WEBVTT - From the Vault: On Teasing 0:00:05.760 --> 0:00:08.240 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:08.320 --> 0:00:10.920 is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. In it's Saturday. 0:00:10.920 --> 0:00:13.680 Time to go into the vault for an older episode. Uh. 0:00:13.720 --> 0:00:17.200 This one originally aired September eleventh, two thousand eighteen, and 0:00:17.200 --> 0:00:20.160 it's an episode we did about teasing. Yeah, this one, 0:00:20.320 --> 0:00:22.799 this one was really fun, you know, getting into like 0:00:22.920 --> 0:00:26.319 what teasing means, both when you know children are doing 0:00:26.360 --> 0:00:28.680 it or if a parent is doing it like or 0:00:28.880 --> 0:00:31.200 adults doing it to each other. Like what is this 0:00:31.240 --> 0:00:33.840 thing we call teasing? And how does it factor into 0:00:33.840 --> 0:00:37.760 the complexities of human communication and our social structures. Let's 0:00:37.800 --> 0:00:43.720 jump right in. Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind 0:00:43.920 --> 0:00:52.320 from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hey you, welcome to 0:00:52.360 --> 0:00:54.400 Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb 0:00:54.440 --> 0:00:57.640 and I'm Joe McCormick. And Robert, I've got a question 0:00:57.680 --> 0:01:01.160 for you. You ever find yourself in that situation where 0:01:01.200 --> 0:01:04.200 you're hanging out with people, it's all good fun, everybody's 0:01:04.560 --> 0:01:08.080 there's banter going on. One person is teasing another person 0:01:08.200 --> 0:01:11.880 over something kind of funny, some funny foible of their personality, 0:01:12.360 --> 0:01:16.240 and there's that moment, there's that awful little moment where 0:01:16.280 --> 0:01:20.440 there's kind of a pause after somebody says some some 0:01:20.600 --> 0:01:23.960 teasing joke and then you realize like, oh no, suddenly 0:01:24.080 --> 0:01:27.559 it has gotten serious. Oh yes, I mean it's especially 0:01:27.680 --> 0:01:31.640 if it it's a multi person group and and there's 0:01:31.640 --> 0:01:34.520 a bit of piling on occurring. They'll be there, I've 0:01:34.560 --> 0:01:37.000 seen this, this happened, where they'll they'll be a breaking 0:01:37.040 --> 0:01:40.319 point where the person has had enough and and and 0:01:40.400 --> 0:01:43.160 you realize, oh, no, lines have been crossed and now 0:01:43.200 --> 0:01:44.800 this person is gonna leave and we're gonna have to 0:01:44.880 --> 0:01:49.080 resolve this uh via emails later. Uh yeah, And it's 0:01:49.080 --> 0:01:51.360 as ter it's a terrible feeling because things have spiraled 0:01:51.360 --> 0:01:55.040 out of control. Something that was playful and um and 0:01:55.200 --> 0:02:00.280 just part of hanging out has now become divisive. Male 0:02:00.480 --> 0:02:03.920 the best place to work out tents, social disputes, Well 0:02:04.400 --> 0:02:07.240 sometimes sometimes it depends, and I mean, I guess it 0:02:07.280 --> 0:02:10.440 depends on what role one had in the in the breakdown. 0:02:10.760 --> 0:02:13.240 I've been fortunate enough to to not be like at 0:02:13.240 --> 0:02:18.920 the epicenter of the of the breakdown generally, so um 0:02:19.200 --> 0:02:21.720 email tends to suffice for me. You know, you never 0:02:21.760 --> 0:02:24.440 have to worry that when you type a smiley emoji 0:02:24.600 --> 0:02:27.320 that will look like a fake smile. When you actually 0:02:27.360 --> 0:02:29.680 smile at somebody, you always gotta worry like does this 0:02:29.720 --> 0:02:32.120 look real? Is my face moving? Right? So you just 0:02:32.160 --> 0:02:35.560 have to use the authentic smiling emoji, not the unauthentic one. 0:02:35.639 --> 0:02:37.800 You know, it's all on the micro expressions of the emoji. 0:02:38.160 --> 0:02:41.679 What's the inauthentic one that's like colon and clothes brackets. 0:02:41.800 --> 0:02:43.640 Oh no, I'm talking about the ones that actually, like 0:02:43.800 --> 0:02:45.840 the little yellow face with a smile, like you'll know 0:02:45.880 --> 0:02:49.079 it when you see it. Okay, but is everyone can 0:02:49.120 --> 0:02:51.960 realize that at this point we're talking about teasing today 0:02:52.000 --> 0:02:55.320 on the show, and teasing is weird territory to try 0:02:55.360 --> 0:02:58.639 and figure out deceptively, so really um for many of 0:02:58.800 --> 0:03:01.239 us looking back on our child hoods, it's it makes 0:03:01.320 --> 0:03:04.959 up some of our worst memories of social interaction. And 0:03:05.040 --> 0:03:07.239 as as a parent, I have a lot of apprehension 0:03:07.520 --> 0:03:10.359 about it, you know, regarding my own child, the inevitable 0:03:10.400 --> 0:03:14.320 struggles that he's gonna gonna face. And at the same time, 0:03:14.720 --> 0:03:17.560 there's this weird cult of the tease that is often 0:03:17.600 --> 0:03:20.560 difficult to understand. We see teasing in our media and 0:03:20.560 --> 0:03:23.200 it's sometimes presented as in a fun comical light. We 0:03:23.240 --> 0:03:26.359 also see adults for whom teasing is a standard part 0:03:26.360 --> 0:03:29.120 of their interactions, not fighting with each other, but but 0:03:29.240 --> 0:03:32.840 just picking in various ways that it's it seems like 0:03:32.880 --> 0:03:38.360 they're just terms of endearments, joking, benign criticism. Yeah, and 0:03:38.360 --> 0:03:40.360 it and uh, it's often a case where I look 0:03:40.400 --> 0:03:42.480 at it and I realized, well, this is clearly part 0:03:42.600 --> 0:03:45.360 of their social dynamic. It wouldn't necessarily work in my 0:03:45.520 --> 0:03:49.800 social dynamic, but I guess it's okay. Uh. We see 0:03:49.800 --> 0:03:52.440 it factor into courtship as well, which also has a 0:03:52.440 --> 0:03:55.960 way of of seeming weird and sour at times of 0:03:56.040 --> 0:03:59.280 an outside perspective. Well, I mean, there's there's two very 0:03:59.280 --> 0:04:01.600 different ways it can take place. There's a kind you 0:04:01.640 --> 0:04:04.720 can see, a kind of friendly sweet teasing that takes 0:04:04.720 --> 0:04:07.600 place between people in the courtship relationship. And then there's 0:04:07.680 --> 0:04:10.880 like the pickup artist version of it, where somebody's clearly 0:04:10.920 --> 0:04:14.760 like making a power play, right. And then likewise, we 0:04:14.840 --> 0:04:18.320 also see this this space, this sort of ambiguous space 0:04:18.680 --> 0:04:22.680 where playful teasing gives over to what is clearly something 0:04:22.760 --> 0:04:27.200 based in hate and abuse name calling, uh, that occurs 0:04:27.200 --> 0:04:30.120 among children and even among adults. Obviously, even at the 0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:33.520 highest levels of government, you see name calling used in 0:04:33.560 --> 0:04:36.600 a in a hurtful fashion. So if you start, if 0:04:36.600 --> 0:04:38.560 you start picking out, and I imagine a lot of 0:04:38.600 --> 0:04:40.800 your doing this as well, thinking of all the varying 0:04:40.880 --> 0:04:43.760 levels of teasing that are going on in your immediate 0:04:43.920 --> 0:04:48.640 environment and um in politics and the media, etcetera. On 0:04:48.680 --> 0:04:50.680 the street as you're driving your car and listen to 0:04:50.720 --> 0:04:53.360 this podcast. You know, it's enough to make you wonder 0:04:53.520 --> 0:04:55.960 if if we're just nothing more than just cruel apes 0:04:56.160 --> 0:05:00.479 jockeying for social position. Uh, And it's any wonder we 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:04.000 managed to emerge from these social interactions with self esteem 0:05:04.320 --> 0:05:07.200 and respect for our fellow humans. But part of the 0:05:07.200 --> 0:05:10.000 issue here is that while all forms of teasing share 0:05:10.040 --> 0:05:13.960 common features, there are at least three distinctive forms of 0:05:14.000 --> 0:05:17.080 teasing that are often signal, that are often singled out 0:05:17.200 --> 0:05:20.080 and definitely deserve mention here. Okay, well what would those 0:05:20.160 --> 0:05:23.320 forms be? All right? Well, the first is pretty obvious, 0:05:23.720 --> 0:05:26.160 and that is that is the hurtful teasing. And I 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:27.919 think it's one of those things where we all we 0:05:27.960 --> 0:05:30.000 all know it when we see it right or hear it. 0:05:30.640 --> 0:05:34.120 This is obviously the domain of bullying and harassment, and 0:05:34.200 --> 0:05:36.080 yet at the same time it's the sort of teasing 0:05:36.839 --> 0:05:40.159 you might see in a celebrity roast, or some of 0:05:40.240 --> 0:05:44.360 you are more viciously charged humor or political humor. I 0:05:44.360 --> 0:05:46.320 guess you could also say it's maybe the domain of 0:05:46.320 --> 0:05:49.760 the jesture, the fool and the clown. Uh and important. 0:05:49.839 --> 0:05:52.120 These are important roles throughout human history. Oh yeah, well, 0:05:52.120 --> 0:05:54.159 I mean I might argue that the fool in the 0:05:54.160 --> 0:05:58.679 Shakespearean sense requires its own category here, because the fool 0:05:58.720 --> 0:06:01.480 has a lot of power and freedom, and that's important 0:06:01.520 --> 0:06:05.240 power and freedom. Like they're the only member of the 0:06:05.279 --> 0:06:08.080 lower classes who can point out the flaws of the 0:06:08.120 --> 0:06:10.880 monarchs and the upper classes and get away with it. 0:06:11.160 --> 0:06:14.720 There's something about the ridiculousness of the fool that allows 0:06:14.720 --> 0:06:17.680 a critique of power that might result in a beheading 0:06:17.760 --> 0:06:20.640 if you made the same critique in a serious tone. 0:06:21.040 --> 0:06:25.080 And likewise, a king who beheads a jester every week 0:06:25.680 --> 0:06:28.640 is a terrible king. They look weak. Yeah, it makes 0:06:28.680 --> 0:06:31.839 the king look foolish if the king overreacts to a 0:06:32.200 --> 0:06:35.640 to a comical critique, right, I think you're pointing Joffrey 0:06:35.680 --> 0:06:38.559 from Game of Thrones, is this type of ruler where 0:06:38.600 --> 0:06:42.240 you realize, oh, he's terrible, he's totally incompetent. Look how 0:06:42.320 --> 0:06:47.760 thin skinny is against uh, the humorous criticism of the 0:06:49.160 --> 0:06:51.880 court fool. Well, it codes so easily for us. I mean, 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:55.800 one of the clearest signs of a toxic personality is 0:06:55.880 --> 0:07:01.520 somebody who's unable to accept criticism and even benign criticism, 0:07:01.600 --> 0:07:03.359 or to be the butt of a joke, you know, 0:07:03.440 --> 0:07:07.440 somebody who cannot tolerate that, right, especially because of the 0:07:07.520 --> 0:07:10.320 positive role that teasing plays in our culture. I mean, 0:07:10.480 --> 0:07:14.360 there's so much teasing that is not hurtful, hateful. I 0:07:14.360 --> 0:07:19.040 mean it is a constant feature of conversation between friends, 0:07:19.200 --> 0:07:24.679 between couples, between family members, between educators and the people 0:07:24.720 --> 0:07:27.960 they educate. Teasing, you know, there's like a sweet, benign 0:07:28.080 --> 0:07:31.840 form of teasing that's absolutely essential to these relationships. You know. 0:07:31.880 --> 0:07:33.760 I do have to add one more thing about the 0:07:33.840 --> 0:07:36.840 gesture first, though, Okay, And there is there is this 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:39.840 this curious aspect of the dynamic you see with kind 0:07:39.880 --> 0:07:45.040 of a classic gesture situation, but also in modern political humor, 0:07:45.840 --> 0:07:49.000 there are two extremes that are both equally well maybe 0:07:49.000 --> 0:07:52.880 not equally, but they're both cringe worthy, certainly when the king, 0:07:53.000 --> 0:07:56.400 the rule, or the politician, whoever the celebrity is too 0:07:56.480 --> 0:08:00.440 thin skin to let humorous bashing go where they have 0:08:00.520 --> 0:08:03.240 to call out, say, you know an episode of Saturday 0:08:03.360 --> 0:08:05.360 Night Live, right, if you made a joke about me, 0:08:05.480 --> 0:08:09.520 how dare you? Right? Yeah, that is is cringeworthy and awful. 0:08:09.560 --> 0:08:11.520 But on the same hand, and this is something that 0:08:11.760 --> 0:08:13.720 I believe It was pointed out on an episode of 0:08:13.760 --> 0:08:18.200 Malcolm Gladwell's Revisionist history podcast, there's also this danger in 0:08:18.280 --> 0:08:21.480 what happens when the king says, yeah, this gesture guys great, 0:08:22.120 --> 0:08:23.360 I'm going to hang out with him and do a 0:08:23.400 --> 0:08:26.480 skit with him, or yeah, that's Saturday Night Life skit 0:08:26.600 --> 0:08:29.440 is funny. I'm gonna appear on that Saturday Night Life 0:08:29.440 --> 0:08:32.160 skit with the person doing an impression of me. There 0:08:32.160 --> 0:08:36.040 can be uh, too much protection of one's dignity is 0:08:36.080 --> 0:08:39.440 a bad sign, but too much surrender of one's dignity 0:08:39.520 --> 0:08:41.920 also looks kind of bad. Like, you gotta find the 0:08:41.960 --> 0:08:45.040 middle ground. You want the ruler that that ultimately has 0:08:45.160 --> 0:08:48.400 very little to do with the gesture and doesn't politely 0:08:48.520 --> 0:08:51.319 laughs perhaps but leaves it at that. I know exactly 0:08:51.360 --> 0:08:55.680 what you're talking about, Like when presidential candidates go on SNL, 0:08:55.800 --> 0:08:59.840 that's always like, I don't know, it's just always terrible. Yeah. 0:08:59.840 --> 0:09:02.040 But one of the points that Malcolm Gladwell made in 0:09:02.080 --> 0:09:04.280 his shows that it takes the punch out of the 0:09:04.320 --> 0:09:07.160 political humor, like you managed in a way, it's like 0:09:07.200 --> 0:09:09.439 it's a genius move I guess for the politician, because 0:09:09.480 --> 0:09:12.720 you have you have killed the humorous skit. You have 0:09:13.120 --> 0:09:15.360 you have killed the power of the humor in a 0:09:15.440 --> 0:09:18.080 way that you could never do by attacking it. Well, yeah, 0:09:18.080 --> 0:09:20.320 I guess it doesn't make you look great, but it 0:09:20.400 --> 0:09:25.240 also is a type of defense mechanism. It undercuts any 0:09:25.360 --> 0:09:29.200 truly biting criticism that's hidden there in the in the 0:09:29.240 --> 0:09:32.680 comedy if you go on stage with the comedian. Yes, 0:09:32.920 --> 0:09:35.200 but before we were talking about the Jester, we were 0:09:35.240 --> 0:09:38.080 we were about to get into playful teasing, you know, 0:09:38.160 --> 0:09:41.400 the sweet form of teasing, right, And obviously there's a 0:09:41.440 --> 0:09:45.320 line between hurtful and and u and playful teasing. Good 0:09:45.400 --> 0:09:49.719 luck finding, especially with people you're maybe not that familiar with. 0:09:50.559 --> 0:09:53.600 But yeah, especially in close relationships, you tend to see 0:09:53.720 --> 0:09:56.000 these you know, you see in jokes and you see 0:09:56.120 --> 0:10:00.719 established safe zones for playful teasing. Uh. For instance, if 0:10:00.760 --> 0:10:04.400 my wife teases me about some nerdy hobby of mine, Uh, 0:10:04.440 --> 0:10:06.680 it's it's really more of a form, more of a 0:10:06.760 --> 0:10:09.840 term of endearment. Or if she teases me about liking 0:10:10.200 --> 0:10:14.200 robot music, like like really robotic sounding electronic music, and 0:10:14.320 --> 0:10:17.000 uh and teasing me about how awful it sounds. Uh, 0:10:17.040 --> 0:10:19.960 like like this is that this feels good when we're 0:10:19.960 --> 0:10:23.800 doing it. I don't feel hurt or defensive about you know, 0:10:23.880 --> 0:10:28.000 my my love of dungeons and dragons, or or or 0:10:28.080 --> 0:10:31.800 my miniatures painting miniatures, or yeah, or my affinity for 0:10:32.000 --> 0:10:34.000 the music of autech or that sort of thing. Yeah. 0:10:34.360 --> 0:10:39.040 I think almost all good romantic relationships include an element 0:10:39.080 --> 0:10:40.400 of teasing. I don't you know. I don't want to 0:10:40.400 --> 0:10:42.920 be overly general. So maybe some people people make it 0:10:42.960 --> 0:10:46.240 work in all kinds of ways, but I rarely see 0:10:46.280 --> 0:10:50.760 what seems like a happy couple that doesn't tease one another, right, 0:10:50.760 --> 0:10:52.480 I mean, it seems like you do. And this is 0:10:52.520 --> 0:10:54.920 something we're gonna return to throughout this episode. This idea 0:10:55.040 --> 0:10:59.520 that that teasing it is is an opportunity for bond 0:10:59.600 --> 0:11:02.880 for me and the establishment and the maintaining of bonds. 0:11:03.960 --> 0:11:07.080 And but obviously you need a safe place for the 0:11:07.160 --> 0:11:10.360 teasing just you know that all of us, I think 0:11:10.440 --> 0:11:12.520 we're going to have unless we are some sort of 0:11:12.559 --> 0:11:15.440 like inhuman politician type, you know, we're going to have 0:11:15.480 --> 0:11:17.880 those areas that we are cool being teased about in 0:11:17.920 --> 0:11:21.000 areas that we're less comfortable being teased about. You know, 0:11:21.080 --> 0:11:24.960 thinking about several of the areas that that teasing functions 0:11:25.040 --> 0:11:28.320 in our our social interactions, one of which is sort 0:11:28.360 --> 0:11:33.360 of reminding people of hierarchies or establishing hierarchies. That it 0:11:33.400 --> 0:11:36.720 does something of enforcing a pecking order. Number two is 0:11:36.800 --> 0:11:41.760 maybe like establishing a criticism of somebody's behavior, and number 0:11:41.800 --> 0:11:44.679 three is allowing bonding. Put these three things together, and 0:11:44.720 --> 0:11:47.559 it seems like a key place where teasing should come 0:11:47.600 --> 0:11:50.760 into play is education, right, because that's a place where 0:11:50.760 --> 0:11:54.080 you need a hierarchy between teacher and student. You want 0:11:54.120 --> 0:11:56.559 to teach lessons and you also want to have a 0:11:56.600 --> 0:11:59.720 good relationship. That's right. So this brings us to this 0:11:59.800 --> 0:12:03.160 third area of teasing, educative teasing, and this pops up 0:12:03.160 --> 0:12:06.040 in areas that you wouldn't quite expect it as as 0:12:06.040 --> 0:12:08.560 we'll discuss a little later. One example is that is 0:12:08.600 --> 0:12:12.679 that of a frat boys giving each other's nicknames based on, 0:12:12.920 --> 0:12:16.360 you know, various bone headed things they've done. Uh and 0:12:16.360 --> 0:12:20.320 and this can be viewed as a way of of educating, 0:12:20.320 --> 0:12:26.000 of laying down various um moral rules or or social expectations. 0:12:26.280 --> 0:12:29.600 Right d a teasing, you might get nicknamed like, I 0:12:29.600 --> 0:12:31.920 don't know, toilet head because you fell asleep with your 0:12:31.920 --> 0:12:34.040 head in the toilet, right, And the idea is, don't 0:12:34.080 --> 0:12:36.120 do that, don't drink so much that you sleep in 0:12:36.120 --> 0:12:39.480 the toilet. But then again, one of the things I 0:12:39.520 --> 0:12:42.520 noticed about that kind of teasing is that toilet head 0:12:42.600 --> 0:12:46.920 might originally be applied as a sort of like moral injunction, 0:12:47.760 --> 0:12:52.040 but the toilet head make may well come to identify 0:12:52.120 --> 0:12:54.800 with the nickname and say, that's right, that's who I am. 0:12:55.000 --> 0:12:58.960 I am toilet head forevermore, and I will embrace it. Yeah. Now, 0:12:59.240 --> 0:13:03.199 some anthropology just point to specific traditions of educated teasing 0:13:03.280 --> 0:13:08.520 between parents and children in various Indigenous American um cultures, 0:13:08.840 --> 0:13:10.880 and the idea here is that it's a form of 0:13:10.880 --> 0:13:13.720 teasing that can work better to impart knowledge of social 0:13:13.840 --> 0:13:18.480 rules and emotionally instilled ideas. However, we We didn't really 0:13:18.480 --> 0:13:20.720 focus on any of that for this research, but I 0:13:20.760 --> 0:13:22.320 just want to let everyone know that that that is 0:13:22.360 --> 0:13:25.600 an area of study now. As far as these three 0:13:25.720 --> 0:13:28.800 terms for types of teasing go, I I feel like 0:13:28.840 --> 0:13:31.480 there's some difficulty in how we use terms here because 0:13:31.480 --> 0:13:35.480 I admit that I would typically reserve the word teasing 0:13:36.120 --> 0:13:39.160 for the more benign or playful forms, like what we 0:13:39.160 --> 0:13:43.160 were calling hurtful teasing, the kind that's actually cruel and 0:13:43.240 --> 0:13:46.640 mean spirited. I would not usually call teasing. I'd probably 0:13:46.640 --> 0:13:51.240 call it bullying or harassment or something. Um though. It's 0:13:51.280 --> 0:13:54.920 what What this highlights is that the line between playful 0:13:54.960 --> 0:13:58.400 teasing and hurtful bullying is not always clear. It's not 0:13:58.440 --> 0:14:01.520 always clear to the person doing it, It's always not 0:14:01.559 --> 0:14:04.720 always clear to the person receiving it. What sometimes ment 0:14:04.840 --> 0:14:07.800 is benign or playful by the teaser can feel like 0:14:07.920 --> 0:14:11.199 bullying to the tea Z and sometimes more benign or 0:14:11.200 --> 0:14:14.360 playful forms of teasing. I bet you've been there for this. 0:14:14.480 --> 0:14:16.440 I think we sort of talked about it at the beginning. 0:14:16.840 --> 0:14:19.800 It starts off as a friendly and playful session of 0:14:19.880 --> 0:14:23.200 ribbing that somehow catches this terrible momentum. I don't know 0:14:23.240 --> 0:14:27.200 what causes it, but that momentum it edges into harder 0:14:27.320 --> 0:14:31.320 and meaner stuff as it escalates, and it's this enormously 0:14:31.480 --> 0:14:34.920 painful and uncomfortable thing to witness. And looking back, I 0:14:34.960 --> 0:14:38.160 can remember instances of this in my life where I 0:14:38.280 --> 0:14:42.480 watch something like this happened to somebody else, and in retrospect, 0:14:43.160 --> 0:14:45.320 like I wish I'd found a way to step in 0:14:45.400 --> 0:14:48.280 in the moment and stop it. But it's so much 0:14:48.280 --> 0:14:51.360 easier to to to feel that kind of policing authority 0:14:51.360 --> 0:14:54.200 in retrospect in the moment, to step in like that 0:14:54.280 --> 0:14:57.880 into clear teasing to have gone too far requires you 0:14:57.920 --> 0:15:00.840 to take this major risk. It feels like you're violating 0:15:00.880 --> 0:15:03.360 a taboo. You're making it weird. You know you know 0:15:03.400 --> 0:15:06.720 about making it weird right um, And in the moment 0:15:06.760 --> 0:15:09.960 you're never really sure if you've like misread some kind 0:15:10.000 --> 0:15:13.280 of unspoken set of cues. Maybe everything's actually okay, and 0:15:13.400 --> 0:15:16.360 you're the one who's making people feel bad by getting 0:15:16.400 --> 0:15:18.680 serious from out of nowhere. It can be a really 0:15:18.760 --> 0:15:23.080 difficult and complicated UH dance to to navigate. All right, 0:15:23.120 --> 0:15:24.720 on that note, we're gonna take a quick break and 0:15:24.720 --> 0:15:26.920 when we come back, we're gonna we're gonna really get 0:15:26.920 --> 0:15:34.040 into the question of teasing and what purpose it truly serves. Alright, 0:15:34.040 --> 0:15:36.520 we're back. So one of the big names that comes 0:15:36.640 --> 0:15:41.480 up in teasing research is that of psychiatry and psychology 0:15:41.520 --> 0:15:46.120 researcher Dr Keltner, who has written on this, researched on this, 0:15:46.240 --> 0:15:49.680 and one of the big pieces that is often circulated 0:15:49.960 --> 0:15:52.280 is a two thousand and eight New York Times piece 0:15:52.320 --> 0:15:56.360 titled in Defense of Teasing. Uh, And he also directs 0:15:56.360 --> 0:15:59.360 the Berkeley Social Interaction Lab, So this is like right 0:15:59.440 --> 0:16:03.640 in his uh, his area of focus. Yeah. Kiltner makes 0:16:03.640 --> 0:16:06.160 an interesting point, which is that a lot of our 0:16:06.280 --> 0:16:09.680 social conventions in the modern age, I think, are centered 0:16:09.680 --> 0:16:15.120 around trying to make social interactions more safe, which in 0:16:15.160 --> 0:16:17.120 a way is a good thing. Right. We we all 0:16:17.160 --> 0:16:20.640 know how destructive and terrible bullying can be. We've all 0:16:20.800 --> 0:16:24.520 seen the kind of teasing in a relationship and you know, uh, 0:16:24.880 --> 0:16:29.000 somebody's somebody's got a new boyfriend and he's teasing her, 0:16:29.120 --> 0:16:32.640 but he's like going a little hard. It doesn't quite 0:16:32.680 --> 0:16:35.400 seem so sweet. And when you think about stuff like that, 0:16:36.000 --> 0:16:38.680 it can be very easy to start to start to 0:16:38.760 --> 0:16:42.520 view teasing is this really negative thing. It's this this cruel, 0:16:42.640 --> 0:16:46.120 malicious force that permeates our culture and and make you 0:16:46.160 --> 0:16:49.280 want to do things to eliminate it. Right, Well, how 0:16:49.320 --> 0:16:52.000 can we get people to not act like this? But 0:16:52.520 --> 0:16:54.760 I feel like teasing is a situation where you really 0:16:54.800 --> 0:16:56.880 don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. 0:16:57.560 --> 0:16:59.880 Well you don't, but you you want to protect the bank. 0:17:00.400 --> 0:17:03.920 That's the thing. I mean throughout this episode, I kept 0:17:03.960 --> 0:17:07.400 coming I keep coming back to UM, my own son, 0:17:08.080 --> 0:17:11.600 and I just want to protect him so much from 0:17:11.720 --> 0:17:13.240 these things. At the same time, I realized I can't 0:17:13.240 --> 0:17:15.720 protect him there from everything. I can't just chadow him 0:17:15.760 --> 0:17:20.399 through school and you know, feed him excellent, you know comebacks. Uh, 0:17:20.640 --> 0:17:23.280 anytime anybody is is trying to tease him, he's going 0:17:23.320 --> 0:17:26.440 to be teased. It's it's inevitable, and he it's probably 0:17:26.480 --> 0:17:29.920 inevitable to that to engage in teasing Um. But at 0:17:29.920 --> 0:17:33.280 the same time, it is hard for me to just 0:17:33.440 --> 0:17:37.440 really get behind everything Kelton is saying about just the 0:17:37.480 --> 0:17:41.560 importance of teasing, Like I still my impulse to protect 0:17:41.840 --> 0:17:45.760 is too strong. Well, I mean, I think the point 0:17:45.840 --> 0:17:48.680 he would be making is the good kind of teasing 0:17:49.320 --> 0:17:52.440 is not actually hurtful. It's not actually something that needs 0:17:52.480 --> 0:17:55.800 to be protected. And he's not advocating that that bullying 0:17:55.880 --> 0:17:59.359 should be permitted. It's very clear about that. But but 0:17:59.359 --> 0:18:02.320 but he does, let's make this strong, strong case that 0:18:02.320 --> 0:18:06.000 that teasing is an essential part of our social interactions. 0:18:06.119 --> 0:18:08.280 And in fact, he points out that the teasing is 0:18:08.480 --> 0:18:11.920 pervasive in the animal world. Right now, we generally think 0:18:11.960 --> 0:18:16.160 of teasing as uh, well, you know, as a verbal phenomenon, right, 0:18:16.160 --> 0:18:17.960 and I guess you do have to think of of 0:18:18.280 --> 0:18:20.960 human teasing as as a lot of things with humans 0:18:21.280 --> 0:18:24.439 happens to be you think of it as a linguistic 0:18:24.560 --> 0:18:27.960 and cultural complication of an impulse that may also be 0:18:28.080 --> 0:18:35.480 found within uh languageless animals. And so, for instance, Keltner says, quote, 0:18:35.640 --> 0:18:38.840 the centrality of teasing in our social evolution is suggested 0:18:38.880 --> 0:18:41.439 by just how pervasive teasing is in the animal world. 0:18:41.840 --> 0:18:45.439 Younger monkeys pull the tales of older monkeys. African hunting 0:18:45.480 --> 0:18:49.280 dogs jump all over one another, much like pad slapping 0:18:49.600 --> 0:18:54.119 joking football players moments before kickoff. In every corner of 0:18:54.119 --> 0:18:57.119 the world, human adults play peekaboo games to stir a 0:18:57.200 --> 0:19:00.679 sulking child. Children as early as age one and mimic 0:19:00.800 --> 0:19:05.320 nearby adults and teenagers prod one another to gauge romantic interest. 0:19:05.800 --> 0:19:08.840 In rejecting teasing, we may be losing something vital and 0:19:08.960 --> 0:19:12.760 necessary to our identity as the most playful of species. 0:19:13.080 --> 0:19:15.159 I mean, I think I'm pretty on board with his 0:19:15.240 --> 0:19:20.159 message there. It's the the difficulty comes in our uncertainty 0:19:20.240 --> 0:19:25.440 about recognizing the line between benign teasing and hurtful teasing. 0:19:26.080 --> 0:19:29.520 And and I think it's because there's that ambiguity, because 0:19:29.560 --> 0:19:32.040 there's always the danger that you you're not necessarily going 0:19:32.080 --> 0:19:36.199 to be able to recognize immediately the difference between one 0:19:36.280 --> 0:19:37.960 or the other. It's exactly the same problem I was 0:19:38.000 --> 0:19:40.720 mentioning a minute ago, where you like, think back on 0:19:40.800 --> 0:19:43.520 a time you saw somebody getting teased and went over 0:19:43.520 --> 0:19:46.800 the line, but you didn't stop it. Um, it's because 0:19:46.840 --> 0:19:49.359 of that ambiguity, like you didn't know if you should 0:19:49.400 --> 0:19:52.680 step in or not. And that ambiguity makes us uncomfortable 0:19:52.720 --> 0:19:55.200 because we know teasing this over the line is wrong, 0:19:55.240 --> 0:19:57.560 but you can't always see the line in the moment. 0:19:57.920 --> 0:20:00.359 It would be interesting to hear from from Edrick writers 0:20:00.400 --> 0:20:02.360 out there who are listening to the show on this 0:20:02.520 --> 0:20:05.040 because it does make one think that the message should 0:20:05.040 --> 0:20:08.080 not be hey, kids don't tease one another. It should 0:20:08.080 --> 0:20:11.560 maybe be more here areas where it is not cool 0:20:11.600 --> 0:20:13.760 to tease. You like, it's not cool to tease someone 0:20:13.800 --> 0:20:20.600 about their physical appearance or the characters or stereotypes, etcetera. Um, 0:20:20.640 --> 0:20:23.720 but various behavioral teasing. I don't know how, I mean, 0:20:23.720 --> 0:20:25.960 how do you end up teaching such nuance? Maybe you 0:20:26.240 --> 0:20:28.560 to a certain extent, you can't. It has to generate 0:20:28.680 --> 0:20:32.600 via the social interactions. Here's something I would say, Um, well, 0:20:32.640 --> 0:20:35.160 with a with a big exception for we can talk 0:20:35.200 --> 0:20:37.240 about the jester in a second. With a big exception 0:20:37.280 --> 0:20:40.160 for the jester. Maybe one thing is that you shouldn't 0:20:40.200 --> 0:20:44.040 tease somebody unless you like them and they know you 0:20:44.240 --> 0:20:48.280 like them. That's true because otherwise, if the if the 0:20:48.320 --> 0:20:52.320 existing social dynamic is is anything different than you are 0:20:52.359 --> 0:20:55.000 perhaps not engaging in pure teasing. No, I mean, then 0:20:55.000 --> 0:20:57.880 it becomes bullying. When you tease somebody you don't even 0:20:57.920 --> 0:21:01.040 like her respect obviously you're you're going to be tempted 0:21:01.080 --> 0:21:04.840 to edge over into some form of cruelty. Now, speaking 0:21:04.840 --> 0:21:07.159 of cruelty, we have to think a kaind of of kings, 0:21:07.280 --> 0:21:11.480 and of course the jester. Keltner points out that that 0:21:11.760 --> 0:21:13.960 in the tradition of the court jester, you could say 0:21:13.960 --> 0:21:18.600 teasing is quote, a playful, provocative mode of commentary. Yeah, 0:21:18.800 --> 0:21:21.359 I think that's right. I mean, as Touchstone said and 0:21:21.560 --> 0:21:24.640 Shakespeare's as you like it quote, the fool don't think 0:21:24.680 --> 0:21:27.080 he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to 0:21:27.119 --> 0:21:30.080 be a fool. You know, that's hundreds of years before 0:21:30.080 --> 0:21:33.400 all the modern research on illusory confidence and dunning Krueger 0:21:33.480 --> 0:21:35.880 and all that. I think this reveals that a key 0:21:35.960 --> 0:21:39.720 social good of even harder edge teasing is that when 0:21:39.760 --> 0:21:42.960 it's properly applied, it can be kind of a leveling tool, 0:21:43.080 --> 0:21:46.000 Like it knocks down the wicker men of big egos 0:21:46.200 --> 0:21:49.440 and and pops the balloons of unearned self confidence that 0:21:49.520 --> 0:21:52.600 we see so often in our highest levels of leadership. 0:21:53.240 --> 0:21:56.160 But of course, just as often it's applied the other way, 0:21:56.200 --> 0:21:59.200 and in a very bad, destructive way. It gets applied 0:21:59.240 --> 0:22:02.359 from the top down by the inflated ego against the 0:22:02.440 --> 0:22:05.320 less empowered. I guess it's sort of like a hierarchy 0:22:05.480 --> 0:22:09.520 enforcement mechanism. But the bottom up form, the jester driven form. 0:22:09.560 --> 0:22:12.280 I think that's a that leveling instinct is a useful 0:22:12.359 --> 0:22:15.480 social good and a form of freedom. Teasing is an 0:22:15.560 --> 0:22:19.400 arena that allows us to experiment with language, with personality 0:22:19.480 --> 0:22:22.520 and relationships. It's sort of an open ended game that 0:22:22.560 --> 0:22:25.920