WEBVTT - From the Vault: Monstrosity/Cuteness Spectrum 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:07.720 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name 0:00:07.760 --> 0:00:10.520 is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. In it's Saturday. 0:00:10.560 --> 0:00:12.719 Time to go into the Old Vault. This time we're 0:00:12.720 --> 0:00:17.119 doing an episode from October, right, Yeah, this one is 0:00:17.600 --> 0:00:21.480 the Monstrosity Cuteness Spectrum, and this is a lot of fun. 0:00:21.520 --> 0:00:25.760 We get into some Japanese traditions, Japanese monsters, and especially 0:00:25.880 --> 0:00:30.560 Japanese monsters that have been transformed, uh from from from 0:00:30.680 --> 0:00:36.479 hideous murderous creatures into cute mascots and what that transformation means. 0:00:36.880 --> 0:00:42.920 All right, well, let's jump right in. Welcome to Stuff 0:00:42.960 --> 0:00:51.880 to Blow your Mind from how Stuffworks dot Com. Hey, 0:00:52.040 --> 0:00:53.760 welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is 0:00:53.840 --> 0:00:57.840 Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. Hey, Robert, have you 0:00:57.960 --> 0:01:03.640 seen all these cute Jason Vorhees dolls and cartoons fan 0:01:03.840 --> 0:01:06.640 art all over the Internet? Of course you have. I've 0:01:06.720 --> 0:01:08.680 at least seen some of it, but I know you 0:01:08.760 --> 0:01:11.680 shared with me an image of Jason plush doll, and 0:01:11.760 --> 0:01:15.600 I had not encountered that specific cute horror before. Yeah. 0:01:15.720 --> 0:01:18.640 So he's got the machete and there's blood on the machete. 0:01:18.640 --> 0:01:21.840 But he's adorable, but he has blood on it, like 0:01:21.840 --> 0:01:24.240 you know, murder weapons. I mean, even if we didn't 0:01:24.240 --> 0:01:27.040 know who he is, the context here is that this 0:01:27.160 --> 0:01:29.720 is a killer. Yeah. He's got a huge head, huge 0:01:29.840 --> 0:01:33.240 low set eyes. He just looks so sweet, little stumpy limbs. 0:01:33.280 --> 0:01:36.080 He's like a little cute baby Jason. And there are 0:01:36.200 --> 0:01:42.200 cute Freddy Krueger's in the same way, Cute Freddy Krueger cartoons, dolls, toys, uh, 0:01:42.800 --> 0:01:45.960 things all over the internet. And you've seen the cute vampires, 0:01:45.959 --> 0:01:48.960 the cute werewolves, cute versions of the girl from the Ring. 0:01:49.040 --> 0:01:52.320 I looked it up that exists cute predators from the 0:01:52.360 --> 0:01:54.760 movie Predator. I saw that. That's that's kind of easy 0:01:54.800 --> 0:01:58.680 because the predator already has a sort of baby shaped head. 0:01:58.880 --> 0:02:02.840 You just got to make eyes bigger. They're cute xeno morphs. 0:02:02.880 --> 0:02:04.880 You'd think that'd be difficult to do, but they're all 0:02:04.920 --> 0:02:09.440 over the internet. What is with this epidemic of monsters 0:02:09.480 --> 0:02:13.440 originally imagined to be horrifying, threatening to haunt our dreams, 0:02:13.480 --> 0:02:15.840 to chase us through our nightmares, to murder us and 0:02:15.880 --> 0:02:19.600 our friends, and instead we're making all these versions of 0:02:19.639 --> 0:02:24.080 them that are adorable with infantile characteristics that you just 0:02:24.160 --> 0:02:27.040 want to hug and snuggle. It seems inevitable, doesn't it, 0:02:27.080 --> 0:02:30.839 even even in weird cases like, for instance, the Babba Duke, 0:02:31.680 --> 0:02:35.079 which is like a child murdering monster, right, And then 0:02:35.320 --> 0:02:37.639 the same with penny Wise, the clown. Like you would 0:02:37.680 --> 0:02:40.679 think that penny Wise, this thing that appears as a 0:02:41.160 --> 0:02:44.720 clown in order to you know, drain the essence out 0:02:44.720 --> 0:02:46.919 of children and pull them into horrify them and pull 0:02:46.960 --> 0:02:49.160 them into sewers. You would think that would be beyond 0:02:49.200 --> 0:02:51.680 our ability to make cute. And yet just the other 0:02:51.760 --> 0:02:54.680 day I was looking at a cute pins of penny Wise. 0:02:54.720 --> 0:02:56.520 I'll cute it up. Yeah, Well, if you want to 0:02:56.520 --> 0:02:58.760 go in the cosmic direction, how about all the cute 0:02:58.760 --> 0:03:03.040 illithid monter, the you you know, uh cathuloom with those stuff. Yeah, 0:03:03.040 --> 0:03:06.160 when cute cute plush catulus. When my son came into 0:03:06.200 --> 0:03:08.080 my life, but I was, one of the first things 0:03:08.120 --> 0:03:12.840 we gave him was a plush cthulhu, which he loves, 0:03:12.840 --> 0:03:15.480 and it's an adorable looking creature. But yeah, he doesn't 0:03:15.520 --> 0:03:17.560 even know that it is essentially supposed to be a 0:03:17.560 --> 0:03:20.840 scary monster. I guess it's not funny to children in 0:03:20.880 --> 0:03:22.959 the same way it is funny to adults. No, that 0:03:23.320 --> 0:03:25.400 he just sees it as a cool, pretend, little creature. 0:03:25.440 --> 0:03:27.760 It's like if you encountered snuffle up agus and then 0:03:27.840 --> 0:03:31.320 somebody said, oh, yes, stuff, Lupagus is actually a patterned 0:03:31.360 --> 0:03:34.040 after this hideous monster, right, this thing that snorts you 0:03:34.160 --> 0:03:36.960 up as a liquid through its trunk. Though, I do 0:03:37.080 --> 0:03:41.240 want to say, before this epidemic of cute cartoon versions 0:03:41.240 --> 0:03:44.200 and cute dolls and stuff like that of say Freddy Krueger, 0:03:44.720 --> 0:03:49.080 there is a precedent for this within the horror media itself. 0:03:49.160 --> 0:03:52.560 Because you've seen the Freddy Krueger movies, right, the Nightmare 0:03:52.600 --> 0:03:55.240 on Elm Street. Right, I've seen the first one and 0:03:55.280 --> 0:03:58.160 I've seen the remake, and I like both of those, 0:03:58.200 --> 0:04:00.760 and the rest it's just mostly ups and just the 0:04:00.800 --> 0:04:06.680 pop cultural absorption of this ever ridiculous Freddy Krueger that 0:04:06.680 --> 0:04:09.720 that you know, that that has all these catchphrases and 0:04:09.720 --> 0:04:13.440 an ingenious kills. Yeah, that's that all just kind of 0:04:13.440 --> 0:04:16.200 blurs together for me. Well, there there's definitely an arc 0:04:16.320 --> 0:04:20.120 throughout the series where over time, the Freddy Krueger of 0:04:20.200 --> 0:04:22.680 the first movie and the first night Nightmare on Elm Street. 0:04:22.720 --> 0:04:25.240 I think Wes Craven went out of his way to 0:04:25.320 --> 0:04:28.040 make him not just a threatening monster, the standard kind 0:04:28.040 --> 0:04:31.360 of monster that will hurt you and chases you, but 0:04:31.640 --> 0:04:35.880 to make him repulsive and really just nasty. I mean, 0:04:35.920 --> 0:04:39.520 Freddy Krueger in the first movie is a character who's 0:04:39.560 --> 0:04:43.039 supposed to be a child murderer, and there are these 0:04:43.120 --> 0:04:48.080 suggestions of perversity and this this kind of gross creepiness, 0:04:48.200 --> 0:04:51.960 not just threatening monstrosity, And so from that point, I 0:04:52.000 --> 0:04:54.279 think it's really amazing that over the arc of the 0:04:54.320 --> 0:04:58.559 series Freddie becomes sort of almost something like an anti hero, 0:04:58.920 --> 0:05:02.200 like he's never actually a good guy, but he stops 0:05:02.279 --> 0:05:05.640 becoming this gross creep that you don't even want to 0:05:05.680 --> 0:05:09.640 look at, and becomes this jokester who dances and mugs 0:05:09.680 --> 0:05:13.320 for the camera and has one liners, makes jokes, and 0:05:13.600 --> 0:05:17.360 he becomes the star of the films. He becomes the 0:05:17.400 --> 0:05:20.039 reason people watch it, and it's because he's fun and 0:05:20.120 --> 0:05:24.360 he's comic. He becomes the crypt keeper, he becomes whole Cogan. Uh. 0:05:24.440 --> 0:05:28.799 And then it certainly by Jason versus Freddie, you're probably 0:05:28.880 --> 0:05:30.839 rooting for one or the other. He is, like, there's 0:05:30.880 --> 0:05:33.720 kind of a fifty fifty split there that that you 0:05:33.760 --> 0:05:36.600 may be backing this character in the brawl. Yeah, and 0:05:36.800 --> 0:05:39.200 maybe you could chalk that up in the Freddie movies 0:05:39.360 --> 0:05:42.000 just to the actor who played in Robert England being 0:05:42.040 --> 0:05:44.520 a great and likable actor despite the fact that he's 0:05:44.520 --> 0:05:49.280 settled with this incredibly repulsive role. Uh, maybe Robert England 0:05:49.320 --> 0:05:51.600 just bleeds through so much that you want to make 0:05:51.680 --> 0:05:54.279 him more and more likable. Well, it even got to 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:56.640 the point when they when the remake of Nightmare Name 0:05:56.680 --> 0:05:59.640 Street came out, Um, a lot of people didn't like it. 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:01.720 I actually really enjoyed it. I thought it was I 0:06:01.720 --> 0:06:03.520 thought it's a fine Hart film. I didn't like it. 0:06:03.520 --> 0:06:06.880 You didn't like I. I enjoyed it. But then again, 0:06:06.880 --> 0:06:09.320 I'm less attached to the series. But but one of 0:06:09.320 --> 0:06:11.760 the criticisms that I saw level thatt it was how 0:06:11.800 --> 0:06:15.320 could you make Freddie a pedophile? How could you make 0:06:15.400 --> 0:06:18.960 this his avert? Make this creepiness in his character so avert, 0:06:19.720 --> 0:06:22.680 as if that like ruined a hero and not just 0:06:22.839 --> 0:06:25.560 made a grotesque monster a little creepier. So I think 0:06:25.600 --> 0:06:28.680 it was always kind of implicitly suggested back in the 0:06:28.720 --> 0:06:31.800 first movie. Look, I mean they never said that outright 0:06:31.800 --> 0:06:34.240 that I recall, but it's always there in the fact that, 0:06:34.279 --> 0:06:36.560 like we were saying, he's not just a threat, he's 0:06:36.600 --> 0:06:40.480 a creep, he's perverse, right, Yeah, So it's it's interesting 0:06:40.520 --> 0:06:43.920 to see how people responded to kind of a doubling 0:06:43.960 --> 0:06:48.800 down on on the grotesque monstrosity of the character in 0:06:48.839 --> 0:06:53.479 away from the ridiculous pop culture version of the character. Right. Yeah, 0:06:53.520 --> 0:06:55.800 the version in the remake is not going to be 0:06:55.839 --> 0:06:58.720 doing I don't know, Domino's pizza commercials or whatever Freddie 0:06:58.760 --> 0:07:01.919 was doing in the eighties. But of course Freddy Krueger 0:07:01.960 --> 0:07:03.960 and the nutmar On Elm Street series is not the 0:07:04.000 --> 0:07:08.200 only series where we see a monstrous, horrifying character transformed 0:07:08.240 --> 0:07:13.280 over time into something that's more approachable, more likable, more identifiable, 0:07:13.360 --> 0:07:16.080 maybe even kind of snugly. This happens a lot in 0:07:16.120 --> 0:07:19.440 horror literature and even in horror folklore. Yeah. Yeah, we're 0:07:19.480 --> 0:07:23.040 definitely going to get into some examples from from folklore 0:07:23.080 --> 0:07:27.080 and legend, particularly some examples from Japanese folklore, because as 0:07:27.080 --> 0:07:31.160 we're talking, we inevitably talk about both monsters and the 0:07:31.200 --> 0:07:33.560 world of cute like you have to go to Japan 0:07:33.600 --> 0:07:36.760 because Japan is h is the home not only of 0:07:36.800 --> 0:07:42.080 some pretty hideous folkloric monsters, but also Kauaii. This this 0:07:42.280 --> 0:07:46.920 notion of of of like overt just overpowered cuteness, the 0:07:46.920 --> 0:07:50.040 Hello Kitty level of cuteness that has not only taken 0:07:50.120 --> 0:07:54.120 Japan by storm, but has has spread its cuttly tentacles 0:07:54.120 --> 0:07:57.480 into just about every portion of the earth. Yeah, it's 0:07:57.520 --> 0:08:02.240 like overclocking the adorability process almost to the point of insanity. 0:08:02.600 --> 0:08:05.040 And I should also point out that this also goes 0:08:05.080 --> 0:08:09.080 the other way, of course, just as monsters often become cute, 0:08:09.360 --> 0:08:11.440 there are also plenty of examples of people taking something 0:08:11.480 --> 0:08:14.520 cute and making it monstrous. Um, I kind of did 0:08:14.520 --> 0:08:17.120 it just a few minutes ago talking about snuffle up, 0:08:17.120 --> 0:08:20.000 I guess. But you inevitably see people who say, do 0:08:20.040 --> 0:08:23.720 a love crafty and take on totoro or And then 0:08:23.760 --> 0:08:26.800 there's a whole area of Kauai known as Kauai and noir, 0:08:27.280 --> 0:08:29.320 which is like dark cute, where they have something that 0:08:30.120 --> 0:08:33.360 pretty much intentionally has a lag or maybe a tentacle 0:08:33.720 --> 0:08:37.200 in both the cute and the monstrous content bucket. I 0:08:37.200 --> 0:08:39.400 feel like this is something that very often happens in 0:08:39.640 --> 0:08:42.839 comedy animation. I think you know, shows like South Park 0:08:42.920 --> 0:08:46.160 and Futurama and Simpsons and stuff like that always have 0:08:46.400 --> 0:08:48.880 a scene at some point where a very cute animal 0:08:49.000 --> 0:08:52.360 turns out to be a horrifying killer. Yeah, So in 0:08:52.400 --> 0:08:56.040 today's episode, we're gonna explore this. We're gonna explore what 0:08:56.200 --> 0:08:59.080 is the relationship between the monstrous and the cute? Why 0:08:59.160 --> 0:09:01.840 is there there this in arresting interplay? And in doing that, 0:09:01.880 --> 0:09:04.600 we're going to, of course discuss a little bit about 0:09:04.600 --> 0:09:06.160 what a monster is. So I think we've hit that 0:09:06.280 --> 0:09:08.439 harder in previous episodes. Here stuff to blow your mind. 0:09:08.440 --> 0:09:10.440 We're gonna talk about what it is to be cute, 0:09:10.920 --> 0:09:13.800 what's going on when something cute hijacks our brain? And 0:09:13.840 --> 0:09:15.280 then at the end of the episode, we're going to 0:09:15.320 --> 0:09:20.400 look to really three specific examples of Japanese monsters that 0:09:20.520 --> 0:09:23.560 may or may not be transformed into something cute. We'll 0:09:23.559 --> 0:09:27.280 be discussing the Only, the Kappa, and the Tingu. All right, Robert, 0:09:27.320 --> 0:09:30.400 what is a monster? Oh? Well, you know it's it's 0:09:30.400 --> 0:09:34.000 it's like cute. It's like pornography. We know it when 0:09:34.000 --> 0:09:37.000 we see it. But if you if you really have to, 0:09:37.160 --> 0:09:39.440 you know, if you really force somebody to to define 0:09:39.480 --> 0:09:41.560 it what you tend to think about something that is 0:09:41.840 --> 0:09:46.160 awesome inform or size. It's novel and it's chimerical combination 0:09:46.240 --> 0:09:48.800 of natural forms. You know, like it's got the head 0:09:48.840 --> 0:09:50.480 of a sea horse in the body of a cow. 0:09:50.760 --> 0:09:53.880 That's a monster um or you know, you know where 0:09:53.920 --> 0:09:56.400 it's just a giant sea horse. A sea horse the 0:09:56.440 --> 0:09:58.480 size of the school bus would also be a monster. 0:09:58.720 --> 0:10:02.920 I subscribe to the Metallica theory of monster dum, which 0:10:02.960 --> 0:10:05.440 is that a monster is the thing that should not be. 0:10:06.400 --> 0:10:09.199 It's a thing that you behold and realized that it 0:10:09.600 --> 0:10:12.360 is not only not something you recognize from nature, but 0:10:12.400 --> 0:10:15.679 it's something that you do not wish nature had. Now, 0:10:16.000 --> 0:10:18.800 obviously we violate those norms all the time because we 0:10:18.840 --> 0:10:21.800 get into monsters. We we find ourselves at home thinking 0:10:21.800 --> 0:10:24.160 about monsters, and we kind of do wish there was 0:10:24.200 --> 0:10:28.080 a giant mummy crocodile with laser eyes. Right, But at 0:10:28.120 --> 0:10:30.719 least in theory, the thing a monster is is it 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:34.800 violates natural categories in some way, and it horrifies you, 0:10:34.920 --> 0:10:37.320 makes you afraid, makes you not want it to be there. 0:10:37.679 --> 0:10:40.520 And as we discussed in our our episode, the first monster, 0:10:40.720 --> 0:10:44.960 which which came out previously for for this year's Halloween. Um, 0:10:45.000 --> 0:10:47.920 there's often a message there, if not a message that 0:10:48.040 --> 0:10:50.880 is tied up in the monster's form, then tied up 0:10:50.880 --> 0:10:54.400 in the monsters presence or in the stories about it, like, 0:10:54.480 --> 0:10:57.640 this monster is a danger to you because of whiny, 0:10:57.720 --> 0:11:01.040 because you went somewhere, or you did some thing, or 0:11:01.320 --> 0:11:04.680 you're engaged in a culture that went somewhere, did something. Yeah. 0:11:04.880 --> 0:11:08.160 Rarely do monsters appear in folklore without some kind of 0:11:08.240 --> 0:11:12.040 warning or social message. Right, Okay, so that's monsters in 0:11:12.080 --> 0:11:17.000 a nutshell. But but how about cute? Cute uh is 0:11:17.320 --> 0:11:20.880 in a way easier to nail down, but also just 0:11:21.040 --> 0:11:23.960 as ambiguous as monstrosity. Well, it's one of those things 0:11:23.960 --> 0:11:27.360 that everybody can identify it by sight. You know, you 0:11:27.400 --> 0:11:30.280 can tell, well, that's cute, that's not, that's cute, that's not. 0:11:30.400 --> 0:11:33.200 But when you're asked to give a set of criteria 0:11:33.240 --> 0:11:35.640 for how you're making the decision, you'd you'd often come 0:11:35.679 --> 0:11:38.040 up at a loss for words. Right, what's certainly the 0:11:38.040 --> 0:11:40.880 eyes of the beholder. But we can tease it apart 0:11:40.920 --> 0:11:45.199 to a certain extent. We can say, look at almost 0:11:45.240 --> 0:11:50.400 a universal images of the cute and see what's connecting 0:11:50.400 --> 0:11:53.120 with us there, and then figure out why it's connecting 0:11:53.120 --> 0:11:56.679 with us. So, for instance, kittens, babies, or of course 0:11:56.840 --> 0:12:00.319 Hello Kitty, which is essentially a kitten combined with a baby, 0:12:00.440 --> 0:12:04.319 or a small child with psychedelic color schemes, psychedelic color schemes, 0:12:04.440 --> 0:12:09.400 and of course many cute creatures of either real ones 0:12:09.480 --> 0:12:11.720 or fanciful ones. What do they have? They have big 0:12:11.760 --> 0:12:16.360 adorable eyes or perhaps big jowls, baby like cheeks. They're 0:12:16.440 --> 0:12:20.680 kind of Winston Churchill's yeah no, no, so yeah. There 0:12:20.720 --> 0:12:23.679 do appear to be some biological roots to our recognition 0:12:23.720 --> 0:12:26.880 of cuteness. It does seem to go into our mammalian 0:12:27.000 --> 0:12:31.480 brains and not just into cultural categories. So culture may 0:12:31.600 --> 0:12:33.880 very well inform a lot of what we find cute 0:12:33.920 --> 0:12:37.960 downstream of these biological cues. So, in his eighteen seventy 0:12:37.960 --> 0:12:41.319 two book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, 0:12:41.679 --> 0:12:45.920 Charles Darwin suggested that natural selection is probably gonna favor 0:12:46.080 --> 0:12:51.000 creatures which, in infancy possess features that cause the adults 0:12:51.040 --> 0:12:53.520 of that species to protect them and take care of 0:12:53.600 --> 0:12:56.840 their needs. Right, if you are a species that has 0:12:56.880 --> 0:12:59.880 a genome that says we usually give birth to babies 0:13:00.040 --> 0:13:03.040 we find repulsive and don't want anything to do with that. 0:13:03.080 --> 0:13:06.160 Species isn't going to do very well, right, or at 0:13:06.200 --> 0:13:08.840 least you're gonna have a situation like the Komodo dragon, 0:13:09.120 --> 0:13:11.800 where the young of the komodo dragon, they're pretty much 0:13:11.800 --> 0:13:13.800 they're on their own right, and they have to protect 0:13:13.840 --> 0:13:17.800 themselves from such threats as adult komodo drags exactly. So 0:13:18.000 --> 0:13:20.760 this would be in species that need to spend a 0:13:20.760 --> 0:13:23.920 lot of time protecting and caring for their young. This 0:13:23.960 --> 0:13:27.640 is something we see in mammals right right, and other species, 0:13:27.679 --> 0:13:31.320 but especially in mammals. So a lot of Darwin's book 0:13:31.360 --> 0:13:34.559 deals with things like the screams of infants and how 0:13:34.600 --> 0:13:38.920 the scream of an infant elicits parental attention. But usually 0:13:38.960 --> 0:13:41.760 if an object is screaming at you, you don't you 0:13:41.880 --> 0:13:44.280 just you know, don't you just find it annoying? Like 0:13:44.360 --> 0:13:46.040 you want to get away from it. Like if there's 0:13:46.080 --> 0:13:48.800 just us an orb in a room screaming at you, 0:13:48.840 --> 0:13:52.360 I wouldn't want to care for it. I would run away. Correct. Yeah, 0:13:52.400 --> 0:13:55.800 If if a human on a train is screaming, um, 0:13:56.240 --> 0:13:58.440 either may be you want to find out what's happening. 0:13:58.480 --> 0:14:01.480 You might even want to help. But there's there's at 0:14:01.559 --> 0:14:04.520 least that question mark phase of the screening, Right, what 0:14:04.679 --> 0:14:06.360 is going on here? Let me find out so that 0:14:06.400 --> 0:14:09.520 I can act accordingly. Yeah, it's attention getting, But the 0:14:09.559 --> 0:14:12.000 demands of an infant have to be more than simply 0:14:12.000 --> 0:14:14.719 attention getting to be adaptive. They have to be sharpened 0:14:14.960 --> 0:14:19.000 to appeal to specific vulnerabilities in the adult caregiver's brain, 0:14:19.200 --> 0:14:25.080 like vulnerabilities that soften anger responses and encourage protectiveness, and 0:14:25.200 --> 0:14:29.640 encourage generosity and sharing of resources and so forth. So 0:14:29.800 --> 0:14:33.240 something about the infant version of an animal has to 0:14:33.320 --> 0:14:36.560 convince the adult version of that animal to feel an 0:14:36.600 --> 0:14:40.440 attachment and to make sacrifices on behalf of this little creature. 0:14:41.120 --> 0:14:42.680 Then we'll talk about this more in a second. But 0:14:42.760 --> 0:14:46.840 in some species, these appeals for parenting could be straightforwardly chemical, right, 0:14:46.960 --> 0:14:50.960 Pheromones and scent would be examples. But couldn't these biological 0:14:50.960 --> 0:14:54.880 appeals also be visual? It makes sense, right, that's and 0:14:55.400 --> 0:14:57.720 one of the most immediate ways to interact with with 0:14:57.800 --> 0:15:00.640 an object or being is you see them and then 0:15:00.800 --> 0:15:03.720 you respond. Right. So, in the middle of the twentieth century, 0:15:03.760 --> 0:15:08.360 the Austrian ethologist Conrad Lawrenz, who I guess we should 0:15:08.480 --> 0:15:10.840 maybe acknowledged it's always weird, Like should you bring this 0:15:10.920 --> 0:15:14.000 up or not? He was also a Nazi after World 0:15:14.080 --> 0:15:16.960 War Two repudiated his views. I'm not aware that his 0:15:17.040 --> 0:15:19.520 ideology played any role in coming up with this schema 0:15:19.560 --> 0:15:22.040 we're about to talk about, but I guess it's worth acknowledging. 0:15:22.160 --> 0:15:24.560 Oh yeah, I mean, I think it's always worth noting 0:15:24.880 --> 0:15:27.920 when a scientist has that in their background, because in 0:15:27.960 --> 0:15:30.680 some cases, you you definitely have science that it was 0:15:31.000 --> 0:15:36.120 skewed or compromised by his association with the Third Reich. Uh, 0:15:36.200 --> 0:15:38.200 So you have you have to at least acknowledge that 0:15:38.200 --> 0:15:40.840 it was there in order to determine if it was 0:15:40.880 --> 0:15:43.160 a factor. Yeah, I mean, like you had people doing 0:15:43.160 --> 0:15:46.720 science that was ideologically determined, not very objective. But I 0:15:46.800 --> 0:15:50.200 don't think that's necessarily the case in this case. So 0:15:50.440 --> 0:15:55.320 Lawrence plunged into this field by observing animal species and 0:15:55.360 --> 0:15:58.520 coming up with what's known as the Kinchen schema or 0:15:58.600 --> 0:16:01.280 the baby schema. It's a list of features that he 0:16:01.360 --> 0:16:05.800 believed were sculpted in order to trigger or release caregiving 0:16:05.840 --> 0:16:10.359 behaviors in adult animals, and he gave about seven criteria. 0:16:10.520 --> 0:16:12.360 So let me know what you think about these. Robert 0:16:13.240 --> 0:16:17.840 A large head Okay, yeah, babies have big heads. Predominance 0:16:17.920 --> 0:16:20.120 of the brain capsule. So that's going to mean not 0:16:20.200 --> 0:16:22.920 just a large head, but sort of the large forehead, 0:16:23.040 --> 0:16:25.240 like the swelling of the upper part of the head, 0:16:26.560 --> 0:16:31.840 large and low lying eyes, a bulging cheek region. There's 0:16:31.880 --> 0:16:37.320 the Churchill jowls, what we're talking about, short and thick extremities. 0:16:38.520 --> 0:16:42.640 A springy or elastic consistency. Yeah, they when need when 0:16:42.640 --> 0:16:46.200 you poke them. In a soft body, there's your plush stall. 0:16:46.720 --> 0:16:51.960 And finally, clumsy movements, yes, the toddling of the toddler. Right. 0:16:52.480 --> 0:16:56.440 And subsequent studies have found evidence to partially support Lorenz's schema. 0:16:56.560 --> 0:16:58.840 So this is one reason to think that, you know, 0:16:59.200 --> 0:17:01.800 even if he's some kind of crazy ideology, there might 0:17:01.840 --> 0:17:04.719 be something to this because subsequent studies seem to find 0:17:04.760 --> 0:17:07.160 some of the same stuff is true. So I'll mention 0:17:07.240 --> 0:17:10.080 one study from two thousand nine published in Ethology by 0:17:10.160 --> 0:17:13.600 Melanie Glocker at All, and this is called baby schema 0:17:13.840 --> 0:17:19.080 in Infant Faces induces cuteness, perception and motivation for caretaking 0:17:19.080 --> 0:17:21.760 in adults. And what they did in this study was 0:17:21.760 --> 0:17:26.600 they used real photos of infants digitally manipulated to accentuate 0:17:26.840 --> 0:17:29.600 or to downplay some of the features that are in 0:17:29.680 --> 0:17:34.959 line with Lorenz's criteria, and so among a group of undergraduates, 0:17:35.000 --> 0:17:38.919 the study found that the faces manipulated towards the criteria, 0:17:39.000 --> 0:17:41.919 so meaning they manipulated them to have larger eyes or 0:17:41.920 --> 0:17:45.960 a rounder face or a higher forehead, were judged to 0:17:46.000 --> 0:17:49.840 be cuter and elicited greater motivation for caregiving. People said 0:17:49.880 --> 0:17:52.880 they were more likely to give care to these, uh, 0:17:52.920 --> 0:17:55.800 these more baby scheme of faces than the ones where 0:17:55.840 --> 0:18:00.160 they really downplayed those criteria, giving them smaller eye as, 0:18:00.160 --> 0:18:04.040 smaller foreheads and narrower face and stuff like that. Huh. 0:18:04.520 --> 0:18:07.080 Now I've got a picture here, Yeah, I'm I'm looking 0:18:07.080 --> 0:18:11.159 at this right now. So, um, basically we have an 0:18:11.240 --> 0:18:14.359 array of six images, three per row, So we have 0:18:14.440 --> 0:18:17.560 this grid of baby heads here that we're looking at. 0:18:18.080 --> 0:18:21.160 And um and in the idea that there's a change 0:18:21.400 --> 0:18:25.600 in uh like cuteness from left to right. Yeah, so 0:18:25.680 --> 0:18:28.720 you've got like normal baby heads in the middle, and 0:18:28.760 --> 0:18:31.840 then on the right you've got ultra babified baby faces 0:18:32.520 --> 0:18:36.320 with like these gigantic eyes, really round faces, really sort 0:18:36.320 --> 0:18:40.359 of low faces with large foreheads, big brain capsules. And 0:18:40.400 --> 0:18:43.760 then on the right you've got unbabified baby faces that 0:18:43.840 --> 0:18:46.479 look sort of more like the kid in the omen 0:18:47.240 --> 0:18:50.320 or they look more adult. Basically, they look more like 0:18:50.400 --> 0:18:52.720 old men, you know. They're they're kind of in that 0:18:52.840 --> 0:18:56.800 category of like the older baby babies that we look 0:18:56.800 --> 0:18:58.800 at them and maybe you you cringe a little bit 0:18:58.840 --> 0:19:03.200 before you tell the the parents that it's a beautiful baby. Yeah, 0:19:03.200 --> 0:19:06.760 And they tend to have like smaller eyes, a smaller forehead, 0:19:07.880 --> 0:19:11.119 a narrower head, and a less rounding of the skull. 0:19:11.240 --> 0:19:15.240 That they look they look like weird adults rather than babies, 0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:17.679 you know. And it's interesting to to look at this 0:19:17.720 --> 0:19:21.040 and think of it in light of our basically our 0:19:21.080 --> 0:19:24.520 evolved reaction to these faces. I was looking at a 0:19:24.560 --> 0:19:27.919 study that said the scientists have used magneto and cephalography 0:19:28.040 --> 0:19:31.359 to observe a seventh of a second response time in 0:19:31.440 --> 0:19:35.359 adults to unfamiliar infant faces, but of course not adult faces. 0:19:35.400 --> 0:19:38.000 And that's going to that's uh, that difference is gonna 0:19:38.080 --> 0:19:40.720 be manifest in this array of faces as well. Like 0:19:40.720 --> 0:19:44.359 the cuter the baby, the more immediate your response to it. 0:19:44.400 --> 0:19:46.920 I imagine. So, like, you see this cute baby face 0:19:47.000 --> 0:19:50.199 with the highly babified features, and you're like, whoa that 0:19:50.320 --> 0:19:52.240 I need to pay attention to that. Yeah, I've got 0:19:52.240 --> 0:19:53.679 to look at that, and if it needs something, I 0:19:53.720 --> 0:19:55.600 guess I will go buy it some milk or some 0:19:55.680 --> 0:19:58.680 pudding or whatever it is. Baby's eat right. Put zip 0:19:58.680 --> 0:20:01.320 ties on all my cabinets is horrible plastic things, and 0:20:01.359 --> 0:20:04.960 all my wall plugs. I know. I'm I'm still trying 0:20:04.960 --> 0:20:07.960 to work through all the baby proofing on my house. Really, Yeah, 0:20:07.960 --> 0:20:10.400 there's still some annoying baby proofing that I haven't quite 0:20:10.440 --> 0:20:14.800 like broken by forcing a grower open. But so, one 0:20:14.800 --> 0:20:18.000 of the interesting things about the recognition of cuteness and 0:20:18.160 --> 0:20:20.720 its biological function is that it appears to work not 0:20:20.920 --> 0:20:25.040 just within species. Now, I can't see any real reason 0:20:25.560 --> 0:20:30.320 that you would evolve to have a caregiving preference for 0:20:30.400 --> 0:20:33.000 animals other than your own species. So it might be 0:20:33.000 --> 0:20:35.560 one of those things that's just a byproduct of something 0:20:35.600 --> 0:20:38.400 that's highly adaptable. Yeah, I mean, we're all, we're related 0:20:38.400 --> 0:20:41.560 to all these other mammalian creatures and and they're all 0:20:41.720 --> 0:20:45.320 they all have the basically basically the same survival um 0:20:45.760 --> 0:20:49.800 techniques in place in terms of parental care for the infant. Yeah, 0:20:49.800 --> 0:20:52.480 and it's kind of obvious from our experiences with kittens 0:20:52.560 --> 0:20:55.919 and puppies and so forth. But experiments do confirm that 0:20:56.000 --> 0:20:59.359 our appreciation for cuteness goes beyond the infant Homo sapiens. 0:20:59.400 --> 0:21:02.840 One example is a study I found by Anthony Little 0:21:02.920 --> 0:21:07.000 from two thousand twelve published again in Ethology called Manipulation 0:21:07.000 --> 0:21:10.760 of Infant like Traits Effects Perceived Cuteness of infinite adults 0:21:10.880 --> 0:21:15.359 and cat faces. So it found that among images of 0:21:15.480 --> 0:21:20.480 three types of faces, babies, adults, and cats, first of all, 0:21:20.480 --> 0:21:23.400 people found the babies and the cats cuter than adults. 0:21:24.080 --> 0:21:27.200 But then also when the faces from all three categories 0:21:27.280 --> 0:21:30.960 were manipulated to have baby scheme of characteristics, for example, 0:21:31.080 --> 0:21:34.960 decreasing the jaws, eyes, and increasing the forehead height, people 0:21:35.040 --> 0:21:37.800 found them cuter. And this worked for adult faces, for 0:21:37.920 --> 0:21:41.000 human baby faces, and for cat faces. Okay, so getting 0:21:41.000 --> 0:21:43.560 into kind of the Betty boot area there of like 0:21:43.600 --> 0:21:51.200 the weird like infantile but but arguably attractive adult female. Yeah, 0:21:51.240 --> 0:21:54.159 it's it's just seeming to imply that we have the 0:21:54.240 --> 0:21:59.480 same kind of caregiving response or cuteness response to faces 0:21:59.520 --> 0:22:02.880 of all different types of creatures, no matter what age 0:22:02.960 --> 0:22:05.960 and no matter what species. Even if there's a face 0:22:06.040 --> 0:22:08.879 and you make these certain types of changes to the face, 0:22:09.240 --> 0:22:12.160 we think it's cute usually and we respond with all 0:22:12.520 --> 0:22:15.680 you know, zip tide, the chemical cabinet. You know, it's 0:22:15.720 --> 0:22:18.200 interesting to think of it in terms of survival adaptations 0:22:18.200 --> 0:22:22.720 for non human animals when you think of of of 0:22:22.760 --> 0:22:26.879 domesticated animals, cats and dogs, because certainly I think that 0:22:27.200 --> 0:22:30.119 I've certainly read some studies that argue for the the 0:22:30.119 --> 0:22:33.679 the cat's ability to essentially hijack us by making us 0:22:33.680 --> 0:22:35.840 think it's a baby on some level, you know. And 0:22:35.840 --> 0:22:37.639 and and I think dogs do that too to a 0:22:37.800 --> 0:22:39.960 large extent. Is it's certainly with puppies. So I could 0:22:39.960 --> 0:22:43.680