Latest / Ridiculous History / The Ridiculous Racist Origin of Tipping, Part One: A Gratuitous History of Gratuity

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The Ridiculous Racist Origin of Tipping, Part One: A Gratuitous History of Gratuity · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. welcome back to
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: the show fellow ridiculous historians thank you as always so
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  Speaker 1: much for tuning in uh here's one for the cheapskates
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  Speaker 1: folks this is probably going to be a two-part series
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  Speaker 1: on the uh the practice of tipping and we could
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  Speaker 1: not do this without our super producer mr max 25 percent.
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  Speaker 2: Williams what what what they say tipping ain't just a
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  Speaker 2: What is it?
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  Speaker 3: Not a country in China. China's a country. What's tipping?
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  Speaker 3: The capital?
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  Speaker 1: I don't know.
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  Speaker 2: I'm bad at geography, but I'm good at tipping. And
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  Speaker 2: I'll tell you why. From dating people in the service
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  Speaker 2: industry or one person in particular, I was alerted that
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  Speaker 2: by no intention of my own, no ill will, I
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  Speaker 2: was a bad tipper. And it was only because I
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  Speaker 2: didn't really understand the formula. And so ever since then,
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  Speaker 2: I have just applied the simple doubling of the first
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  Speaker 2: two digits of the check. And that usually amounts to
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  Speaker 2: around 20%. And then, you know, of course, nowadays we
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  Speaker 2: have helpful little guides at the bottom, little legends, you know,
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  Speaker 2: telling you what the appropriate amount is. But I swear, man,
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  Speaker 2: I just had no idea that I was such a
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  Speaker 2: lousy tipper. And I fixed it and never looked back.
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  Speaker 2: But boy, is it a problematic concept in general. here
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  Speaker 2: in the United States in particular, where folks who work
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  Speaker 2: for tips typically.
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  Speaker 3: Aren't paid a living wage.
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  Speaker 1: That's Noel Brown, and I agree with you. I am
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  Speaker 1: Ben Bolin, and this one is for you, fellow American
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  Speaker 1: ridiculous historians, as well as for our fellow historians abroad.
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  Speaker 1: If you are not from the United States and you
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  Speaker 1: visit our fair country, or unfair country, you have doubtlessly
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  Speaker 1: run into a particularly confusing social situation, which my pal
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  Speaker 1: Noel just described. We've got a deep roster of wonderfully extroverted,
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  Speaker 1: extraordinarily kind people in the U.S. Our government, obviously, is
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  Speaker 1: not as good as it could be, but our people
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  Speaker 1: tend to be curious, optimistic people, supportive. They want to
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  Speaker 1: learn more about you if you visit from afar. We
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  Speaker 1: still have a lot of weird stuff that doesn't make
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  Speaker 1: sense to outsiders. You know, what I always think about,
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  Speaker 1: Nuala Max, is when friends who come from other places
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  Speaker 1: shop in a grocery store or a convenience store and
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  Speaker 1: They're baffled by the fact that you see a price
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  Speaker 1: for a thing, right? Your coffee is going to cost
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  Speaker 1: you $ 1. 99 or what have you. And then you go
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  Speaker 1: to the register and all of a sudden, boom, it's
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  Speaker 1: more than you thought because the taxes are never listed.
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  Speaker 3: Ah, the taxman. He's got to get his pound of
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  Speaker 3: flesh or more.
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  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
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  Speaker 3: Or, you know, maybe a kilo of flesh if you're
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  Speaker 3: the Beatles.
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  Speaker 2: There we go.
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  Speaker 3: Well done.
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  Speaker 1: And we know that one of the biggest baffling things
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  Speaker 1: here in the U.S. is the financial or social quirk,
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  Speaker 1: the unwritten rule called tipping. And we're going to have
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  Speaker 1: a lot of conversation about this.
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  Speaker 3: We sure are.
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  Speaker 2: And also worth pointing out that, uh, doesn't the tax
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  Speaker 2: man also want his cut of tips? Is that, I
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  Speaker 2: feel like that's even like a campaign thing where we're like, ah,
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  Speaker 2: no taxes on tips. Um, when it's really just kind
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  Speaker 2: of like a slight consolation in a system that's already
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  Speaker 2: kind of effed. Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, it's a, uh, for a group of politicians
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  Speaker 4: right now, that's a big talking point. It's no tax
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  Speaker 4: on tips, which there is, um, some question to the
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  Speaker 4: validity of like whether or not their policies actually enforce that. But, uh, Because,
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  Speaker 4: I mean, it comes to the question of are tips
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  Speaker 4: gifts or are they how people pay for their bills
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  Speaker 4: and their health insurance? I say this as somebody who
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  Speaker 4: for 10 years worked in food and beverage, many of
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  Speaker 4: those years as a tipped employee. So I have strong
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  Speaker 4: opinions on today's topic, let's just say.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, and not to mention, I know we're going to
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  Speaker 2: get into this too, and I'm sure, Max, you have
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  Speaker 2: some perspectives on this, but it's just the idea of
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  Speaker 2: pooling tips and What situation does that apply?
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  Speaker 3: Who does that benefit?
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  Speaker 2: Is it really just kind of the business owners getting
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  Speaker 2: a break on paying their employees a fair wage?
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  Speaker 3: It's wild.
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  Speaker 2: And it doesn't seem like you go to a place
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  Speaker 2: like France.
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  Speaker 3: Tipping is borderline insulting.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Here in the States, you can take a cab or
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  Speaker 1: an Uber. You visit a restaurant. You maybe stop by
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  Speaker 1: a cafe for some coffee. and you pay an established price.
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  Speaker 1: That price is conveyed to you in a very clear manner.
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  Speaker 1: Your taxi ride has a meter. It shows your fee.
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  Speaker 1: Your coffee shop has a menu, a list of how
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  Speaker 1: much your espresso may cost. But on top of that price,
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  Speaker 1: in the United States, here in 2026, you are also,
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  Speaker 1: in an unwritten rule, expected to pay an additional smaller
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  Speaker 1: fee called a tip. It's not It's not illegal to
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  Speaker 1: pay it, but it's not legally required, and not tipping
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  Speaker 1: can be seen as a huge social faux pas in
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  Speaker 1: some situations, so much so that employees, yeah, I'm doing
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  Speaker 1: French references, so much so that employees who don't get
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  Speaker 1: a tip will remember you, and it may negatively affect
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  Speaker 1: your service in the future.
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  Speaker 2: Not only will they remember you, I always, when the
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  Speaker 2: topic of tipping comes up, Remember this scene in The
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  Speaker 2: Sopranos where Pauly Walnuts and Chrissy Moltisanti. I think this
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  Speaker 2: is a series where Pauly is kind of basically torturing
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  Speaker 2: Chrissy as his underling and making him pay for all
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  Speaker 2: the dinners and all the drinks. And they have this
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  Speaker 2: big dinner where Pauly keeps ordering lobster and all these
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  Speaker 2: stuff for these ladies and drinks and champagne. And then
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  Speaker 2: Chris pays the tab, and as they're walking out, this
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  Speaker 2: waiter follows them out and says, excuse me, was there
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  Speaker 2: a problem with your bill? And, you know, Chris is already, like,
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  Speaker 2: at the end of his rope, and he's like, I'm
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  Speaker 2: tapped out.
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  Speaker 3: That was $ 1, 500 there.
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  Speaker 2: He's like, yeah, that was the, you know, it was
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  Speaker 2: a $ 1, 500 bill, and you only left me, like, $ 20.
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  Speaker 3: And he's like, I'm tapped out.
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  Speaker 2: And then the guy goes, go piss it away at
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  Speaker 2: Blackjack or something like that.
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  Speaker 3: And then they beat him to death. Just saying, man,
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  Speaker 3: tipping is a sticky subject.
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  Speaker 4: And to jump in here real quick, there is also
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  Speaker 4: another very famous scene about discussing tips. Restore Dogs, the
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  Speaker 4: very beginning.
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  Speaker 1: Mr.
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  Speaker 3: Pink does some tips.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, gosh.
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  Speaker 4: But I will– Ben, to your point, bartenders are like elephants.
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  Speaker 4: If you don't tip, they remember.
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  Speaker 2: That's where I learned that I was a bad tipper
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  Speaker 2: was because my girlfriend at the time, her girlfriend was
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  Speaker 2: dating the bartender at the local chicken wing joint that
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  Speaker 2: we often reference. And– he told his girlfriend that I
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  Speaker 2: was a crappy tipper.
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  Speaker 3: And that I was like, Oh no, I just didn't.
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  Speaker 3: I was just ignorant, frankly.
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  Speaker 2: And then that is when I kind of learned the
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  Speaker 2: little trick I mentioned at the top of the show,
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  Speaker 2: you know, doubling the first part of the check. Like
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  Speaker 2: if it's a $ 10 check, you tip $ 2.
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  Speaker 3: If it's a $ 50 check, you tip $ 10. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Which would bring you to roughly 20%.
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  Speaker 3: It's a reasonable rule of thumb. I'm not saying it's perfect.
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  Speaker 2: And I definitely have evolved past that as I've, progressed
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  Speaker 2: as an adult, you know, but at that point I
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  Speaker 2: was also like, you know, pretty poor. So I was
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  Speaker 2: doing my best to do the right thing, but also
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  Speaker 2: now I over-tip probably to make amends for my past.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And to exercise empathy here, we understand how this can
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  Speaker 1: be super duper confusing because it is an unwritten rule.
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  Speaker 1: If you visit the United States, you're not going to
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  Speaker 1: get some sort of official piece of paperwork that tells
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  Speaker 1: you how to tip. you might have no idea what
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  Speaker 1: that extra line on your receipt at a restaurant means.
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  Speaker 1: Because in so many other countries, there is an automatic,
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  Speaker 1: clearly displayed service charge instead. And just so you know, folks,
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  Speaker 1: people in the United States are still very heavily divided
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  Speaker 1: on who you tip. when you tip them, how much
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  Speaker 1: you tip them, right? Is it 10%? Is it 15?
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  Speaker 3: Is it a dollar?
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  Speaker 1: Is it 20%? And if you have ever been familiar
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  Speaker 1: with our country's storage service industry, then you are probably,
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  Speaker 1: like Max alluded to, going to tip about 20% of
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  Speaker 1: a bill using, as you said, Noel, the quick heuristic
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  Speaker 1: that a lot of people employ. Because if you live
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  Speaker 1: in the United States, if you spend a lot of
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  Speaker 1: time there, you realize that folks in the service industries
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  Speaker 1: often depend upon that extra unofficial money to survive. But,
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  Speaker 1: you know, we also should acknowledge getting into this that during.
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  Speaker 1: COVID and post-COVID, there has been a backlash about tipping
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  Speaker 1: being quote unquote expected. And a lot of folks are
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  Speaker 1: saying it's gone too far. I remember in particular, Noel,
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  Speaker 1: you had mentioned on our sister show, Stuff They Don't
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  Speaker 1: Want You To Know, that Now, when we go to
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  Speaker 1: an electronic point of sale, you order a coffee or whatever,
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  Speaker 1: you get an espresso, and you have a separate screen
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  Speaker 1: that pops up once your card runs, and it says,
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  Speaker 1: do you want to tip 18%, 20%, 25%.
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  Speaker 3: And so on.
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  Speaker 1: So a lot of people don't love that.
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  Speaker 3: They don't love that.
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  Speaker 2: And then there's the whole other conversation around is tipping a, like,
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  Speaker 2: reward for exceptional service, right? Like, and I think a
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  Speaker 2: lot of people look at it that way, where if
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  Speaker 2: you maybe only get so-so service, it is your right to, like,
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  Speaker 2: not tip or to leave a crappy tip. And Max
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  Speaker 2: is vehemently shaking his head, and I understand why. But
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  Speaker 2: I also understand the confusion in this particular process. perspective
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  Speaker 2: I think comes with a certain amount of entitlement and
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  Speaker 2: ignorance around the system. So I'm certainly not supporting that
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  Speaker 2: at all, but here we are with a lot of
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  Speaker 2: people looking at it that way.
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  Speaker 1: Well, Max, I do want to go to you here
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  Speaker 1: because one of the horror stories I read in the
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  Speaker 1: research for this, amid the many horror stories I read
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  Speaker 1: about bad tippers, was a practice that feels so soulless
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  Speaker 1: and manipulative There are really people in the United States
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  Speaker 1: who will quote unquote tip with a fake religious tract
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  Speaker 1: made to look like U.S. currency. And then even worse
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  Speaker 1: than that, there are people, we can't confirm this, who
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  Speaker 1: will walk into a restaurant, take out, you know, five
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  Speaker 1: $ 1 bills and then put them on the table and say,
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  Speaker 1: this is your tip. And anytime I don't like what
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  Speaker 1: you're doing, I'm taking one dollar away. I think those
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  Speaker 1: folks should be kicked out.
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  Speaker 3: Send them to the gulag.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Max, you ever run into this?
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  Speaker 4: Oh, I mean, not exactly those things, but similar enough
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  Speaker 4: to things. I mean, I'm a big believer that whenever
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  Speaker 4: I train people on like serving or bartending, I was like,
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  Speaker 4: The most important thing to do is to make sure
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  Speaker 4: people get their food. You do the job right. And
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  Speaker 4: then the extra stuff afterwards, that's like, you know, some
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  Speaker 4: people don't want you to talk with them or hang
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  Speaker 4: out with them. Like people have this whole idea like, oh,
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  Speaker 4: you need to become your table's best friend. I'm like, no,
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  Speaker 4: I think people want their food and their drinks. But
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  Speaker 4: then sometimes people want that extra stuff. I am a
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  Speaker 4: big believer that like, you know. There is like, you know, 20%
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  Speaker 4: is like, you did the job. I, you delivered it
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  Speaker 4: because there's also is a point of like the person
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  Speaker 4: didn't do the job. And I mean, that's a whole
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  Speaker 4: debate in itself. And that's like, is it a responsibility
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  Speaker 4: of the customer to pay the employee's wage, which is,
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  Speaker 4: I think, where this is all going to go to
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  Speaker 4: the conversation of this all. But then I don't think
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  Speaker 4: it's like, oh, you did such a great job. Here
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  Speaker 4: is the bare minimum that we're supposed to do. But
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  Speaker 4: it all goes back to this problem of why do
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  Speaker 4: we have this like lexicon, super complex system in this
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  Speaker 4: country of what to tip people, what to pay somebody's wage?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. And why is it? An unwritten rule. We've got
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  Speaker 1: to tell you this, folks. Regardless of where you find
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  Speaker 1: yourself in this argument, which is something a lot of
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  Speaker 1: Americans talk about ubiquitously, the way you would talk about
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  Speaker 1: your favorite sports team, there is one truth. Most people,
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  Speaker 1: including fans of tipping and including critics of tipping, have
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  Speaker 1: no idea where this practice comes from, where it originates,
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  Speaker 1: the true origin, ridiculously enough. At least here, this country
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  Speaker 1: is 100% a product of slavery.
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  Speaker 3: Surprise, surprise.
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  Speaker 4: Right?
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  Speaker 2: I don't mean, okay, not to be like too droll
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  Speaker 2: about it, but it just, you know, like, oh, you
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  Speaker 2: mean another weird remnant from our toxic past?
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  Speaker 3: You know, as a country, like there's other.
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  Speaker 2: Examples of things like that that have stuck around well
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  Speaker 2: past their time. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, cast your memories back there, folks, Van Morrison style.
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  Speaker 1: In the days of the founding fathers, when they were
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  Speaker 1: hatching up a revolution and they were still considered terrorists
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  Speaker 1: by old King George, tipping was not a thing. in
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  Speaker 1: the colonies at all. You paid for goods and services
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  Speaker 1: through barter or whatever weird currency was considered acceptable at
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  Speaker 1: the time. That's a whole other bag of badgers. But
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  Speaker 1: what we're saying is the idea of going to an
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  Speaker 1: inn and buying a bowl of soup or a flagon
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  Speaker 1: of ale or Washington's famous eggnog, et cetera, the concept
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  Speaker 1: of paying for that and then throwing another 20% extra
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  Speaker 1: atop that price it would have been considered anywhere between charity, lunacy,
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  Speaker 1: or in some cases, an insult.
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  Speaker 2: And not to mention, it could have been in some
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  Speaker 2: situations considered a crime to tip people. Officers of the law,
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  Speaker 2: for example, or other government workers, that could be seen,
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  Speaker 2: of course, as it would likely be seen today, as
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  Speaker 2: a bribe.
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  Speaker 3: There are also certain.
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  Speaker 2: Places you'll go where there are signs up that expressly
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  Speaker 2: forbid tipping. Like, uh, there's this deli, um, at the, uh,
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  Speaker 2: this world market here in Atlanta, um, where there's a
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  Speaker 2: sign up that says you're not allowed to tip.
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  Speaker 3: You're not supposed to, they're not allowed to accept the
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: wording is they're not allowed to accept tips.
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  Speaker 2: And frankly, I've always found that kind of unusual because
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  Speaker 2: this is also an institution that employs a lot of immigrants.
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  Speaker 2: So it feels a little part and parcel with perhaps
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  Speaker 2: taking advantage of their employees.
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  Speaker 3: I don't know.
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  Speaker 2: I can't say I don't know what the folks make there,
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  Speaker 2: but there's part of me that wonders if there's some
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  Speaker 2: nefariousness going on in terms of retaining this employment.
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  Speaker 4: I do just want to jump in real quick from Futurama,
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  Speaker 4: Panucci's Pizza, where Fry works in the 20th century. The
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  Speaker 4: box says, do not tip the delivery driver.
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  Speaker 1: Or we have a grocery chain here in the southeastern
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: United States called Publix. And Publix also has the signs
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: that we mentioned earlier, which say, do not tip the
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: people who are helping you carry your bags from the
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: store to the parking lot. We also do have, full disclosure—
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: a whole new legal form of bribing and corrupting public officials.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: We have a euphemism for it. We call it lobbying
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  Speaker 1: or campaign donations. I walked down the street, down the
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: block for that one, but it needs to be said.
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  Speaker 2: Just a hop, skip, and a jump, yeah, especially as
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: legislation around those types of campaign contributions have devolved. It
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: really does appear more and more as just actual facts legalized.
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: Bribery pay to play.
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  Speaker 2: Kind of stuff um so the etymology we're gonna get
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  Speaker 2: to right now we don't know exactly where the term
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  Speaker 2: itself comes from um it's always kind of struck me
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  Speaker 2: as as odd right and there's even jokes about it
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  Speaker 2: like in looney tunes cartoons where uh i think the
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  Speaker 2: bugs bunny is like asks for a tip or something
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  Speaker 2: something comes up where he's supposed to give a tip
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  Speaker 2: and he says don't leave wax lips on the dresser
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  Speaker 2: on a sunny day oh right yeah right so it's
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  Speaker 2: like this idea of you're You're doing someone a solid, right?
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  Speaker 2: Like you're giving them a good little tidbit of info
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  Speaker 2: that then maybe can be kind of evolved into this
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  Speaker 2: idea of a buck. Right.
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  Speaker 1: You're giving someone something that will benefit them in the
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  Speaker 1: present or the future, right? Don't take any wooden nickels
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  Speaker 1: is a tip.
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  Speaker 3: For example, the- If someone hands you a coin, you
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: got to bite it. Right, right.
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  Speaker 1: The Oxford English Dictionary has for a long time described
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  Speaker 1: tipping as a slang term possibly originating from something called thieves' cant,
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  Speaker 1: like a special language used by criminals way back in
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  Speaker 1: the day. It still has that conspiratorial aspect meaning– It
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: likely comes from tip, meaning to strike or to hit
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: smartly but lightly, and that might come from low German,
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: tipping to tap or tipping, excuse me, T-I-P-P-E-N. It's an
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: interesting theory because of that aura of secrecy, and it
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  Speaker 1: makes sense for the cheapskates in the crowd because sometimes
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  Speaker 1: paying a tip can feel, from your perspective, like you
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: are getting robbed.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: Well, unrelated, but related just in terms of the etymology
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: of it all, I do enjoy how in the UK,
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: a tip is a garbage dump.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, just so, right? Boots and hoods, or boots and trunks.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: And we know the phrase in English dates back to
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: around 1600. It usually meant at that time to give
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: a small present of money, to give a financial gift,
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: kind of like when your grandmother would send you you
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: know would slip a 5 or a 10 or a
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: 20 in your birthday card it wasn't until 1706 that
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: tip became a verb meaning to give a gratuity to
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: this was this was a spot bonus and as we
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: would call it today, for doing an above average job.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: And we've got some myths to bust. You're going to
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: hear TIP as an acronym, meaning that it stood, it
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: was short for to inspire promptness or something like that.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: But we checked with our friends at Snopes. That is
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: not true. It is fun. And we do, I think,
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: have to take a moment to, while we're being etymology nerds,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: look at the word gratuity, which is synonymous with tip.
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: It's so weird. It's an odd use of that. I mean,
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: I think of gratuitous meaning like egregious or, you know, extra.
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: Way too much.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: Okay, that is a little extra, but that is not
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: the connotation I typically associate with the word gratuitous.
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: I think of gratuitous violence.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: Gratuitous sex you know any kind of uh something that's
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: just over the top.
• 21:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah and to jump in here i actually was diving
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: into uh the term gratuity song because that's like i
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: the way i think about it's like that's kind of
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: the fancy nerdy way to refer to tips it's like
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: oh can i get the gratuity i think uh data
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: refers to it as in the in the star trek
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: episode it's gratuity one time and it's like of course
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: you did data but uh what etymology online um it
• 21:32
  Speaker 4: comes from Gratuitatum, or from the French term for graciousness,
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: which is gratuity. I'm just guessing at these pronunciations.
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: Apologies.
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: But basically the idea of a free gift or done
• 21:48
  Speaker 4: without pay, spontaneous, voluntary. But it comes from the root
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: of a Proto-Indo-European word, guire, or guiree. Basically, it's to
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: favor is the idea, but it exists back to the 1530s.
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: That's like the first documented use of it.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: Oh, weird.
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: So I wonder, guys, whether gratuity and graciousness or generosity
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: are related because the idea is it's a voluntary thing.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: One does not have to do, but one chooses to do.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: And regardless of which theory we go with, We have
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: to acknowledge the concept of tipping is older than the
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: United States, even though the U.S. is now the most
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: infamous tipping culture on the planet. It was really interesting
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: to learn that historians are not sure when tipping began.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: You'll find some folks saying it goes back to the
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: Roman Empire, but there's this historian we love for this
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: named Cary Seagrave. who wrote a book in 1998 called Tipping,
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: An American Social History of Gratuities. And he says it's
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: not a Roman thing. He says it goes back to
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: the Middle Ages and to Tudor England.
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: Medieval times, in fact. No, not the restaurant. I believe
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: you also, they rely on tips, the surfers there. Tipping
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: was a master-surf kind of relationship. where a servant would
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: receive a little extra money for having done a good job.
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: And from time to time, the landed gentry would also
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: throw a few extra shekels at their servants, sometimes literally, yeah,
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: take it, get you from my sight.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: Ooh, just like that, what was that film Pacino was in,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: Al Pacino, where he, or I'm thinking of every gangster
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: film ever, where one of those Sopranos-esque organized crime guys
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: gets in trouble, and then they start just tossing out
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: currency on the floor. And they're like, fine, here you go.
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, like throwing money at a problem.
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: So, again, landed gentry, throwing money at the servant, who
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: had perhaps fallen on hard times. Perhaps they were suffering
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: from food scarcity, had.
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: Been injured, you know, a weird loose.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: very uh what's the word ad hoc form of workman's
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: comp um losing a loved one or having a child
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: but again all of this was custom and entirely up
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: to the master and their discretion.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah we're gonna see that hierarchy coming into play you
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: know we we've learned that by the 17th century, around the,
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: you know, through the 1600s, a fancy guest who would
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: stay overnight at the private homes of their fellow fancy
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: host would give the servants something called veils, V-A-I-L-S. Having
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: extra people stay over means so much extra work for you.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: So this was not seen as condescending at that point.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: It was seen as a courtesy, like, thank you for
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: doing so much more work. And at the time, even then,
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: you guys, some people complained about this practice. There were
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: people as early as the late 1600s, beginning of the
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: 1700s in Europe, saying, look, I'm not a bad person.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: I'm fine giving a veil occasionally, but I don't like
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: how these people that are beneath me seem to be
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: expecting me to give them money, which still just reeks
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: of entitlement.
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: And despite that bit of controversy, it wasn't long before
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: the practice kind of took off.
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: Spread past the estates.
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: Of the aforementioned landed gentry. Customers at London coffee houses,
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: for example, and other businesses began tipping as well. Ben,
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: is this like, I mean, I think that's what we
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: were already kind of spelling out a bit, but it
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: just seems to me that at this point, it's almost
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: a flex, right? It's like a show of wealth and
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: a way of sort of, I don't know, a power move.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: in a way.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, very much so. And, and there's arguably some toxicity
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: to it. Uh, no matter how well intentioned it would be,
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: because now imagine, uh, imagine we are, uh, max, the
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: Duke of Williams. And we have a, uh, we have
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: a tailor that we visit routinely, right. And we have
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: a coffee house we go to routinely, uh, And we're saying,
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: you know, we are not so different, you and I, here.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: I understand that you work very hard and I have
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: leftover money. So take my financial leftovers. My scraps.
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: Yes, indeed. Peasants. And dance for them. Yeah, exactly.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: And dance for me while you tailor my suit. I
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: know that's physically impossible, but do your best.
• 27:36
  Speaker 4: And now you two fight to the death.
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: That's another great gangster scene.
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: Also involving Michael Imperioli in one of his first roles
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: where he plays Spider, the bartender slash kind of servant
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: boy in the back rooms where the gangsters of Goodfellas
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: did their, you know, seedy card games. And Joe Pesci,
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: he offends him in some way, so he shoots guns
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: at his feet and tells him to dance, you know,
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: and then he ends up shooting him in the foot.
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: And he goes, you shot Spider in the foot, you know?
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: Ooh, like Tori Lane in Megan the Stallion.
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: Oh, okay.
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: What's that?
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: Tory Lane went to jail. He's an emcee. He got
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: locked up because he shot another musician, Megan Thee Stallion,
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: in the foot.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: Oh, geez, I didn't know that. It must have been inspired,
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: which also is inspired by Old West kind of behavior, obviously.
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: But then in a similar move to what happened in Sopranos,
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: then Spider, you know, comes back with a bandage around
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: his foot at a later point. date and tells, you know,
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: Joe Pesci's character to go F himself. And he just,
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: she shoots him in the face.
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: Joe Pesci.
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 28:43
  Speaker 4: Everyone's just laughing because they find it really funny. And
• 28:45
  Speaker 4: Joe Pesci was completely out of hand.
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: He's dead-eyed at first. It's terrifying.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: And then he shoots him a bunch of times.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 28:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah, this is a kind of point out like how
• 28:53
  Speaker 4: insane Joe Pesci's character is supposed to be. It's just like,
• 28:56
  Speaker 4: you know, everyone's like, oh, this is really funny. And
• 28:57
  Speaker 4: Joe Pesci just like murders the guy. It's like, what
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: is wrong with you, dude?
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: And from everything we've heard about Joe Pesci, the person
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: whom we have not met, he's different from his characters. Also,
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: this is a bit of insurance for us. Joe, if
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: you're tuning in, thank you. Please don't shoot us. We've
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: got the rough understanding of the origin of this extra
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: payment thing happening. We have to give you the quiet
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: part out loud. After the American Revolution, for a long time,
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: the fancy pants folks of this newly minted, emergent United States.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: they had a big chip on their shoulder. They had
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: a lot of insecurity about the European cousins, which kind
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: of is– it's also part of the origin of the
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: transatlantic accent.
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I mean, obviously, you know, American Revolution was
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: about separating ourselves, this country, from our, you know, European
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: overlords and establishing an identity that was independent of them
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: both financially and culturally. But that doesn't mean that a
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: lot of the cultural things didn't stick around or had
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: a little bit of a stronger foothold than maybe we
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: as a country would have even liked to admit.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: Agreed.
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: Agreed.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: We see that post-Civil War and then into the Gilded
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: Age of the early 1900s, there was a small, rarefied
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: demographic of well-off Americans in the States who were able
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: to travel across the pond. As they would put it,
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: they wanted to be casual. They would go across the
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: Atlantic Ocean and they would travel to Europe. and they
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: often would pride themselves on returning home with ostentatious, performative
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: European habits.
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: Oh, geez. It's like your friend that goes to London
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: for a week and comes back talking like Madonna when
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: she was married to Guy Ritchie.
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: It's insufferable. It's insufferable.
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: I want to shout out a super hilarious internet post
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: I saw where there was a lady sitting in a
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: restaurant And she overheard people on a first date and
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: a guy apparently said, gosh, I forgot how to use
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: a fork because I spent so much time in Korea.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: And it's like, come on, dude.
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: I mean, I have a buddy who's lived in London
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: for quite some time.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: But I do rag him on the fact that every
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: time he comes around, I'm already doing it and making
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: fun of him a little bit. He asks if I
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: want to. go down the pub for a pint. And
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: I'm like, mate, give me an effing break. We were
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: in Boy Scouts together in Georgia. Stop it.
• 31:52
  Speaker 4: Ben, do you have to remind them to tip at
• 31:53
  Speaker 4: the pub?
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: Good question. What are tipping rules in the UK? Are
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: they similar to the way they are in France?
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: Well, roundup.
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: Is usually going to be the one you can get
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: away with. So what we're saying is there was this
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: bid from, again, a very small part of the U.S.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: population to seem more worldly, more aristocratic. These folks were
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: kind of insecure. They imported this idea of tipping from
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: old money Europe to the United States, and everybody else
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: in the United States saw this as a condescending, rude,
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: I'll say it, they saw it as a dickish move
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: instead of as a, Courtesy, because they were like, well,
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: you Gilded Age folks, you just want to keep up
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: with the European Joneses. You are, as a result, just
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: Jonesing to look cool, right? To impress each other.
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: Aristocratic.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: This tied in with two pretty formative industries in the nation.
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: Very, very high-grossing industries, right?
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: Railroads being the highest grossing of course uh and restaurants
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: um and then of course the aforementioned uh spoiler alert slavery.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah yep and as we said this is a two-part
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: episode you may have seen the title the um the
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: racist origins of tipping or the we'll, we'll see what
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: we wind up publishing this as, but we do want to,
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: as we're wrapping up part one, shout out the phenomenal
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: work of an author and activist named Saru Jayaraman. In 2016,
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: this author wrote a book called Fort, a new standard
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: for American dining. And as this author writes, explains in
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: chilling detail. Those industries that you just mentioned, Bill, they
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: embraced discrimination in a huge way at the end of
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: the Civil War because a ton of newly freed people
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: were hitting the job market and the folks in power,
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: particularly a guy named George Mortimer Pullman, said, how can
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: I screw these people over more? Thank you for the
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: thumbs down there, Max. I agree with you.
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: This guy's a pill. Is that not a good cliffhanger,
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: that very question?
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: How can I screw these people over more? So maybe
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: we do leave it here for today's part one of
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: the history of tipping and lead off part two, getting
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: into that racist origin that we teased.
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: Agreed.
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: Thanks, as always, to our super producer, Mr. Max Williams.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: Thanks to, of course, A.J. Bahamas Jacobs, the puzzler. Thanks
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: also to Jonathan Strickland, a.k.a. the Quister, eternally known as
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: a terrible tipper. I'm kidding. I'm kidding, Jonathan. We don't
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: know this about Jonathan. We don't know that about him.
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: I bet he's a lovely tipper.
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: I bet he's a lovely tipper. Although, you know what?
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: It's funny you mentioned it, but I could see him
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: having a bit of a Mr.
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: Pink view on this.
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: But we don't know this.
• 35:14
  Speaker 4: I think I think I've talked with him. I think
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: he is a good tip.
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: I think he probably is.
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: But he is still a monster. Well, that's even sure
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: for our purposes here. Matt, massive bad guy.
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Big, big thanks, of course, to the rude dudes
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: of Ridiculous Crime. If you dig us, you'll love them.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: Let's see.
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: Who else?
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: Who else?
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: Well, Christy Frost, you know, doesn't use Jeff goes here
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: in spirit, of course.
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: And thanks to Maximilian Big Tipper Williams for his contributions
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: to this research helmed by you, Ben, who I also think.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: Oh, my gosh. We'll just we'll get we'll all give
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: each other 20 percent, which I think gets us to
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: 60 percent of whatever our tab is for this show.
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: We'll see you next time, folks.
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.