A Little Knowledge

This week on A Little Knowledge , Joe and Jackson pause the branding episodes to take a trip back to their childhood and talk about Halloween in small-town America. From trick-or-treating and neighborhood traditions to the freedom of growing up in a town where everybody seemed to know everybody, we revisit what made Halloween so memorable. But the conversation takes a darker turn as we discuss the...

This week on A Little Knowledge , Joe and Jackson take a trip through the history of branding. Where did the word "brand" come from, what did it originally mean, and how did we go from marking livestock to putting logos on practically everything we own? We explore the origins of branding, how it evolved into the marketing powerhouse we know today, and when companies figured out that a recognizable...

This week on A Little Knowledge , Joe takes the reins as we dive headfirst into the world of brand loyalty. From the products we swear by to the companies we refuse to support, Joe and Jackson explore what makes us loyal to a brand and just how far we're willing to go to defend our favorites. Are our preferences really our own, or have family, friends, and clever marketing been making our decision...

In this episode, Jackson wraps up his three-part podcast series exploring dragons and why they appear in the Bible. Could their presence be the result of mistranslation, or is there something deeper hiding in the text? Jackson takes us through the Old Testament, the New Testament, and perhaps even his own testament, unpacking several biblical passages, examining the language behind them, and explo...

This week, Jackson dives into dragons, mythical creatures, and some of the bizarre animals lurking beneath the ocean. His star witness? The cuttlefish, a strange little sea creature whose ability to change its appearance somehow becomes evidence that dragons may have actually existed. Joe, feeling increasingly enlightened, contributes whenever he can while Jackson explains how mythical creatures m...

This week on A Little Knowledge , we dive into Shakespeare, T. S. Eliot, metaphors, and the strange ways we use language to explain the world around us. Meanwhile, Joe tries his damnedest to derail Jackson at every possible opportunity. Jackson, somehow, refuses to take the bait and keeps dragging the conversation back on track. Literature, language, questionable interpretations, and one host desp...

This week on A Little Knowledge , Jackson takes us down the rabbit hole of the Ark of the Covenant, and Joe does his best to figure out what the hell he's talking about. We dig into the Ark, its biblical significance, the mystery surrounding it, and why people have been fascinated by it for thousands of years. Along the way, Joe tries his best to relate to the story while Jackson attempts to keep...

This week, we dive deeper into the strange world of curses. From the so-called Kennedy curse and the witchcraft behind some of history's most famous superstitions to the Salem witch trials, we try to figure out why people have believed in curses for centuries. Then we bring it all the way to baseball, where curses, superstitions, rituals, and a little bad luck have become part of the game itself....

This week on A Little Knowledge , we're getting a little supernatural. We talk about the occult, curses, blessings, and self-fulfilling prophecies, and how much power these ideas can have simply because we believe in them. Joe and Jackson look back at growing up in a time when our exposure to news and media was much more limited. Before the internet put nearly every answer at our fingertips, a lot...

This week on A Little Knowledge , we take a questionably researched trip through the modern history of joke telling, from the 1800s to today. We look at how jokes have changed over the years, what people found funny in different eras, and how humor became such a big part of popular culture. Jackson gets personal, talking about his family, the jokes he grew up with, and what humor has meant to him...

This week on A Little Knowledge , we look back at our history with telling jokes, where we learned them, who we learned them from, and how our sense of humor changed as we got older. We talk about our fathers' very different senses of humor and the lessons we picked up along the way about what gets a laugh, what crosses the line, and what probably should've never been said in the first place. We a...

This week on A Little Knowledge , Joe and Jackson put down the research and start telling each other jokes. And somehow, Jackson's Uncle Dewey ends up becoming the star of half of them. We trade jokes, see who can actually make the other one laugh, and discover just how many punchlines can involve one unsuspecting uncle. Then Joe reaches way back into the family history to tell the completely, abs...

This week on A Little Knowledge , we're talking about something almost everyone does— swearing . Why do humans swear in the first place? Why do certain words feel so much more satisfying than others? Joe and Jackson share some of their favorite swear words, talk about where our colorful language comes from, and dig into a little of the history behind profanity. And because apparently swearing wasn...

This week, Joe and Jackson dive into the surprisingly fascinating world of swearing. They swap stories about growing up, the role bad words played in their families, and how their early exposure to profanity shaped the way they think about language today. Along the way, they explore why humans swear, why certain words carry so much power, and whether cursing is really as bad as we've always been t...

This week, we find ourselves reflecting on the incredible journey of fatherhood and the moments from childhood when we first realized what was possible—those little milestones that made us feel like we were growing up. Of course, we don't stay on topic for long. Joe lovingly talks about his preferred way to clean the floors, while Jackson passionately defends the importance of a well-organized rac...

What makes something "cool," and who gets to decide? This week, Joe and Jackson tackle sneaker culture, the psychology behind collecting, and the invisible social economy of cultural currency and cultural capital. From limited-edition Jordans to everyday status symbols, they explore why people value what they do—with plenty of tangents, questionable expertise, and laughs along the way. It also hap...

This week, Joe and Jackson step into the world of sneaker culture—a world filled with hype drops, resale prices, limited editions, and people who camp overnight just to buy shoes. They explore what makes a pair of sneakers more than just footwear, why some people treat them like works of art or investment portfolios, and whether cultural currency can really be worn on your feet.

This week, Jackson drags Joe into the strange world of perception and forces him to confront a reality he'd rather ignore: blue birds aren't actually blue... and neither is the sky. What starts as a conversation about how our brains interpret light quickly turns into an uphill battle as Joe desperately searches for loopholes, sings a little Rosette, and attempts to derail the discussion every chan...

This week, Joe takes the lead on a deep dive into the history, psychology, and cultural impact of the color red while Jackson jumps in with questions, observations, and the occasional derailment. From prehistoric cave pigments and royal robes to warning signs, advertising, politics, and pop culture, they explore why no other color has carried so much meaning across human history. Along the way the...

This week, Joe and Jackson dive into the surprisingly weird history of duct tape, duck tape, WD-40, and PB Blaster. Why do some people swear by one product over another? Is Duck Tape actually duct tape? What does WD-40 even stand for? And can any of these miracle products really fix everything? Along the way, we explore military origins, rusted bolts, questionable home repairs, and other facinatin...

What do Vikings, French nobles, Roman soldiers, and a terrible Sean Connery impression have in common? They all helped shape this week's episode on the surprisingly chaotic history of the English language.

In this episode, Joe puts Jackson in the hot seat with follow-up questions from our previous discussion on language and rhetoric. We explore theories about the birth of language, how humans went from gestures and sounds to complex communication, and the teachers who inspired us along the way. As usual, the conversation takes a few unexpected turns.

What makes language so powerful? Why are humans uniquely capable of persuasion, storytelling, and argument? This week, Jackson shares lessons from a college course he teaches on the origins of language and rhetoric. We dive into Greek mythology, ancient philosophy, and the foundations of communication itself—before wandering into territory that would almost certainly not appear on the final exam.

Why do lyrics matter so much to us? In Part 3 of our ongoing lyrics series, Jackson gives Joe an alternative pronunciation to iambic pentameter and takes a surprisingly serious dive into poetry, meter, rhythm, rhyme schemes, Greek storytelling traditions, and the musical DNA that connects ancient epics to modern rock songs all while we cross our wires. Somewhere along the way, we discuss  Bruce Sp...

In this episode, we explore why people mishear lyrics, where the term "mondegreen" comes from, and how songs evolve through misunderstanding and repetition. We also do a short lyrical breakdown of the classic hip-hop track They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.) by Pete Rock and C.L. Smooth , discussing its themes and lasting impact.