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Short Stuff: Bloody Mary · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short Stuff. I'm Josh, there's Chuck,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: and we're joined today by our resident ghost, Bloody Mary.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: That's right, And we just did a weird thing and
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: recorded our ads first. So I just had the urge
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: to say, if you like Bloody Mary, you're gonna love
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: this Bloody Mary. Uh, you won't love Bloody Mary, because
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: that is a scary kid's game. It seems like a
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: lot of girls do this, but I know some boys
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: who have done it as well. I have where you
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: stand in the mirror, and there are variations we'll talk about.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: You look in the mirror, it's darkened room, Maybe you
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: got a candle going. If you're lucky, and you say
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: the words bloody Mary a certain amount of times, sometimes
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  Speaker 1: thirteen per region. Sometimes you turn in a circle thirteen times.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: I've never heard of that. I would fall over. That's
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: the Parma Ohio method. And then, depending on how skilled
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: you are at your incan patians, Bloody Mary may kill you,
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  Speaker 1: may reach through the mirror and pull you into the
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  Speaker 1: other worlds, may claw your face and eyes out, or
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  Speaker 1: you may just die of fright or maybe nothing at all,
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  Speaker 1: or she may just be standing there glowering at you,
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  Speaker 1: really mad that you you brought her to this mirror,
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  Speaker 1: but you can't do anything about it, right, like the
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: ladies kids. Yeah, either way, you're gonna go running out
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  Speaker 1: of this bathroom and you're gonna be talking to your
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: friends about what you saw and we'll talk about it later.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: But in a weird, a weird way, like they're correct
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  Speaker 1: when they say they saw something strange. Right, Uh, possibly, Okay,
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: we'll go with yes. So what's the deal? Where did
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: this thing come from? So that's the other thing about it.
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  Speaker 1: It's not just a game, but there's there's because there's
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: like a legend wrapped around it, and the legend is
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: kind of evolving and changing regionally and over time. Like
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: you were saying, it actually constitutes a piece of American folklore.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: They're pretty sure it's American, right, and they've atually been
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: studying it here they're like kind of sporadically. But the
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  Speaker 1: first person to actually put it pen to paper about
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  Speaker 1: it was a folklorist named Janet lang Law LANGLOI That's
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: where I'm going with Langloy, great last name, look wise
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: tough to say, you know what, I prefer lang La.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: You could say it like that. It's even harder to
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  Speaker 1: langla wa right, it almost looks like Shammy but with
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  Speaker 1: an owl. Oh man, Shammy confused me for the first
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  Speaker 1: thirties something years in my life. Why is everybody staying
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: it like that? I knew what a Shammy was, but
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: I never put the two together. Yeah, I know exactly
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  Speaker 1: what you mean. But this lady's last name is not Shammy.
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  Speaker 1: It's Langlois and florist. Like yeah, and I think she's
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  Speaker 1: sort of just I mean, it was around, but she
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  Speaker 1: was the first person to kind of start writing about
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  Speaker 1: it a little bit. And it turns out like, because
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  Speaker 1: it's regional, there are a bunch of different names besides
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  Speaker 1: Bloody Mary Hell Mary Is and Mary Worth is hysterical.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: That's a full on comic strip. It is one of
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: the weirdest comic strips ever. Yeah, what was the deal
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  Speaker 1: with that? It's like Mark Trail, I don't know. At
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: least Park Trail was appealing to kids. Nothing about Mary
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  Speaker 1: Worth had any appeal to kids, Like they would just
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: be like, what what is this? I don't understand any
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  Speaker 1: of this. It was a comic strip, a soap opera
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  Speaker 1: comic strip for grown ups. Very bizarre or was it
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: for grown ups? Totally? And then there was also I
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  Speaker 1: think Apartment three E was a very similar kind of
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  Speaker 1: comic strip that I might have the apartment number wrong,
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: but it was like that, No, thank you, give me Garfield,
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: to give me Beatle Bailey, give me a wizard of It.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: Don't forget high in Lois Bloom County. I could do
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  Speaker 1: this all day zits remembers It's did a comic featuring us.
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  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, of course that was awesome, But Bloody Mary
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  Speaker 1: has nothing to do with any of that. But we
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: should do it on comic strips. That's a great idea.
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  Speaker 1: I can't believe we haven't. I knew we did comic books,
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: but not comic strips. We should definitely check that as
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  Speaker 1: a great idea. We'll wind it out here with a
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  Speaker 1: few more names that I like. Black Angus is another,
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  Speaker 1: and then black Actus, Varte Madame hit What does say
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  Speaker 1: black Angus, black Agnes You're right right, So they're different
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  Speaker 1: names for the same spirit that you can conjure from
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  Speaker 1: the from your mirror if you do this right. Um,
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  Speaker 1: And there's a few of those names kind of stand out.
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  Speaker 1: A couple of them really. The first one Bloody Mary.
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  Speaker 1: That's the one I always heard. And if you read
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: about Bloody Mary, a lot of the people who are
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  Speaker 1: writing about Bloody Mary trace her to Queen Mary, the
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  Speaker 1: first of England, who ruled from fifteen fifty five to
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  Speaker 1: fifty eight. And she was actually called Bloody Mary because
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: she was a Protestant killer. That's right. Uh, she ordered
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  Speaker 1: the death of many Protestants to be burned at the
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: steak and other grizzly forms of death. But here's the thing, like,
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  Speaker 1: it's probably not on account of her that we say
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  Speaker 1: bloody Mary, because she wasn't doing the actual killing, and
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  Speaker 1: in the folklore, like it's really Bloody Mary doing the killing,
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  Speaker 1: and she like bathes in the blood of children and
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  Speaker 1: stuff like that. Right, So, um, that doesn't really jibe.
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  Speaker 1: It more jibes with somebody else, a woman by a
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  Speaker 1: totally different name, Elizabeth Bathory, the Countess of Blood I
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  Speaker 1: think they call her, who actually is reputed to have
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  Speaker 1: killed many many peasant girls herself and actually did probably
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  Speaker 1: bathe in their their blood. And she may actually be
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  Speaker 1: the most prolific serial killer in history. So there's like
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  Speaker 1: maybe we're talking we're looking at like a mishmash of
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  Speaker 1: different names traits characters, or it could just be totally coincidental,
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  Speaker 1: or they don't really know where this thing came from,
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  Speaker 1: is what I'm saying. Or it was based on Mary
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  Speaker 1: Worth the sup Upper Comics adult. Right, she's got really boring.
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  Speaker 1: As the comic strip went on, she's like, no, might
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  Speaker 1: as well start killing kids, right? Uh? Should we take
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: a break? I think so? All right, let's take a
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: break and we'll talk a little bit more about some
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  Speaker 1: of the variations, and believe it or not, there's sort
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  Speaker 1: of a little real science to this one too. Okay, Chuck,
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: you talked about variations. One thing you can do is
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  Speaker 1: spinning a circle thirteen times. Another one is you can
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  Speaker 1: chant her name a certain amount of times. Another variation
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: is where you actually prick your finger and make it
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  Speaker 1: bleed and then you press fingers with the person you're
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: doing this with and chant, don't do that kids, it's hardcore. Yeah. Um.
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  Speaker 1: And then there's also uh saying I believe. I saw
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  Speaker 1: in a few variations that you say like Merry Worth,
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  Speaker 1: I believe, Mary Worth, I believe, and that's the chant
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  Speaker 1: and a a kind of matronly well dressed animated woman
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: appears in your mirror and says, what's the bother? Uh?
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  Speaker 1: And you know this is kind of thing that's done
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: its slumber parties and sleepovers. Uh. The kids all, you know,
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  Speaker 1: think they see something, they get scared, their imagination takes over.
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  Speaker 1: But supposedly there was a little real science to this
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: and that. In two thousand and ten, a researcher out
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  Speaker 1: of Italy name Giovanni Caputo did a little experiment where
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: he had people star into a mirror in a dimly
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  Speaker 1: lit room for ten minutes and write down what they saw.
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  Speaker 1: And out of the fifty test subjects very robust um,
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  Speaker 1: sixty of people said they saw huge deformations of their face,
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  Speaker 1: also saw fantastical and monstrous things. And other people said
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  Speaker 1: they saw the face of a parent, or the face
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: of an animal, or an old woman or a child. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And I was looking at why that might happen, and
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  Speaker 1: apparently one swing one explanation is that your brain becomes
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  Speaker 1: sensitized to the visual information it's getting and because it
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  Speaker 1: doesn't need it's already judged this image a non thread
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  Speaker 1: and it's not food or anything like that, it stops
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  Speaker 1: filling in the details and so visually a deformation occurs
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  Speaker 1: in your image of what you're seeing in them because
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  Speaker 1: you're staring at it. Right. Yes, so there actually is
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  Speaker 1: science to this idea where you know, the chanting of
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  Speaker 1: bloody Mary doesn't necessarily do anything, although I don't know,
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  Speaker 1: maybe it puts you in something of a trance like
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  Speaker 1: state where this happens on a deeper level or something.
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  Speaker 1: But at the very least, we realize that the brain
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  Speaker 1: stops all in details, so a deformed version of like
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: a face can see. And then you also add in
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  Speaker 1: our um innate need to fill in patterns or to
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  Speaker 1: fine patterns and to see faces and things. So maybe
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: we start inputting stuff in those missing areas and it
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  Speaker 1: comes out all monstrous or baby like. But wouldn't you
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  Speaker 1: need for this effect to take place, to do it
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  Speaker 1: for like ten minutes and not just say bloody Mary
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  Speaker 1: three times? Yeah? I think you're I think that's part
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  Speaker 1: of the game, as you're supposed to stay in there
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  Speaker 1: for longer than just however long it takes to say
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  Speaker 1: bloody Mary three times, you know, like you maybe use
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  Speaker 1: chance bloody Mary three times and then you just stare
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  Speaker 1: until you just are scared and run out of the bathroom.
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  Speaker 1: You know what game is a lot more fun than
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: that at a slumber party. How about that game where
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: you go in a closet with someone and I don't know,
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: kiss in the dark? Sure, sure, or light as a feather,
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: stiff as a board is pretty awesome. Yeah, but I
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: was I was probably more scared of kissing a girl
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  Speaker 1: in a closet than I was incanting bloody mary. Um.
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  Speaker 1: There is this great article on this, well, a couple
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  Speaker 1: of them. I found some on Penn State Universities like
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  Speaker 1: folklore site. Mental floss had something good, and Snopes did too.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: But in that mental Floss article they turned up um
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: a possible providence of this game and linked it to
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: a Robert Burns poem from I think sev six, where
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: I think the poem is called Halloween and and Robert
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  Speaker 1: Burns is basically giving you party ideas that your next
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: Halloween gathering in the eighteenth century, and one of them
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: is what um girls can do to look in the
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  Speaker 1: mirror to see who they'll marry. Right, And the idea
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: for mental Floss and others is maybe just the word
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  Speaker 1: mary got kind of twisted up over the years, and
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: that's where that came from. That's part of it. And
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: then another part is so you're looking in the mirror
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: and you're combing your hair and or eating an apple
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: at the same time, and then you'll see in the
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  Speaker 1: mirror over your shoulder the face of the person you're
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  Speaker 1: gonna marry, but you could all so see a skull,
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: and that means you're going to die before you have
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: a chance to marry. And so it's possible that that
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  Speaker 1: and the Mary kind of turned into bloody Mary because
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  Speaker 1: of the skull. Uh, that's one explanation for where this
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: came from. There's another one from that is super Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: that it might have something to do with, uh, some
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: kind of ritual for when an adolescent girl enters her minsies,
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: which is called what chuck right? That's right? Really stuck
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: with me over the years, Yeah, I did. We both
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: learned that one together, and it makes sense in a
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: really kind of figurative way, like the whole game is
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: really preoccupied with blood. That's one the age of the
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: girls who tend to play these games kind of alignes. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: it's definitely considered a girls game, and like a late
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: pubescent pre irish, say, late prepubescent, early adolescent age time frame,
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  Speaker 1: so that would be the right time for this game
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: to be played too. Yeah, and the last part of
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: that one is, uh, something we talked a lot about
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: on our episode about that many many years ago, was
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: we're kind of like one of the only cultures that
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: doesn't have some kind of ritual right of passage for
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: girls entering that phase of their life, right, Yeah, and
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: then this kind of suggests that like girls still need
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: that anyway, even if they're there, they don't live in
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: a culture that has it. And this stands in in
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: some really weird, roundabout way, which actually find fascinating, very interesting,
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: very interesting indeed. So that's Bloody Marry everybody, and we're
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: one step closer to Halloween, so be where in the meantime,
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: short stuff is out like a bat in the night.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of I Heart Radio.
• 12:47
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• 12:53
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