Today’s GIF comes from a scene in Roger and Me, Michael Moore’s breakthrough film. The other major manufacturing interest in Flint, Michigan, at the time, besides cars, was lint rollers.

The History of Dryer Lint? Yes, the History of Dryer Lint.

Like lint? This article is for you. Learn why dryers produce lint, and how the lint roller came into existence. It’s the lintiest article you’ll ever read.

Ernie Smith
9 min readNov 21, 2017

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A version of this post originally appeared on Tedium, a twice-weekly newsletter that hunts for the end of the long tail.

Of the many appliances in our home that create byproducts, is there a more interesting byproduct than dryer lint?

I don’t ask this to be facetious, nor to overplay its value, but to point out that there’s something inherently interesting about lint. It looks fluffy. It feels weird in your hands.

And while it’s somewhat annoying to get rid of (and yes, you should get rid of it), it nonetheless is a novel object, one that’s more interesting and less disgusting than navel lint could ever claim to be.

Yes, I know this is a weird topic, but … let’s talk about the inventors that made a name for themselves with lint.

1793

The year that Eli Whitney first filed for a patent for the cotton gin, the iconic device that set the stage for both the industrial revolution and, later down the line (through the growth of slavery the…

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Ernie Smith

Editor of @readtedium, the dull side of the internet. You may know me from @ShortFormBlog. Subscribe to my thought machine: http://tedium.co/