rent being due and you don't have it. The landlord 00:27:21.480 --> 00:27:23.859 is difficult and won't fix the heat. The neighbors 00:27:23.859 --> 00:27:26.079 are too loud. It explores the social friction 00:27:26.079 --> 00:27:29.500 of shared living, the day -to -day grind. It's 00:27:29.500 --> 00:27:31.599 just so interesting how the genre can shift so 00:27:31.599 --> 00:27:34.339 dramatically. But the title remains exactly the 00:27:34.339 --> 00:27:37.579 same. The word tenant is flexible enough to contain 00:27:37.579 --> 00:27:41.019 both supernatural horror and grounded social 00:27:41.019 --> 00:27:44.119 realism. And then we jump all the way forward 00:27:44.119 --> 00:27:47.630 to modern cinema. And this detail really popped 00:27:47.630 --> 00:27:49.930 out at me when I was reading the source. We have 00:27:49.930 --> 00:27:53.130 two Indian films back to back. Yes, I saw that 00:27:53.130 --> 00:27:56.309 and circled it. The Tenant from 2023, which is 00:27:56.309 --> 00:27:58.990 an Indian film by Sushrut Jain, and then Tenant 00:27:58.990 --> 00:28:02.470 from 2024 starring Satyam Rajesh and Megha Chowdhury. 00:28:02.569 --> 00:28:05.670 So two films with effectively the exact same 00:28:05.670 --> 00:28:08.450 title from the same country's film industry released 00:28:08.450 --> 00:28:11.109 one year apart. What does that tell you? I mean, 00:28:11.109 --> 00:28:12.890 is that just a coincidence? I really don't think 00:28:12.890 --> 00:28:15.009 so. I think it tells us that the concept, the 00:28:15.009 --> 00:28:17.430 anxieties, the stories of being a tenant resonate 00:28:17.430 --> 00:28:19.869 globally and perhaps very specifically in India 00:28:19.869 --> 00:28:22.049 right now. Why India specifically? What's the 00:28:22.049 --> 00:28:24.670 connection? Well, think about the major demographic 00:28:24.670 --> 00:28:27.589 shifts happening there. Massive rapid urbanization. 00:28:28.850 --> 00:28:31.650 Millions and millions of people moving from traditional 00:28:31.650 --> 00:28:33.769 villages where they might have lived in ancestral 00:28:33.769 --> 00:28:37.509 family homes for generations to huge, dense cities 00:28:37.509 --> 00:28:40.309 like Mumbai or Bangalore or Delhi. And when they 00:28:40.309 --> 00:28:42.109 get there, they're not buying a home. Of course 00:28:42.109 --> 00:28:45.269 not. They are becoming tenants. For the first 00:28:45.269 --> 00:28:47.109 time in their lives or their family's history, 00:28:47.269 --> 00:28:50.789 they are entering that world of leases and landlords 00:28:50.789 --> 00:28:54.210 and security deposits. So it's a massive cultural 00:28:54.210 --> 00:28:57.250 and psychological shift. that a huge portion 00:28:57.250 --> 00:28:59.950 of the population is experiencing. Exactly. And 00:28:59.950 --> 00:29:02.549 when that happens, the tenant becomes the default 00:29:02.549 --> 00:29:05.049 protagonist of the modern city. They are the 00:29:05.049 --> 00:29:07.509 outsider, the newcomer, trying to carve out a 00:29:07.509 --> 00:29:10.049 home in a concrete box that isn't and will never 00:29:10.049 --> 00:29:12.970 be truly theirs. That's a great point. The tenant 00:29:12.970 --> 00:29:15.309 is the ultimate universal character type for 00:29:15.309 --> 00:29:17.930 our modern mobile world. So many of us have been 00:29:17.930 --> 00:29:20.309 tenants at some point. We've all felt that temporary 00:29:20.309 --> 00:29:23.250 conditional status. Someone who belongs, but 00:29:23.250 --> 00:29:26.450 only conditionally. You belong as long as you 00:29:26.450 --> 00:29:29.150 pay the rent. That is a powerful and very relatable 00:29:29.150 --> 00:29:31.890 narrative hook. And the fact that our source 00:29:31.890 --> 00:29:35.349 explicitly lists these five distinct creative 00:29:35.349 --> 00:29:39.990 works, it's not a coincidence. It's a clear pattern. 00:29:40.329 --> 00:29:43.589 The idea of the tenant is just fertile ground 00:29:43.589 --> 00:29:46.079 for storytelling. It makes you wonder if there 00:29:46.079 --> 00:29:48.279 is also just something about the word itself, 00:29:48.539 --> 00:29:51.480 T -E -N -A -N -T, that just looks good on a movie 00:29:51.480 --> 00:29:53.980 poster. It's sharp. It's concise. It has those 00:29:53.980 --> 00:29:57.480 two hard T sounds. It's punchy. It sounds kind 00:29:57.480 --> 00:29:59.799 of final in a weird way. But I do think the psychological 00:29:59.799 --> 00:30:02.599 way is the real driver. The word homeowner feels 00:30:02.599 --> 00:30:05.519 safe, stable. The word tenant feels provisional. 00:30:05.599 --> 00:30:08.299 And stories absolutely thrive on things being 00:30:08.299 --> 00:30:11.240 provisional and uncertain. So we've covered the 00:30:11.240 --> 00:30:13.339 land, the office, the cloud, and the cinema. 00:30:13.900 --> 00:30:16.299 But we can't finish a deep dive into a word without 00:30:16.299 --> 00:30:18.140 looking at the linguistic maze that surrounds 00:30:18.140 --> 00:30:20.359 it. The see also section, my favorite part of 00:30:20.359 --> 00:30:23.000 any deep research rabbit hole, the land of delightful 00:30:23.000 --> 00:30:25.279 confusions. The source material has a section 00:30:25.279 --> 00:30:27.720 literally titled not to be confused with. And 00:30:27.720 --> 00:30:29.619 frankly, after reading it, I get why people get 00:30:29.619 --> 00:30:32.039 confused. It is a minefield of similar looking 00:30:32.039 --> 00:30:34.359 and similar sounding words. First up on the list, 00:30:34.480 --> 00:30:36.880 tenant versus tenant. With a double N in the 00:30:36.880 --> 00:30:40.680 middle, T -E -N -N -A -N -T. And the source points 00:30:40.680 --> 00:30:45.099 out that this leads to. tenant, disambiguation, 00:30:45.220 --> 00:30:48.660 and also tenant, a surname. It is absolutely 00:30:48.660 --> 00:30:51.960 amazing how one extra consonant completely changes 00:30:51.960 --> 00:30:55.039 the meaning from a leaseholder to a specific 00:30:55.039 --> 00:30:58.859 Scottish family name or famously a brand of lager. 00:30:59.180 --> 00:31:02.279 Loves, right. If you're writing your landlord 00:31:02.279 --> 00:31:05.200 and you spell tenant with two Ns, you aren't 00:31:05.200 --> 00:31:07.039 talking about your legal status in the apartment 00:31:07.039 --> 00:31:09.259 anymore. You're likely talking about a person 00:31:09.259 --> 00:31:12.059 named tenant or asking for a beer. It is a very 00:31:12.059 --> 00:31:14.279 good reminder for anyone who is writing up a 00:31:14.279 --> 00:31:16.700 lease agreement. Spellcheck is your friend. You 00:31:16.700 --> 00:31:18.900 definitely don't want to accidentally lease your 00:31:18.900 --> 00:31:20.680 apartment to a tenant. Which is the very next 00:31:20.680 --> 00:31:23.359 point of confusion. Not to be confused with tenant. 00:31:23.500 --> 00:31:26.539 T -E -N -E -T. Now, this is a word that I feel 00:31:26.539 --> 00:31:28.980 like people misuse all the time, usually when 00:31:28.980 --> 00:31:30.420 they're trying to sound smart. Oh, constantly. 00:31:30.500 --> 00:31:32.420 You see it in corporate mission statements and 00:31:32.420 --> 00:31:34.799 political speeches. But the difference is actually 00:31:34.799 --> 00:31:37.539 stark and simple. OK, break it down for us. Tenant 00:31:37.539 --> 00:31:39.970 versus tenant. A tenant, as we've spent this 00:31:39.970 --> 00:31:43.410 whole time discussing, is a person or an occupant. 00:31:43.430 --> 00:31:47.410 It's a concrete noun. A tenant is a belief, a 00:31:47.410 --> 00:31:51.210 principle, a doctrine, or a core idea held to 00:31:51.210 --> 00:31:54.210 be true by a group or a philosophy. So you would 00:31:54.210 --> 00:31:56.529 say freedom of speech is a central tenant of 00:31:56.529 --> 00:31:59.109 democracy. Exactly. You can't evict a tenant 00:31:59.109 --> 00:32:02.269 from a philosophy. And a tenant isn't an abstract 00:32:02.269 --> 00:32:04.990 idea. One is a person. One is a principle. Although 00:32:04.990 --> 00:32:10.359 the source does link to tenant. So presumably 00:32:10.359 --> 00:32:12.140 there are other uses for that word as well, which 00:32:12.140 --> 00:32:14.119 just adds to the confusion. But fundamentally, 00:32:14.339 --> 00:32:17.660 tenant equals person, tenant equals idea. Correct. 00:32:17.740 --> 00:32:19.559 And then we have the third and final warning 00:32:19.559 --> 00:32:23.559 in the source, not to be confused with. Intendant. 00:32:23.559 --> 00:32:26.819 Intendant. I -N -T -E -N -D -A -N -T. Now, this 00:32:26.819 --> 00:32:28.980 one is really interesting to me because the confusion 00:32:28.980 --> 00:32:31.859 here isn't visual. It's phonetic. It just sounds 00:32:31.859 --> 00:32:34.279 similar. Tenant. Intendant. They rhyme. They 00:32:34.279 --> 00:32:36.200 have the same rhythm. They do. And they both 00:32:36.200 --> 00:32:38.259 come from Latin roots that have to do with holding 00:32:38.259 --> 00:32:40.440 or stretching. But the roles they describe are 00:32:40.440 --> 00:32:42.839 vastly different, almost opposite. So what is 00:32:42.839 --> 00:32:44.380 an intendant? I'm not sure I've ever even used 00:32:44.380 --> 00:32:46.480 that word. It's a bit of an old -fashioned word, 00:32:46.579 --> 00:32:48.720 but usually an intendant is an administrator, 00:32:49.059 --> 00:32:51.940 a manager, or a supervisor. someone who is in 00:32:51.940 --> 00:32:54.890 charge of a department or a territory, In French 00:32:54.890 --> 00:32:57.569 history, for instance, the intendants were powerful 00:32:57.569 --> 00:33:00.630 royal officials sent by the king to govern the 00:33:00.630 --> 00:33:04.170 provinces. So supervision versus occupancy. That's 00:33:04.170 --> 00:33:06.490 a perfect distinction. An intendant runs the 00:33:06.490 --> 00:33:08.930 place. A tenant just lives in the place. Mixing 00:33:08.930 --> 00:33:10.529 those two up could get you in a lot of trouble. 00:33:10.650 --> 00:33:13.250 You walk into an office and ask, excuse me, are 00:33:13.250 --> 00:33:15.710 you the tenant? And they reply, no, I'm the intendant. 00:33:15.869 --> 00:33:19.630 Laughs. Yes, a very, very different level of 00:33:19.630 --> 00:33:22.450 authority. One holds the keys to the whole building. 00:33:22.509 --> 00:33:24.930 The other is just begging. to get their key deposit 00:33:24.930 --> 00:33:28.829 back. The source also mentions the tenant's disambiguation 00:33:28.829 --> 00:33:31.869 as a totally separate link from the singular 00:33:31.869 --> 00:33:34.269 tenant. Which just goes to show how incredibly 00:33:34.269 --> 00:33:37.809 granular and specific Wikipedia gets. The concept 00:33:37.809 --> 00:33:40.390 of the tenant's plural with the definite article 00:33:40.390 --> 00:33:43.529 the air is treated as distinct from the singular 00:33:43.529 --> 00:33:46.369 concept of tenant. It really highlights the complexity 00:33:46.369 --> 00:33:49.730 of just cataloging our own language. We think 00:33:49.730 --> 00:33:52.470 of tenant as such a simple everyday word. But 00:33:52.470 --> 00:33:55.089 when you lay it all out like this, you see that 00:33:55.089 --> 00:33:57.369 it branches off in a dozen different confusing 00:33:57.369 --> 00:33:59.670 directions. And that's what makes this kind of 00:33:59.670 --> 00:34:02.569 deep dive so satisfying for me. We started with 00:34:02.569 --> 00:34:05.230 a word that feels almost invisible precisely 00:34:05.230 --> 00:34:07.609 because it's so common. Right. It's just part 00:34:07.609 --> 00:34:09.969 of the background noise of life. Signing a lease, 00:34:10.090 --> 00:34:12.309 paying rent. But when you actually stop and you 00:34:12.309 --> 00:34:14.590 look at it, when you really stare at the word 00:34:14.590 --> 00:34:17.920 and all its connections. you suddenly start to 00:34:17.920 --> 00:34:21.079 see the hidden structure of our society. Okay, 00:34:21.139 --> 00:34:23.519 so let's do that. Let's recap. Let's try to synthesize 00:34:23.519 --> 00:34:25.320 this whole journey before we wrap things up. 00:34:25.360 --> 00:34:27.579 Let's do it. We started with the leasehold estate, 00:34:27.820 --> 00:34:30.980 that basic fundamental legal idea of holding 00:34:30.980 --> 00:34:33.219 land. Which taught us that it's not just about 00:34:33.219 --> 00:34:35.480 space, it's about holding an interest for a specific 00:34:35.480 --> 00:34:38.199 slice of time. Then we jumped way back in time 00:34:38.199 --> 00:34:40.920 to the tenant -in -chief, the powerful feudal 00:34:40.920 --> 00:34:43.750 lord who answered only to the king. Which proved 00:34:43.750 --> 00:34:45.989 that even the most powerful people are still 00:34:45.989 --> 00:34:48.570 tenants to someone higher up. Then we came back 00:34:48.570 --> 00:34:50.590 to the modern world and visited the tenant farmer, 00:34:50.829 --> 00:34:53.849 vulnerable and working the land, and the anchor 00:34:53.849 --> 00:34:56.510 tenant, powerful and holding down the entire 00:34:56.510 --> 00:34:59.269 shopping mall. Two economic engines, both called 00:34:59.269 --> 00:35:02.030 tenants, but with completely reversed power dynamics. 00:35:02.429 --> 00:35:04.889 We then stopped by a barrister's chamber in London 00:35:04.889 --> 00:35:08.610 to meet the door tenant, who has the prestige 00:35:08.610 --> 00:35:12.010 of access, but not the burden of residency. A 00:35:12.010 --> 00:35:15.510 professional user of a brand and a space. A very 00:35:15.510 --> 00:35:18.150 modern idea. And then we jumped fully into the 00:35:18.150 --> 00:35:20.730 modern world with a digital tenant, all of us 00:35:20.730 --> 00:35:22.750 sharing software infrastructure in the cloud. 00:35:22.929 --> 00:35:25.769 The defining metaphor, I think, for how we live 00:35:25.769 --> 00:35:27.750 our digital lives now. And finally, we sat down 00:35:27.750 --> 00:35:29.869 and watched five different movies called The 00:35:29.869 --> 00:35:33.130 Tenant or Tenant, proving that this fundamental 00:35:33.130 --> 00:35:36.070 state of being, this act of holding without owning, 00:35:36.210 --> 00:35:39.340 is an absolute goldmine for human drama. It really 00:35:39.340 --> 00:35:41.800 is. It's the ultimate story of insecurity and 00:35:41.800 --> 00:35:44.199 the search for a place to belong. So what does 00:35:44.199 --> 00:35:46.360 this all mean? If you had to tie a big bow on 00:35:46.360 --> 00:35:48.440 it, what is the core lesson of the word tenant? 00:35:48.619 --> 00:35:51.199 I think the lesson is that tenant is the connective 00:35:51.199 --> 00:35:54.199 tissue of our society. It's the word we use to 00:35:54.199 --> 00:35:57.119 describe the relationship between people and 00:35:57.119 --> 00:35:59.900 the systems they inhabit. The systems they inhabit. 00:36:00.019 --> 00:36:02.280 I like that phrase. Yeah. Whether that system 00:36:02.280 --> 00:36:04.780 is a physical plot of land or a shopping center 00:36:04.780 --> 00:36:07.820 or a legal framework or a massive computer server. 00:36:08.059 --> 00:36:11.219 The reality is we can't all own the infrastructure. 00:36:11.579 --> 00:36:15.300 We can't all be the king or the real estate developer, 00:36:15.420 --> 00:36:17.880 the coder who builds the app. Right. Most of 00:36:17.880 --> 00:36:20.400 us, most of the time and most aspects of our 00:36:20.400 --> 00:36:24.000 lives are tenants. We are operating within structures 00:36:24.000 --> 00:36:26.380 that were built and are owned by others. We are 00:36:26.380 --> 00:36:29.139 occupying the space. And that's not necessarily 00:36:29.139 --> 00:36:31.670 a bad thing. It's what allows. for society to 00:36:31.670 --> 00:36:34.030 function it allows for flexibility it allows 00:36:34.030 --> 00:36:37.269 for multi -tenancy for sharing resources efficiently 00:36:37.269 --> 00:36:40.610 it allows farmers to farm and lawyers to practice 00:36:40.610 --> 00:36:42.630 and small businesses to exist without having 00:36:42.630 --> 00:36:44.989 to build the entire building themselves but it 00:36:44.989 --> 00:36:47.510 always always comes with that little asterisk 00:36:47.510 --> 00:36:50.130 at the bottom of the contract that says this 00:36:50.130 --> 00:36:52.909 is not yours that is a very powerful way to look 00:36:52.909 --> 00:36:56.010 at it It's the fundamental tradeoff of modern 00:36:56.010 --> 00:36:58.949 life. Convenience for control. And it raises 00:36:58.949 --> 00:37:01.550 a really provocative and maybe slightly uncomfortable 00:37:01.550 --> 00:37:04.190 thought for the future. I'm listening. If we 00:37:04.190 --> 00:37:06.769 look back at that parallel we drew, the one between 00:37:06.769 --> 00:37:09.070 the tenant farmer and the software tenant. Right. 00:37:09.309 --> 00:37:11.570 The mud in the cloud. A tenant farmer worked 00:37:11.570 --> 00:37:13.829 the physical land to create crops value for the 00:37:13.829 --> 00:37:16.829 landowner. Today, we spend our lives on these 00:37:16.829 --> 00:37:19.550 digital platforms. We create data. We create 00:37:19.550 --> 00:37:23.170 content. We post. We click. We share. We are 00:37:23.170 --> 00:37:25.730 creating the crops of the new digital age. Yeah. 00:37:25.849 --> 00:37:28.030 Our photos, our opinions, our search histories, 00:37:28.090 --> 00:37:30.269 our connections. That's the harvest. But we are 00:37:30.269 --> 00:37:32.630 just tenants on those platforms. We don't own 00:37:32.630 --> 00:37:35.449 the server. We don't own the algorithm that sorts 00:37:35.449 --> 00:37:37.329 our feeds. We don't own the platform itself. 00:37:37.989 --> 00:37:41.179 So the final question is this. As our lives become 00:37:41.179 --> 00:37:43.320 more and more digital, are we returning to a 00:37:43.320 --> 00:37:46.719 new form of digital feudalism? Are we all becoming 00:37:46.719 --> 00:37:49.659 the tenant farmers of the 21st century, working 00:37:49.659 --> 00:37:52.159 for digital lords we will never see and never 00:37:52.159 --> 00:37:55.639 meet? Wow. Are we tenants of our own digital 00:37:55.639 --> 00:38:00.210 lives? That's a lot to chew on. It is. It forces 00:38:00.210 --> 00:38:03.150 us to redefine what ownership and labor even 00:38:03.150 --> 00:38:05.510 mean in the modern world. Well, next time you 00:38:05.510 --> 00:38:08.750 sign a lease or log into a web app or even just 00:38:08.750 --> 00:38:10.690 sit down to watch a scary movie, think about 00:38:10.690 --> 00:38:13.150 that word, tenant, and maybe check the See Also 00:38:13.150 --> 00:38:15.150 links in your own mind. Always check the See 00:38:15.150 --> 00:38:17.409 Also. Thanks for listening to this deep dive. 00:38:17.550 --> 00:38:18.809 We'll catch you on the next one. Goodbye.