WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.080 OK, let's unpack this. I want to start today 00:00:03.080 --> 00:00:05.799 with a little word association for you. If I 00:00:05.799 --> 00:00:09.019 just say the name Happy Hogan out loud, what 00:00:09.019 --> 00:00:11.039 is the immediate image that pops into your head? 00:00:11.419 --> 00:00:13.849 Oh, it's got to be a suit, right? A black suit, 00:00:14.230 --> 00:00:17.489 maybe an earpiece looking a little stressed out 00:00:17.489 --> 00:00:19.910 while standing next to a billionaire. I think 00:00:19.910 --> 00:00:21.969 for the vast majority of people listening, Happy 00:00:21.969 --> 00:00:23.870 Hogan is just the guy from the Marvel movies. 00:00:24.010 --> 00:00:26.030 Right, exactly. He's the bodyguard. Yeah, he's 00:00:26.030 --> 00:00:28.010 Iron Man's guy. He's the guy who drives the car. 00:00:28.329 --> 00:00:30.489 He is basically the connective tissue of the 00:00:30.489 --> 00:00:34.570 whole cinematic universe. But here is where it's 00:00:34.570 --> 00:00:36.229 really interesting and frankly a little weird. 00:00:36.390 --> 00:00:39.109 OK. I was looking at a document today. just a 00:00:39.109 --> 00:00:43.450 standard retrieval from January 18th, 2025. And 00:00:43.450 --> 00:00:45.369 it wasn't a comic book wiki or a movie script. 00:00:45.850 --> 00:00:50.130 It was a Wikipedia disambiguation page. Ah, the 00:00:50.130 --> 00:00:53.170 disambiguation page, the digital purgatory of 00:00:53.170 --> 00:00:55.409 the internet. That is a perfect way to put it. 00:00:55.429 --> 00:00:57.689 It's that stark white page you land on when you 00:00:57.689 --> 00:00:59.710 type in a name and the algorithm basically just 00:00:59.710 --> 00:01:01.289 shrugs and says, I don't know. You tell me. Right. 00:01:01.369 --> 00:01:02.969 It's friction. You want to get to the actual 00:01:02.969 --> 00:01:05.069 content. So you just skip the menu entirely. 00:01:05.290 --> 00:01:07.989 You treat it like a flyover state. You just click 00:01:07.989 --> 00:01:10.390 the link you want and leave immediately. Always. 00:01:10.629 --> 00:01:13.450 Nobody hangs out on a disemigolation page. But 00:01:13.450 --> 00:01:15.969 today I stopped. I actually read the menu. And 00:01:15.969 --> 00:01:19.730 this specific page for Happy Hogan is a complete 00:01:19.730 --> 00:01:22.150 trip. How so? Because sandwiched on this list, 00:01:22.269 --> 00:01:24.409 you have this superhero we all know, but you 00:01:24.409 --> 00:01:27.010 also have a turn of the century baseball player, 00:01:27.109 --> 00:01:31.030 and a character from a 1950s comedy played by 00:01:31.030 --> 00:01:33.989 a TV legend. Wow. So it really is this bizarre 00:01:33.989 --> 00:01:36.310 cross -section of American culture then. Totally. 00:01:36.609 --> 00:01:38.650 You have this one name, Happy Hogan. I mean, 00:01:38.750 --> 00:01:41.230 it's alliterative, it's bouncy, it sounds friendly, 00:01:41.670 --> 00:01:44.930 and it somehow manages to echo through three 00:01:44.930 --> 00:01:47.469 completely different realities over the last 00:01:47.469 --> 00:01:50.620 hundred years. One name. three very different 00:01:50.620 --> 00:01:53.040 realities. And that is our mission for this deep 00:01:53.040 --> 00:01:55.540 dive. We were going to untangle the web of Happy 00:01:55.540 --> 00:01:57.340 Hogan for you today. I love it. We're going to 00:01:57.340 --> 00:02:00.079 look at the fiction, the history, and the weirdly 00:02:00.079 --> 00:02:03.299 specific cinema of 1950. But before we get to 00:02:03.299 --> 00:02:05.280 the actual people, I want to stick with the document 00:02:05.280 --> 00:02:07.120 itself for a second. Look at the formatting. 00:02:07.459 --> 00:02:09.780 It's a snapshot. It's got these interface options 00:02:09.780 --> 00:02:12.659 listed on the side. It literally mentions something 00:02:12.659 --> 00:02:15.000 called birthday mode. Oh, yeah. In parentheses, 00:02:15.120 --> 00:02:17.990 it says baby globe. Right, baby globe. which 00:02:17.990 --> 00:02:20.689 I notice is currently marked as disabled. Tragically 00:02:20.689 --> 00:02:23.729 disabled. Tragically disabled. We're completely 00:02:23.729 --> 00:02:25.710 denied the baby globe today, whatever that is. 00:02:26.349 --> 00:02:29.750 But the page itself is just so utilitarian. It 00:02:29.750 --> 00:02:32.770 notes the width is standard. The theme is light. 00:02:33.349 --> 00:02:36.009 And it even has this line noting that this page 00:02:36.009 --> 00:02:40.020 always uses small font size. It's almost apologetic. 00:02:40.219 --> 00:02:42.879 It really is. Well, think about what a disambiguation 00:02:42.879 --> 00:02:46.099 page actually represents at its core. It's an 00:02:46.099 --> 00:02:48.400 admission of failure in human language. Wait, 00:02:48.419 --> 00:02:50.599 an admission of failure? Yeah, it exists because 00:02:50.599 --> 00:02:53.039 we simply aren't creative enough to give everyone 00:02:53.039 --> 00:02:55.960 a completely unique name. We reused Happy Hogan 00:02:55.960 --> 00:02:58.620 three times, so now we need this dry administrative 00:02:58.620 --> 00:03:00.599 index just to sort it all out. It's not meant 00:03:00.599 --> 00:03:02.259 to be pretty, it's meant to be a traffic cop. 00:03:02.539 --> 00:03:04.979 A traffic cop directing you to three very different 00:03:04.979 --> 00:03:07.659 eras. I like that. So let's start with the era 00:03:07.659 --> 00:03:09.879 everyone actually cares about. The big one. The 00:03:09.879 --> 00:03:12.539 reason 99 % of people land on this page in the 00:03:12.539 --> 00:03:16.020 first place. Exactly. The pop culture juggernaut. 00:03:16.300 --> 00:03:19.099 The first entry on the list. It reads, Happy 00:03:19.099 --> 00:03:22.319 Hogan in parentheses character. And then the 00:03:22.319 --> 00:03:24.800 description is character in the Iron Man comic 00:03:24.800 --> 00:03:26.840 series. Very straightforward. But then right 00:03:26.840 --> 00:03:30.340 underneath it. there's this sub -bullet, Happy 00:03:30.340 --> 00:03:33.580 Hogan Marvel Cinematic Universe. And the description 00:03:33.580 --> 00:03:35.800 for that one is just five words long. The same 00:03:35.800 --> 00:03:37.620 character in movies. Yeah, the same character 00:03:37.620 --> 00:03:39.719 in movies. You know that indentation, that sub 00:03:39.719 --> 00:03:41.740 -bullet, is actually fascinating if you think 00:03:41.740 --> 00:03:44.719 about media literacy and how we categorize pop 00:03:44.719 --> 00:03:48.240 culture. How so? Isn't it just organizing the 00:03:48.240 --> 00:03:51.889 links? It is, but it implies a very specific 00:03:51.889 --> 00:03:55.169 hierarchy. The Iron Man comic series is the parent 00:03:55.169 --> 00:03:57.250 entry. That's the genesis point. That's where 00:03:57.250 --> 00:03:59.729 the creators first put ink to paper back in the 00:03:59.729 --> 00:04:02.750 day. But the Marvel Cinematic Universe version, 00:04:02.889 --> 00:04:04.750 the one in the movies, that's the one that has 00:04:04.750 --> 00:04:07.349 arguably completely eclipsed the original. Oh, 00:04:07.370 --> 00:04:09.490 absolutely. I bet most of you listening don't 00:04:09.490 --> 00:04:10.930 even know what he looks like in the original 00:04:10.930 --> 00:04:13.069 comic books. You just picture the actor from 00:04:13.069 --> 00:04:15.969 the movies. Exactly. But the source material 00:04:15.969 --> 00:04:18.970 here is very careful to distinguish them. It 00:04:18.970 --> 00:04:22.149 treats the film version as a completely distinct 00:04:22.149 --> 00:04:25.189 cultural entity. Which makes sense. Right. Because 00:04:25.189 --> 00:04:28.889 the comic character has decades of weird convoluted 00:04:28.889 --> 00:04:31.110 history that the movie character doesn't have. 00:04:31.610 --> 00:04:34.470 And the movie character has this massive global 00:04:34.470 --> 00:04:37.550 recognition that the comic character never achieved 00:04:37.550 --> 00:04:39.629 on his own. It's also interesting that the source 00:04:39.629 --> 00:04:43.079 explicitly ties him to Iron Man. It doesn't say 00:04:43.079 --> 00:04:44.980 superhero movie character or Avengers character, 00:04:45.100 --> 00:04:46.720 even though he's definitely in those bigger crossover 00:04:46.720 --> 00:04:49.199 movies. Because that's his anchor. In the entire 00:04:49.199 --> 00:04:51.740 taxonomy of fiction, he is completely defined 00:04:51.740 --> 00:04:54.699 by his proximity to that one specific billionaire. 00:04:55.040 --> 00:04:56.800 Right. That's his function in the mythology. 00:04:57.079 --> 00:04:59.600 He is the grounded, normal human being standing 00:04:59.600 --> 00:05:01.720 next to the genius in the flying metal suit. 00:05:01.819 --> 00:05:03.800 He's the audience surrogate, basically. He's 00:05:03.800 --> 00:05:06.079 us. Precisely. And that name Happy is usually 00:05:06.079 --> 00:05:08.000 played for irony, right? I mean, historically 00:05:08.000 --> 00:05:10.040 he was a boxer, a bit punch drunk, a bit grumpy. 00:05:10.439 --> 00:05:12.120 Calling a guy like that Happy was like calling 00:05:12.120 --> 00:05:15.060 a giant guy Tiny. Which works perfectly for a 00:05:15.060 --> 00:05:17.740 fictional character. It's a great trope. But 00:05:17.740 --> 00:05:20.259 now I want to pivot, because this list doesn't 00:05:20.259 --> 00:05:22.850 stop with the comic books. No, it does not. We 00:05:22.850 --> 00:05:25.509 scroll down past the flying suits and the billionaires, 00:05:25.709 --> 00:05:28.069 and we hit a hard stop. This is where the time 00:05:28.069 --> 00:05:30.069 machine really kicks in for us. Entry number 00:05:30.069 --> 00:05:34.009 two, Happy Hogan in parentheses baseball. And 00:05:34.009 --> 00:05:37.490 the description is incredibly stark, American 00:05:37.490 --> 00:05:40.370 baseball player. But look at the dates they provide, 00:05:41.089 --> 00:05:44.569 1877 to 1915. OK, let's just sit with those dates 00:05:44.569 --> 00:05:49.100 for a minute. 1877 to 1915. That is a really 00:05:49.100 --> 00:05:51.120 long time ago. It is. And he wasn't old when 00:05:51.120 --> 00:05:53.240 he died. No. If you do the math on those dates, 00:05:53.339 --> 00:05:55.779 he lived to be roughly 38 years old. Which is 00:05:55.779 --> 00:05:58.899 tragic in itself. But just think about that specific 00:05:58.899 --> 00:06:02.079 time frame. 1915. This is long before cinematic 00:06:02.079 --> 00:06:04.199 universes. Yeah. This is a guy who was playing 00:06:04.199 --> 00:06:06.300 professional baseball in what historians call 00:06:06.300 --> 00:06:09.259 the Dead Ball Era. It changes the entire texture 00:06:09.259 --> 00:06:12.019 of the name, doesn't it? Completely. When we 00:06:12.019 --> 00:06:14.360 said Happy Hogan five minutes ago, you were picturing 00:06:14.360 --> 00:06:18.779 a movie set. Yeah. CGI. Red carpets. Now, Happy 00:06:18.779 --> 00:06:22.019 Hogan means heavy wool uniforms. It means thick 00:06:22.019 --> 00:06:25.120 wooden bats and dusty fields. It means notepads. 00:06:25.459 --> 00:06:27.800 Gritty real life. Right. It's a rough reality. 00:06:28.000 --> 00:06:29.699 And the fact that his name was, I mean, at the 00:06:29.699 --> 00:06:31.680 turn of the century, nicknames were absolutely 00:06:31.680 --> 00:06:33.639 everything in baseball. You had Shoeless Joe. 00:06:34.000 --> 00:06:38.230 You had Ty Cobb. The babe. Happy Hogan fits right 00:06:38.230 --> 00:06:41.149 into that exact historical cadence. Do you think 00:06:41.149 --> 00:06:43.980 he was actually a happy guy? Or was it that ironic 00:06:43.980 --> 00:06:46.360 thing again, like the comic book character? It's 00:06:46.360 --> 00:06:48.660 impossible to know just from a disambiguation 00:06:48.660 --> 00:06:51.300 page, but given the era, it could easily be either. 00:06:51.720 --> 00:06:53.779 But I just love the contrast here. The contrast 00:06:53.779 --> 00:06:56.399 between the two men. Yeah. You have the fictional 00:06:56.399 --> 00:06:59.139 Happy Hogan, who is a bodyguard, which is a physically 00:06:59.139 --> 00:07:02.779 demanding, thankless job. And you have the real 00:07:02.779 --> 00:07:06.040 historical Happy Hogan, an athlete in the 1900s, 00:07:06.040 --> 00:07:08.100 which was also a physically demanding and pretty 00:07:08.100 --> 00:07:09.939 brutal job. That's a great point. They're both 00:07:09.939 --> 00:07:12.339 very in the trenches kinds of guys. Exactly. 00:07:12.879 --> 00:07:15.019 But one is immortal because he's a trademarked 00:07:15.019 --> 00:07:17.079 corporate character who gets rebooted for new 00:07:17.079 --> 00:07:19.660 audiences. The other, well, he was a flesh and 00:07:19.660 --> 00:07:22.220 blood human being who lived, played, and died 00:07:22.220 --> 00:07:24.500 young. And now he's just a single bullet point 00:07:24.500 --> 00:07:27.000 on this list. It feels a little unfair, doesn't 00:07:27.000 --> 00:07:28.779 it? A little bit, yeah. Like the baseball player 00:07:28.779 --> 00:07:31.100 was the original Happy Hogan. He owned the name 00:07:31.100 --> 00:07:34.639 first. But now he is literally second on the 00:07:34.639 --> 00:07:36.610 list, sandwiched under the fictional guy. That 00:07:36.610 --> 00:07:38.949 is just the brutality of pop culture. The fiction 00:07:38.949 --> 00:07:41.329 is always louder than the history. If you went 00:07:41.329 --> 00:07:43.629 back to 1910 and told this baseball player, hey, 00:07:43.730 --> 00:07:46.310 in 100 years, your name will be famous globally, 00:07:46.329 --> 00:07:48.930 but it will be because of a metal man who flies, 00:07:49.449 --> 00:07:51.750 he would have looked at you like you were insane. 00:07:51.850 --> 00:07:53.829 He'd ask what a metal man even is. And why is 00:07:53.829 --> 00:07:57.029 he taking my name? Exactly. So we have the ink 00:07:57.029 --> 00:07:59.290 and paper reality. We have the historical reality. 00:07:59.790 --> 00:08:03.110 And then this list throws us a total curveball. 00:08:03.730 --> 00:08:06.189 The third entry. And honestly, this is the one 00:08:06.189 --> 00:08:08.769 that made me stop and go, wait, what is happening 00:08:08.769 --> 00:08:12.009 here? The really deep cut. Yes. It reads, Happy 00:08:12.009 --> 00:08:14.790 Hogan character in the 1950 film, Champagne for 00:08:14.790 --> 00:08:16.629 Caesar. First of all, can we just take a second 00:08:16.629 --> 00:08:19.670 to appreciate that title? Champagne for Caesar. 00:08:20.089 --> 00:08:23.810 It is the most 1950s movie title I have ever 00:08:23.810 --> 00:08:26.569 heard in my life. Yeah. I can literally hear 00:08:26.569 --> 00:08:29.350 the fast -talking mid -Atlantic accents just 00:08:29.350 --> 00:08:32.070 reading it off the page. It just screams post 00:08:32.070 --> 00:08:34.429 -war Hollywood optimism, doesn't it? You picture 00:08:34.429 --> 00:08:38.370 a screwball comedy, probably black and white, 00:08:38.850 --> 00:08:40.889 very dialogue heavy. And do you know who played 00:08:40.889 --> 00:08:44.009 Happy Hogan in Champagne for Caesar? The source 00:08:44.009 --> 00:08:46.960 document notes it very clearly. played by Art 00:08:46.960 --> 00:08:49.620 Linkletter. Art Linkletter. A massive television 00:08:49.620 --> 00:08:53.440 personality in the mid 20th century. So now we 00:08:53.440 --> 00:08:56.299 have this incredibly weird triangulation going 00:08:56.299 --> 00:08:59.000 on. We have a historical baseball player who 00:08:59.000 --> 00:09:02.179 died in 1915. Then 35 years later, Hollywood 00:09:02.179 --> 00:09:04.440 makes a comedy movie and names the character 00:09:04.440 --> 00:09:06.700 Happy Hogan. Do you think the screenwriter knew 00:09:06.700 --> 00:09:08.840 about the baseball player? I highly doubt it. 00:09:08.940 --> 00:09:11.080 And that's what makes this so fascinating. It 00:09:11.080 --> 00:09:13.240 strongly suggests that Happy Hogan is just a 00:09:13.240 --> 00:09:15.340 phonetically pleasing combination of sounds. 00:09:15.500 --> 00:09:17.500 It's the double H, the alliteration. Yes, it 00:09:17.500 --> 00:09:19.259 just bounces off the tongue. You sound like a 00:09:19.259 --> 00:09:21.759 good time guy. Yeah. Hey, Happy Hogan. Exactly. 00:09:21.899 --> 00:09:24.220 So a screamwriter in 1950 probably just pulled 00:09:24.220 --> 00:09:26.440 it completely out of thin air because it sounded 00:09:26.440 --> 00:09:29.299 funny for a comedy sidekick. And then over a 00:09:29.299 --> 00:09:31.320 decade later, the comic book writers pull it 00:09:31.320 --> 00:09:33.799 out of the air again for a bodyguard. It's a 00:09:33.799 --> 00:09:36.220 totally recyclable name. Names are just containers, 00:09:36.320 --> 00:09:38.139 really. We keep emptying them out and refilling 00:09:38.139 --> 00:09:40.860 them with new cultural content. In 1910, the 00:09:40.860 --> 00:09:43.899 container was filled with a dusty baseball player. 00:09:44.539 --> 00:09:46.899 In 1950, it was filled with Art Link letter in 00:09:46.899 --> 00:09:49.620 a sharp suit. Today, it's filled with a movie 00:09:49.620 --> 00:09:52.139 star. It really makes you wonder why this specific 00:09:52.139 --> 00:09:54.500 name is so sticky, though. Like, why not Jolly 00:09:54.500 --> 00:09:57.559 Jenkins or Mary Miller? Why Happy Hogan? There 00:09:57.559 --> 00:09:59.759 is a very specific rhythm to it. It's atrocious, 00:09:59.840 --> 00:10:02.200 I think. Or close to it. It sounds like a comic 00:10:02.200 --> 00:10:04.460 book secret identity name, even before it actually 00:10:04.460 --> 00:10:09.399 was one. Peter Parker. Bruce Banner. Happy Hogan. 00:10:09.899 --> 00:10:11.679 And it sounds like a baseball name. It crosses 00:10:11.679 --> 00:10:14.080 those specific cultural boundaries perfectly. 00:10:14.399 --> 00:10:16.279 I want to go back to the page itself for a second. 00:10:16.440 --> 00:10:19.000 We've looked at the three men, the Phantom character, 00:10:19.259 --> 00:10:22.779 the real player, and the comedy role. But the 00:10:22.779 --> 00:10:25.799 page has these administrative warnings at the 00:10:25.799 --> 00:10:28.940 bottom that I find kind of poetic in a weird 00:10:28.940 --> 00:10:31.360 way. You mean the internal link warning? Yeah. 00:10:31.759 --> 00:10:34.279 It says, if an internal link incorrectly led 00:10:34.279 --> 00:10:36.779 you here, you may wish to change the link to 00:10:36.779 --> 00:10:38.960 point directly to the intended article. That 00:10:38.960 --> 00:10:41.659 is basically the warning under construction sign 00:10:41.659 --> 00:10:43.820 of the modern internet. It's the site admitting 00:10:43.820 --> 00:10:46.679 that the system is broken right. It's saying 00:10:46.679 --> 00:10:49.639 to the reader, you are lost. You weren't supposed 00:10:49.639 --> 00:10:52.000 to see this master list. You're supposed to teleport 00:10:52.000 --> 00:10:54.620 directly to the Iron Man page. It really highlights 00:10:54.620 --> 00:10:57.879 the true function of a disambiguation page. It's 00:10:57.879 --> 00:11:00.000 a holding pen. It's an airport terminal where 00:11:00.000 --> 00:11:01.480 everyone is just trying to catch a connecting 00:11:01.480 --> 00:11:03.940 flight to somewhere else. Nobody wakes up in 00:11:03.940 --> 00:11:05.740 the morning and says, I want to browse a list 00:11:05.740 --> 00:11:08.259 of various people named Happy Hogan. Well, unless 00:11:08.259 --> 00:11:10.259 you're us doing a deep dive. Fair enough, unless 00:11:10.259 --> 00:11:12.720 you're us. But generally speaking, this page 00:11:12.720 --> 00:11:15.700 is treated as a mistake. It exists solely to 00:11:15.700 --> 00:11:18.639 correct a navigational error. But because it 00:11:18.639 --> 00:11:21.600 exists, it forces these three totally unrelated 00:11:21.600 --> 00:11:24.139 lives to sit next to each other in perpetuity. 00:11:24.220 --> 00:11:26.519 It's a library of babble moment. You have Art 00:11:26.519 --> 00:11:29.259 Linkler. sitting next to a dead baseball player. 00:11:29.580 --> 00:11:32.320 They have absolutely nothing in common except 00:11:32.320 --> 00:11:34.840 a few letters in the English alphabet. And look 00:11:34.840 --> 00:11:37.019 at that category tag at the very bottom too. 00:11:37.569 --> 00:11:41.649 Human name disambiguation pages. Human name disambiguation 00:11:41.649 --> 00:11:43.870 pages. It sounds so sci -fi when you say it out 00:11:43.870 --> 00:11:47.190 loud, like we are being cataloged by an alien 00:11:47.190 --> 00:11:49.610 race. It implies that there are thousands of 00:11:49.610 --> 00:11:52.370 these pages, tens of thousands of digital intersections 00:11:52.370 --> 00:11:55.409 where identities just randomly collide. It's 00:11:55.409 --> 00:11:57.590 a sharp reminder that we aren't as unique as 00:11:57.590 --> 00:11:59.570 we like to think we are. We run out of names, 00:11:59.669 --> 00:12:02.009 we reuse them, and eventually we all just end 00:12:02.009 --> 00:12:04.429 up on a master list like this. That is a slightly 00:12:04.429 --> 00:12:07.169 terrifying thought, but also maybe kind of like 00:12:07.169 --> 00:12:09.289 we're all just part of this big messy human recycling 00:12:09.289 --> 00:12:11.529 project. It is comforting and it's incredible 00:12:11.529 --> 00:12:13.250 democratic. That's the other thing I really love 00:12:13.250 --> 00:12:16.110 about this specific source document. The democracy 00:12:16.110 --> 00:12:18.850 of the layout. Yes. Look at the formatting. Does 00:12:18.850 --> 00:12:21.090 the blockbuster movie character get a bigger 00:12:21.090 --> 00:12:24.450 font? No. Yeah. The page explicitly states it 00:12:24.450 --> 00:12:28.440 always uses small font size. Exactly. Does Art 00:12:28.440 --> 00:12:31.360 Linkletter get a special gold star next to his 00:12:31.360 --> 00:12:35.240 name? No. Everyone gets exactly one standard 00:12:35.240 --> 00:12:37.840 bullet point. The global superstar character 00:12:37.840 --> 00:12:41.480 and the obscure 1915 baseball player are given 00:12:41.480 --> 00:12:43.899 the exact same amount of screen real estate. 00:12:44.419 --> 00:12:46.740 The algorithm does not care about your fame or 00:12:46.740 --> 00:12:49.259 your box office returns. It only cares about 00:12:49.259 --> 00:12:52.019 the string of text. That's very true. To the 00:12:52.019 --> 00:12:54.059 computer database, Happy Hogan the baseball player 00:12:54.059 --> 00:12:56.159 and Happy Hogan the character are just equal 00:12:56.159 --> 00:12:58.360 data points to be sorted. It's the great equalizer. 00:12:58.559 --> 00:13:00.860 And in a strange way, the superhero is actually 00:13:00.860 --> 00:13:03.320 doing the baseball player a massive favor. How 00:13:03.320 --> 00:13:06.220 so? By bringing traffic to the page. Think about 00:13:06.220 --> 00:13:08.759 it. Without the massive popularity of the comic 00:13:08.759 --> 00:13:10.899 and movie character, absolutely nobody would 00:13:10.899 --> 00:13:13.120 be searching for the phrase Happy Hogan in the 00:13:13.120 --> 00:13:15.879 year 2025. That's true. This page might not even 00:13:15.879 --> 00:13:18.220 exist, or if it did, nobody would ever accidentally 00:13:18.220 --> 00:13:21.190 land on it. But because millions of people search 00:13:21.190 --> 00:13:24.590 for the Marvel character every year, a tiny fraction 00:13:24.590 --> 00:13:27.629 of them land here by mistake. And maybe just 00:13:27.629 --> 00:13:29.970 maybe one of those lost travelers clicks the 00:13:29.970 --> 00:13:32.570 baseball link out of curiosity. This affiction 00:13:32.570 --> 00:13:35.350 is actively keeping the history alive. It's dragging 00:13:35.350 --> 00:13:38.799 the forgotten history along in its wake. It's 00:13:38.799 --> 00:13:41.379 a digital lifeboat for the real Happy Hogan. 00:13:41.740 --> 00:13:43.860 I really love that visual. The superhero carrying 00:13:43.860 --> 00:13:45.720 the 19th century baseball player on his back. 00:13:46.039 --> 00:13:47.980 Metaphorically speaking, yes. Also, just as a 00:13:47.980 --> 00:13:49.639 quick side note before we wrap up, the source 00:13:49.639 --> 00:13:52.379 mentions, the text is available under the Creative 00:13:52.379 --> 00:13:55.299 Commons Attribution share alike 4 .0 license. 00:13:55.740 --> 00:13:57.879 Ah yes, the legal bedrock of open knowledge. 00:13:58.200 --> 00:14:01.019 It just emphasizes that this weird little intersection 00:14:01.019 --> 00:14:04.360 of lives belongs to everyone. Anyone can edit 00:14:04.360 --> 00:14:06.659 it. Anyone can share it. It's a public square. 00:14:06.899 --> 00:14:09.360 A very strange, highly specific public square. 00:14:09.639 --> 00:14:12.419 Exactly. So let's recap our entire journey here 00:14:12.419 --> 00:14:14.659 today. We started with a single familiar name. 00:14:14.940 --> 00:14:17.860 We dug into the source and we found three completely 00:14:17.860 --> 00:14:20.419 distinct realities. We have the modern myth, 00:14:20.659 --> 00:14:23.100 the comic character who anchors the name firmly 00:14:23.100 --> 00:14:26.080 in the 21st century. We have the historical origin, 00:14:26.440 --> 00:14:28.799 the real baseball player from the dead ball era 00:14:28.799 --> 00:14:31.840 who actually lived and breathes and died with 00:14:31.840 --> 00:14:33.860 that name. And we have the pop culture bridge. 00:14:34.299 --> 00:14:37.100 The 1950s film character that proves the name 00:14:37.100 --> 00:14:39.559 was bouncing around the collective unconscious 00:14:39.559 --> 00:14:42.340 long before any superhero suited up. And holding 00:14:42.340 --> 00:14:44.759 all of those disparate lives together. is this 00:14:44.759 --> 00:14:48.080 fragile, utilitarian plain text page. With its 00:14:48.080 --> 00:14:50.740 Baby Globe feature disabled and its helpful little 00:14:50.740 --> 00:14:53.460 warnings to lost internet travelers. You know, 00:14:53.480 --> 00:14:55.120 looking at all this really makes you think about 00:14:55.120 --> 00:14:58.259 legacy. We spent our entire lives trying to build 00:14:58.259 --> 00:15:00.879 a name for ourselves, trying to be remembered. 00:15:01.519 --> 00:15:03.519 But in the end, your name might just become a 00:15:03.519 --> 00:15:05.919 homonym for a character in a movie 70 years from 00:15:05.919 --> 00:15:08.820 now. Or a robot. Or a sandwich. Or a sandwich. 00:15:09.320 --> 00:15:11.539 The Happy Ogan special at a deli somewhere. Why 00:15:11.539 --> 00:15:14.360 not? The meaning of words drifts over time. We 00:15:14.360 --> 00:15:16.440 don't actually own our names. We're just leasing 00:15:16.440 --> 00:15:19.500 them for a lifetime. And that thought leads me 00:15:19.500 --> 00:15:22.220 exactly to where I want to leave you, the listener, 00:15:22.220 --> 00:15:24.500 today. I want you to try a little thought experiment 00:15:24.500 --> 00:15:26.559 with us. It's a little existential, so bear with 00:15:26.559 --> 00:15:29.500 me. I am ready. I want you to picture your own 00:15:29.500 --> 00:15:32.820 name right now, whatever it is, first and last, 00:15:33.100 --> 00:15:36.639 and I want you to imagine a Wikipedia disambiguation 00:15:36.639 --> 00:15:40.879 page for your specific name in the year 21... 00:15:41.460 --> 00:15:44.820 25. A full hundred years from now. Okay, painting 00:15:44.820 --> 00:15:47.039 the picture. You might be on there. Maybe. A 00:15:47.039 --> 00:15:48.720 little bullet point with your profession next 00:15:48.720 --> 00:15:50.860 to it. Yep. But who else is on that list with 00:15:50.860 --> 00:15:53.980 you? That is the real question. Is there a terraformer 00:15:53.980 --> 00:15:57.120 on Mars with your name? Is there a famous Android? 00:15:57.759 --> 00:16:00.279 Is there a brilliant geneticist who finally cured 00:16:00.279 --> 00:16:02.679 the common cold? Or maybe just a really popular 00:16:02.679 --> 00:16:04.799 brand of synthetic coffee that happens to share 00:16:04.799 --> 00:16:07.360 your name. Exactly. You were just one entry on 00:16:07.360 --> 00:16:10.019 a master list that is still being written. Your 00:16:10.019 --> 00:16:12.460 happy Hogan moment, the crazy cultural thing 00:16:12.460 --> 00:16:14.919 that completely redefines your name for a future 00:16:14.919 --> 00:16:16.940 generation might not have even happened yet. 00:16:17.200 --> 00:16:20.269 And you have absolutely no control over it. The 00:16:20.269 --> 00:16:22.169 baseball player didn't choose to be associated 00:16:22.169 --> 00:16:24.629 with a cinematic universe. It just happened. 00:16:24.830 --> 00:16:27.950 The universe decided. So be kind to your future 00:16:27.950 --> 00:16:30.129 disambiguation page neighbors. You're going to 00:16:30.129 --> 00:16:32.769 be spending a very long eternity with them in 00:16:32.769 --> 00:16:35.330 a small font size. And hopefully the internal 00:16:35.330 --> 00:16:37.549 links actually work. Hopefully. Check your internal 00:16:37.549 --> 00:16:39.809 links, everyone. And thank you as always for 00:16:39.809 --> 00:16:41.529 diving deep with us today. Always a pleasure.