How can you tell if someone is lying? Criminology Professor and Lie Detection Researcher Vincent Denault says that while lies are complicated, there's one simple way to get to the truth.
We talk signs someone is lying, what makes someone appear credible and if we are living in the age of lies.
Then, in the Pointless part of the show, it's Michael Jordan and Patrick Stewart vs. Vin Diesel and the Rock as we countdown the Top 5 Bald Celebrities.
00:00 Introducing Vincent Denault
01:11: How Good are We at Spotting Liars
02:51 Signs Someone is Lying
05:52 The Simple Way to Find Out the Truth
06:49 Do Lie Detectors Work
08:42 Are We Living in the Age of Lies
09:50 Pointless
24:19 The Top 5 Bald Celebrities
Interview with Lie Detection Researcher Vincent Denault
Nick VinZant 0:12
Nick, welcome to profoundly pointless. My name is Nick VinZant Coming up in this episode lie detection and bald celebrities,
Vincent Denault 0:22
a simple fact that is documented for decades now. There is no sign similar to Pinocchio's notes, but let's think about courts where people will lose their liberty. They might even lose their life because they testified in a way that is different from what would have been expected. What my feeling is that we're more surrounded by bullshit.
Nick VinZant 0:48
I want to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance subscribe, leave us a rating or review. We really appreciate it. It really helps out the show. So I want to get right to our first guest, because he studies how you can tell if someone is lying. This is lie detection researcher Vincent Denault. How good are we at telling if somebody is lying?
Vincent Denault 1:13
Pretty bad. Often, when you make truth lie judgment, we use beliefs that are erroneous. So you might think, for example, that someone is lying because the person is nervous. You might think that someone is lying because the person hesitate. Well, the reality is that hesitation or being nervous or looking away are not good sign of lies. If
Nick VinZant 1:40
we're pretty bad at telling if somebody is lying, do we usually think that people are lying more than they are, or do we assume that they're telling the truth more than we are?
Vincent Denault 1:50
Essentially, we have a shrewd bias, so we generally think that people are honest, and actually people are most of the time honest.
Nick VinZant 2:01
Is it subjective in the sense that if I think someone is lying before they even speak, whatever comes out of their mouth, I'm going to assume is a lie, versus if I think somebody is going to tell the truth before they even speak, then I will probably believe what they say, regardless of what they're actually saying. In either circumstance,
Vincent Denault 2:22
that's exactly what might be happening when you're in such a situation. Essentially, you think that someone is lying without the person even speaking, and then the person starts speaking, and you see that the person is hesitant, nervous. You know, similar behavior. These are, you know, if you're trying to really find the truth, you need to come with an open mind, because otherwise you might subject to be subject to the confirmation bias. Yeah.
Nick VinZant 2:51
What are some like? What in your research? What would you say are signs that someone is lying?
Vincent Denault 2:56
A simple fact that is documented for decades now, there is no sign similar to Pinocchio's nose that doesn't exist. There is really not a sign that is always there when someone is telling the truth or never there when someone is telling a lie and vice versa. These are beliefs that dates back from a long, long time ago, but really we behave in different ways, from one person to another, but also from one setting to another.
Nick VinZant 3:29
I know you work a lot with the court system. Are there things that make somebody more credible than someone else? Like, what makes me I'm gonna believe this person, not going to believe that person.
Vincent Denault 3:44
What I've seen throughout the studies that I've done is that witness, they are credible when they testify in a way that is expected from them.
Nick VinZant 3:55
Oh, yeah, like any deviation from what I expect, I would think that you're lying, like like, if I expect a quick answer and you take a while, like, what time did you get to the store? That's a simple question. If you take a like, 20 seconds to answer, I got there at 10 o'clock, I would think that you were lying. Even if you just take a while to answer the question naturally,
Vincent Denault 4:19
and what you're saying there is really a wonder, not wonderful, but it's really a good illustration of how vulnerable people can be affected by those stereotypes or by these expectations that the court had, or that we have on a daily basis. But let's think about courts where people will lose their liberty, they might even lose their life, because they testified in a way that is different from what would have been expected.
Nick VinZant 4:51
I so I used to be a news reporter, and I remember covering this one court case, and the guy was ultimately convicted, and I think that he got a significant amount of time.
Nick VinZant 5:00
It
Nick VinZant 5:00
basically in a he said, situate. He Said, She Said, situation. And I was actually pretty sure that he was telling the truth. He just wasn't answering things in the way that I think that people expected him to. Was like, I think he's actually telling the truth.
Vincent Denault 5:16
And also, the important thing is that those beliefs Iranians beliefs can affect both the person that is accused, but also a victim. You know, a victim would testify in a way that goes against the expectations of the courts or jurors. So these beliefs, or these stereotypes can, more generally, can affect the outcome of trials, and the consequences can be both for the victim and the accused. So that's one thing.
Nick VinZant 5:52
So how do we I guess, if there isn't any kind of overt sign that somebody is lying, how do we get past those biases and find out, okay, is this person really telling the truth?
Vincent Denault 6:06
What research shows is that the best way to get to the truth is actually to make the people in front of you feel good, you know, to establish a rapport, show empathy, show that the person is not being judged. Ask open ended questions so that you don't contaminate or lead the person to say something that might be erroneous. So you really need, like, if you want, if you really want to get to the truth, I would say that one of the important stuff is to make the person feel that they can say the truth.
Nick VinZant 6:48
What
Nick VinZant 6:49
do you think of lie detectors?
Vincent Denault 6:51
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, so I'm not convinced by many of the claims that I hear about that there are research, you know, in very specific setting with specific questions asked that do show good results. But then what happened when you study something can be entirely different on how that machine is used in practice, and some of the claims that I hear you know more in the public news and and I'm really not convinced these are extraordinary claims, and there's no extraordinary evidence. The
Nick VinZant 7:40
only one that I'm familiar with is like the polygraph, right? Like, are there other supposed forms of lie detection that people
Nick VinZant 7:47
use?
Vincent Denault 7:48
Well, there's, there's many, and there will likely be even more. Now with those, you know, the I sorry, the i around, AI, I mean, I've seen that some companies are trying to sell software to put in glasses to know when someone is lying or telling the truth based on how people answer and how people behave. These are quite extraordinary claims, and even more extraordinary when you know the state of research about nonverbal behavior and lie detection, I mean, this is another level of extraordinary claims, I would say so. And just, I'll just, I'll just come back to that this idea of extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Nick VinZant 8:42
Between social media, where you can't really seem to tell exactly what the truth is, politicians and PR spin and all that stuff. Do you feel like we're more surrounded by lies?
Vincent Denault 8:58
I don't have data for that, but I do feel, and that's that's the reality, that what my feeling is that we're more surrounded by bullshit. So when people just don't care about the truth or the lie and just say stuff because they want to get the attention, they want to get the votes, they want to get the clicks, that's not necessarily lying. They just don't care about the truth or the lie. They say stuff to get you know, the attention.
Nick VinZant 9:28
I want to thank vinzen so much for joining us. If you want to connect with him, we have linked to him on our social media sites. We're profoundly pointless on Tiktok, Instagram and YouTube, and we've also included his information in the episode description. Okay, now let's bring in John Scholl and get to the pointless part of the show. What percent of people immediately give you a bad vibe?
John Shull 9:54
20% so one out of every five probably,
Nick VinZant 9:58
I think that's kind of high.
John Shull 10:01
I would agree with you, but I always have my little antenna out. Man, I'm always like this person trying to steal something. Are they going to want to talk to me or sell me something?
Nick VinZant 10:11
I think it's probably really lower than what you initially think. So I would put mine at probably only five to 10% it's fairly rare for me to just be like, Oh, that person is not someone that you can trust. Maybe
John Shull 10:27
20% is a little high. I'll lower it to 17% How about that?
Nick VinZant 10:32
Okay, I do feel like it should be very specific. My exact number would be 7.8% of people.
John Shull 10:39
I will go 16.3% then,
Nick VinZant 10:43
because I can only think of one guy in my immediate neighborhood that as soon as I saw him, I thought, Oh, that guy's odd. He's doing something like eventually, the cops are going to be at his house, for some reason, and I'm going to be talking in a documentary about
John Shull 11:01
him. I'm just more cautious than anything. I would say
Nick VinZant 11:05
I think that there's a big difference between not liking somebody, and you can get that vibe really quickly, which I would put around the 10 to 25% range, as opposed to just like, oh, that person is somebody I need to watch out for. I feel like that's really pretty rare. When you get right down to it, there may be people who are different or odd or you don't like but I don't think there's a lot of people that are out there that just like, Oh, you got to watch out for them, like they are a danger to you or your family's safety in one way or another. They're going to cause problems for you.
John Shull 11:40
You think anyone's ever thought that about you?
Nick VinZant 11:43
I wonder, I really wonder. I would have always wanted to hear the honest truth from somebody who just does not like me, with without really a reason, like, I couldn't pinpoint it if somebody who just said, like, I just don't like that guy, or I think that guy is so weird, I would love to hear from somebody, like, why they thought that. Like, Oh, what about it? Like, what? What is it that made you think that I was such a weirdo? Do you think people have felt that way about you?
John Shull 12:14
Yeah. I mean, I don't know if, like, I give off the creeper vibe, but I can definitely, when I was younger, I gave off, like, the overbearing, like I was the guy at clubs and bars. You know I was, you saw me and you knew a tornado was coming, so I wasn't like the creeper, but, like, I could see, back in the day, people looking at me and being like that, that guy get it, can really do some damage tonight, probably to himself only, but
Nick VinZant 12:42
didn't you wear jingo jeans and eyeliner? Did you wear eyeliner? Did you you nothing wrong with guys wear an eyeliner. That's what you want to do. I'm laughing at John wearing eyeliner.
John Shull 13:03
It was the mid 90s, okay, and it was midnight.
Speaker 1 13:07
I was
Nick VinZant 13:07
alive in the midline 90s. Don't use that. Don't use the time as an excuse, because there are plenty of people who are not
Nick VinZant 13:12
doing
John Shull 13:13
it. I was just having this conversation like it was okay. I mean, Marilyn, I mean, it's still okay, by the way. But for the purpose of this, you know, Marilyn Manson, corn, Limp Biscuit, like you had all these emerging alternative musicians and like, that's just, you know, Power Man, 5000 like all So, yeah, I had frosted tips. I wore Ginko jeans. I might have dabbled on the eyeliner once or twice, overused hairspray for sure.
Nick VinZant 13:43
Wow, I just couldn't imagine putting eyeliner on. I couldn't imagine it doing it because that, like, there's no going back. That is crossing the Rubicon. You can't just do that as like, you know what? Today I'm going to wear eyeliner like you have crossed over into a division that you have not been in before, and there is no going back.
John Shull 14:07
I will save the story. But it was one time, and I recall the story perfectly. So it was, yeah, yeah. It is what it is. I don't know, yeah, I don't know how we got on that, but yes,
Nick VinZant 14:19
so
John Shull 14:21
Nope, we were just in my buddy's basement listening to music, and thought, man, like, let's, let's, let's put some makeup and sing and dance. And you know, it sounds weirder than it was, okay.
Nick VinZant 14:35
Oh yeah, it's not going well. The explanation is much worse. You should have left this, this kid's Okay,
John Shull 14:43
all
Nick VinZant 14:44
right,
John Shull 14:46
I will say, as an adult, you know, I wore skinny jeans in Orlando once, and that was probably one of the most notable times where, like, I just could feel like people. Looking at me and immediately thinking I was like, That person, and then the bartender, like, made me go home to change, because we were in Orlando, and I walked whatever. That was pretty embarrassing.
Nick VinZant 15:11
They made you leave. It was offensive.
John Shull 15:15
Well, you
Nick VinZant 15:16
can't be a man your size wearing skinny jeans.
John Shull 15:19
Oh, no, never. I mean, once again, you can tell that I've gone through a lot of iterations of myself through life. Apparently,
Nick VinZant 15:29
I don't understand how you didn't back out putting them on and think like, because you tried them on, didn't you look in the dressing room mirror? And part of you thought, that's that, that's, that's, that's what the people want, one foot on the skin jeans. Looked in the mirror and thought, that's what the people are going to
Nick VinZant 15:45
want.
John Shull 15:46
What's funny is, I mean, I couldn't even fit my left leg into both legs now, but back then I actually, I got them buttoned up. The problem wasn't the waist, or really my legs, from what I remember. And there's been, there's three other people that could recount this story probably a lot better than I could, but it was the the mid the midsection, the private parts, that were the issue.
Nick VinZant 16:08
Oh, okay, you're trying to turn it around, right? Oh, it was just so big I couldn't have these cine genes, your FUPA that you probably have
John Shull 16:17
no there was no, there was no FUPA then which, by the way, you can't say anything. You can't talk shit. To me, I won a medal over the weekend running a 5k Thank you very much. And it wasn't a medal that they gave out to everybody. Okay, so thank you. I am old enough apparently that just finishing slow gets you a medal, and I'm very proud of that.
Nick VinZant 16:39
So just finished, you have reached the age where simply finishing the act of moving three and a half miles, or, I think it's 3.1 miles in a 5k is enough to get you a medal.
John Shull 16:49
I'm probably not going to go pick it up, because that's unfortunately, you know, I left before the medal ceremony, because I'm like, There's no way I want anything, right? Like, you know, I mean, I finished, and I ran decently for for me, but like, I was nowhere near anything, not like that bastard, or those bastards that ran a sub two hour marathon over the weekend. Jesus, Christ almighty.
Nick VinZant 17:16
I don't want to turn into this the running conversation podcast, but I do not understand how that is physically possible. To me, that is probably the greatest physical feat that humans are capable of. The idea that you can average running at 13 to 14 miles an hour for two hours is insane. Like I have no idea how someone could do that. None
John Shull 17:42
i I'm speechless. And I, there was three, there was three men that broke the record. They all did it. It's just, it's crazy. I What's the longest you think you could sprint? Because for us, it would be a sprint, right at 13 miles an hour for
Nick VinZant 18:00
it.
Nick VinZant 18:01
That would not be a sprint for me, but that would be a pretty significant job, like I would be going seven and probably close to 75% to go 13 or 14 miles an hour at my age, and I not a mile, certainly not a mile. Yeah, maybe once around the track, maybe 200 meters. I could keep that up, maybe, maybe, maybe 400 No, maybe, okay, I could probably do that, keep up a 75% of top speed pace, maybe for two laps around a track. And that's being really generous. Maybe, maybe,
John Shull 18:41
I mean, do you run distance? Have you done that recently? Because that's
Nick VinZant 18:45
No, I'm just
Nick VinZant 18:45
lifting. I'm straight lifting,
John Shull 18:47
taking the Andro and the wegovy and just lifting,
Nick VinZant 18:51
just lifting, right? Not even just lifting. All I do is squats. I don't want to talk about working out anymore
John Shull 19:00
with you. I do it special?
Nick VinZant 19:02
One thing, if it looked like we worked out, it'd be different. Like, if we just looked like we really had some great insight into this opinion. But like, just
John Shull 19:12
what people want we look like average dudes. Like, that's, that's what, that's what 95% of the world is. It isn't these knuckleheads that have veins popping out of their nostrils, which is not fucking natural anyways.
Nick VinZant 19:27
Oh, I'm fascinated by the idea of people who are just really jacked, like bodybuilders, like their whole life is just about being jacked. That's the only thing that they do, is being jacked, because it's not just working out, it's your entire lifestyle. Like, Hey, you want to go out tonight, nope, got to be Jack tomorrow. Like, Hey, you want to go dinner, nope, got to be Jack tomorrow.
John Shull 19:54
I knew, I guess I could call him a friend, but he went into Mr. Michigan and. And he would eat, like, 6000 calories a day, and it was all chicken breast and rice. And I was like, That doesn't even sound good. Man like have a chocolate milk
Nick VinZant 20:10
your entire life has to be centered around nothing but being jacked
John Shull 20:16
crazy.
Nick VinZant 20:17
So I polled the audience, 48% of people say zero to 10. 26% of people say 10 to 25% of people give them. The 14% say 25 to 50. And 12% say 50 or more. I think that if you're over 25% that says more about you than it does about other people like you can't be creeped out by more than 25% of people. If you are, then you need to, you need to change either where you're living or what you're doing. Like that's you can't be creeped out by one out of every four people.
John Shull 20:53
Let's give some shout outs here, active social week. So we're going to start with Jackson shields. And Jackson is j, x, t, y, N, kind of dig that
Nick VinZant 21:04
that's different. I haven't heard that one
John Shull 21:07
summer. Hansen, Charlie Anderson, Ella Cobb, Raphael, Harvey, Nicole, Chen Tatum, Morton, Roland, Kramer, Kenzie reed in Wilder moody, hmm,
Nick VinZant 21:25
I don't know. I don't mind the name Wilder. Like, that's not a terrible name to be named Wilder, but your last name is really going to set the tone for how that goes. Like Wilder, moody is not the best combination. I don't think you want moody next to Wilder, but if it was like Wilder Smith, okay,
John Shull 21:46
say Oh, all right, there it is. You know, I think the dad podcast would be amazing.
Nick VinZant 21:52
No one wants to listen to people talk about their kids. I don't care about other people's kids. I care about my kids. I don't want to hear stories about anybody else's kids. I don't want to hear any stories about you. Any stories about your pet. I care about my kids and my pet, and I want to talk about my kids and my pet, and I don't care about another people's kids or their pets. I don't like you. Don't want to hear about it. Are you really listening like, hey, you know what? Man, hey, look, Riley did really well in futsal today. You want to know about
John Shull 22:18
that care? Of course, I care because I care
Nick VinZant 22:20
about you don't
Nick VinZant 22:21
know. You don't,
Nick VinZant 22:22
yeah, nobody
Nick VinZant 22:23
wants to hear about that stuff. Nobody wants to hear about other people's kids.
John Shull 22:27
I might even go tell my wife now that you're that Riley did good at Futsal, you know, like, I don't
Nick VinZant 22:32
even know what futsal is.
John Shull 22:35
Not exactly. It's, is it? I'm gonna guess it's a smaller ball, and it's indoor, right? I think,
Nick VinZant 22:42
oh, I don't know what it is.
John Shull 22:44
Oh, you fucker. Okay, well, let me see now, if it's all it's,
Nick VinZant 22:47
I don't even know what it is. I don't even know what my own children are doing. So why would anybody else
John Shull 22:53
I'm gonna send you pictures of my children every day now, until you, until you just ignore me.
Nick VinZant 22:58
Fine. I know how to delete things.
John Shull 23:02
That's not, I just, I feel like that's just, I'm not saying you're wrong, but I just, I don't know, as a friend, you know you have, like, a duty as a friend to just seem interested for a half second.
Nick VinZant 23:13
Oh, I feel the opposite, then also has to be true, and that you have a duty as a friend and not send me that kind of crap.
John Shull 23:20
I mean, to a certain
Nick VinZant 23:22
degree, if your kid wins the Nobel Prize, tell me about it. I'm interested your kid gets drafted. I'm interested your kid does a major accomplishment, fine, but I don't need to know that. Like, oh God, vote Timmy walked today. Oh, is this first steps? No, no. He's been walking for a long time. He just took one more step than he usually does, like, don't need to know. Don't need to know. Don't care. Don't need to
John Shull 23:48
know. I just think that everyone wants to tell people everything all the time, and I am fine with being an ear from time to time. That's all I'm saying.
Nick VinZant 23:58
Oh, I feel I'm the opposite.
Nick VinZant 24:00
I don't want
Nick VinZant 24:00
to tell people things, and I don't want people telling people telling me things unless it's something that I'm interested about. Like, how many people you think are weird?
John Shull 24:11
All right, let's just move on. We're already going into, like, minute 25 here, and I think our top five is actually a pretty good one this
Nick VinZant 24:18
time.
Nick VinZant 24:19
Oh, we're skipping right to the top five, okay, okay, okay, okay, so our top five is top five bald celebrities. Who's your number five?
John Shull 24:30
Well, this one, this was tough. This is a very tough list. Okay,
Nick VinZant 24:34
there's a lot of ball those.
John Shull 24:36
Yeah, my number five is more of a historical figure, celebrity, but you have to put them on the list. If he's not on your list, your list is void, in my opinion.
Nick VinZant 24:48
Okay,
John Shull 24:49
my number five is Gandhi.
Nick VinZant 24:53
Okay. I mean, yes, you're right. I don't know if you should if you're gonna go that route. I don't think Gandhi is number. Five. I mean, he's one of the most influential figures from that region of the world. I don't like if you're gonna go that way, fine, but he's not like, five, right? It's that'd be like, You know what? I'm gonna use somebody historical number five, Jesus. He knows Jesus should be higher than that if you're gonna go Jesus.
John Shull 25:21
I mean, he just needs to be on the list. So I sat in my five because, like you, I'm gonna put Samuel L Jackson at number one. So let's
Nick VinZant 25:30
go.
Nick VinZant 25:30
Samuel Jackson's no my number five is Patrick Stewart. He listened. He made being bald look good. He was the first bald man that I would say I was exposed to. And I thought, You know what? That's not so bad. Look at Patrick Stewart. Not only is he bald, but he rocks the kind of Friar Tuck looking thing. He lets you know that he's bald. Just keeps a hair there, just to let you know how much the rest of his hair looks good. The rest of his head looks
John Shull 26:04
good. He he made like you know, my honorable mention he did not make my top five.
Nick VinZant 26:10
Patrick Stewart should be higher on the balding list. Patrick Stewart makes being bald look good. Just had that extra hair there, just to let you know how much better he looked bald.
John Shull 26:23
My number four. Stanley Tucci,
Nick VinZant 26:26
okay, okay, I thought about him. He's in my honorable mention. He's not going to make my top five bald guy list.
John Shull 26:34
Okay, what's your number four?
Nick VinZant 26:36
The only musician I have on this list, pit bull. Pit Bull is easily the most famous bald musician. Maybe the guy from Smashing Pumpkins could be mentioned in that category. But pit bull, he is. He is Mr. Worldwide, for a reason.
Nick VinZant 26:57
Okay, you
Nick VinZant 26:59
got a problem with pit bull. And number four,
John Shull 27:03
I mean, as an artist and his international presence, no, but I don't know when I think of bald people. I mean, I don't know if he comes. He does. He definitely doesn't come to my mind.
Nick VinZant 27:16
So that's how, that's how pit bull is the only bald man that makes you forget that he's bald. Like, oh yeah, He is bald. But Mr. Worldwide doesn't have to worry about that, because he's got so much swagger, it doesn't even need hair. He doesn't need hair. That's why people says on this list,
John Shull 27:39
talking like you're, you know, buddies with them.
Nick VinZant 27:43
Why everybody's friends with him?
John Shull 27:47
Where am I at? My number three man this, it's so tough. I'm gonna go. Bruce Willis is my number three.
Nick VinZant 27:58
I have Bruce Willis a little bit higher. Think Bruce Willis should be a little bit higher on that list. My number three is Samuel Jackson.
John Shull 28:06
Okay, I don't, I actually don't have him on my list. He's on my honorable mention.
Nick VinZant 28:13
I think that he, you kind of forget that he's bald. A little bit like, oh yeah, He is bald. You forget Samuel Jackson is bald. Otherwise, you know, I could see why he would not be on the list. Like, oh yeah, he doesn't have any hair.
John Shull 28:30
Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I don't know. I mean, I think of him as being bald. So my number two is a twofer. See what it did there, both from the wrestling sphere and it's the rock and stone cold, Steve Austin.
Nick VinZant 28:45
Stone Cold, Steve Austin, I would agree with the rock I do not envision is being bald, because he had hair at one point, and then he went bald. When I think of like the best bald celebrities, they've always been bald. And the rock had hair for a little while, then he went balding, and then he went bald. So I can't
John Shull 29:09
that is a weird transition, like the the inter balding phase. Even the rock struggled with that. I think he did some Disney movies and then learned what steroids fully were. Then became this global mega star, but,
Nick VinZant 29:23
oh
Nick VinZant 29:23
yeah, he's definitely somebody though that looked he looks better bald like, Oh, why did you have hair? You shouldn't have had hair. He should have went straight for the ball.
Nick VinZant 29:33
Yeah,
John Shull 29:34
he should not have probably ever had hair. Well, who's your number two?
Nick VinZant 29:40
My number two is Bruce Willis.
John Shull 29:43
Okay, move. Did we double up on number one? I wonder if we did.
Nick VinZant 29:49
Maybe. Who's your number one?
John Shull 29:53
Michael Jordan.
Nick VinZant 29:54
Michael Jordan,
John Shull 29:56
yeah, I mean,
Nick VinZant 29:57
yeah, Michael Jordan's most famous ball guy.
John Shull 30:00
I was gonna throw a kink and just try to piss you off and say Vin Diesel, but I couldn't even put him that high. So
Nick VinZant 30:06
I can't. When I looked at the list of bald celebrities, I can't think of, I wouldn't even put Vin Diesel in the top 10.
John Shull 30:14
Yeah, probably not. I mean, let's not, let's not take away what he's done. He I feel like Vin Diesel gets shit on, kind of like Nicolas Cage, like they both get shitted on a lot for being terrible actors. But like, they'll have left a mark. Like, even if it's not a mark that a lot of people respect, it's like Jim Carrey to me, right? Like, I think he's another actor that kind of gets shit on for not, like, I don't know, I don't know, I don't even know the word, but like, all three of those men have left legacies.
Nick VinZant 30:45
Vin Diesel was in The Fast and the Furious franchise, and that's kind of it. He's never really done anything else outside of that. Like, really, nobody really cared about that movie. He's like, Oh, go see Vin Diesel. Like, that's gonna be,
John Shull 31:01
I would argue that he's, I mean, it's, it's hard to argue, but I think people now know him more as the being, the voice of that tree thing, whatever that was out of Guardians of the Galaxy,
Nick VinZant 31:14
right? Groot. Groot, yeah. I think not only would I say that Michael Jordan, I think the thing, I think Michael Jordan has to be number one, because he made bald cool, like it wasn't cool to be bald until Jordan. And I don't remember a point where Jordan ever had hair, like LeBron held on too long, but he had hair at the beginning. Jordan, I don't remember ever having hair.
John Shull 31:43
No, Michael had hair like in the early 80s when he first came into the NBA, I believe.
Nick VinZant 31:50
Yeah, you, I think you're right, Michael,
John Shull 31:54
but you're right though, like he made bald cool because bald wasn't really a thing. Oh, yeah, stage
Nick VinZant 32:04
Jordan, though looks like he was probably bald by early 20s. He went bald quick. Um, okay, without looking at a picture. Is Woody Harrelson bald?
John Shull 32:20
So random he I'm gonna say yes, but I'm guessing it's a no,
Nick VinZant 32:26
he is bald,
John Shull 32:28
okay,
Nick VinZant 32:28
but I picture him with hair, even though He is bald.
John Shull 32:35
I guess I've never really thought about it. I know. I don't know. I didn't really think he was bald, right? Or had hair? I mean, no, I didn't think he had hair.
Nick VinZant 32:45
Whatever. Um, who's in your own dimension,
John Shull 32:49
Jesus. Charles Barkley,
Nick VinZant 32:52
yeah, yeah.
John Shull 32:54
I mean, just for the fun facts alone, or fun fact alone, Yul Brenner,
Nick VinZant 32:59
who
John Shull 32:59
apparently was the person that made bald cool in the 70s and 80s.
Nick VinZant 33:06
Okay, I don't even,
John Shull 33:07
I don't know if, yeah, I think we talked about most of them. Just going back through my list here, Vin Diesel. Oh, I had Terry Crews on my list, but, I mean, he's not. I don't know if people really know I'm leaving Jason Statham off on purpose, because I don't, you know, don't really care. Oh, and I wrote down, I can barely read it, but LL Cool. J,
Nick VinZant 33:33
oh yeah, LL Cool. J, is bald? He might be the second. Is he the second biggest bald musician? No, the guy from Smashing Pumpkins is Billy Corgan. I think was probably a bigger musician.
John Shull 33:49
It would. It would be hard pressed for me not to say that. LL, cool. J isn't number one, to be honest with what he's done.
Nick VinZant 34:00
Oh, you mean that he's an NCIS, Hawaii, or whatever it is like what No dude, Mr. World is, is LL Cool, J worldwide? No, he's not pit bull. Is Mr. Worldwide?
John Shull 34:15
I'm not gonna argue you're right, but I think there is a debate there. Maybe,
Nick VinZant 34:22
I don't think so. The only one that I had, in my honorable mention that you did not have, is Bill Burr, another guy
Nick VinZant 34:28
that's
Nick VinZant 34:28
always been bald like he never, I think, had any hair. Okay, that's gonna go ahead and do it for this episode of profoundly pointless. I want to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance, leave us a quick review. We really appreciate it really helps out the show and let us know what you think are the best bald celebrities. In my mind, I have to envision them entirely without hair, which is why I don't think the rock for me counts as a bald. Bald celebrity because he had hair that was prominent at one point, not like Patrick Stewart, not like Michael Jack Jordan, or always bald.