WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.919 Imagine someone just hands you one million dollars 00:00:03.919 --> 00:00:06.559 in cold, hard cash. Right, just hands it to you. 00:00:06.879 --> 00:00:09.019 Exactly. Like, you aren't answering questions 00:00:09.019 --> 00:00:10.980 to build up a prize pot. You aren't climbing 00:00:10.980 --> 00:00:13.259 some ladder to reach a jackpot. Yeah, that's 00:00:13.259 --> 00:00:15.779 the usual way these things work. Right. But here, 00:00:16.000 --> 00:00:17.899 the very first thing that happens on this brightly 00:00:17.899 --> 00:00:21.859 lit stage is you are handed a mountain of physical 00:00:21.859 --> 00:00:24.980 money. Oh, wow. And your only job for the rest 00:00:24.980 --> 00:00:27.699 of the game is to watch that money literally 00:00:27.699 --> 00:00:30.100 drop out of sight. you know, bundle by bundle. 00:00:30.160 --> 00:00:32.500 Until you're just left with whatever you desperately 00:00:32.500 --> 00:00:35.770 managed to cling to. Exactly. So today we're 00:00:35.770 --> 00:00:38.289 doing a deep dive into the source material for 00:00:38.289 --> 00:00:40.969 a remarkably brutal piece of television history 00:00:40.969 --> 00:00:44.429 from late 2010. It was a game show called Million 00:00:44.429 --> 00:00:47.189 Dollar Money Drop. A very short lived game show, 00:00:47.189 --> 00:00:49.850 I should add. Yeah, extremely short lived. We 00:00:49.850 --> 00:00:52.630 were going to examine why putting physical cash 00:00:52.630 --> 00:00:55.289 in someone's hands fundamentally breaks their 00:00:55.289 --> 00:00:58.270 brain. It really does. And we'll get into what 00:00:58.270 --> 00:01:01.689 happens when millions of dollars hinge on a single 00:01:01.689 --> 00:01:05.040 flawed piece of trivia. and, you know, how this 00:01:05.040 --> 00:01:07.579 show kind of exposes the illusion of absolute 00:01:07.579 --> 00:01:11.120 certainty. So, okay, let's unpack this. Well, 00:01:11.200 --> 00:01:13.400 the physical premise alone is just a master class 00:01:13.400 --> 00:01:16.019 in psychological manipulation. I mean, the American 00:01:16.019 --> 00:01:19.040 version aired on Fox, hosted by Kevin Pollack, 00:01:19.319 --> 00:01:21.560 and it was actually based on a UK series called 00:01:21.560 --> 00:01:24.890 A Million Pound Drop Live. Right. But... The 00:01:24.890 --> 00:01:27.849 core difference here between this format and 00:01:27.849 --> 00:01:30.829 like almost every other game show on TV is that 00:01:30.829 --> 00:01:33.170 starting point. Contestants were always in pairs, 00:01:33.390 --> 00:01:35.049 right? People with a pre -existing relationship. 00:01:35.129 --> 00:01:37.510 Like a husband and wife or siblings. Exactly. 00:01:37.769 --> 00:01:39.310 And they didn't earn the money. The money was 00:01:39.310 --> 00:01:41.189 just a given. And the producers didn't just give 00:01:41.189 --> 00:01:43.310 them a digital counter on a screen, you know, 00:01:43.370 --> 00:01:45.510 or one of those giant novelty checks. Right. 00:01:45.609 --> 00:01:47.810 No big cardboard checks here. They brought out 00:01:47.810 --> 00:01:51.239 actual physical currency. The source notes, the 00:01:51.239 --> 00:01:53.680 million dollars was presented entirely in $20 00:01:53.680 --> 00:01:57.659 bills. 20s? Oh my gosh. Yeah. Banded together 00:01:57.659 --> 00:02:01.700 into 50 bundles of $20 ,000 each. I mean, think 00:02:01.700 --> 00:02:03.799 about the physical weight and volume of that. 00:02:03.819 --> 00:02:06.260 Intensive. It's not some neat little briefcase 00:02:06.260 --> 00:02:09.460 of hundreds. It's a cumbersome pile of paper 00:02:09.460 --> 00:02:11.639 that you literally have to lug around the stage. 00:02:11.819 --> 00:02:14.639 Right. I like to think of traditional game shows 00:02:14.639 --> 00:02:18.259 as essentially building a sandcastle. You answer 00:02:18.259 --> 00:02:20.919 a question, you add a little sand, answer another, 00:02:21.099 --> 00:02:23.199 add a little more, you are building toward a 00:02:23.199 --> 00:02:25.319 goal. Yeah, that's a great way to put it. But 00:02:25.319 --> 00:02:27.960 this game, it's like trying to hold water in 00:02:27.960 --> 00:02:30.639 your bare hands. Totally. You are just desperately 00:02:30.639 --> 00:02:32.659 trying to stop it from slipping through your 00:02:32.659 --> 00:02:35.060 fingers. What's fascinating here is that physical 00:02:35.060 --> 00:02:38.030 interaction... triggers something behavioral 00:02:38.030 --> 00:02:41.610 economists call the endowment effect. The endowment 00:02:41.610 --> 00:02:43.949 effect. Yeah, so the moment a person physically 00:02:43.949 --> 00:02:46.629 holds an object, in this case, 50 bundles of 00:02:46.629 --> 00:02:49.729 cash, their brain instantly claims ownership 00:02:49.729 --> 00:02:53.189 of it. Oh, so it's theirs now. Exactly. You value 00:02:53.189 --> 00:02:55.449 it significantly higher than something you don't 00:02:55.449 --> 00:02:58.610 actually possess yet. Yeah. And the really insidious 00:02:58.610 --> 00:03:01.270 twin of the endowment effect is loss aversion. 00:03:01.479 --> 00:03:04.599 Right. People hate losing things. Neurologically, 00:03:04.840 --> 00:03:06.939 the pain of losing something you already own 00:03:06.939 --> 00:03:09.159 is twice as powerful as the pleasure of gaining 00:03:09.159 --> 00:03:11.759 something new. Wait, really? Twice as powerful? 00:03:11.800 --> 00:03:14.539 Yeah. It's the exact same cognitive trap that 00:03:14.539 --> 00:03:17.419 makes a person, you know, refuse to sell a tanking 00:03:17.419 --> 00:03:21.120 stock or hold on to some terrible, itchy sweater 00:03:21.120 --> 00:03:23.620 for a decade just because they bought it. Because 00:03:23.620 --> 00:03:26.800 giving it up feels like a loss. Exactly. Our 00:03:26.800 --> 00:03:29.939 brains treat losing $10 twice as painfully as 00:03:29.939 --> 00:03:32.770 finding $10 on the sidewalk. Wow. And the set 00:03:32.770 --> 00:03:35.050 design of this show was totally engineered to 00:03:35.050 --> 00:03:37.289 maximize that specific pain. Oh, absolutely. 00:03:37.370 --> 00:03:40.710 The trap doors. Yes. The contestants face seven 00:03:40.710 --> 00:03:43.650 multiple choice questions. Beneath each possible 00:03:43.650 --> 00:03:46.330 answer is a physical trap door. And the players 00:03:46.330 --> 00:03:48.150 have to manually distribute their bundles of 00:03:48.150 --> 00:03:50.349 cash onto the trap doors they think might be 00:03:50.349 --> 00:03:52.379 the right answer. And you'll be moving it. the 00:03:52.379 --> 00:03:54.759 physical labor of it. Exactly. But the central 00:03:54.759 --> 00:03:56.680 rule is they always have to leave at least one 00:03:56.680 --> 00:03:59.500 trap door clear, meaning completely empty. So 00:03:59.500 --> 00:04:01.520 you can never cover all your bases. Right. You 00:04:01.520 --> 00:04:04.340 can never hedge your bets perfectly. You always, 00:04:04.340 --> 00:04:07.319 always have to risk losing something. And then 00:04:07.319 --> 00:04:10.319 comes the moment that time expires. It's brutal. 00:04:10.719 --> 00:04:13.379 The trap doors for the incorrect answers just 00:04:13.379 --> 00:04:16.279 violently swing open. Any money placed on them 00:04:16.279 --> 00:04:19.000 falls down a chute. and is permanently removed 00:04:19.000 --> 00:04:21.980 from play. And the source material highlights 00:04:21.980 --> 00:04:24.620 this particularly ruthless detail. There are 00:04:24.620 --> 00:04:26.779 security guards stationed beneath the stage. 00:04:26.779 --> 00:04:29.100 Oh, I remember this. Yeah, they physically cart 00:04:29.209 --> 00:04:31.750 the dropped money away. So the contestants aren't 00:04:31.750 --> 00:04:34.129 just losing arbitrary points on a digital scoreboard. 00:04:34.290 --> 00:04:37.029 No, they're looking down a literal hole. Watching 00:04:37.029 --> 00:04:39.689 men in uniforms haul their physical wealth away 00:04:39.689 --> 00:04:42.490 into the darkness. It's so dark. And, you know, 00:04:42.629 --> 00:04:45.269 the genius of the game design is how it slowly 00:04:45.269 --> 00:04:48.459 suffocates the players using time. The ticking 00:04:48.459 --> 00:04:51.519 clock. Yeah. Early on, for questions one through 00:04:51.519 --> 00:04:54.620 three, you have four possible answers and 60 00:04:54.620 --> 00:04:57.019 seconds to place your money. Which feels incredibly 00:04:57.019 --> 00:04:59.480 fast. It does, but the adrenaline gets you through 00:04:59.480 --> 00:05:02.740 it. But by question six, the choices drop to 00:05:02.740 --> 00:05:04.939 three, and suddenly they give you 90 seconds. 00:05:05.079 --> 00:05:07.060 Which sounds like a good thing, right? You'd 00:05:07.060 --> 00:05:10.720 think. But giving a person more time to agonize 00:05:10.720 --> 00:05:14.439 over dropping $200 ,000 onto a trap door? actually 00:05:14.439 --> 00:05:16.800 causes far more psychological panic than making 00:05:16.800 --> 00:05:19.759 them rush. Oh, for sure. That extra 30 seconds 00:05:19.759 --> 00:05:22.079 is just, it's just time to second -guess yourself 00:05:22.079 --> 00:05:24.560 into a spiral. Totally. And the producers built 00:05:24.560 --> 00:05:27.220 in mechanics designed specifically for cognitive 00:05:27.220 --> 00:05:29.379 overload, too. Like this thing called the quick 00:05:29.379 --> 00:05:31.259 change. Oh, right. The quick change. Yeah, you 00:05:31.259 --> 00:05:33.220 could trigger it once during the first six questions 00:05:33.220 --> 00:05:34.980 to get an extra 30 seconds to move your money. 00:05:35.620 --> 00:05:38.199 But the rules governing it were so punitive. 00:05:38.480 --> 00:05:41.319 How so? Well, if you accidentally put money on 00:05:41.319 --> 00:05:43.740 all the trap doors, violating the rule about 00:05:43.740 --> 00:05:46.759 leaving one clear, or if you failed to move all 00:05:46.759 --> 00:05:48.740 your remaining money off the staging area before 00:05:48.740 --> 00:05:51.279 time ran out. Oh, you get penalized. The quick 00:05:51.279 --> 00:05:53.339 change was automatically forced on you. And if 00:05:53.339 --> 00:05:54.879 you'd already used it previously and made one 00:05:54.879 --> 00:05:56.860 of those mechanical errors... Wait, what happens? 00:05:57.399 --> 00:06:00.620 Immediate unceremonious disqualification. Just 00:06:00.620 --> 00:06:03.660 boom, the game is over. No trapdoor, just a complete 00:06:03.660 --> 00:06:06.120 loss because your hands were shaking too much 00:06:06.120 --> 00:06:09.720 to move a bundle of 20s in time. That is, I mean, 00:06:09.939 --> 00:06:12.540 that's just cruel. And then on the final seventh 00:06:12.540 --> 00:06:15.680 question, they introduce the final fact. Right. 00:06:15.800 --> 00:06:18.939 So you have two trapdoors left. You place your 00:06:18.939 --> 00:06:22.879 money. Then the host reads a new piece of context 00:06:22.879 --> 00:06:25.560 or trivia related to the answers and the clock 00:06:25.560 --> 00:06:29.449 resets. to 60 seconds. Talk about panic. You 00:06:29.449 --> 00:06:31.550 have one minute to decide if you want to leave 00:06:31.550 --> 00:06:33.870 your life changing money where it is or frantically 00:06:33.870 --> 00:06:36.490 shove all of it over to the other trap door based 00:06:36.490 --> 00:06:39.129 on like a single sentence of new information. 00:06:39.230 --> 00:06:41.350 So you have an environment perfectly engineered 00:06:41.350 --> 00:06:44.129 to break the human brain's ability to reason 00:06:44.129 --> 00:06:46.990 logically. Exactly. And the producers just assumed 00:06:46.990 --> 00:06:50.110 their trivia questions would serve as this infallible 00:06:50.110 --> 00:06:52.870 objective foundation for all this pressure. Right. 00:06:52.930 --> 00:06:55.449 The rock solid truth. But the problem arises. 00:06:55.879 --> 00:06:58.379 when you put a psychologically fragile contestant 00:06:58.379 --> 00:07:00.939 on top of a completely subjective fact. Which 00:07:00.939 --> 00:07:03.019 is exactly what happened on the very first episode. 00:07:03.139 --> 00:07:06.180 The season premiere. Yes. The great post -it 00:07:06.180 --> 00:07:08.759 note debacle of 2010. Oh, this is legendary. 00:07:09.040 --> 00:07:12.220 The contestants are Gabe Okoye and Brittany Mady. 00:07:12.819 --> 00:07:14.920 They make it through the initial gauntlet and 00:07:14.920 --> 00:07:17.379 face this seemingly straightforward historical 00:07:17.379 --> 00:07:20.459 question. The question is, which of these was 00:07:20.459 --> 00:07:24.050 sold in stores first? Macintosh Computer, Sony 00:07:24.050 --> 00:07:27.050 Walkman, or Post -It Notes? It's not simple enough. 00:07:27.269 --> 00:07:30.050 They feel confident. They take the bulk of their 00:07:30.050 --> 00:07:33.810 remaining money, $800 ,000, and place it firmly 00:07:33.810 --> 00:07:36.490 on Post -It Notes. And then the show reveals 00:07:36.490 --> 00:07:38.740 the answer. They claim the correct option is 00:07:38.740 --> 00:07:42.000 the Sony Walkman. Yeah. The trapdoor opens, and 00:07:42.000 --> 00:07:45.660 Gabe and Brittany just watch $800 ,000 plummet 00:07:45.660 --> 00:07:48.139 out of sight. The emotional devastation is immediate. 00:07:48.240 --> 00:07:50.019 You can see it on their faces. It's visceral. 00:07:50.100 --> 00:07:51.879 But the story doesn't end on the stage, does 00:07:51.879 --> 00:07:55.149 it? No. The episode airs and we witness this 00:07:55.149 --> 00:07:58.089 fascinating collision between the unquestioned 00:07:58.089 --> 00:08:00.709 authority of old school television broadcasting 00:08:00.709 --> 00:08:04.129 and the emerging power of crowd -sourced internet 00:08:04.129 --> 00:08:06.129 sleuthing. Because the viewers at home almost 00:08:06.129 --> 00:08:08.009 immediately began digging into the timeline. 00:08:08.310 --> 00:08:11.209 And the timeline they dug up completely unravels 00:08:11.209 --> 00:08:14.250 the show's concept of an objective fact. According 00:08:14.250 --> 00:08:16.250 to the internet's research, which was quickly 00:08:16.250 --> 00:08:18.430 backed up by a Financial Times interview with 00:08:18.430 --> 00:08:20.709 the actual inventors of the product. Wow, they 00:08:20.709 --> 00:08:22.800 went straight to the source. They did. The Sony 00:08:22.800 --> 00:08:26.439 Walkman went on sale in Japan in July 1979 and 00:08:26.439 --> 00:08:30.449 hit the U .S. market in June 1980. But the product 00:08:30.449 --> 00:08:32.730 that would become the Post -It Note was actually 00:08:32.730 --> 00:08:35.409 test marketed in retail stores in four cities 00:08:35.409 --> 00:08:38.649 back in 1977. Yeah, it was called Press and Peel 00:08:38.649 --> 00:08:41.470 at the time. It later launched nationwide under 00:08:41.470 --> 00:08:45.389 the Post -It name in April 1980. So think about 00:08:45.389 --> 00:08:47.409 the trivia you consider to be absolute truth, 00:08:47.529 --> 00:08:49.490 right? If I asked you what year the iPhone came 00:08:49.490 --> 00:08:52.889 out, you'd confidently say 2007. Right. But if 00:08:52.889 --> 00:08:55.230 Apple had secretly tested a prototype in a handful 00:08:55.230 --> 00:08:58.269 of retail stores in 2005 under a different project, 00:08:58.250 --> 00:09:02.190 Is your answer of 2007 suddenly wrong? Oh, I 00:09:02.190 --> 00:09:05.210 see. That is the exact semantic trap these contestants 00:09:05.210 --> 00:09:08.210 fell into. What constitutes being sold in stores? 00:09:08.269 --> 00:09:10.629 Yeah, does a four city test market of a product 00:09:10.629 --> 00:09:13.129 with a different name even count? Exactly. On 00:09:13.129 --> 00:09:16.049 a standard daytime game show, a disputed answer 00:09:16.049 --> 00:09:18.129 might mean the producers quietly invite you back 00:09:18.129 --> 00:09:20.769 next season. But when a couple has just watched 00:09:20.769 --> 00:09:25.509 $800 ,000 physical dollars drop down a shoot 00:09:25.509 --> 00:09:28.090 based on a highly debatable definition, of the 00:09:28.090 --> 00:09:32.289 word sold, the stakes for semantic accuracy become 00:09:32.289 --> 00:09:35.809 impossibly high. And the media backlash was incredibly 00:09:35.809 --> 00:09:38.769 swift. I mean, on December 21st, the website 00:09:38.769 --> 00:09:41.570 Gawker published a massive article detailing 00:09:41.570 --> 00:09:44.049 the controversy. Gawker was huge back then. Huge. 00:09:44.470 --> 00:09:47.149 And the show's executive producer, Jeff Aploff, 00:09:47.340 --> 00:09:50.120 He initially came out swinging. He issued a statement 00:09:50.120 --> 00:09:52.159 declaring that the integrity of their questions 00:09:52.159 --> 00:09:54.620 was their highest priority. Oh, of course. He 00:09:54.620 --> 00:09:56.580 stated the research team had spoken directly 00:09:56.580 --> 00:09:58.899 with 3M, the parent company of Post -It Notes. 00:09:59.299 --> 00:10:02.679 And he claimed 3M confirmed the 1977 rollouts 00:10:02.679 --> 00:10:05.159 were just free samples and test markets, and 00:10:05.159 --> 00:10:07.440 the product wasn't officially sold until 1980. 00:10:07.559 --> 00:10:10.679 So it was doubling down. Totally. Apple off unequivocally 00:10:10.679 --> 00:10:12.700 stated that the show stood behind its answer. 00:10:12.779 --> 00:10:15.159 But the internet did not let up. No, they didn't. 00:10:15.220 --> 00:10:17.470 The pressure just continued to mount. until two 00:10:17.470 --> 00:10:20.289 days later when Aploff was forced to completely 00:10:20.289 --> 00:10:23.470 backtrack. Two days? That's so fast. He released 00:10:23.470 --> 00:10:25.850 a secondary statement admitting that the information 00:10:25.850 --> 00:10:28.429 his research department received from 3M was, 00:10:28.429 --> 00:10:31.769 quote, incomplete. Ouch. Yeah. He conceded that 00:10:31.769 --> 00:10:34.149 the product was indeed tested for sale in four 00:10:34.149 --> 00:10:37.970 cities in 1977 and actually sold as Post -Its 00:10:37.970 --> 00:10:41.450 in 1979 during a broader rollout. So the show 00:10:41.450 --> 00:10:43.129 ultimately offered Gabe and Brittany another 00:10:43.129 --> 00:10:45.250 shot to play the game. But the most revealing 00:10:45.250 --> 00:10:47.870 part of that entire situation is how the host 00:10:47.870 --> 00:10:50.529 of the show, Kevin Pollack, reacted to it. Oh, 00:10:50.610 --> 00:10:53.029 this is wild. He gave an interview a week later 00:10:53.029 --> 00:10:55.610 and was shockingly dismissive of the whole controversy. 00:10:56.250 --> 00:10:58.809 He called the post -it note issue a moot point 00:10:58.809 --> 00:11:03.190 and a non -story. A non -story. Yeah. His justification 00:11:03.190 --> 00:11:05.690 was that Gabe and Brittany lost whatever small 00:11:05.690 --> 00:11:07.710 amount of money they had left on the very next 00:11:07.710 --> 00:11:10.950 question anyway. His exact quote was, they never 00:11:10.950 --> 00:11:13.210 had a chance to win that money, ever, no matter 00:11:13.210 --> 00:11:15.990 what. Well, to play devil's advocate for a moment 00:11:15.990 --> 00:11:18.669 here, Pollack's point mathematically makes sense 00:11:18.669 --> 00:11:21.750 in a vacuum. If a contestant does not know the 00:11:21.750 --> 00:11:23.929 answer to the final questions in a sequence, 00:11:24.570 --> 00:11:27.250 their bankroll will eventually hit zero, regardless 00:11:27.250 --> 00:11:29.169 of how much they retained in earlier rounds. 00:11:29.879 --> 00:11:33.139 It is a strictly clinical way to view the progression 00:11:33.139 --> 00:11:36.139 of the game. Yeah, mathematically, sure. But 00:11:36.139 --> 00:11:38.639 human beings aren't calculators. Especially not 00:11:38.639 --> 00:11:40.700 when they're enduring the psychological torture 00:11:40.700 --> 00:11:43.720 chamber we just described. If you are a contestant 00:11:43.720 --> 00:11:46.759 who just suffered the massive psychological blow 00:11:46.759 --> 00:11:51.250 of watching $800 ,000 drop through the floorboards. 00:11:51.529 --> 00:11:53.870 Money you thought you had. Money you were highly 00:11:53.870 --> 00:11:56.490 confident you had secured based on accurate knowledge. 00:11:57.049 --> 00:11:59.309 Your mental state is going to be completely wrecked. 00:11:59.330 --> 00:12:02.409 Oh, entirely. Your adrenaline crashes. You begin 00:12:02.409 --> 00:12:05.049 second guessing every instinct you have. Of course 00:12:05.049 --> 00:12:07.570 they failed the next question. You cannot isolate 00:12:07.570 --> 00:12:10.210 a traumatic event like that and pretend it doesn't 00:12:10.210 --> 00:12:12.610 profoundly alter a person's cognitive performance 00:12:12.610 --> 00:12:15.529 going forward. Exactly. The show's producers 00:12:15.529 --> 00:12:18.070 were treating the game like a sterile mathematical 00:12:18.070 --> 00:12:20.690 equation. While the contestants were experiencing 00:12:20.690 --> 00:12:23.970 it as a highly emotional high -stakes trauma. 00:12:24.690 --> 00:12:26.750 And you know, if the post -it controversy exposed 00:12:26.750 --> 00:12:29.490 the danger of historical semantics, the very 00:12:29.490 --> 00:12:32.889 next major controversy the show faced revealed 00:12:32.889 --> 00:12:36.389 a much deeper issue. Oh yeah. It exposed a fundamental 00:12:36.389 --> 00:12:39.649 flaw in how data is sourced and presented in 00:12:39.649 --> 00:12:41.940 modern media. Here's where it gets really interesting. 00:12:42.279 --> 00:12:45.259 The password lawsuit. The very next couple to 00:12:45.259 --> 00:12:47.519 play after Gabe and Brittany with Andrew and 00:12:47.519 --> 00:12:51.090 Patricia Murray. According to a 2012 report from 00:12:51.090 --> 00:12:53.850 Buzzerblog, the Murrays ended up suing Fox and 00:12:53.850 --> 00:12:57.470 the production company Endemol for $580 ,000. 00:12:57.629 --> 00:13:00.110 A huge lawsuit. And the entire lawsuit centered 00:13:00.110 --> 00:13:02.110 around a question they faced about internet security. 00:13:02.789 --> 00:13:05.009 The prompt was, according to the data security 00:13:05.009 --> 00:13:07.389 firm Imperva, what's the most common computer 00:13:07.389 --> 00:13:10.090 password? OK. The three choices were password, 00:13:10.269 --> 00:13:13.610 123456, and I love you. And the Murrays placed 00:13:13.610 --> 00:13:17.169 their entire remaining bankroll, $580 ,000 on 00:13:17.169 --> 00:13:19.769 the option password. Makes sense. But the show 00:13:19.769 --> 00:13:22.850 informed them the correct answer was 123456. 00:13:22.990 --> 00:13:26.309 The trap door opened, the money was lost. But 00:13:26.309 --> 00:13:29.070 the Murrays didn't just walk away. They hired 00:13:29.070 --> 00:13:31.909 lawyers and started digging into the actual source 00:13:31.909 --> 00:13:34.889 of this supposedly definitive fact. But for them. 00:13:35.230 --> 00:13:37.789 And what they uncovered is just a perfect case 00:13:37.789 --> 00:13:40.769 study in how public relations data is manipulated 00:13:40.769 --> 00:13:43.649 for mass consumption. Because the Murrays discovered 00:13:43.649 --> 00:13:47.210 that Imperva, the cited data security firm, did 00:13:47.210 --> 00:13:50.230 not conduct a comprehensive, objective or global 00:13:50.230 --> 00:13:52.929 survey of computer users to determine the most 00:13:52.929 --> 00:13:55.889 common password. Not at all. Their data was based 00:13:55.889 --> 00:13:58.870 entirely on the forensic analysis of one specific 00:13:58.870 --> 00:14:01.289 localized hacking incident involving a single 00:14:01.289 --> 00:14:04.240 website called rocku .com. And this happens constantly 00:14:04.240 --> 00:14:06.700 in the information age. It does. A company wants 00:14:06.700 --> 00:14:08.960 press coverage, so they take a highly specific, 00:14:09.279 --> 00:14:11.740 narrow data poll, in this case, the leaked passwords 00:14:11.740 --> 00:14:15.019 from one specific demographic of users on a 2009 00:14:15.019 --> 00:14:17.440 social widget site. Right. And they dress it 00:14:17.440 --> 00:14:19.620 up in a press release as a universal truth about 00:14:19.620 --> 00:14:22.320 global internet security. It is exactly like 00:14:22.320 --> 00:14:24.639 polling the attendees of a vegan food festival 00:14:24.639 --> 00:14:27.159 and publishing a study concluding that 100 % 00:14:27.159 --> 00:14:29.840 of Americans refuse to eat steak. That's a great 00:14:29.840 --> 00:14:32.970 analogy. As viewers, or as contestants, when 00:14:32.970 --> 00:14:35.350 a television show with high -end graphics and 00:14:35.350 --> 00:14:38.370 an authoritative host cites a data security firm, 00:14:38.950 --> 00:14:41.429 we instinctively assume we're dealing with peer 00:14:41.429 --> 00:14:44.309 -reviewed science. Or at least a massive universal 00:14:44.309 --> 00:14:47.250 data set. Right. The Murrays explicitly stated 00:14:47.250 --> 00:14:48.950 in their lawsuit that if they had been given 00:14:48.950 --> 00:14:51.730 the actual context, if the question had asked 00:14:51.730 --> 00:14:54.950 about the RockYou .com hack specifically, they 00:14:54.950 --> 00:14:56.690 would have hedged their bets and played the game 00:14:56.690 --> 00:14:59.370 differently. The hidden methodology completely 00:14:59.370 --> 00:15:01.909 changes the context of the knowledge being tested. 00:15:02.610 --> 00:15:04.610 This raises an important question about how media 00:15:04.610 --> 00:15:07.590 presents data. It shatters the illusion of authority. 00:15:07.690 --> 00:15:10.509 Yeah. We are conditioned to trust the voice of 00:15:10.509 --> 00:15:13.309 the game show host. But underneath the flashing 00:15:13.309 --> 00:15:15.889 lights and dramatic music, the foundation of 00:15:15.889 --> 00:15:18.289 their absolute certainty is often just a repurposed 00:15:18.289 --> 00:15:20.090 press release from a single corporate entity. 00:15:20.429 --> 00:15:23.710 Wow. The concept of a definitive answer is far 00:15:23.710 --> 00:15:26.269 more fragile than television formats want to 00:15:26.269 --> 00:15:29.580 admit. And that profound fragility is ultimately 00:15:29.580 --> 00:15:31.600 what doomed the American version of the show. 00:15:32.100 --> 00:15:34.399 I mean, you have a game with incredibly gripping 00:15:34.399 --> 00:15:37.659 dramatic stakes, a brilliant physical set piece, 00:15:37.980 --> 00:15:40.799 and an average viewership of over five million 00:15:40.799 --> 00:15:44.840 people. Five million? Yet Fox canceled it in 00:15:44.840 --> 00:15:49.059 May of 2011 after only 12 episodes. Looking at 00:15:49.059 --> 00:15:51.559 the statistics from the source, it was a brutal, 00:15:51.860 --> 00:15:54.440 almost unwatchable run for the contestants. How 00:15:54.440 --> 00:15:57.549 bad was it? Out of those 12 episodes, 12 different 00:15:57.549 --> 00:15:59.970 teams left the stage with absolutely nothing. 00:16:00.429 --> 00:16:03.289 Zero dollars. Oh, that's rough. The highest amount 00:16:03.289 --> 00:16:05.809 anyone ever managed to walk away with was $300 00:16:05.809 --> 00:16:09.009 ,000, secured by Nathan Moore and Lana McKissick. 00:16:09.450 --> 00:16:12.070 The game was simply too unforgiving. It's interesting, 00:16:12.149 --> 00:16:14.009 though, because while the TV broadcast collapsed 00:16:14.009 --> 00:16:16.409 quickly in the United States, the source material 00:16:16.409 --> 00:16:18.809 points out two fascinating elements of the show's 00:16:18.809 --> 00:16:21.090 legacy. OK. Which kind of proved the core concept 00:16:21.090 --> 00:16:23.500 was actually brilliant. First, the producers 00:16:23.500 --> 00:16:25.580 introduced an online play -along component during 00:16:25.580 --> 00:16:27.559 the season finale. Oh, like an app? Yeah, viewers 00:16:27.559 --> 00:16:30.899 at home could play live with the broadcast, allocating 00:16:30.899 --> 00:16:34.080 virtual cash on a digital leaderboard based on 00:16:34.080 --> 00:16:36.460 how fast they answered and how accurately they 00:16:36.460 --> 00:16:38.379 placed their drops. Oh, that's cool. It was a 00:16:38.379 --> 00:16:41.580 massive success and heavily pointed toward the 00:16:41.580 --> 00:16:43.799 second -screen interactive viewing experiences 00:16:43.799 --> 00:16:47.159 we see so often today. Second, while the American 00:16:47.159 --> 00:16:50.100 iteration was a catastrophic failure, the format 00:16:50.100 --> 00:16:53.200 itself was a global monster. There were over 00:16:53.200 --> 00:16:56.580 15 international versions that absolutely thrived. 00:16:56.940 --> 00:16:59.620 The original UK version, the million pound drop, 00:16:59.960 --> 00:17:02.720 ran continuously all the way until August of 00:17:02.720 --> 00:17:05.539 2019. Almost a decade. It is a brilliant irony. 00:17:05.799 --> 00:17:07.799 The American show was like a contestant who put 00:17:07.799 --> 00:17:09.799 all their money on the wrong trap door early 00:17:09.799 --> 00:17:12.420 on, but the format itself was a massive winner 00:17:12.420 --> 00:17:15.079 worldwide. The difference between the UK success 00:17:15.079 --> 00:17:17.859 and the US failure comes down entirely to the 00:17:17.859 --> 00:17:21.160 concept of trust. Trust. Yeah. The format works 00:17:21.160 --> 00:17:23.539 universally because the psychological mechanics 00:17:23.539 --> 00:17:26.640 of loss aversion are human nature. Everyone feels 00:17:26.640 --> 00:17:28.940 the tension of watching wealth disappear. Right. 00:17:29.119 --> 00:17:31.579 But for that tension to be entertaining rather 00:17:31.579 --> 00:17:34.799 than just depressing, the audience has to fundamentally 00:17:34.799 --> 00:17:38.680 trust that the game is impeccably fair. It relies 00:17:38.680 --> 00:17:41.019 on an unwritten contract between the viewer and 00:17:41.019 --> 00:17:42.940 the producer. And the American Iteration got 00:17:42.940 --> 00:17:45.380 bogged down immediately by these incredibly high 00:17:45.380 --> 00:17:47.559 -profile controversies regarding the fundamental 00:17:47.559 --> 00:17:50.470 accuracy of their questions. When you are watching 00:17:50.470 --> 00:17:52.750 everyday people lose life -changing amounts of 00:17:52.750 --> 00:17:55.390 money, the rules have to be bulletproof. Once 00:17:55.390 --> 00:17:58.470 the Post -It Note semantic debate and the Imperva 00:17:58.470 --> 00:18:01.750 password data fiasco broke that trust, the tension 00:18:01.750 --> 00:18:04.009 evaporated. Exactly. You were no longer watching 00:18:04.009 --> 00:18:06.470 people test their knowledge and courage against 00:18:06.470 --> 00:18:09.309 a fair system. You were watching people get robbed 00:18:09.309 --> 00:18:12.210 by bad research and tricky phrasing. Which perfectly 00:18:12.210 --> 00:18:14.690 explains why television executives refuse to 00:18:14.690 --> 00:18:17.009 let the format die. Really? They're trying to 00:18:17.009 --> 00:18:18.950 bring it back. The bones of the game are incredibly 00:18:18.960 --> 00:18:22.599 solid. The source mentions that in January 2019, 00:18:23.039 --> 00:18:25.700 Michael Strahan's company, SMSE Entertainment, 00:18:26.319 --> 00:18:28.980 partnered with Endemol Shine North America to 00:18:28.980 --> 00:18:32.119 shop a revival of this show in the US. Yet, Strahan 00:18:32.119 --> 00:18:34.660 had seen the format operating flawlessly in London 00:18:34.660 --> 00:18:37.240 and immediately wanted to bring it back. He was 00:18:37.240 --> 00:18:38.859 planning to pair it with his other successful 00:18:38.859 --> 00:18:42.460 game show revivals, like The $100 ,000 pyramid. 00:18:42.559 --> 00:18:44.640 That makes sense. The executive vice president 00:18:44.640 --> 00:18:47.319 of syndication at Endemol noted that the concept 00:18:47.319 --> 00:18:50.480 remains universally fun and engaging. It simply 00:18:50.480 --> 00:18:52.779 requires a production team and a research department 00:18:52.779 --> 00:18:55.640 that deeply understands the nuance, the semantics, 00:18:55.960 --> 00:18:57.819 and the fact -checking demands of the modern 00:18:57.819 --> 00:19:01.720 internet age. So, what does this all mean? The 00:19:01.720 --> 00:19:04.509 story of a million dollar money drop Isn't really 00:19:04.509 --> 00:19:07.250 about a cancelled television show. It is a stark 00:19:07.250 --> 00:19:09.609 reminder of how we interact with information 00:19:09.609 --> 00:19:12.190 every single day. Absolutely. You don't need 00:19:12.190 --> 00:19:14.410 to be standing on a literal trap door holding 00:19:14.410 --> 00:19:16.849 physical cash to apply these lessons. Tomorrow, 00:19:16.890 --> 00:19:18.529 when you scroll through your newsfeed or sit 00:19:18.529 --> 00:19:20.630 in a board meeting, you are going to be presented 00:19:20.630 --> 00:19:23.410 with graphs, statistics, and seemingly objective 00:19:23.410 --> 00:19:25.869 facts. And just like the Impervia password study 00:19:25.869 --> 00:19:28.759 or the Post -It Note timeline, Those everyday 00:19:28.759 --> 00:19:32.319 facts often have an unseen agenda or a remarkably 00:19:32.319 --> 00:19:34.680 narrow methodology propping them up. The takeaway 00:19:34.680 --> 00:19:37.559 for you is to build a habit of looking past the 00:19:37.559 --> 00:19:40.880 headline. When someone presents a statistic with 00:19:40.880 --> 00:19:44.480 absolute authority, your immediate reflex should 00:19:44.480 --> 00:19:48.259 be to ask about the methodology. Who funded this 00:19:48.259 --> 00:19:50.559 data? What was the sample size? How are they 00:19:50.559 --> 00:19:53.500 defining their terms? Right. It is about recognizing 00:19:53.500 --> 00:19:56.180 that the world is rarely as binary as a multiple 00:19:56.180 --> 00:19:59.440 choice question. The real danger in Million Dollar 00:19:59.440 --> 00:20:02.039 Money Drop wasn't the physical trap doors that 00:20:02.039 --> 00:20:04.579 swallow the cash, it was the psychological trap 00:20:04.579 --> 00:20:06.819 of absolute certainty. That's a great point. 00:20:07.000 --> 00:20:09.220 The mechanics of the game forced players to commit 00:20:09.220 --> 00:20:11.819 entirely, without nuance, to a single version 00:20:11.819 --> 00:20:14.539 of the truth. But as we have seen, the truth 00:20:14.539 --> 00:20:17.119 almost always has a few asterisks attached to 00:20:17.119 --> 00:20:19.299 it. Always! So we'll leave you with a final thought 00:20:19.299 --> 00:20:22.019 experiment to mull over today. If someone handed 00:20:22.019 --> 00:20:24.569 you a million dollars right now, in physical 00:20:24.569 --> 00:20:27.029 $20 bills. Right here, right now. And told you 00:20:27.029 --> 00:20:29.049 that you had to bet every single cent of it on 00:20:29.049 --> 00:20:32.390 the one piece of trivia to be a 100 % indisputable 00:20:32.390 --> 00:20:35.829 fact. How quickly would you realize that almost 00:20:35.829 --> 00:20:39.289 everything you know has a loophole? It is a terrifying 00:20:39.289 --> 00:20:42.130 thought when the floor literally drops out from 00:20:42.130 --> 00:20:45.109 under you. Thank you for joining us on this deep 00:20:45.109 --> 00:20:46.930 dive into the source material. We will see you 00:20:46.930 --> 00:20:47.430 next time.