Concerts, Art, and Festivals Not to Miss in the Bay This Fall

SPEAKER_2 (0:04)

The wild world of college football continues Labor Day weekend. On Saturday, East Carolina looks to shock Alabama, and Baylor and Auburn battle it out in Atlanta in the Aflac kickoff game. Then Clemson hits the road, looking to spoil Lane Kiffin's Death Valley debut.

Sunday night, it's Louisville versus Ole Miss in Nashville in the inaugural Liberty Mutual Music City kickoff game. College football Labor Day weekend continues Saturday and Sunday on ABC and the ESPN app.

Sasha Coca (0:34)

On the California Report magazine, we bring you stories about Californians helping out their neighbors like a little store in Oakland where shoppers can walk out with one item for free.

Gary (0:45)

I mean, opening up a shop and giving away stuff for free.

SPEAKER_5 (0:48)

My first customers thought I was insane.

Sasha Coca (0:51)

Still here, so it seems to be working. I'm Sasha Coca. You can hear more community connection stories on the California Report magazine podcast.

Alexis Madrigal (1:04)

Welcome to Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal. Gold is having a moment, writes New Yorker staff writer Jennifer Wilson. Earlier this year, it traded as high as $5,500 an ounce. As an unstable economic outlook has central banks and investors buying gold to hedge their bets.

Gold has been embraced by the far right reality TV producers and Donald Trump, of course, but it's also that it's just gold. Add it all up and we've now got hobbyists and full-time prospectors headed up to the foothills where the California gold rush began. Wilson explores all these angles in her latest piece, How Americans Caught Gold Fever Again, and she joins us this morning. Welcome, Jennifer.

Jennifer Wilson (1:48)

Thank you for having me.

Alexis Madrigal (1:50)

Oh, my God. So set us up a little bit here.

It's the price of gold, right? I mean, that's part of it. Gold used to be, you know, was shocking when it was $2,000 an ounce. Now it's way more, I think around $4,500 an ounce. But it's also the cultural stuff.

Jennifer Wilson (2:04)

Yeah. I mean, I think that there's just a longing for what the California gold rush represents in the American psyche. It was this time when, you know, anyone or so we think, anyone could go out to California and become rich. I mean, like the idea of the American dream really actually starts in 1848 when gold is discovered in California.

And people are, you know, these days, it's like people aren't struggling to get ahead, they're struggling to stay afloat. And so it makes sense to me that people would feel just a longing for that era.

Alexis Madrigal (2:42)

It's like the American dream, but a side hustle.

Jennifer Wilson (2:45)

Yes.

Quinn Slobodian (2:46)

Or reality TV show too.

Jennifer Wilson (2:48)

Oh my God. Yeah, that's how I initially got into this piece is I found out about this show called Gold Rush that was apparently like the top rated show for men on Friday nights. And that it had beaten the baseball playoffs one year. And I was like, I've never even heard of this. How is this possible?

And that's when I really learned about this entire world of gold fever, of amateur prospecting clubs, of pay dirt at the month clubs. And as you mentioned, influencers. I found this guy named Pioneer Pauly. And he's got these videos of himself like panning for Golden Creeks. He even has an ASMR video of his hand just caressing a pile of gold nuggets. And his videos have 300 million views.

Alexis Madrigal (3:31)

Oh my gosh.

I mean, I was trying, you know, I am a man in the demographic for which Gold Rush is the number one show on Friday night. And I was trying to figure out, I was like, do I feel this in myself? Do I feel this desire for gold? And I have to say the answer is no. But it made me wonder, how much is the political valence of this? And we're going to talk more about this later in the show, but how much is this like, gold has become right coded or something because of Donald Trump and all the gilding of everything. Or maybe just because these shows present gold prospecting as like the ultimate blue collar job.

Jennifer Wilson (4:12)

Yeah, I mean, Trump's whole thing is you too can have my riches if we just go back to this earlier time in America where men were men, you know? I mean, so there's definitely a lot of that. I think that people are also feeling anxious and scared and, you know, gold feels like something real, something that you can touch.

But obviously, it's, you know, it's real, but it only has value because we've decided that it has value. But yeah, there's lots of people playing into those fears and anxieties. Actually, I found out Donald Trump Jr. sells gold. And he works for this company called the Birch Gold Group that will help you, you know, turn your 401K into gold. So yeah, there's a lot of people, like a lot of people got rich in the gold rush. The people who got rich in the gold rush tended to be the people who mined the miners, you know, people like Leland Stanford, Levi Strauss. And I think we're seeing, with this gold rush, the same thing happening.