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The Science of Cute · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I
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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
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Speaker 1: There's Charles w. Cute as a button Bryant, and there's
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Speaker 1: Jerry squee rolland and this is stuff you should know
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Speaker 1: of the podcast. A cute addition, that's right, the science
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Speaker 1: a cute. Yeah, I'm excited about this when I've been
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Speaker 1: wanting to do it for a while. I remember, like
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Speaker 1: that was one of the first things you ever said
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Speaker 1: to me when we met in the office, how cute
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Speaker 1: you are? Well? No, we were in the break room
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Speaker 1: and I saw a picture of a baby panda and
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Speaker 1: I just started to melt, and you went, hey, jerk,
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Speaker 1: you ever wonder why you think things are cute? I
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Speaker 1: bet there's science behind that. Maybe we should talk about
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Speaker 1: it one day, and look here we are. What was that,
1:00
Speaker 1: well thirteen years ago almost man, you really responded to
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Speaker 1: that aggression into so chuck. Have you ever heard of
1:12
Speaker 1: Mickey Mouse? Oh? I know several mice, but I've never
1:18
Speaker 1: heard of Mickey Mouse. You've only heard of Modeled Muck
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Speaker 1: and Ricky Rouse. Um, well, let me tell you about
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Speaker 1: Mickey Mouse. He's actually the mascot of a very large
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Speaker 1: entertainment corporation called Disney. Uh. They own Walt Disney World,
1:34
Speaker 1: Walt Disneyland. I think ABC owns them. They're they're affiliated
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Speaker 1: with ESPN. They're very, very big. But they have this mascot.
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Speaker 1: It's a mouse and his name's Mickey. He's he's kind
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Speaker 1: of big, especially abroad. Um. But if you look at
1:51
Speaker 1: Mickey today, you think, wow, that's a really cute mouse.
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Speaker 1: Doesn't really look like a mouse. He's black and white
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Speaker 1: basically are brownish and black. Um. But also his few
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Speaker 1: teachers are very much not mouse like. But if you
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Speaker 1: were to go back and look at the beginning of Mickey,
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Speaker 1: I think he's from the nine twenties, like nineteen twenties.
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Speaker 1: In his earliest cartoons, he looked a lot more mousey
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Speaker 1: like cartoon mouse, but he had, you know, his pointed features,
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Speaker 1: not nearly as cute. But then if you fast forward
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Speaker 1: about ten years later, by the time rolls around and
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Speaker 1: he's in something called The Brave Taylor that was one
2:27
Speaker 1: of his shorts, UM where I think he defeats a
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Speaker 1: giant or something like that. Um, he looks full blown
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Speaker 1: Mickey Mouse, but he looks way cuter and they had
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Speaker 1: done a few things to him. They had like made
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Speaker 1: his eyes bigger, they've made his features rounder less pointed. Um,
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Speaker 1: he had big gloves and big shoes. Now he's kind
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Speaker 1: of plump and oversized features, and he had gotten cute.
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Speaker 1: And the scientist Stephen Jay Gould, who really deserves his
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Speaker 1: own episode like Carl Sagan does, Um, just a really
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Speaker 1: interesting dude. Um. He said that Disney and his animators
3:04
Speaker 1: had stumbled upon something that the zoologists and mythologist Conrad
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Speaker 1: Lawrence UM termed can can schema. I think I got
3:14
Speaker 1: that right right. Uh yeah, can can schema very nice. Um.
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Speaker 1: But like years before Conrad Lawrence ever did that, they
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Speaker 1: had just kind of naturally figured out like, oh, this
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Speaker 1: can be way more appealing if we if we exaggerate
3:30
Speaker 1: these particular features. And it turns out what they had
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Speaker 1: done is make him literally cut by the very scientific
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Speaker 1: definition of cuteness. Yeah. So Lawrence was an Austrian scientist
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Speaker 1: and in the forties came up with this. And this
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Speaker 1: made me feel quite good about myself actually looking over
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Speaker 1: this list about physical qualities that um, and it's not
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Speaker 1: just a person came me an animal. As we'll see
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Speaker 1: a lot of this is animal based. But these things,
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Speaker 1: these traits that would evoke a positive response, a very
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Speaker 1: strong positive response, and they are large head. M that's me, um,
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Speaker 1: high protruding forehead. I've always said you have a five head.
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Speaker 1: If any, it's it's average, large eyes, sort of average,
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Speaker 1: chubby cheeks bingo. Oh, you should make the cheeks make
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Speaker 1: a sonic appearance. Very nice. It's been years, still as
4:25
Speaker 1: moist as ever. Sorry, everyone. Uh, chubby cheeks, small nose,
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Speaker 1: I'm an average nose, small mouth, and chin I'd say
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Speaker 1: average short, thick extremities, actually have sort of skinny legs.
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Speaker 1: I'll carry my weight between my chin and my belt.
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Speaker 1: Plump body shape. Bingo. So I am scientifically half cute.
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Speaker 1: You are very cute. I mean that's definitely. It's not
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Speaker 1: even up for debate. Really, I used to get called
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Speaker 1: cute by the ladies. Not handsome, but cute. There's definitely
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Speaker 1: I saw that. Um. Paul McCartney hated being known as
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Speaker 1: the cute beetle, probably for the same you know, the
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Speaker 1: same differences that you just mentioned, probably, but the the
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Speaker 1: like what you just said, this list you just you
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Speaker 1: just um you rattled off. That is Lawrence's kinkin schema
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Speaker 1: or baby schema or baby nous, which is basically like,
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Speaker 1: if you put all these things together, you have what
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Speaker 1: amounts to what we humans consider cute, and you can extrapolate,
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Speaker 1: like you were saying, not just onto babies, but onto
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Speaker 1: other animals and even onto like cartoon characters. Yeah, you
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Speaker 1: either have these things and you're regarded as cute, or
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Speaker 1: you don't and you're not exactly. Yeah, that's a really
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Speaker 1: good point that you can you can not only have this,
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Speaker 1: you can also lack it, and that that has that
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Speaker 1: modulates our response to whatever that thing is. Yeah, and
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Speaker 1: it's also important to point out that this is these
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Speaker 1: are guidelines, scientific sort of guidelines and truisms, but not
5:55
Speaker 1: across the board like some people. Beauty is in the
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Speaker 1: eye of the beholder and cuteness is sure, So some
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Speaker 1: people might look at a baby, I don't know, just
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Speaker 1: some sort of weird reptilian thing that has none of
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Speaker 1: these traits and think it's super cute as well. Right, Yeah, yeah,
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Speaker 1: it is kind of subjective, but there does seem to
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Speaker 1: be um if not universal or widely tapped into sense
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Speaker 1: of what's cute and what's not. You know what, I mean, yeah, still,
6:26
Speaker 1: let me rephrase that the person that thinks the baby
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Speaker 1: lizard that has none of these traits is cute, they
6:31
Speaker 1: probably also think the panda is cute, right, you know
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Speaker 1: what I'm saying, Right, Yeah, they're probably not disgusted or
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Speaker 1: just totally turn off that dirty, ugly baby kitten. And
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Speaker 1: so so Lawrence was um. He compiled this list based
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Speaker 1: on his observations, and I guess from what I read,
6:49
Speaker 1: like this whole study of cuteness is pretty young as
6:52
Speaker 1: far as scientific investigation goes, So you know that we're
6:55
Speaker 1: still figuring it out. It's still developing as it goes along.
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Speaker 1: Some of the study is involved or fairly suspect, but
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Speaker 1: there seems to be this this kind of general acceptance
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Speaker 1: of Lawrenz's k Kinkin schema, which is that it was
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Speaker 1: just it's so it's so obviously correct that from what
7:18
Speaker 1: I read, some people just haven't even investigated, which is
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Speaker 1: good and bad. Um. Lawrence was a behaviorist and he
7:26
Speaker 1: actually we met him first in our animal imprinting episode,
7:29
Speaker 1: which was a really good one, but he studied that, um.
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Speaker 1: But he put this all together to study behaviors, and
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Speaker 1: what he was studying is exactly how babies UM get
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Speaker 1: adult humans who may not even be their parents to
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Speaker 1: respond to them in a way that um, that adult
7:47
Speaker 1: wants to take care of that baby. And what he
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Speaker 1: what he came up with was this kinkin schema cuteness. Uh.
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Speaker 1: What he said unlocks um innate instincts in humans that
8:01
Speaker 1: basically triggers like automatic behaviors like oh, I want to
8:06
Speaker 1: make sure that you stay alive, so I'm going to
8:07
Speaker 1: go find you some food that kind of stuff. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: And it corresponds to helplessness at birth. There's a direct
8:14
Speaker 1: correlation between um, how cute you look and how how
8:20
Speaker 1: little you can get buy in your own In the
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Speaker 1: animal kingdom, um, most mammals are born very small, very helpless.
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Speaker 1: Uh many months sometimes weeks, sometimes months, sometimes years of
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Speaker 1: care before they can go off and kind of do
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Speaker 1: their own thing. That's called altricial. What to take to
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Speaker 1: being born helpless? You're altricial. Yeah, so if you're altricial,
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Speaker 1: you're probably almost more cute than an animal that is
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Speaker 1: born that can kind of run right out and do
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Speaker 1: things on their own, probably not as cute. That's precociale
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Speaker 1: altricial and precocial, right, and and the thing is is like,
9:00
Speaker 1: if you step back, like it's just so easy to
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Speaker 1: just overlook this, and if you really start to think
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Speaker 1: about this, cuteness has been this adaptive, I guess, evolutionary
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Speaker 1: trait that's just been hiding and plain sight until Lawrence
9:14
Speaker 1: really put his finger on it. But if you step
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Speaker 1: back and think about it, there's no there's no innate
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Speaker 1: or there's no reason that a baby has in and
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Speaker 1: of itself to evoke a response and a human even
9:28
Speaker 1: its parents, um to want to take care of it,
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Speaker 1: but it needs that because it is an altricial species.
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Speaker 1: Humans are an altricial species. They'll they'll just die out
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Speaker 1: if you don't take care of a baby, and if
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Speaker 1: enough babies die out, eventually humanity dies out, the species
9:44
Speaker 1: dies out. So it's an adaptation to make somebody want
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Speaker 1: to take care of you. And that is what Lawrence
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Speaker 1: figured out. That cuteness is that trigger that we find
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Speaker 1: babies cute and it makes us want to take care
10:01
Speaker 1: of them. And that is one of the most mind
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Speaker 1: blowing things I know. Yeah, I mean if you look
10:05
Speaker 1: at human babies. Human babies are born pretty early in
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Speaker 1: their development, like if um all things being equal. Human
10:15
Speaker 1: babies should probably be born six months later than they are,
10:20
Speaker 1: but they're not. Human babies come out very early. They
10:23
Speaker 1: come out before their little fontanelles are even formed, and
10:27
Speaker 1: they need a lot of care and uh, they're they're
10:34
Speaker 1: born that Like, human babies are small so they can
10:38
Speaker 1: fit out of the birth canal. Their little noses are
10:42
Speaker 1: cartilage so they don't get broken on the way out.
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Speaker 1: Like you know, babies should have larger heads and should
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Speaker 1: have like that should but you know what I'm saying,
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Speaker 1: fully formed like strong noses, but they wouldn't be able
10:56
Speaker 1: to to come out of a lady if that was
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Speaker 1: the case. Yeah, because our brains are have have developed
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Speaker 1: to be so big, and our craniums have developed in
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Speaker 1: in response to that that like we're evolutionarily speaking or
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Speaker 1: developmentally speaking, we're underdeveloped when we're born, even though we're
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Speaker 1: we would have been born at like a normal normal
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Speaker 1: gestation period for a human compared to other species. It's
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Speaker 1: like you're, this kid's out a little. This kid hasn't
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Speaker 1: baked fully, you know what I'm saying. And so that
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Speaker 1: really makes human babies even among you know, other mammals
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Speaker 1: that are altricial super dependent on caregivers to make sure
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Speaker 1: that it survives. Yeah. So, like a human baby's head
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Speaker 1: is really large compared to their body. Um, and these
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Speaker 1: are you know, these are some of the cuteness traits
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Speaker 1: that we mentioned early. On their eyes. You know, your
11:46
Speaker 1: eyes don't really grow. Your eyes are about the same size.
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Speaker 1: I didn't know that, did you. Yeah, that's why when
11:51
Speaker 1: you look at some babies and you're like, look how
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Speaker 1: huge their eyes are, it's just because they're on a
11:56
Speaker 1: little tiny face. It makes sense, But I just had
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Speaker 1: never known that you're born basically the size that they're
12:02
Speaker 1: going to be when you grow up. I think if
12:03
Speaker 1: you really work them out, they can beef up a
12:05
Speaker 1: little bit. Though. We mentioned those tiny little noses super
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Speaker 1: cute and very bendy. Um, they're little baby cheeks and
12:14
Speaker 1: everything soft so you can get out of that birth canal.
12:18
Speaker 1: And you know, formula and mother's milk keep you kind
12:21
Speaker 1: of chunky and full. Um. You know, nobody's gonna put
12:25
Speaker 1: a baby on a diet, no good lord, no. Um.
12:30
Speaker 1: The skin is very loosed and soft. H. So you know,
12:33
Speaker 1: if you go through a big gross spurt, it doesn't
12:35
Speaker 1: you know, split open sounds gross. Uh, and then you
12:40
Speaker 1: know the way babies move, it's just just very cute there.
12:43
Speaker 1: Babies are awkward and they're clumsy, and um, they don't
12:46
Speaker 1: like have the definition to like manipulate these these muscle
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Speaker 1: groups very well. Yet Yeah, and it's awkward and gawky
12:53
Speaker 1: and super cute. All of this stuff together is cute
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Speaker 1: to us. And it raises the question, like, did babies
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Speaker 1: evolved human babies evolved to fit our definition of cute
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Speaker 1: or did our definition Actually I've seen both. I've seen both.
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Speaker 1: So it makes sense that like our definition of what's
13:11
Speaker 1: cute and what we respond to is cute would be
13:13
Speaker 1: based on the average human baby. But you can also
13:17
Speaker 1: take an average human baby and tweak, like digitally, um,
13:22
Speaker 1: a picture of a baby and tweak it to maximum cuteness.
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Speaker 1: And so there's this other idea that Okay, maybe originally
13:30
Speaker 1: our idea of cuteness was based on baby features, But
13:35
Speaker 1: the cutest babies would um logically get the most response
13:40
Speaker 1: and would be the most the most likely yeah, and
13:42
Speaker 1: would be the most likely to survive and thrive and
13:45
Speaker 1: go on to reproduce. So it is entirely possible that
13:49
Speaker 1: we have a speed as a species have gotten cuter
13:52
Speaker 1: over the over the eons because of selection of the
13:55
Speaker 1: for the cutest babies. Well, and that's been critical to
13:59
Speaker 1: our serve bible. Um. You know it's uh when you
14:04
Speaker 1: see something like that, when you see a baby chick,
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Speaker 1: you your instinct is to pick it up and cradle
14:09
Speaker 1: it and make sure you know that a tree branch
14:13
Speaker 1: doesn't fall on it, right, And that's the same goes
14:16
Speaker 1: for babies. Yeah, because they share a lot of the
14:19
Speaker 1: same similarities, the same kin kin kin schema. I wish
14:23
Speaker 1: that ken wasn't in there. I wish it was just
14:25
Speaker 1: kin den schema. Call it that. Then. I don't want
14:28
Speaker 1: to get things wrong all the time, and we do.
14:30
Speaker 1: We do. It's usually not purposefully, you know, Okay, But um,
14:36
Speaker 1: that same set of traits can apply to other animals.
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Speaker 1: It was like you were saying, you know, animals that
14:42
Speaker 1: fall into that set of traits appear cute to us,
14:45
Speaker 1: and we want to save them, we want to take
14:47
Speaker 1: care of them. Um. Like a little baby giraffe has
14:51
Speaker 1: huge eyes, its features are kind of small compared to
14:55
Speaker 1: a larger adult draft which even adult drafts are awfully cute.
14:58
Speaker 1: But one of the things that a baby draft is
15:01
Speaker 1: going to get you with is hobbling around trying to
15:04
Speaker 1: stand up that first time I hit you with those
15:07
Speaker 1: little shaky legs look out. Yeah, and that reminds us
15:10
Speaker 1: or reminds some very ancient part of our brain of
15:13
Speaker 1: human infant, you know, like developing its motor skill. So
15:18
Speaker 1: it seems like it's not like our brains are confused,
15:21
Speaker 1: like you're not looking at a baby giraffe, like, look
15:24
Speaker 1: at that baby human. I love it. It's just it
15:27
Speaker 1: triggers the same part of the brain that seeing a
15:32
Speaker 1: human infant does, um, because of that same set of characteristics. Yeah, Like,
15:37
Speaker 1: there was a study I found on mental flaws from
15:39
Speaker 1: two thousand nine where scientists reported that, uh, people in
15:44
Speaker 1: the study that viewed really cute images of puppies and
15:47
Speaker 1: kittens performed better in the game of Operation you know,
15:50
Speaker 1: the kids game than people who saw less like that
15:54
Speaker 1: saw pictures of grown up dogs and cats. So it
15:57
Speaker 1: just innately triggers this care response. It's really really interesting. Yeah.
16:01
Speaker 1: And so what Lorenz called that innate releasers, that that
16:06
Speaker 1: you see a cute baby and the cuteness acts as
16:09
Speaker 1: an innate releaser, which triggers a set of inborn instincts
16:14
Speaker 1: in every human to take care of that baby, and
16:16
Speaker 1: that one apparently hasn't necessarily borne out. But there is
16:20
Speaker 1: a lot of or there's an increasing amount of documentation
16:23
Speaker 1: about how seeing something cute affects the brain. And I
16:26
Speaker 1: propose that we take a commercial break and then come
16:29
Speaker 1: back and talk about that afterwards. We'll be right back.
17:00
Speaker 1: I think I has a commercial break. Sure, I now
17:04
Speaker 1: it's in the in the survey, it's like an after
17:06
Speaker 1: school special all of a sudden, so um, I think
17:10
Speaker 1: before we dive into what you're talking about, I do
17:12
Speaker 1: want to mention the wolf puppy thing. I thought it
17:15
Speaker 1: was pretty interesting, is that there is an example of
17:19
Speaker 1: a co evolved trait with the human brain that triggers
17:23
Speaker 1: that cuteness response when you look at wolves wild wolves apparently,
17:27
Speaker 1: and these were predogs. Basically, Um, they don't have this
17:31
Speaker 1: muscle called the uh. Here we go with some Latin.
17:35
Speaker 1: I guess uh leabator angouli oculi. Mettie Alice just made
17:41
Speaker 1: a demon appere Oh my god, Um, this muscle they
17:46
Speaker 1: don't have in their eyebrows, and apparently that is the
17:48
Speaker 1: muscle that can make what we think of as puppy
17:51
Speaker 1: dog eyes. Dogs that came later did of all that muscle,
17:55
Speaker 1: and then we're bred for it because it made people
17:58
Speaker 1: melt inside. Uh so that's why wolves, which is interesting,
18:02
Speaker 1: like wolves have that sort of scowl and they can't
18:05
Speaker 1: help it. But then I looked at wolf puppy pictures
18:07
Speaker 1: and it's pretty cute. But maybe it's not in the eyes.
18:11
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, I don't know what it is either,
18:14
Speaker 1: but that I think that raises a really good question
18:16
Speaker 1: that also kind of points out it like this, this
18:19
Speaker 1: research is still very young, and there's contradictory information coming
18:23
Speaker 1: in and a lot of it is just based on
18:24
Speaker 1: intuition and that kind of thing. But there are, like
18:28
Speaker 1: you said, there's that there are people walking around who think,
18:31
Speaker 1: like that baby lizard is super cute. You know what
18:33
Speaker 1: I'm saying, Like it it's not entirely universal, and you know,
18:37
Speaker 1: maybe those wolf puppies have some other traits that have
18:40
Speaker 1: nothing to do with the eyes that that are hijacking
18:43
Speaker 1: your brain. The point that stands out to me is
18:47
Speaker 1: that that that caregiving instinct that Lorenz pointed out, or
18:50
Speaker 1: whatever whatever weird brain pathway we have, um, that's triggered
18:55
Speaker 1: by seeing something cute, is that it extends beyond humans.
18:58
Speaker 1: And I think that that kind of that that makes
19:00
Speaker 1: humanity as a species like that much greater in my opinion,
19:05
Speaker 1: that like that caregiving impulse can extend beyond humans. And
19:10
Speaker 1: I mean that explains pets right there. Like, I don't
19:12
Speaker 1: think we would have pets if that wasn't true, you know,
19:15
Speaker 1: I mean, we'd have like guard dogs or something still,
19:17
Speaker 1: but you know, not a pet. There would be German shepherds.
19:22
Speaker 1: There'd be nothing but and they'd all be mean as
19:24
Speaker 1: as snakes. And we probably have snakes too. That rode
19:27
Speaker 1: the German shepherds. They still wouldn't be pets. Baby snakes
19:30
Speaker 1: not so cute. There's also that weird thing where something
19:33
Speaker 1: is so ugly it's cute as a young thing. Okay,
19:36
Speaker 1: so that's a Japanese term. We'll talk about kawaie later.
19:40
Speaker 1: But there's something called chemo kawaii, which is called gross cute. Interesting. Yeah,
19:45
Speaker 1: they they've they've got it. That's something they're like the Germans,
19:49
Speaker 1: but further east, they have like a name and a
19:51
Speaker 1: term in idea for everything. You know. All right, we'll
19:53
Speaker 1: put a pin in that because we did promise the
19:56
Speaker 1: science of cute. So we're gonna have to look at um,
19:59
Speaker 1: we're gonna have to look at the brain and actually
20:01
Speaker 1: what's going on there. And they've done that of course. UM.
20:05
Speaker 1: They've put people in the Wonder machine and they have
20:07
Speaker 1: shown people pictures of baby faces to see what lights up.
20:10
Speaker 1: And when that happens, you get a really strong immediate
20:13
Speaker 1: response and what's called the orbitofrontal cortex, which is where
20:19
Speaker 1: we regulate our emotions and our pleasure, and it's a
20:21
Speaker 1: really really fast response, um one seven of a second. Um.
20:26
Speaker 1: It doesn't take long when you see that baby or
20:29
Speaker 1: that puppy or whatever you don't it doesn't take you
20:31
Speaker 1: long to to immediately think, I need to care for
20:34
Speaker 1: that thing and hold that thing. Yeah, Because so that
20:37
Speaker 1: orbitofrontal cortex UM apparently has something to do with the
20:42
Speaker 1: reward system. So your attention is captured very quickly and
20:46
Speaker 1: you get a little burst of of pleasure from seeing
20:50
Speaker 1: that that cute baby. And then there's another thing too
20:53
Speaker 1: that that that came out of that two thousand nine
20:55
Speaker 1: study using operation that all of a sudden, you're attention
21:01
Speaker 1: is very much focused and you can complete tasks um
21:05
Speaker 1: much better or at least remarkably better. Um, then you
21:10
Speaker 1: could without seeing something cute. So it really does suggest
21:14
Speaker 1: we have this inborn pathway to respond to something cute
21:18
Speaker 1: in a pleasurable way with warm feelings. Um, that trigger
21:23
Speaker 1: an ability a greater or more focused ability to do
21:26
Speaker 1: something like, for example, care for or feed a baby
21:30
Speaker 1: or that kind of thing that's that seems to be
21:33
Speaker 1: borne out like Lawrence's innate release, or seems to be
21:36
Speaker 1: being discovered um by neurology right now. Which is interesting though,
21:40
Speaker 1: because caring for a baby is not, in my experience,
21:44
Speaker 1: something you need that kind of focus for. It's not
21:46
Speaker 1: like putting together a little model house with tiny pieces
21:49
Speaker 1: of furniture. Um, it's just like keep this thing alive. Right,
21:54
Speaker 1: But maybe maybe that's like, um, rather than being like,
21:58
Speaker 1: oh you know, I think i'll I'd rather break the
22:00
Speaker 1: law of the law and instead and you just stop
22:03
Speaker 1: feeding the baby leaves you know what I'm saying, Like
22:06
Speaker 1: your your attention to the task at hand. He's a
22:08
Speaker 1: little more focused, so you're less distracted. Yeah, that's what
22:12
Speaker 1: kind of focus. Sure. Yeah, Luckily it doesn't take much
22:15
Speaker 1: brains because it's a lot of non smart parents out there.
22:19
Speaker 1: That is true. Um So in that response, that speedy
22:23
Speaker 1: response in the orbitofrontal cortex when you see that baby,
22:27
Speaker 1: men and women both have that same spike. But I
22:30
Speaker 1: think women report stronger caregiving, which they chalk up to
22:33
Speaker 1: just gender roles basically and not necessarily anything to do
22:37
Speaker 1: with the brain itself. Yeah, because the same areas light
22:40
Speaker 1: up for men and women, I guess to the same degree.
22:42
Speaker 1: It's just self reported as different, right right. And then
22:46
Speaker 1: apparently also like this, this is not just um parents
22:49
Speaker 1: who experienced this, like a human being will or a
22:53
Speaker 1: typical human being will experience this. Yeah, I mean that's
22:57
Speaker 1: the thing where like, as an adoptive parent, you know
23:00
Speaker 1: this is uh, my daughter is not my seed. Um,
23:04
Speaker 1: but I can't piplical it. Um but I can't like
23:09
Speaker 1: I have nothing to base it on. But I can't
23:10
Speaker 1: imagine a stronger connection or a stronger instinct to care
23:15
Speaker 1: give and um so it's a It's an important trait
23:19
Speaker 1: clearly because like you've seen movies where uh, people find
23:23
Speaker 1: like a baby like abandoned by the dumpster and that
23:27
Speaker 1: you know, you run out and you know, I suppose
23:29
Speaker 1: some people might just say call it in and say Hey,
23:31
Speaker 1: there's a baby over here. I'm not going near it,
23:34
Speaker 1: but a humans inclination is to run over and pick
23:36
Speaker 1: that baby up and wrap it up in something warm
23:39
Speaker 1: and then maybe call the cops or whatever. Right, and
23:43
Speaker 1: like you said, like run over there like that, like
23:45
Speaker 1: it an urgent thing that that your brain would just
23:48
Speaker 1: be like get over there, right, the helpless thing out
23:50
Speaker 1: there by a dumpster, let's go get it. Yeah. Um,
23:53
Speaker 1: that apparently would come probably more from um the baby's cry,
23:57
Speaker 1: which I guess also a nights like the same kind
24:01
Speaker 1: of um pathway as cuteness does, but it's a different
24:07
Speaker 1: it's slightly different. There's not necessarily a reward. It's more
24:10
Speaker 1: like urgency. And they call that a biological siren, which
24:13
Speaker 1: which would you know, get you over there really quickly,
24:16
Speaker 1: But it's not necessarily because you saw you know, you
24:18
Speaker 1: you thought about how cute the baby is in those
24:20
Speaker 1: swaddling clothes. Right. Uh. Sound is definitely important. Like that
24:25
Speaker 1: same study, if you hear babies laughter or even as
24:28
Speaker 1: the smell of a baby, you your brain lights up
24:31
Speaker 1: in the same way. Yeah. So like that, we're presented
24:33
Speaker 1: with the entire cute package of everything that's great about babies, sounds, smell.
24:38
Speaker 1: They are really deeply manipulative. I think is is what
24:42
Speaker 1: you're meant to take away from this episode. They are
24:45
Speaker 1: just tiny little monsters saying like, take care of me
24:48
Speaker 1: for eighteen years. That's right, and possibly beyond. If I'm
24:52
Speaker 1: gen X exactly, it was a gen X or millennials.
24:57
Speaker 1: I don't know. I feel like there were plenty of
24:58
Speaker 1: gen xers that lived in the Bay, right, you're totally right,
25:01
Speaker 1: or maybe that's every generation, but we weren't coddled as much.
25:05
Speaker 1: Oh boy, you're gonna get us canceled the boy. Uh yeah,
25:12
Speaker 1: So let's move on from that. Oh wait, here's another thing.
25:15
Speaker 1: And this is the satisfinding Ever, when they did the study,
25:20
Speaker 1: um that that brain activity was diminished when they were
25:23
Speaker 1: shown baby faces that were had some sort of facial disruption,
25:28
Speaker 1: like a cleft palate. And that is really one of
25:31
Speaker 1: the saddest things you can imagine hearing. Yeah, because I
25:34
Speaker 1: mean that would that would account for you know what
25:39
Speaker 1: I was talking about earlier about how cuteness is selected
25:42
Speaker 1: for that there's this like by no one's fault of
25:45
Speaker 1: their own, but just through you know, the evolutionary process
25:48
Speaker 1: of these these neural connections that were born that are
25:51
Speaker 1: ready to make like wanting to respond to something cute.
25:55
Speaker 1: If you're presented with something that doesn't quite line up
25:58
Speaker 1: with that king Kin schema, Um, that baby is going
26:03
Speaker 1: to have a much harder time getting that same response
26:07
Speaker 1: from from somebody than just a traditionally cute baby. Well,
26:11
Speaker 1: it's it's extraordinarily sad. I think we need to do
26:15
Speaker 1: an episode on cleft palates too. That that stood out
26:17
Speaker 1: to me that we haven't done that yet. Yeah, or
26:19
Speaker 1: even worse than you know, in ancient times, those babies
26:21
Speaker 1: would be walked out to the woods and left, you know, yeah,
26:25
Speaker 1: for sure, you know. Um, Carl Lawrence apparently said that
26:30
Speaker 1: the Quby doll, you know, our cup mayonnaise, So the
26:33
Speaker 1: doll that that's based on if you take a look
26:35
Speaker 1: at its face, Um, that in Lawrence's opinion, that was
26:39
Speaker 1: the maximum exaggeration that you could reach of Kinkin schema
26:47
Speaker 1: before violating it, and that afterward what was beyond it
26:51
Speaker 1: was that wasn't coined at the time, but what he
26:54
Speaker 1: was talking about was basically an uncanny valley like there's
26:57
Speaker 1: your brain would start to be like, wait, there's something,
26:59
Speaker 1: so thing is somewhat out of order here. UM, So
27:03
Speaker 1: it's weird. There's like a really apparently there's a set
27:07
Speaker 1: a package of traits that make up what is considered cute,
27:10
Speaker 1: and straying outside of that, UM just kind of violates
27:15
Speaker 1: it in some weird way. It violates like this this
27:18
Speaker 1: pathway that we're we seem to be pre programmed to have.
27:23
Speaker 1: I didn't know mayonnaise was going to make an appearance.
27:25
Speaker 1: I I did because I saw the cuteie thing, But
27:28
Speaker 1: before that I had no idea either. So cuteness is
27:32
Speaker 1: going to activate other parts of the brain. It's just
27:34
Speaker 1: not that superspeedy response that you get in the orbitofrontal cortex. UM.
27:40
Speaker 1: So if you're a parent and you have a brain, UM,
27:44
Speaker 1: you're gonna go undergo a really kind of slow change. UM.
27:49
Speaker 1: As you parent and as you take care of that baby,
27:52
Speaker 1: in bond with that baby, as they go into infancy. UM,
27:55
Speaker 1: you're gonna still have that trigger of cuteness, but it's
27:58
Speaker 1: just going to be a slower response and more complex
28:01
Speaker 1: as far as your actual brain activity goes. Yeah, and
28:04
Speaker 1: supposedly that co evolves with the cuteness of a baby,
28:09
Speaker 1: like a newborn baby is just that. But like you
28:13
Speaker 1: look at a baby some six months that same baby, Yeah,
28:16
Speaker 1: you have to admit, it's pretty infrequent for a baby
28:18
Speaker 1: to be cute right out of the womb. Yeah, I
28:22
Speaker 1: mean generally they're little alien lizard type creatures. Sure, but
28:27
Speaker 1: wait six months, and that same baby is going to
28:29
Speaker 1: look awfully cute. So and within right, and within that
28:34
Speaker 1: six months, um, you're going to have developed more sophisticated responses,
28:40
Speaker 1: caretaking responses to that baby's cuteness. Um, it's pretty interesting
28:45
Speaker 1: that like they both start to gel around the same time,
28:48
Speaker 1: the babies start to hit pique cuteness and the caregiving
28:51
Speaker 1: stuff becomes more and more sophisticated. It goes from I
28:54
Speaker 1: need to keep this baby alive to um, you know
28:57
Speaker 1: what college is this baby? I'm gonna get this baby
29:00
Speaker 1: through college kind of stuff. You start thinking about that, right,
29:03
Speaker 1: and that sort of brings back what we talked about
29:05
Speaker 1: earlier as UM, like that that empathetic, compassionate response when
29:12
Speaker 1: it's not even your child, Yes, when it's not even
29:16
Speaker 1: from the same species. And and like you were saying,
29:20
Speaker 1: you know, people tend to rate um, the species that
29:24
Speaker 1: are most altricial as the cutest because they need the
29:27
Speaker 1: most help. So that pathway can be hijacked by humans,
29:32
Speaker 1: human babies and other species as well, and by people
29:35
Speaker 1: who are trying to sell you stuff. As we'll see.
29:38
Speaker 1: That's very true. Break, Yes, all right, we're gonna take
29:43
Speaker 1: your break and talk about qute aggression, something that we're
29:47
Speaker 1: pretty familiar with right after this. All right, So I've
30:16
Speaker 1: talked before in the past about my wife Emily, and uh,
30:21
Speaker 1: when she sees puppies and babies and other cute little things,
30:26
Speaker 1: she uh, she says stuff like I want to I
30:31
Speaker 1: want to punch that baby in the face. I want
30:33
Speaker 1: to squeeze the life out of it. I want to
30:36
Speaker 1: I want to eat that puppy. Like some things that
30:39
Speaker 1: sound genuinely horrific, Maybe not, I want to punch that
30:42
Speaker 1: baby in the face. That's a different I've seen that somewhere,
30:46
Speaker 1: but it's a thing, and it's not just her, it's
30:48
Speaker 1: an actual thing. It's called cute aggression. When you see
30:53
Speaker 1: something and you say, you know, I want to put
30:56
Speaker 1: that puppy on a plate and eat it, which is,
31:00
Speaker 1: like you said, it's very weird when you step back
31:02
Speaker 1: and think about it, um, and it actually it's of
31:06
Speaker 1: a very recent um investigation, like I think two thirteen
31:11
Speaker 1: is the earliest I saw um. And one of the
31:13
Speaker 1: people who are leading the charge into studying qute aggression
31:17
Speaker 1: is a Clemson psychologist named Oriana aragon Um, and she
31:21
Speaker 1: and some of her colleagues have really kind of are
31:24
Speaker 1: are are establishing this field of cute aggression. And the
31:29
Speaker 1: reason why aragon is a pretty good social psychologist to
31:33
Speaker 1: be investigating this is because her specialty is dimorphous expressions,
31:37
Speaker 1: which is contradictory emotional indicators that don't really seem to
31:44
Speaker 1: go together, but do because it's just so common, like
31:48
Speaker 1: tears of joy um or nervous laughter, that kind of stuff,
31:53
Speaker 1: And it seems that que aggression kind of falls under
31:57
Speaker 1: that same umbrella. Yeah, and it's interesting because you say, sure, great,
32:01
Speaker 1: qute aggression. We've got a name for it that doesn't
32:04
Speaker 1: really explain it though, and it's explained kind of like
32:08
Speaker 1: nervous laughter or tears of joy. It may be a
32:12
Speaker 1: way of regulating something that's just too overwhelming emotionally. So
32:16
Speaker 1: when they study qute aggression, they show people the cutest
32:20
Speaker 1: pictures of the cutest things, see how the brain responds
32:24
Speaker 1: and people who have the really biggest cute aggressive response, UM,
32:30
Speaker 1: their brains are lighting up, but your reward system is
32:33
Speaker 1: also lighting up at the same time, right, but it's
32:36
Speaker 1: like an overwhelming reward response, like you're just uh, it's intolerable. Yeah,
32:43
Speaker 1: And so the idea is that your brain brings you
32:47
Speaker 1: down from that um by implementing like a not complimentary
32:54
Speaker 1: what's the opposite of complimentary m you're a big jerk,
32:59
Speaker 1: that kind of UM, that kind of emotion like anger
33:03
Speaker 1: or aggression or hostility or something like that, to balance
33:06
Speaker 1: it out and to bring you back down. Because it
33:08
Speaker 1: makes sense that if you were just sitting there experiencing
33:12
Speaker 1: overwhelming UM cute overload like you would, you might not
33:17
Speaker 1: ever get around defeating that baby. You might just be
33:19
Speaker 1: sitting there like with your tongue hanging out the side
33:22
Speaker 1: of your mouth, drooling. Yeah. It's interesting because like a
33:25
Speaker 1: lot of times, and I've heard a lot of other
33:27
Speaker 1: people say this, but like Emily will say like I
33:29
Speaker 1: just want to squeeze that baby, and that's followed up
33:32
Speaker 1: with I can't even take it, Like I just can't
33:35
Speaker 1: even take it with this cuteness, Like that's that's literally true,
33:38
Speaker 1: Like your brain can't even take it. So I thought
33:41
Speaker 1: it was cute. Aragon Um came up with a way
33:45
Speaker 1: to measure cute aggression UM by using bubble wrap. This
33:49
Speaker 1: I didn't quite understand this. She would give um bubble
33:52
Speaker 1: wrap two people and show them different pictures, and the
33:55
Speaker 1: pictures that rated the highest in cuteness UM evoked or
34:02
Speaker 1: led to the largest number of bubbles pops. So the
34:05
Speaker 1: idea is like, if you see something cute, pop bubbles
34:10
Speaker 1: or just like here, hold this, and you just find
34:12
Speaker 1: yourself popping them. I don't know. I don't know that.
34:15
Speaker 1: I don't know actually to tell you the truth, UM,
34:18
Speaker 1: I think yeah. I think it's more it's meant to
34:21
Speaker 1: be like an unconscious thing, Like you're not supposed to
34:24
Speaker 1: be like, well, this is an eighty bubble kitty, you know,
34:27
Speaker 1: nothing like that. Or it's just like you look down
34:29
Speaker 1: you're like, oh my god, there's no more bubbles left
34:31
Speaker 1: this that that cat was so cute kind of thing. UM.
34:35
Speaker 1: I saw another explanation for Q diggression in that it's
34:38
Speaker 1: a response to a frustrated desire for caregiving. So where um,
34:44
Speaker 1: where you want to go punch that baby in the face.
34:48
Speaker 1: But you know, you'll spend a significant amount of time
34:50
Speaker 1: in jail if you actually do that, right, Like, that's
34:54
Speaker 1: that's where that would come a from like like that,
34:57
Speaker 1: you can't do that. It's not your baby to go
34:59
Speaker 1: snug goal and cuddle and take care of you can't.
35:02
Speaker 1: You have to do it from a far exactly, So
35:04
Speaker 1: you have to do it from afar. So it it
35:06
Speaker 1: it comes out in this mixture of cute response and
35:11
Speaker 1: aggression or aggressive words or uh you know that kind
35:15
Speaker 1: of thing well, and that also kind of dovetails with
35:18
Speaker 1: the cute sadness, which is I guess Aragon coined that
35:21
Speaker 1: term as well. Is where um, you see a puppy
35:26
Speaker 1: in a window and you go oh, no or ah
35:30
Speaker 1: or make a frowny face. That's when you see a
35:32
Speaker 1: lot when you see something really cute. And her theory
35:35
Speaker 1: is that kind of like what you're just saying, like
35:37
Speaker 1: that puppy is is uh is in the crate at
35:42
Speaker 1: the adoption place and you can't get to it, or
35:44
Speaker 1: it's just walking down the street with somebody and you're
35:46
Speaker 1: driving your car and you can't get to it. So
35:48
Speaker 1: you're expressing a kind of a frustration that you can't
35:51
Speaker 1: get out of the car and squeeze the puppy, right,
35:54
Speaker 1: so you have to squeeze your sphincter instead. But I
35:57
Speaker 1: guess it comes out as disappointment though, yeah, yeah, and
36:01
Speaker 1: it's it would seem to be frustrated, a response to
36:04
Speaker 1: frustrated attempts at caregiving or a frustrated desire to caregive
36:08
Speaker 1: because you see something cute and your caregiving instinct is
36:13
Speaker 1: triggered or whatever you want to call it if you
36:15
Speaker 1: don't don't agree with instinct, but there's nothing you can
36:18
Speaker 1: do about it because you're driving and that things going
36:20
Speaker 1: the other way, so you can't do anything to to
36:22
Speaker 1: take care of it. So you have to get that
36:24
Speaker 1: out somehow. And it seems like anger and aggression is
36:26
Speaker 1: a good way for it to make it subside quickly.
36:30
Speaker 1: But again again I really want to point out here
36:33
Speaker 1: this is this is intuitive stuff. This is not stuff
36:37
Speaker 1: where it's like this study backs the sub and this
36:39
Speaker 1: study backs this up. From what I've seen, every single
36:42
Speaker 1: study in cuteness and cute aggression, uh, involves about a
36:46
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty college undergrads as your your your study population,
36:52
Speaker 1: and they're popping bubble wrap and stuff like that like,
36:54
Speaker 1: it's still very early in its research, but it does
36:57
Speaker 1: make a lot of sense, you know, But that doesn't
37:00
Speaker 1: necessarily mean that's that's accurate. Just take that and take
37:04
Speaker 1: that with a grain of salt whatever that means. And
37:06
Speaker 1: it's also, um, I'm not knocking the study, but it's
37:11
Speaker 1: also you know, let's be honest, it's not the most
37:14
Speaker 1: important thing in the world. No, No, it's like interesting
37:18
Speaker 1: to understand. It makes for good reading on an internet article,
37:22
Speaker 1: but uh, it's not driving Like, it's not solving a problem,
37:27
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. I suddenly feel like we're
37:30
Speaker 1: standing in the middle of a vast glass house and
37:33
Speaker 1: we have rocks in our hands right now. Oh boy,
37:36
Speaker 1: I think it's fun to talk about. I mean, that's
37:38
Speaker 1: what makes I mean, this is perfect podcast spodder for sure. Um,
37:43
Speaker 1: But like I'm curious that this could be applied at all.
37:46
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think maybe it's just one of
37:48
Speaker 1: those things where it's like, now we understand that it's documented,
37:51
Speaker 1: it's understood, so we understand humans a little more, and
37:53
Speaker 1: then maybe it'll open some door to some other thing
37:56
Speaker 1: that we realize was connected that. You know that. Yeah,
38:00
Speaker 1: but I totally agree with what you're saying. Yeah, but
38:03
Speaker 1: I think you've pulled me any other direction. Nobel prize,
38:06
Speaker 1: oh good God to send it their way. Good. So
38:09
Speaker 1: you mentioned earlier about using the stuff to sell things,
38:12
Speaker 1: and that is for sure true. Um, you can't. I mean,
38:15
Speaker 1: you look at any Pixar or Disney cartoon or anime. Certainly, Um,
38:21
Speaker 1: you're gonna see round babies and you're gonna see huge eyes.
38:26
Speaker 1: When you see pamphlets that are trying to sell stuff
38:30
Speaker 1: or or try to get you to donate to an
38:33
Speaker 1: animal cause or a children's foundation. Um, they're probably gonna
38:37
Speaker 1: put a baby or a puppy on that cover that
38:40
Speaker 1: has the biggest, roundest face and eyes. It's manipulative, Um,
38:45
Speaker 1: but used for good generally. Yeah, yeah, totally. It's almost
38:48
Speaker 1: like um, using music in the background of an ad,
38:52
Speaker 1: you know, like it's purposefully hijacking a very ancient neural
38:58
Speaker 1: pathway that basically all humans have to get an emotional
39:02
Speaker 1: response out of you, a positive emotional response. And it
39:06
Speaker 1: might have nothing to do with with what they're trying
39:09
Speaker 1: to sell, but you're you're now associating pleasurable, warm feeling
39:14
Speaker 1: with you know, Mr Sparkle dishwashing detergent, you know when
39:21
Speaker 1: really it's just a a joint venture of Matsumura Fish
39:25
Speaker 1: Works and Tomorrow Heavy Manufacturing concern. Um. Like when they've
39:31
Speaker 1: done um, they've done studies and like anti smoking campaigns
39:34
Speaker 1: for teenagers, and they respond more to cartoon characters that
39:38
Speaker 1: are cute, which sounds a lot like Joe Campbell. If
39:40
Speaker 1: you ask me, it's like the opposite. That's true. Um,
39:44
Speaker 1: but it does make sense like a teens might respond
39:46
Speaker 1: to a list here is like a penguin and a
39:48
Speaker 1: jacket or a polar bear. Then you know some adult
39:53
Speaker 1: human like pointing their finger at you like John, can
39:57
Speaker 1: you imagine to the teens don't smoke? Right? So? Um? Yeah,
40:04
Speaker 1: it also makes you think, like you know, since so
40:07
Speaker 1: many like cute toys, or so many toys are cute. Um,
40:11
Speaker 1: when you're buying like a plush animal has, are you
40:15
Speaker 1: responding almost in like an insane way to your cute
40:22
Speaker 1: caregiving response? Just being manipulated and like you're going to
40:25
Speaker 1: take that stuff to animal home and and and give
40:27
Speaker 1: it care because it's just been activated in you? Is
40:31
Speaker 1: that really? Is that? That seems to be what's going
40:33
Speaker 1: on when you when you're when you buy like a
40:36
Speaker 1: toy like that. That's interesting because then if you know,
40:41
Speaker 1: if you see people walking around like that, you're like, oh,
40:43
Speaker 1: well you've you've just been manipulated. Congratulations kind of thing.
40:48
Speaker 1: But also you can make the case to um. And
40:50
Speaker 1: I read a guy uh something by a guy named
40:53
Speaker 1: Gary Jenosco who is the Canada Research Chair and Techno
40:58
Speaker 1: Culture at lake Head University in thunder Bay, Ontario, and
41:03
Speaker 1: he argues that UM that same thing that the commodification
41:07
Speaker 1: of cute, uh say, like by Disney. He also argues
41:11
Speaker 1: that National Geographic Magazine was big into getting people in
41:15
Speaker 1: involved in caring about animals and nature. They really use cuteness,
41:20
Speaker 1: especially in like the fifties and sixties. I guess um
41:23
Speaker 1: that it forms our understanding of things in a very
41:28
Speaker 1: specific way, which is this thing is cute. It's like
41:32
Speaker 1: a toy to me. I want to pick it up
41:33
Speaker 1: and carry it around and love it and hug on it.
41:36
Speaker 1: But in doing that you really miss out on a
41:39
Speaker 1: lot of the um the individual um personality of whatever
41:46
Speaker 1: that animal is. Like you like you trade respect for infantalism,
41:52
Speaker 1: right and like that. That that really stood out to
41:56
Speaker 1: me because I have to remind myself that Momo is
41:58
Speaker 1: like this sncient individual entity who deserves respect and to
42:04
Speaker 1: be treated with respect. I just picked up any time
42:07
Speaker 1: she you know, she looks at me a certain way
42:09
Speaker 1: and it sets off my cuteness response. Like I've really
42:12
Speaker 1: had to grapple with that. And luckily, you mean's like
42:14
Speaker 1: really aware of that because she hasn't She's always been
42:16
Speaker 1: a very small person and she us got get picked
42:19
Speaker 1: up all the time, so she's like identifies with Mama
42:21
Speaker 1: on that level. Um, And it's been like really an
42:25
Speaker 1: exercise and restraint. Sometimes it's just be like, no, I've
42:28
Speaker 1: just got to treat Mama like she doesn't want to
42:30
Speaker 1: be picked up right now kind of thing. You know.
42:33
Speaker 1: But I thought Canascar Jenascar really made a good point
42:36
Speaker 1: that we we miss a lot of like what makes
42:39
Speaker 1: an animal and animal in in favor of just seeing
42:42
Speaker 1: it as something cute and a kind of a plaything
42:44
Speaker 1: in a way. Yeah, and if like there's no clear
42:49
Speaker 1: reminder that, um, you know, I've always had dogs and
42:52
Speaker 1: multiple dogs and love dogs, but when you see a
42:55
Speaker 1: dog like you know, go after a squirrel and catch
42:59
Speaker 1: it and eat it or something, that these are the
43:01
Speaker 1: reminders like these are these are animals, you know, like
43:05
Speaker 1: the same cute dog will also you know, eat poop
43:08
Speaker 1: out of it's a but if it could right or
43:10
Speaker 1: eat your face if you died on the couch and
43:12
Speaker 1: it was locked in the house with in a second. Sure, Um,
43:17
Speaker 1: so we probably shouldn't finish until we talk about kauaie culture. Yeah,
43:21
Speaker 1: this is the Japanese culture that is um well, this
43:25
Speaker 1: says it best. Maybe the greatest pop culture expression of cute.
43:29
Speaker 1: You think Pikachu think um like pop singers dressed as
43:34
Speaker 1: a little sort of pigtailed schoolgirls. Uh. It's it's a
43:38
Speaker 1: very very big trend in Japan. It's huge, Like everybody
43:43
Speaker 1: has a cute mascot, Hello kiddies everywhere. It's just enormous.
43:48
Speaker 1: And apparently it kind of like grew and evolved and
43:51
Speaker 1: morphed over time, starting with this um student protest movement
43:55
Speaker 1: in the sixties, where like the Japanese kids like um
43:59
Speaker 1: just to sided, they didn't want to go to class anymore.
44:01
Speaker 1: They sat around and read manga comic books instead and
44:05
Speaker 1: kind of regress to back to childhood. And then that
44:08
Speaker 1: kind of developed in the seventies into a trend for
44:11
Speaker 1: cute see bubbly handwriting that led to Hello Kitty, and
44:16
Speaker 1: then weirdly, it also made an appearance um as Uh
44:21
Speaker 1: what is it Burrico women, which is very childlike. Um
44:26
Speaker 1: women who adopted this this kind of demeanor UM two
44:32
Speaker 1: number one, uh cut off any sense of threat that
44:36
Speaker 1: they presented when they entered the workforce, but also to
44:39
Speaker 1: kind of keep um unwanted advances from their male colleagues.
44:44
Speaker 1: At Bay two, they entered the workforce as if they
44:47
Speaker 1: were young kids, little girls, giggly and all that kind
44:50
Speaker 1: of stuff. And this is like a persona that they
44:52
Speaker 1: adopted that eventually became this trend, this cuteness trend that's
44:57
Speaker 1: like everywhere in Japan. I never thought about the bubble letters.
45:00
Speaker 1: That's so interesting because I've always sort of wondered, like
45:05
Speaker 1: why elementary school girls. It seems like I would write
45:09
Speaker 1: in those big, juicy round letters. Yeah, it makes sense,
45:15
Speaker 1: it does. But that was apparently where Hawaii culture came
45:18
Speaker 1: from originally as a handwriting thing. Interesting. Yeah, I was
45:22
Speaker 1: curious here at the end, I was like, has science
45:26
Speaker 1: proven what the cutest animals are? And I did find
45:29
Speaker 1: something from list Verse and Jonathan Cantor the top ten
45:33
Speaker 1: cutest animals in the world, according to science. But I
45:36
Speaker 1: see nothing in the article about how science proved this,
45:40
Speaker 1: literally nothing, but I figured i'd read it just for frenzies.
45:44
Speaker 1: Number ten is most baby mammals, okay. Number nine is
45:48
Speaker 1: the slow Loris. You ever see those things? You should
45:52
Speaker 1: look at some of these. In fact, I'm gonna go
45:53
Speaker 1: ahead and text you number one right now because and
45:58
Speaker 1: I guess i'll just send it to you and are
46:00
Speaker 1: since she's on our most recent thread, she'll be like,
46:03
Speaker 1: what the heck is this all right? Coming your way? So?
46:06
Speaker 1: Number eight is the mere cat, which I think mere
46:10
Speaker 1: cancelok a little sinister personally. Yeah, I can see that
46:13
Speaker 1: because of the like there they got the bandit masks on. Yeah. Uh.
46:17
Speaker 1: Number seven is the koala. Yeah, did you just Lauras
46:21
Speaker 1: looks like, no, that's not a Lauras that I sent you.
46:24
Speaker 1: Are you looking at Laris? Well? What is this what
46:26
Speaker 1: I sent you? We'll just put a pen in. It's
46:29
Speaker 1: number one, okay, Yeah, I can see that. Number six
46:31
Speaker 1: is the Flapjack and Dumbo octopode. Okay, um, piglets. Number
46:38
Speaker 1: five match the fennic fox. Number four, that's the fox
46:43
Speaker 1: with those huge ears and make those great sounds. The
46:47
Speaker 1: red pandas number three, the panda bear, the white panda,
46:50
Speaker 1: black and white pant is nowhere on this list. Weird,
46:52
Speaker 1: this guy's way off. This must have been a list
46:55
Speaker 1: from Jimmy Science, his roommate. According to Jimmy Science, I
47:01
Speaker 1: think you mean James B. Science, number two with sea
47:05
Speaker 1: otters and then number one. I don't know how I've
47:06
Speaker 1: lived my whole life without knowing that this thing existed.
47:09
Speaker 1: But the quoca q u o k k A from Australia.
47:14
Speaker 1: It's a small marsupial uh same family as a kangaroo,
47:18
Speaker 1: apparently in southwestern Australia. And that picture I sent you,
47:22
Speaker 1: my friend, just google smiling quoca and you'll see this
47:29
Speaker 1: one picture of this quoca literally jumping hands out, smiling
47:35
Speaker 1: at the camera lens like give me a hug, Like,
47:37
Speaker 1: give me a hug. This is and I think, I mean,
47:40
Speaker 1: n you know, they said it's because they look like
47:42
Speaker 1: they're smiling. Obviously is one of the big reasons. But
47:44
Speaker 1: almost every picture you look at a quoca, it's got
47:48
Speaker 1: this little smile. It's unbelievable. Hey, I have to say,
47:53
Speaker 1: based on the screenshot you you need to charge your
47:55
Speaker 1: phone soon. Uh yeah, and that was even earlier, So
48:00
Speaker 1: I get that same stress because I'm I'm generally at
48:02
Speaker 1: least guy. Yeah, and so when I see people do
48:06
Speaker 1: screenshots and as that read, yeah, boy, I can't even
48:11
Speaker 1: take it so um to finish up, chuck that the
48:15
Speaker 1: converse of what you're talking about the cutest animals, um,
48:18
Speaker 1: the fact that they exist also kind of implies that
48:22
Speaker 1: there are non cute animals that exist and that they're
48:25
Speaker 1: less likely to get our attention. Um. And as a result,
48:28
Speaker 1: there is a kind of tongue in cheek. But I
48:30
Speaker 1: also get the impression kind of serious group called the
48:33
Speaker 1: Ugly Animal Preservation Society whose mascot is the blob Fish,
48:38
Speaker 1: which makes a lot of sense, and their slogan is
48:41
Speaker 1: we can't all be pandas I love that. Yeah, So
48:45
Speaker 1: they're looking out for the ugly animals that we're going
48:49
Speaker 1: to wipe out because they're not cute. Well, I know
48:51
Speaker 1: that is a big deal when it comes to conservation,
48:54
Speaker 1: is that that people can conservations have a much harder
48:58
Speaker 1: time getting money and stuff. And we talked about it
49:01
Speaker 1: in our Zoos episode. Yeah, like that's why they lead
49:05
Speaker 1: with giraffes and elephants and stuff like that. Was that
49:07
Speaker 1: the episode? I know we talked about it before and
49:09
Speaker 1: they were like, look, man, just leave us alone. This
49:12
Speaker 1: is the important stuff because it saves the other stuff. Yeah, exactly.
49:16
Speaker 1: That blobfish that looks like man, yeah, ugly cute maybe yeah,
49:24
Speaker 1: chemo kawaii. If kawaii sounds familiar, that's probably because you
49:28
Speaker 1: heard it at the very beginning of the Quin Stefani
49:31
Speaker 1: song Haull of back Girl, where she sees a bunch
49:34
Speaker 1: of hard juku girls in Japan and goes, kawai nice.
49:38
Speaker 1: That blobfish look like look like it's constantly saying okay,
49:44
Speaker 1: I know they shouldn't call it that or fish. The
49:47
Speaker 1: blobfish definitely works sooner man um, Well, since we have
49:51
Speaker 1: wrapped it up with the old blobfish, if you want
49:54
Speaker 1: to know more about the science of cute, just start
49:57
Speaker 1: looking at cute pictures of the coo ooka. Sure, that's
50:02
Speaker 1: a great place to start. And since Chuck said sure,
50:05
Speaker 1: that means it's time for a listener mail. I'm gonna
50:11
Speaker 1: call this. I'm getting called out here and it's something
50:14
Speaker 1: I haven't thought about. I got called out by a
50:16
Speaker 1: couple of people for different reasons for saying, uh, this
50:19
Speaker 1: phrase you know unless you live under a rock that
50:22
Speaker 1: you know blank. One person said, Hey, that just makes
50:26
Speaker 1: me feel dumb because I didn't know about one of
50:28
Speaker 1: these things. Sure, I think that's the point, right, that's
50:30
Speaker 1: your intent. No, I don't want to make anyone to
50:33
Speaker 1: feel bad, but this is a different kind of response,
50:35
Speaker 1: and uh, well worth reading. Hey, guys, making my way
50:38
Speaker 1: through a backlog log of episodes, and I noticed the
50:41
Speaker 1: thing that seems to pop up from time to time
50:43
Speaker 1: and your descriptions of popular culture and products like hang
50:47
Speaker 1: gliding at a sketch and Rubik's Cube. You make comments
50:49
Speaker 1: like and if you don't know what one of these
50:52
Speaker 1: is or looks like, get out from under your rock
50:55
Speaker 1: and go look up a picture. Uh, someone who has
50:57
Speaker 1: been blind since birth? Though, my problem isn't that I've
51:01
Speaker 1: been living under a rock, but rather the pictures to
51:04
Speaker 1: me are worth zero words. Yeah, I really got me good.
51:09
Speaker 1: I grew up in the eighties, so everyone had a
51:10
Speaker 1: Rubik's Cube, and I played with my fair share of them,
51:13
Speaker 1: even though I couldn't solve them for many things in life. Though,
51:15
Speaker 1: if I haven't physically touched it or had it described
51:19
Speaker 1: to me. I only have the faintest idea of what
51:21
Speaker 1: it looks like. In fact, I was a music music
51:24
Speaker 1: education major in college, and it wasn't until my sophomore
51:27
Speaker 1: year in age nineteen that I touched a brass instrument
51:30
Speaker 1: for the very first time. Uh, the French horn still
51:33
Speaker 1: fascinates me. I've enjoyed listening to your show for years,
51:36
Speaker 1: and I've learned lots of visual information from you, from
51:39
Speaker 1: what jiraffes looked like to fashion choices of punk rockers.
51:43
Speaker 1: I wanted to make you aware of this though. You
51:44
Speaker 1: can help people who can't look at pictures, whether uh,
51:47
Speaker 1: we're blind or whether we're on the road driving in
51:50
Speaker 1: a truck and we don't want to pull out our
51:52
Speaker 1: phones to look at pictures. Thanks for years of learning
51:54
Speaker 1: and laughter. Appreciate the work warmly, Ryan for Minneapolis and
51:59
Speaker 1: Ryan in I have nothing to say but great point,
52:03
Speaker 1: and I'll do better. Very nice, Chuck. I don't think
52:06
Speaker 1: there's anything else you could say. You know why, because
52:08
Speaker 1: you're a good person and jerk. That's right. And now
52:11
Speaker 1: I will try and describe things to the best of
52:13
Speaker 1: my ability, which might not be great but I think
52:15
Speaker 1: you did a good job with the kawaka description. Smiling
52:20
Speaker 1: wrote it. Yeah, it looks like it's smiling. That's all
52:23
Speaker 1: you need to know that. Um, well, if you want
52:27
Speaker 1: to take a chuck or meat a task, that's There's
52:30
Speaker 1: not a lot of sport in that. But if you
52:31
Speaker 1: want to do it anyway, that's fine. You can send
52:34
Speaker 1: it to his via email, wrap it up and send
52:37
Speaker 1: it off to stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com.
52:44
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of I Heart
52:46
Speaker 1: Radio for more podcasts for my heart Radio because it
52:48
Speaker 1: the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
52:51
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.