1
00:00:03,080 --> 00:00:05,960
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff

2
00:00:06,000 --> 00:00:14,040
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey are welcome to Stuff to Blow

3
00:00:14,080 --> 00:00:16,439
Speaker 1: your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie

4
00:00:16,520 --> 00:00:20,120
Speaker 1: Kai E Douglas. Oh yeah, that's your your new nickname now,

5
00:00:20,360 --> 00:00:24,439
Speaker 1: I just want to try it out. Kawai kai. Yeah,

6
00:00:24,480 --> 00:00:26,520
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't think that people usually call

7
00:00:26,600 --> 00:00:30,080
Speaker 1: me cute that, which is what kawaii essentially means in Japanese.

8
00:00:30,560 --> 00:00:33,320
Speaker 1: M Yeah, what is it? What is cute? What does

9
00:00:33,360 --> 00:00:36,440
Speaker 1: it mean to be cute as a person is a thing? Like?

10
00:00:36,520 --> 00:00:38,920
Speaker 1: What does that label mean within our culture? Well, I

11
00:00:38,960 --> 00:00:42,040
Speaker 1: think the United States it's more of an outward appearance,

12
00:00:42,479 --> 00:00:45,640
Speaker 1: whereas in Japanese culture it is sort of this whole

13
00:00:45,800 --> 00:00:51,680
Speaker 1: industrial complex of absolute cuteness. Yes, yes, definitely in Japan,

14
00:00:51,760 --> 00:00:55,760
Speaker 1: kauai is big business and has been for for decades now. Um,

15
00:00:55,760 --> 00:00:58,080
Speaker 1: but certainly cute holds a lot of power here in

16
00:00:58,120 --> 00:01:00,720
Speaker 1: the States as well throughout most of the rest of

17
00:01:00,720 --> 00:01:04,000
Speaker 1: the world. I mean, even just looking around in this room,

18
00:01:04,040 --> 00:01:07,200
Speaker 1: we can see some little bits of cute peking their way,

19
00:01:07,200 --> 00:01:09,480
Speaker 1: and there's a there's a wooden monkey over there on

20
00:01:09,600 --> 00:01:14,240
Speaker 1: Noel's desk. There's Pablo Picasso in his underwear. Picture of

21
00:01:14,319 --> 00:01:17,160
Speaker 1: Pablo Picasso is underway. Yes, I don't know how cute

22
00:01:17,200 --> 00:01:20,440
Speaker 1: that is, but but the monkey's cute to eliminate extent,

23
00:01:20,520 --> 00:01:22,720
Speaker 1: the dinosaur is cute. And if you go around our death,

24
00:01:22,800 --> 00:01:25,800
Speaker 1: like any workplace, you're gonna find various totems of cute,

25
00:01:26,120 --> 00:01:30,759
Speaker 1: various little, uh little icons of cuteness that just some

26
00:01:30,800 --> 00:01:34,440
Speaker 1: degree empower the individual who has it. That's right. So

27
00:01:34,520 --> 00:01:37,240
Speaker 1: we are going to explore this concept of kauai e

28
00:01:37,440 --> 00:01:39,920
Speaker 1: and we're gonna do it through a couple of different

29
00:01:40,000 --> 00:01:43,720
Speaker 1: vectors here, one of which is, of course, uh, one

30
00:01:43,760 --> 00:01:46,640
Speaker 1: of the big exports of the Internet, and I'm not

31
00:01:46,680 --> 00:01:51,160
Speaker 1: talking about porn, but the other thing cats cats. Yes, yes,

32
00:01:51,200 --> 00:01:54,000
Speaker 1: So it should come as no surprise anyone that, of

33
00:01:54,040 --> 00:01:56,840
Speaker 1: course the Internet is full of cat videos, cat photos,

34
00:01:56,880 --> 00:02:00,040
Speaker 1: cat memes, images, gifts, you name it. I mean, in

35
00:02:00,080 --> 00:02:03,600
Speaker 1: any given day, you're probably bombarded with at least two

36
00:02:03,680 --> 00:02:05,800
Speaker 1: or three of these things, right, and if you act

37
00:02:05,880 --> 00:02:08,760
Speaker 1: actively seeking them out, if you're actively consuming them, then

38
00:02:08,800 --> 00:02:10,760
Speaker 1: there's no end in sight. You could get on a

39
00:02:10,800 --> 00:02:12,600
Speaker 1: kick one day and just keep going that you starve

40
00:02:12,639 --> 00:02:16,399
Speaker 1: to death. You could you would just fall down that

41
00:02:16,560 --> 00:02:20,240
Speaker 1: cat wormhole and and you're right, you can fill your

42
00:02:20,240 --> 00:02:23,680
Speaker 1: head with with all these sorts of images. And actually,

43
00:02:23,760 --> 00:02:28,840
Speaker 1: there is an artificial neural network that Google's ex Laboratory

44
00:02:28,880 --> 00:02:33,320
Speaker 1: and Stanford University have been working on. And again, this

45
00:02:33,400 --> 00:02:37,000
Speaker 1: is a large scale neural network. It's distributed across sixteen

46
00:02:37,000 --> 00:02:40,359
Speaker 1: thousand process of course, and researchers trained models with more

47
00:02:40,400 --> 00:02:43,040
Speaker 1: than one billion connections. And they found that this network,

48
00:02:43,080 --> 00:02:45,520
Speaker 1: when it sort of ran off on its own, it

49
00:02:45,720 --> 00:02:49,080
Speaker 1: learned how to identify a cat after a week of

50
00:02:49,120 --> 00:02:52,800
Speaker 1: watching YouTube videos. That is how prevalent this subject is

51
00:02:53,240 --> 00:02:56,760
Speaker 1: on the internet. Yeah, they fit at random thumbnails of images,

52
00:02:57,600 --> 00:03:00,880
Speaker 1: each one extracted from ten million YouTube big eos. And

53
00:03:01,200 --> 00:03:04,600
Speaker 1: it ends up having to basically invent the concept of

54
00:03:04,639 --> 00:03:07,920
Speaker 1: the cat in processing all of this data, figuring out right,

55
00:03:07,960 --> 00:03:09,480
Speaker 1: what's at the heart of this? What is this about?

56
00:03:09,560 --> 00:03:11,960
Speaker 1: What is what? What? What is all this data telling me?

57
00:03:12,000 --> 00:03:14,160
Speaker 1: It is telling me this is a cat, this is

58
00:03:14,200 --> 00:03:16,600
Speaker 1: the form of the cat, and uh and and then

59
00:03:16,919 --> 00:03:19,960
Speaker 1: and then everything else stems from that. And so you

60
00:03:20,080 --> 00:03:24,559
Speaker 1: have someone like philosopher Dan Dennett, who who's talking about

61
00:03:24,600 --> 00:03:28,000
Speaker 1: these sort of super normal stimuli, and he's talking about

62
00:03:28,000 --> 00:03:32,640
Speaker 1: super normal stimuli like chocolate cake. He's saying that there

63
00:03:32,639 --> 00:03:35,240
Speaker 1: are certain things in our environment that we see that

64
00:03:35,360 --> 00:03:39,920
Speaker 1: really get us ramped up, and that cats, babies, these

65
00:03:40,000 --> 00:03:44,000
Speaker 1: all maybe the sort of super stimuli that works UM

66
00:03:44,240 --> 00:03:47,840
Speaker 1: on this sort of evolution and instinctual preference. So if

67
00:03:47,840 --> 00:03:50,200
Speaker 1: you look at a chocolate cake, for instance, Um, that

68
00:03:50,320 --> 00:03:54,160
Speaker 1: is a high energy food, right, You like the chocolate

69
00:03:54,200 --> 00:03:56,880
Speaker 1: cake not because it's chocolate cake, but because you know

70
00:03:57,560 --> 00:03:59,880
Speaker 1: that it's going to be a huge shot of glucose,

71
00:04:00,040 --> 00:04:03,119
Speaker 1: and that you know, from an evolutionary perspective, that would

72
00:04:03,120 --> 00:04:05,160
Speaker 1: be helpful for us to have stores with that, right, Yes,

73
00:04:05,160 --> 00:04:07,320
Speaker 1: because in the ancient past, of course, a big chocolate

74
00:04:07,320 --> 00:04:09,760
Speaker 1: cake was hard to come by, or certainly that much sugar,

75
00:04:09,760 --> 00:04:11,440
Speaker 1: that much energy in one place was hard to come by.

76
00:04:11,440 --> 00:04:14,040
Speaker 1: You had to jump on it. And uh, it's the

77
00:04:14,120 --> 00:04:16,919
Speaker 1: chocolate cake example is great too because if anyone remembers

78
00:04:16,920 --> 00:04:20,480
Speaker 1: back to our episodes on decision fatigue UM and in

79
00:04:20,880 --> 00:04:23,200
Speaker 1: neural load and how that how we carry that through

80
00:04:23,240 --> 00:04:26,640
Speaker 1: the day. The experiments that studied it, Uh, most of

81
00:04:26,640 --> 00:04:29,479
Speaker 1: the time they seem to incorporate chocolate cake in one

82
00:04:29,480 --> 00:04:32,599
Speaker 1: form another, using that as the temptation as to your

83
00:04:32,920 --> 00:04:36,839
Speaker 1: to your willpower to your your problem solving ability. Let's

84
00:04:36,839 --> 00:04:38,520
Speaker 1: see what happens when we throw a chocolate cake in

85
00:04:38,560 --> 00:04:41,560
Speaker 1: your direction. Not literally, uh though that would be awesome

86
00:04:41,560 --> 00:04:43,719
Speaker 1: as well, but but we'll put it in your vicinity

87
00:04:43,720 --> 00:04:46,960
Speaker 1: and see how it affects your brain power and low behold,

88
00:04:47,040 --> 00:04:51,520
Speaker 1: it just really tinkered with people's ability to think rationally. Yeah,

89
00:04:51,520 --> 00:04:54,000
Speaker 1: because suddenly I have to at least resist it. And

90
00:04:54,080 --> 00:04:55,400
Speaker 1: in a way, it's like I have to fight that

91
00:04:55,480 --> 00:04:57,599
Speaker 1: chocolate cake. It's like it's like you're going through a

92
00:04:57,680 --> 00:05:00,160
Speaker 1: dungeon and you're trying to get to the treasure. Then

93
00:05:00,200 --> 00:05:02,280
Speaker 1: you have to fight a troll along the way. It's

94
00:05:02,320 --> 00:05:04,920
Speaker 1: the same thing, except the battles taking place inside your

95
00:05:04,920 --> 00:05:09,480
Speaker 1: mind as you try to resist the irresistible glucose temptation

96
00:05:09,560 --> 00:05:12,719
Speaker 1: of the cake. So Dannatt would say that a super

97
00:05:12,920 --> 00:05:16,400
Speaker 1: normal stimuli for cuteness, of course, would be babies. He says,

98
00:05:16,440 --> 00:05:18,560
Speaker 1: it's important that we love babies that will not be

99
00:05:18,640 --> 00:05:22,120
Speaker 1: put off by saying messy diapers. He says, so babies

100
00:05:22,160 --> 00:05:24,800
Speaker 1: have to attract our affection in our nurturing, and they do.

101
00:05:25,040 --> 00:05:26,840
Speaker 1: And so that's when you begin to really look at

102
00:05:26,839 --> 00:05:29,760
Speaker 1: not just babies, but cats and puppies and really anything

103
00:05:29,760 --> 00:05:34,520
Speaker 1: that embodies this idea of innocence and vulnerability and and

104
00:05:34,680 --> 00:05:38,159
Speaker 1: this sort of parental instinct that we'll talk a little

105
00:05:38,200 --> 00:05:41,479
Speaker 1: bit more about. But this is this idea that cats

106
00:05:41,640 --> 00:05:45,680
Speaker 1: perhaps have arrested our attention because of this instinct because

107
00:05:45,720 --> 00:05:48,200
Speaker 1: they look like babies essentially, and then play it up

108
00:05:48,200 --> 00:05:50,920
Speaker 1: to as we've discussed before, crying in a way that

109
00:05:51,040 --> 00:05:55,000
Speaker 1: mimics the cries of a baby, et cetera. Yes, now

110
00:05:55,040 --> 00:05:57,160
Speaker 1: I wanted to mention this because we are going to

111
00:05:57,240 --> 00:06:01,200
Speaker 1: go dive into this kawaii or going to dive more

112
00:06:01,320 --> 00:06:04,520
Speaker 1: into cats and the culture of cats on the internet.

113
00:06:04,560 --> 00:06:08,000
Speaker 1: But there's something called cute aggression, and I think, I

114
00:06:08,000 --> 00:06:10,720
Speaker 1: don't know, part of me is sort of, you know,

115
00:06:10,800 --> 00:06:14,000
Speaker 1: one eyebrow raised about this study and it just sounds

116
00:06:14,000 --> 00:06:17,719
Speaker 1: like a tumbler page. It's actually a study actually theory. Yeah.

117
00:06:18,000 --> 00:06:21,360
Speaker 1: So Rebecca Dyer, she's a grad student psychology at Yale University,

118
00:06:21,360 --> 00:06:24,320
Speaker 1: took one nine people and she had them look at

119
00:06:24,360 --> 00:06:28,240
Speaker 1: pictures of animals. The categories were cute, funny, and neutral

120
00:06:28,320 --> 00:06:33,080
Speaker 1: photos actually specifically of puppies, and then the participants rated

121
00:06:33,120 --> 00:06:36,200
Speaker 1: how they felt about the pictures agreeing or disagreeing with

122
00:06:36,279 --> 00:06:40,920
Speaker 1: statements like I just can't handle it, meaning the cuteness um,

123
00:06:41,360 --> 00:06:43,080
Speaker 1: or whether whether or not it made them want to

124
00:06:43,120 --> 00:06:46,440
Speaker 1: squeeze something, or if they were seized with the impulse

125
00:06:46,520 --> 00:06:50,960
Speaker 1: to vocalize after seeing one of these pictures like so cute.

126
00:06:51,360 --> 00:06:54,080
Speaker 1: So researchers found that the cute or the animal, the

127
00:06:54,160 --> 00:06:58,440
Speaker 1: more aggressive the response. Okay, okay, So now they follow

128
00:06:58,520 --> 00:07:02,440
Speaker 1: up with a non verbal study and participants. Participants are

129
00:07:02,480 --> 00:07:05,120
Speaker 1: given bubble wrap and they're told to just go to

130
00:07:05,120 --> 00:07:08,440
Speaker 1: town with it, okay, and they watch a slide show

131
00:07:08,560 --> 00:07:12,440
Speaker 1: of cute and then funny and then neutral pictures of animals,

132
00:07:12,880 --> 00:07:15,320
Speaker 1: and then lo and behold. Which you find is that

133
00:07:15,480 --> 00:07:19,880
Speaker 1: more bubbles were popped during the cute slide shows as

134
00:07:19,880 --> 00:07:23,600
Speaker 1: opposed to the funny pictures of animals or the neutral

135
00:07:23,600 --> 00:07:26,040
Speaker 1: pictures of animals. Now, the data is not that crazy.

136
00:07:26,080 --> 00:07:28,680
Speaker 1: I mean, we're talking about hundred and twenty pops for

137
00:07:28,680 --> 00:07:32,920
Speaker 1: the cuteness um, eight pops for the funny, and only

138
00:07:32,920 --> 00:07:35,360
Speaker 1: one hundred or excuse me, and one hundred for the neutral.

139
00:07:35,720 --> 00:07:39,080
Speaker 1: So you know, the data Here's not like putting this

140
00:07:39,080 --> 00:07:42,080
Speaker 1: this strong information out there to say like people are

141
00:07:42,160 --> 00:07:45,720
Speaker 1: just bursting with cute aggression. And you know, but they

142
00:07:45,720 --> 00:07:48,640
Speaker 1: are saying, Rebecca Dye or at least is saying it

143
00:07:48,720 --> 00:07:51,680
Speaker 1: could be the sort of pent up frustration at not

144
00:07:51,760 --> 00:07:54,440
Speaker 1: being able to reach through those photos and cuddle that

145
00:07:54,600 --> 00:07:57,240
Speaker 1: baby or that puppy because you just want to touch it,

146
00:07:57,280 --> 00:07:59,320
Speaker 1: you don't want to bite it. Well, and that's what

147
00:07:59,360 --> 00:08:02,200
Speaker 1: we've talked about the before. How how sometimes there are

148
00:08:02,200 --> 00:08:04,880
Speaker 1: these there are people who will say that baby is

149
00:08:04,880 --> 00:08:07,400
Speaker 1: so cute, I just want to eat it. Yeah, and

150
00:08:07,440 --> 00:08:10,120
Speaker 1: on some level, you you actually do. On some level,

151
00:08:10,200 --> 00:08:14,520
Speaker 1: you're being fooled into into equating the baby's cuteness and

152
00:08:14,560 --> 00:08:16,240
Speaker 1: the face of the baby, the shape of the baby,

153
00:08:16,600 --> 00:08:19,760
Speaker 1: the baby nous of the creature. Equating it with something

154
00:08:19,760 --> 00:08:22,400
Speaker 1: you would actually gorge on is found in the barest,

155
00:08:23,240 --> 00:08:26,840
Speaker 1: which is kind of awful. Yeah. Alright, well, on that note,

156
00:08:26,840 --> 00:08:29,360
Speaker 1: maybe we should take a break here and when we

157
00:08:29,400 --> 00:08:39,760
Speaker 1: get back we'll get more into this idea of quite

158
00:08:40,960 --> 00:08:43,480
Speaker 1: all right, we're back. You know, another thing about that study,

159
00:08:43,840 --> 00:08:46,480
Speaker 1: I had never heard of a study using the bubble

160
00:08:46,520 --> 00:08:50,360
Speaker 1: wrap uh method before. I really hope that become standardized

161
00:08:50,400 --> 00:08:52,960
Speaker 1: to the point where we see movies about serial killers

162
00:08:53,240 --> 00:08:55,600
Speaker 1: where like a potential serial killer is being forced to

163
00:08:55,679 --> 00:08:58,240
Speaker 1: look at, you know, accident photos gets a rise out

164
00:08:58,240 --> 00:08:59,880
Speaker 1: of him. And so it's like, you know, and Anthony

165
00:09:00,000 --> 00:09:02,480
Speaker 1: Hopkins Hannibal like characters sitting there with the grim face,

166
00:09:02,520 --> 00:09:05,240
Speaker 1: watching grim footage and then popping bubble rap, and it

167
00:09:05,320 --> 00:09:07,680
Speaker 1: just becomes really so much a part of how we

168
00:09:07,720 --> 00:09:11,560
Speaker 1: determine unconscious thoughts that even the CIA begins to use it, right,

169
00:09:11,840 --> 00:09:15,320
Speaker 1: just just orders with like vast reams of the stuff. Yeah,

170
00:09:15,559 --> 00:09:18,280
Speaker 1: and then people are probably more willing participants because who

171
00:09:18,320 --> 00:09:21,040
Speaker 1: doesn't love to pop bubble wrap? Everyone? Everyone loves it,

172
00:09:21,080 --> 00:09:25,559
Speaker 1: even dogs love it. Sure it's not as fine, all right. Kawaii.

173
00:09:25,760 --> 00:09:28,000
Speaker 1: Um we we touched on it at the beginning of

174
00:09:28,080 --> 00:09:30,760
Speaker 1: the episode, but I kind of see it. This is

175
00:09:30,920 --> 00:09:33,400
Speaker 1: very reductionist because it really we could do an entire

176
00:09:33,480 --> 00:09:36,719
Speaker 1: podcast on Japanese culture in kawaii, but um, it's sort

177
00:09:36,720 --> 00:09:41,040
Speaker 1: of this Hello Kitty ization is certainly the the easiest

178
00:09:41,280 --> 00:09:45,920
Speaker 1: example and certainly the most widespread example of of Japanese

179
00:09:45,920 --> 00:09:50,400
Speaker 1: culture Kawaii cute culture because it's it's everywhere now, and

180
00:09:50,440 --> 00:09:52,920
Speaker 1: it's it's it's the big eyes, it's the cute creature

181
00:09:53,320 --> 00:09:55,960
Speaker 1: and it and it also has this sort of Japanese

182
00:09:56,000 --> 00:09:59,199
Speaker 1: school girl quality to it. And then that's, according to

183
00:09:59,600 --> 00:10:03,680
Speaker 1: some cultural historians, that's kind of the the origin of

184
00:10:03,760 --> 00:10:07,400
Speaker 1: the Kauaii movement in Japan anyway, that it you go

185
00:10:07,400 --> 00:10:09,920
Speaker 1: back to the nineteen seventies, you find this kitten writing,

186
00:10:10,040 --> 00:10:14,000
Speaker 1: this cute handwriting they call it among schools, right because

187
00:10:14,040 --> 00:10:16,400
Speaker 1: it wasn't really all that readaful. I mean, it got,

188
00:10:16,559 --> 00:10:18,960
Speaker 1: you know, to the point where it's just big round

189
00:10:19,080 --> 00:10:22,200
Speaker 1: characters and faces and stars and uh and the and

190
00:10:22,280 --> 00:10:24,480
Speaker 1: the teacher who was saying, no, this is not actual writing.

191
00:10:24,840 --> 00:10:26,800
Speaker 1: But then it blows up. It starts showing up in

192
00:10:26,880 --> 00:10:28,880
Speaker 1: comic I mean not in common boost been magazines, but

193
00:10:28,880 --> 00:10:33,520
Speaker 1: then ultimately in Magna and other forms, and eventually becomes

194
00:10:33,520 --> 00:10:36,000
Speaker 1: this huge industry with stuff like Hello Kitty, which is

195
00:10:36,040 --> 00:10:39,040
Speaker 1: just all over the world and and and attached to

196
00:10:39,080 --> 00:10:42,000
Speaker 1: so many different products. Yeah, and if you look really

197
00:10:42,040 --> 00:10:44,959
Speaker 1: deeply into kauai, you will begin to see that it's

198
00:10:45,000 --> 00:10:48,640
Speaker 1: not just the products the clothing, um even food items,

199
00:10:48,720 --> 00:10:50,800
Speaker 1: or even some of the logos that are on airplanes

200
00:10:50,960 --> 00:10:56,480
Speaker 1: in some um government entities, but it's also behavior and

201
00:10:56,520 --> 00:11:00,920
Speaker 1: mannerism among both genders. And it really is this preoccupation

202
00:11:01,080 --> 00:11:06,319
Speaker 1: with um not just cuteness, but youth and innocence. So

203
00:11:06,480 --> 00:11:08,920
Speaker 1: it's this, uh, sort of an arrested development. I look

204
00:11:08,920 --> 00:11:11,120
Speaker 1: at it that way, not the TV show, but in

205
00:11:11,200 --> 00:11:15,600
Speaker 1: terms of, you know, trying to stave off aging and

206
00:11:15,840 --> 00:11:19,920
Speaker 1: all of the sort of responsibility and perhaps the less

207
00:11:19,960 --> 00:11:23,960
Speaker 1: fun aspects of life as you get older. Yeah, and

208
00:11:24,000 --> 00:11:27,080
Speaker 1: then probably encapsulates a lot of nostalgia as well, because

209
00:11:27,120 --> 00:11:29,960
Speaker 1: you grow older, you end up still catching attaching these

210
00:11:30,000 --> 00:11:34,040
Speaker 1: cute icons in this qualification of just about every aspect

211
00:11:34,040 --> 00:11:36,559
Speaker 1: of life, and therefore you keep it kind of tethered

212
00:11:36,720 --> 00:11:39,400
Speaker 1: to youth and tethered to youth culture. You know what's

213
00:11:39,400 --> 00:11:42,720
Speaker 1: interesting about that too, is that if you seize onto

214
00:11:42,720 --> 00:11:44,880
Speaker 1: this idea of kai and you see them to this

215
00:11:45,000 --> 00:11:49,240
Speaker 1: idea of embodying these aspects of cuteness and big eidness

216
00:11:49,320 --> 00:11:53,280
Speaker 1: and innocence, then perhaps in a way you're thinking to

217
00:11:53,360 --> 00:11:56,720
Speaker 1: yourself on a subconscious level, at least you know, I

218
00:11:56,720 --> 00:11:59,520
Speaker 1: will be more protected out there in society, which then

219
00:11:59,559 --> 00:12:02,319
Speaker 1: brings up this whole idea of you know, how do

220
00:12:02,360 --> 00:12:06,160
Speaker 1: we really how much of this parental response is responsible

221
00:12:06,200 --> 00:12:09,480
Speaker 1: for our behavior in the way that we interact with

222
00:12:09,520 --> 00:12:13,240
Speaker 1: things that are cute. Now, another bit of Japanese cuteness

223
00:12:13,280 --> 00:12:16,600
Speaker 1: that instantly comes to mind is the the lucky cat.

224
00:12:17,200 --> 00:12:19,760
Speaker 1: If you find all you find it all over Asia,

225
00:12:19,760 --> 00:12:22,120
Speaker 1: and you you find it increasingly everywhere in the United

226
00:12:22,120 --> 00:12:24,320
Speaker 1: States as well. Of course, the little generally like a

227
00:12:24,360 --> 00:12:29,520
Speaker 1: gold plastic cat, big eyes and it's it's waving its

228
00:12:29,520 --> 00:12:33,480
Speaker 1: little paw in the air. Uh. These are officially called

229
00:12:33,720 --> 00:12:37,320
Speaker 1: maneki nicko or beckoning cats. And I was looking up

230
00:12:37,360 --> 00:12:39,040
Speaker 1: some stuff back because I'm well, how does that tie

231
00:12:39,040 --> 00:12:43,040
Speaker 1: into cute culture? Because as I suspected, that's older in

232
00:12:43,080 --> 00:12:45,680
Speaker 1: its roots than the Hello Kitty. It dates back to

233
00:12:45,760 --> 00:12:48,640
Speaker 1: the the Edo period, which was between a sixteen o

234
00:12:48,760 --> 00:12:51,600
Speaker 1: three and eighteen sixties seven. Uh, And you know, it's

235
00:12:51,600 --> 00:12:54,160
Speaker 1: just sort of picked up steam over time. So even

236
00:12:54,160 --> 00:12:57,400
Speaker 1: though we look at the kitten writing in the seventies

237
00:12:57,720 --> 00:12:59,959
Speaker 1: and and the rise of Hello Kitty is sort of

238
00:13:00,080 --> 00:13:04,800
Speaker 1: the real um pivotal aspects of Hawaii, I feel like

239
00:13:04,800 --> 00:13:07,840
Speaker 1: that the roots were already there, if if nowhere else

240
00:13:07,960 --> 00:13:11,000
Speaker 1: in the presence of cats. I think you're right now.

241
00:13:11,040 --> 00:13:13,520
Speaker 1: I have this idea of you know, the thousands of

242
00:13:13,600 --> 00:13:15,680
Speaker 1: years from now, well people look back at you know,

243
00:13:15,720 --> 00:13:18,080
Speaker 1: sort of a saying, oh, the Ming dynasty thing, you know,

244
00:13:18,160 --> 00:13:21,720
Speaker 1: the rise of the Hello Kiddy dynasty, Because that really

245
00:13:21,880 --> 00:13:24,839
Speaker 1: is how pervasive kauai is. And I think in the

246
00:13:24,920 --> 00:13:29,360
Speaker 1: United States here were we have flavors of it um

247
00:13:29,440 --> 00:13:31,360
Speaker 1: and you know, just look around, as you say, like,

248
00:13:31,520 --> 00:13:33,040
Speaker 1: you know, we look around our office and we can

249
00:13:33,080 --> 00:13:36,720
Speaker 1: see that it's it's um interwoven into the way that

250
00:13:36,760 --> 00:13:39,840
Speaker 1: we decorate or we perceive certain aspects we have our life.

251
00:13:39,880 --> 00:13:43,160
Speaker 1: At least two adult members of the staff who are

252
00:13:43,200 --> 00:13:48,319
Speaker 1: Disney fanatics, and there's a lot of kauai tied up there.

253
00:13:48,600 --> 00:13:50,439
Speaker 1: And again, just about every other death has some sort

254
00:13:50,480 --> 00:13:52,600
Speaker 1: of token, some sort of little bit of kauai. I

255
00:13:52,600 --> 00:13:54,319
Speaker 1: feel like if you look closely enough, if you root

256
00:13:54,360 --> 00:13:56,280
Speaker 1: through their stuff, I mean really get in there and

257
00:13:56,320 --> 00:13:59,480
Speaker 1: in their privacy, you'll find some bit of cute that

258
00:13:59,679 --> 00:14:02,400
Speaker 1: is keeping them going. And that sounds kind of specific.

259
00:14:02,880 --> 00:14:05,760
Speaker 1: What have you found? Oh, all sorts of stuff. I'll

260
00:14:05,760 --> 00:14:08,319
Speaker 1: show you later. I have a box. Okay, So you're

261
00:14:08,320 --> 00:14:11,280
Speaker 1: probably wondering to yourself, are there any studies that can

262
00:14:11,320 --> 00:14:14,080
Speaker 1: support this cuteness, that can kind of give us a

263
00:14:14,120 --> 00:14:17,000
Speaker 1: better idea of why we react to this stuff the

264
00:14:17,000 --> 00:14:19,560
Speaker 1: way we do. Of course there is because you know

265
00:14:19,600 --> 00:14:22,400
Speaker 1: what we're talking about cute. We're talking about the way

266
00:14:22,440 --> 00:14:25,120
Speaker 1: that of kitten's face is cute to us because it

267
00:14:25,240 --> 00:14:28,800
Speaker 1: is reminiscent of the baby's face. And then what happens

268
00:14:28,800 --> 00:14:30,880
Speaker 1: when we look at the baby, right, that's the question. Well,

269
00:14:30,920 --> 00:14:32,240
Speaker 1: there have been studies that have looked at that. We

270
00:14:32,320 --> 00:14:34,960
Speaker 1: have the technology, of course to look inside the brain

271
00:14:35,040 --> 00:14:37,560
Speaker 1: to see how what kind of neural activity is going

272
00:14:37,560 --> 00:14:40,800
Speaker 1: on when we do different things. And there was there's

273
00:14:40,840 --> 00:14:43,320
Speaker 1: one particular study that we're looking at here, uh and

274
00:14:43,360 --> 00:14:45,880
Speaker 1: this was this involved the use of a meg scanner

275
00:14:46,600 --> 00:14:49,080
Speaker 1: and they were looking at parental responses to both puppy

276
00:14:49,120 --> 00:14:55,200
Speaker 1: faces and baby faces and then unfamiliar adult faces. Right, yes, Okay.

277
00:14:55,400 --> 00:14:58,840
Speaker 1: The really startling thing about this study is that when

278
00:14:59,360 --> 00:15:03,040
Speaker 1: participants looking at all of these pictures within one seventh

279
00:15:03,040 --> 00:15:06,680
Speaker 1: of a second, just a split second, literally, the medial

280
00:15:06,880 --> 00:15:10,080
Speaker 1: orbital frontal cortex, which is involved in emotional responses, lit

281
00:15:10,160 --> 00:15:12,600
Speaker 1: up like a pinball machine when people look at infant

282
00:15:12,640 --> 00:15:16,160
Speaker 1: and puppy faces, but was pretty, you know, relatively silent

283
00:15:16,720 --> 00:15:20,720
Speaker 1: when adult faces showed up. So kringele Bach Morton Kringelbach,

284
00:15:20,920 --> 00:15:25,320
Speaker 1: who ran the study calls this the parental instinct, and

285
00:15:25,400 --> 00:15:28,520
Speaker 1: he says these responses are almost certainly too fast to

286
00:15:28,560 --> 00:15:31,840
Speaker 1: be consciously controlled and are therefore perhaps instinctive. That's his

287
00:15:31,960 --> 00:15:34,680
Speaker 1: idea about it. Yeah, because we're talking about middleseconds here.

288
00:15:34,720 --> 00:15:37,760
Speaker 1: We're talking about just an instant of seeing that baby face,

289
00:15:37,800 --> 00:15:41,840
Speaker 1: that puppy face, and you are suddenly pacified. You suddenly

290
00:15:42,040 --> 00:15:46,000
Speaker 1: you're maybe put out of an aggressive spirit or irritated spirit,

291
00:15:46,200 --> 00:15:49,320
Speaker 1: and you have to somehow help the poor larval human

292
00:15:49,480 --> 00:15:51,560
Speaker 1: or dog. Yeah. And the thing is that it even

293
00:15:51,600 --> 00:15:55,680
Speaker 1: goes beyond visual processing, because people who are blowing from

294
00:15:55,760 --> 00:15:58,600
Speaker 1: birth have the same areas activated in their brains when

295
00:15:58,640 --> 00:16:02,040
Speaker 1: they hear the name of animals. So the concept of

296
00:16:02,080 --> 00:16:04,720
Speaker 1: animals or how we've painted them and language just goes

297
00:16:04,880 --> 00:16:09,400
Speaker 1: far beyond just pictures. Here. The idea is really standing

298
00:16:09,440 --> 00:16:13,360
Speaker 1: in for um, the experience. So that study makes a

299
00:16:13,360 --> 00:16:15,160
Speaker 1: lot of sense. I mean again, it just ties in

300
00:16:15,200 --> 00:16:17,600
Speaker 1: directly to the way we look at look at an infant,

301
00:16:17,600 --> 00:16:20,120
Speaker 1: at a kitten, at a puppy and uh and and

302
00:16:20,160 --> 00:16:22,400
Speaker 1: how we instantly want to care for it on some level.

303
00:16:22,560 --> 00:16:24,760
Speaker 1: And I feel like we all buy into that really easily.

304
00:16:24,960 --> 00:16:29,080
Speaker 1: But here's another idea that two twelve Japanese study looked at,

305
00:16:29,120 --> 00:16:32,200
Speaker 1: and this one was published in the Plos One. They

306
00:16:32,200 --> 00:16:34,320
Speaker 1: were asking, well, if I look at something cute, how

307
00:16:34,360 --> 00:16:39,040
Speaker 1: does it affect my attentiveness? Which which that question makes

308
00:16:39,040 --> 00:16:41,040
Speaker 1: me think of all these things that we were We

309
00:16:41,080 --> 00:16:44,440
Speaker 1: surround ourselves with these icons of cute, Like the cute

310
00:16:44,480 --> 00:16:46,200
Speaker 1: little lamp that I have on my desk. It's like

311
00:16:46,200 --> 00:16:48,760
Speaker 1: a little face um that I got an I kea

312
00:16:48,880 --> 00:16:51,760
Speaker 1: years ago. What happens when I look at that? Is

313
00:16:51,800 --> 00:16:54,840
Speaker 1: it making me more relax? Is it making me more atentive?

314
00:16:54,920 --> 00:16:56,880
Speaker 1: Is it a just a distraction? Is all this cutest

315
00:16:56,880 --> 00:17:00,240
Speaker 1: a distraction? Well, in this study they looked into this.

316
00:17:00,640 --> 00:17:04,879
Speaker 1: They took participants and they viewed animal images and then

317
00:17:04,720 --> 00:17:07,560
Speaker 1: they tested them to see how they performed on various tasks,

318
00:17:08,119 --> 00:17:11,120
Speaker 1: and they found that participants who viewed infant animal images,

319
00:17:11,280 --> 00:17:14,119
Speaker 1: ones that were rated particularly cute, they were able to

320
00:17:14,160 --> 00:17:17,200
Speaker 1: perform pass better than those who viewed images of boring

321
00:17:17,240 --> 00:17:22,000
Speaker 1: adult animals. So it's interesting, right, because you're like, well,

322
00:17:22,400 --> 00:17:24,800
Speaker 1: is it really possible that if I look at a

323
00:17:24,840 --> 00:17:27,200
Speaker 1: cute object or a cute picture that I'll be able

324
00:17:27,240 --> 00:17:32,320
Speaker 1: to better? You know, concentrate on the task before me.

325
00:17:32,600 --> 00:17:35,440
Speaker 1: But I would indeed hang in there as the cute

326
00:17:35,480 --> 00:17:38,840
Speaker 1: cat hanging from the branch. I would want to to

327
00:17:38,840 --> 00:17:40,760
Speaker 1: to convey to you. I like, how you get that?

328
00:17:41,200 --> 00:17:44,080
Speaker 1: That was nice stuff? Um. But the thing is is

329
00:17:44,119 --> 00:17:47,840
Speaker 1: that each group of participants consisted of less than fifty

330
00:17:47,920 --> 00:17:50,159
Speaker 1: university students, and I think they did three different versions

331
00:17:50,440 --> 00:17:53,919
Speaker 1: of these attention tests. And then all of these fifty

332
00:17:54,200 --> 00:17:57,679
Speaker 1: university students were between the ages of eighteen and twenty two.

333
00:17:58,200 --> 00:18:01,240
Speaker 1: And so this is also taking play in Japanese culture,

334
00:18:01,320 --> 00:18:05,879
Speaker 1: where you know that the kawaii effect is much more pronounced,

335
00:18:06,400 --> 00:18:09,879
Speaker 1: which leads some people to say, perhaps there's not really

336
00:18:09,960 --> 00:18:15,320
Speaker 1: that much evidence here that cuteness could bolster your attentiveness. Yeah,

337
00:18:15,320 --> 00:18:17,280
Speaker 1: because if this held true, you would just want to

338
00:18:17,640 --> 00:18:21,480
Speaker 1: cuteify everything. You'd want a little cute faces and animals

339
00:18:21,640 --> 00:18:24,840
Speaker 1: just crawling all over just everything in your work life,

340
00:18:24,880 --> 00:18:27,640
Speaker 1: everything at home, just until you're just there's just an

341
00:18:27,680 --> 00:18:31,240
Speaker 1: overdose of cute all the time, just to keep you attentive.

342
00:18:32,160 --> 00:18:34,200
Speaker 1: And I have to say that might be distracting at

343
00:18:34,200 --> 00:18:38,919
Speaker 1: that point. Yeah, alright, so what about cuteness and a robot?

344
00:18:38,920 --> 00:18:42,080
Speaker 1: And I'm not talking about you, Arnie. Sorry, but I'm

345
00:18:42,080 --> 00:18:45,840
Speaker 1: talking about Kismut the robot. And we've actually met Kismut

346
00:18:46,040 --> 00:18:49,560
Speaker 1: before here on, at least in the episodes that we've described.

347
00:18:49,800 --> 00:18:52,919
Speaker 1: Kismutt is robot that has been used at M I

348
00:18:52,960 --> 00:18:55,919
Speaker 1: T and it is used to figure out sort of

349
00:18:55,920 --> 00:19:01,120
Speaker 1: the psychological ramifications of interactions between humans and robots, specifically children.

350
00:19:01,520 --> 00:19:06,359
Speaker 1: It kind of looks like a skinless robot Magua or Furby. Yeah, yeah,

351
00:19:06,359 --> 00:19:10,159
Speaker 1: Ferby definitely. It's got the furry ears, it's got huge eyes,

352
00:19:10,760 --> 00:19:14,240
Speaker 1: and it can make a lot of distinctive um faces

353
00:19:14,280 --> 00:19:17,280
Speaker 1: that that interact with the person. Yeah, and it works. Uh.

354
00:19:17,920 --> 00:19:20,680
Speaker 1: I think it works really well because it's not it's

355
00:19:20,680 --> 00:19:23,200
Speaker 1: not an attempted to human face, so you don't actually

356
00:19:23,320 --> 00:19:27,000
Speaker 1: get into that possibility of uncanny Valley. It's instead this

357
00:19:27,160 --> 00:19:30,600
Speaker 1: this non human but but it that it has human

358
00:19:30,680 --> 00:19:33,800
Speaker 1: qualities to it, and then it is successfully making all

359
00:19:33,840 --> 00:19:37,520
Speaker 1: these various faces and conveying emotion. At the bottom of this,

360
00:19:37,640 --> 00:19:40,760
Speaker 1: there's just cuteness. That's what reigns supreme about this robot

361
00:19:41,280 --> 00:19:44,320
Speaker 1: um other than its ability to interact with humans. So

362
00:19:44,800 --> 00:19:47,000
Speaker 1: what do you do? You take this robot and you

363
00:19:47,119 --> 00:19:50,800
Speaker 1: insert it into a study, which is headed up by

364
00:19:50,880 --> 00:19:54,399
Speaker 1: Terry Burnham at Harvard University along with Brian Hair. They

365
00:19:54,520 --> 00:19:58,480
Speaker 1: pitted nine volunteers against each other anonymously in games where

366
00:19:58,760 --> 00:20:00,879
Speaker 1: they had to donate money or withhold. It's sort of

367
00:20:00,880 --> 00:20:03,800
Speaker 1: the classic scenario we've seen over and over again. They

368
00:20:03,800 --> 00:20:06,200
Speaker 1: can donate it into a communal pot and that would

369
00:20:06,280 --> 00:20:09,040
Speaker 1: yield the most money, but only if other people donated

370
00:20:09,080 --> 00:20:12,360
Speaker 1: to So the researchers split the group into two. Half

371
00:20:12,440 --> 00:20:15,360
Speaker 1: made their choices undisturbed at computer screens, while the other

372
00:20:15,440 --> 00:20:20,639
Speaker 1: half were faced with the photo of this absolute adorable kisman. Now,

373
00:20:20,680 --> 00:20:25,280
Speaker 1: the players who gazed at Kismut gave thirty more to

374
00:20:25,320 --> 00:20:27,879
Speaker 1: the pot than others, and Vernam and Hare believed that

375
00:20:27,920 --> 00:20:31,400
Speaker 1: at some subconscious level they were aware of being watched,

376
00:20:31,480 --> 00:20:34,280
Speaker 1: or they sort of took that as being watched just

377
00:20:34,359 --> 00:20:38,280
Speaker 1: looking at this photo. Um, but it may have something

378
00:20:38,320 --> 00:20:41,720
Speaker 1: also to do with our brain kind of carrying out

379
00:20:41,720 --> 00:20:46,040
Speaker 1: this decision making with this cute, this representation of cuteness

380
00:20:46,080 --> 00:20:48,399
Speaker 1: in front of us. Yeah, because how hard and selfish

381
00:20:48,440 --> 00:20:50,640
Speaker 1: can you be in the presence of like a really

382
00:20:50,680 --> 00:20:53,399
Speaker 1: cute kitten or an adorable baby. Not so much in

383
00:20:53,600 --> 00:20:56,000
Speaker 1: even in the processing of it of thinking thinking, oh,

384
00:20:56,080 --> 00:20:57,880
Speaker 1: this is cute, and you know that melts my heart

385
00:20:57,880 --> 00:21:00,639
Speaker 1: a little bit. But in that those micro sect that

386
00:21:00,680 --> 00:21:04,400
Speaker 1: we talked about, of seeing this cute image and that,

387
00:21:05,000 --> 00:21:07,359
Speaker 1: you know, against every fiber in your your your body,

388
00:21:07,400 --> 00:21:10,080
Speaker 1: any defense you may have you may have up against

389
00:21:10,080 --> 00:21:12,400
Speaker 1: that cuteness and against the idea of giving your money

390
00:21:12,440 --> 00:21:15,959
Speaker 1: away or or or or letting your your temper go

391
00:21:16,040 --> 00:21:18,159
Speaker 1: down a bit, it kind of creeps in past all

392
00:21:18,160 --> 00:21:21,840
Speaker 1: those defenses and deactivates you. Well, what I love too,

393
00:21:22,000 --> 00:21:26,399
Speaker 1: is this idea that you could manipulate altruistic behavior with

394
00:21:26,480 --> 00:21:29,680
Speaker 1: a pair of fake eyeballs, right just staring at you,

395
00:21:30,359 --> 00:21:34,800
Speaker 1: adorable fake eyeballs. All right, Well, we're gonna take one

396
00:21:34,800 --> 00:21:37,040
Speaker 1: more break, and when we come back, we're gonna talk

397
00:21:37,040 --> 00:21:39,119
Speaker 1: a little bit more about Kauai and a little bit

398
00:21:39,160 --> 00:21:51,880
Speaker 1: more about cats. All right, we're back. Okay. So there

399
00:21:52,000 --> 00:21:55,840
Speaker 1: is a wonderful article from Wired magazine called In Search

400
00:21:55,920 --> 00:21:59,280
Speaker 1: of the Living, purring, singing Heart of the Online Cat

401
00:21:59,359 --> 00:22:04,320
Speaker 1: Industrial Complex. Uh. The author, Gideon Lewis Krause, cites a

402
00:22:04,359 --> 00:22:08,280
Speaker 1: couple of different studies to try to explain why cats

403
00:22:08,520 --> 00:22:11,280
Speaker 1: rule the Internet. And it's very interesting. Yeah, it is

404
00:22:11,320 --> 00:22:15,240
Speaker 1: a very long discussion of the power of cats, the

405
00:22:15,240 --> 00:22:18,000
Speaker 1: power of feelines, but it is I would say it's

406
00:22:18,080 --> 00:22:20,880
Speaker 1: must read for anyone who is a self aware cat

407
00:22:20,960 --> 00:22:24,919
Speaker 1: person because she really gets into how we interact with

408
00:22:24,960 --> 00:22:28,640
Speaker 1: the feelines, how the feelines to limited extent and interact

409
00:22:28,680 --> 00:22:32,840
Speaker 1: with us, and how this becomes a metaphor for the

410
00:22:32,880 --> 00:22:35,840
Speaker 1: way we approach life itself. Yeah, and if you're very

411
00:22:35,840 --> 00:22:38,520
Speaker 1: interested in Japanese culture, this is also a great way

412
00:22:38,560 --> 00:22:41,480
Speaker 1: to sort of plunge in and see how that's played out.

413
00:22:42,240 --> 00:22:45,119
Speaker 1: The first study that was mentioned in this article is

414
00:22:45,119 --> 00:22:47,880
Speaker 1: a study of internet habits of two hundred and six

415
00:22:47,960 --> 00:22:50,640
Speaker 1: teams or a University of Science and Technology students. Now

416
00:22:51,760 --> 00:22:54,800
Speaker 1: of these students were deemed depressed after they were being

417
00:22:55,560 --> 00:22:58,199
Speaker 1: after they were surveyed, so there's this sort of you know,

418
00:22:58,400 --> 00:23:02,840
Speaker 1: pat standard survey to assess levels of depression that was

419
00:23:03,000 --> 00:23:05,320
Speaker 1: administered to them. So they figured out that, you know,

420
00:23:05,400 --> 00:23:09,200
Speaker 1: within the sample size of these people are depressed. So

421
00:23:09,320 --> 00:23:13,320
Speaker 1: they found two things in this Internet usage UM. By

422
00:23:13,320 --> 00:23:17,399
Speaker 1: the way, they also had access to the amount of

423
00:23:17,800 --> 00:23:21,800
Speaker 1: UM activity they had online, not specifically what sights they

424
00:23:21,800 --> 00:23:24,960
Speaker 1: went to, but the kind of activity like for instance,

425
00:23:25,200 --> 00:23:29,280
Speaker 1: file sharing, checking their email, surfing, the way of looking

426
00:23:29,320 --> 00:23:33,240
Speaker 1: at images, looking at videos. Yeah, and so to findings

427
00:23:33,240 --> 00:23:37,720
Speaker 1: in general, the more participant score on the survey indicated depression,

428
00:23:37,760 --> 00:23:41,040
Speaker 1: the more his or her Internet usage included, uh, those

429
00:23:41,080 --> 00:23:43,280
Speaker 1: features as you say. So there was a lot of

430
00:23:43,280 --> 00:23:47,880
Speaker 1: file sharing, high levels of that, especially with music and movies.

431
00:23:48,400 --> 00:23:51,480
Speaker 1: And second, they found patterns of Internet usage that were

432
00:23:51,520 --> 00:23:55,880
Speaker 1: statistically high among people with depressive symptoms compared with those

433
00:23:55,880 --> 00:23:59,480
Speaker 1: without the symptoms. So, for example, people with depressive symptoms

434
00:23:59,680 --> 00:24:03,840
Speaker 1: tend to engage in a lot of email usage, so

435
00:24:03,960 --> 00:24:07,080
Speaker 1: they were sending emails right and left and um. This

436
00:24:07,200 --> 00:24:10,760
Speaker 1: correlated with some research that was done by psychologist Janet

437
00:24:10,840 --> 00:24:15,520
Speaker 1: Moorehan Martin, and Phyllis Schumacher. They found that frequent checking

438
00:24:15,520 --> 00:24:19,080
Speaker 1: of email rate may relate to high levels of anxiety,

439
00:24:19,200 --> 00:24:23,280
Speaker 1: and then of course that correlates to depressive symptoms. Well,

440
00:24:23,320 --> 00:24:25,040
Speaker 1: I can definitely see where checking your email all the

441
00:24:25,040 --> 00:24:28,840
Speaker 1: time would be depressing, because that's where we get our

442
00:24:28,840 --> 00:24:31,320
Speaker 1: bills these days. That's where bad news is just as

443
00:24:31,359 --> 00:24:33,720
Speaker 1: likely to come in via email as it is to

444
00:24:33,720 --> 00:24:35,800
Speaker 1: come in over the phone. Yeah, and I think it's

445
00:24:35,840 --> 00:24:38,520
Speaker 1: you know, just the the act doing that over and

446
00:24:38,600 --> 00:24:43,800
Speaker 1: over again, sort of bullies. This underlying anxiety, Yes, that

447
00:24:44,000 --> 00:24:46,320
Speaker 1: is at the root of all of this, and so, um,

448
00:24:46,320 --> 00:24:47,959
Speaker 1: the study is really interesting. I won't go into all

449
00:24:47,960 --> 00:24:52,400
Speaker 1: the different points that correlated with depressive symptoms, but those

450
00:24:52,400 --> 00:24:55,359
Speaker 1: are just a couple of the highlights. Um. Lewis Crofts,

451
00:24:55,440 --> 00:24:58,120
Speaker 1: the the author of this article I'm Wired, then looked

452
00:24:58,160 --> 00:25:00,560
Speaker 1: at this other study because he felt like these two

453
00:25:00,640 --> 00:25:04,040
Speaker 1: kind of dovetailed together really nicely. Because first you have

454
00:25:04,160 --> 00:25:06,920
Speaker 1: the study of just you know, if you're if you're depressive,

455
00:25:06,960 --> 00:25:10,480
Speaker 1: then perhaps you're a higher user of the Internet, or

456
00:25:10,600 --> 00:25:15,080
Speaker 1: you you're watching more videos and possibly suggested in this article,

457
00:25:15,400 --> 00:25:17,320
Speaker 1: you're seeking out more cat videos. You're seeing now more

458
00:25:17,320 --> 00:25:20,640
Speaker 1: cute videos. Are You're going to cute overload to get

459
00:25:20,680 --> 00:25:24,920
Speaker 1: that dose of cute fluffiness into your life. So he says,

460
00:25:25,000 --> 00:25:27,159
Speaker 1: you know that they did not know what exactly the

461
00:25:27,200 --> 00:25:29,840
Speaker 1: content was, but you know, it stands to reason that

462
00:25:29,880 --> 00:25:32,439
Speaker 1: cats would be part of some of that, all right.

463
00:25:32,520 --> 00:25:35,760
Speaker 1: So the second study, which is called Factors Influencing the

464
00:25:35,760 --> 00:25:39,840
Speaker 1: Temporal Patterns of dietic behaviors and Interactions between domestic cats

465
00:25:39,840 --> 00:25:43,960
Speaker 1: and their owners. The conclusion quote that the higher the

466
00:25:44,000 --> 00:25:47,280
Speaker 1: proportion of all successful intents to interact with the cat

467
00:25:47,400 --> 00:25:49,480
Speaker 1: that were due to the cat. The longer was the

468
00:25:49,560 --> 00:25:52,320
Speaker 1: duration of the interactions. So he says that, in other words,

469
00:25:52,320 --> 00:25:55,399
Speaker 1: your cat will like you best if you pretend that

470
00:25:55,520 --> 00:25:58,720
Speaker 1: you don't desperately want to play with it. I love

471
00:25:58,800 --> 00:26:02,639
Speaker 1: this study even has not one a prize with the

472
00:26:02,640 --> 00:26:05,960
Speaker 1: ignobles it should. I mean, it's a very interesting study

473
00:26:05,960 --> 00:26:09,480
Speaker 1: and a revealing study, but it reveals something that scientifically

474
00:26:09,520 --> 00:26:12,160
Speaker 1: that cat owners pretty much already know that. You bring

475
00:26:12,240 --> 00:26:15,160
Speaker 1: somebody into the house who's allergic to the cat, who

476
00:26:15,280 --> 00:26:18,040
Speaker 1: who who does not like the cat, That's who the

477
00:26:18,080 --> 00:26:20,440
Speaker 1: cat is going to insist on walking on and climbing

478
00:26:20,520 --> 00:26:23,080
Speaker 1: up on and rubbing against and everything else under the sun.

479
00:26:23,440 --> 00:26:27,160
Speaker 1: You bring in a toddler who wants nothing more than

480
00:26:27,200 --> 00:26:29,520
Speaker 1: to pet the cat for hours and hours on end,

481
00:26:30,000 --> 00:26:32,040
Speaker 1: the cat is going to avoid that child like the plague.

482
00:26:32,160 --> 00:26:34,480
Speaker 1: That's right, and it's great that there's finally a study

483
00:26:34,520 --> 00:26:37,399
Speaker 1: that says this is this is what's happening here, because

484
00:26:37,440 --> 00:26:40,200
Speaker 1: all of us have suspected it. Um. The other part

485
00:26:40,240 --> 00:26:42,399
Speaker 1: of the study was that the more neurotic cat owner,

486
00:26:42,440 --> 00:26:45,280
Speaker 1: the more desperate for fuzzy comfort and nesley security and

487
00:26:45,359 --> 00:26:48,320
Speaker 1: unconditional affection, which is essentially what we were just talking about.

488
00:26:48,480 --> 00:26:51,080
Speaker 1: And then of course the brief of the interactions. So

489
00:26:51,480 --> 00:26:53,960
Speaker 1: I think it's just important to state that as the

490
00:26:54,000 --> 00:26:57,960
Speaker 1: owner and and and the cat that dynamic because Lewis

491
00:26:58,040 --> 00:27:00,000
Speaker 1: Kraft says, hey, what do we do on the interner

492
00:27:00,040 --> 00:27:02,240
Speaker 1: that all day long we like things and then we

493
00:27:02,359 --> 00:27:04,360
Speaker 1: sit around and we wait for things that we do

494
00:27:04,440 --> 00:27:07,480
Speaker 1: to be liked, And he says that we check all

495
00:27:07,480 --> 00:27:10,720
Speaker 1: the analytics and all the retreats, and this is where

496
00:27:10,720 --> 00:27:16,280
Speaker 1: those cats come in, because cats essentially are us trying

497
00:27:16,320 --> 00:27:20,680
Speaker 1: to gain approval. Yes, so there is huge symbol of

498
00:27:20,720 --> 00:27:23,760
Speaker 1: these interactions that we have between us. Yeah, when the

499
00:27:23,800 --> 00:27:26,400
Speaker 1: cat shows you attention, you have you sort of won

500
00:27:26,480 --> 00:27:29,200
Speaker 1: that attention. You have to you have to continually rewin

501
00:27:29,400 --> 00:27:31,960
Speaker 1: that cat's attention because otherwise, because at any given point

502
00:27:32,000 --> 00:27:33,640
Speaker 1: a day, okay will be like, hey, I really want

503
00:27:33,640 --> 00:27:35,359
Speaker 1: to leave the house and never see you again. Is

504
00:27:35,359 --> 00:27:37,760
Speaker 1: that cool? Uh? And then I will happen if you

505
00:27:37,800 --> 00:27:39,720
Speaker 1: allow it to. And then if the cat remains in

506
00:27:39,720 --> 00:27:41,240
Speaker 1: your house, you have to you have to sort of

507
00:27:41,359 --> 00:27:43,160
Speaker 1: play it cool or you sometimes you have to coax

508
00:27:43,200 --> 00:27:46,080
Speaker 1: the cat and to get the reward of the cute face,

509
00:27:46,480 --> 00:27:50,159
Speaker 1: of the warmth against your body, the furry feeling of

510
00:27:50,240 --> 00:27:52,639
Speaker 1: holding the cat, and of course the health ben offense.

511
00:27:52,640 --> 00:27:54,640
Speaker 1: They've been numerous studies that have looked at the health

512
00:27:54,640 --> 00:27:56,639
Speaker 1: ben if it's of cat ownership. But then again, the

513
00:27:56,680 --> 00:27:58,359
Speaker 1: more you chase after it, the more you try and

514
00:27:58,359 --> 00:28:00,240
Speaker 1: make it your own, the more likely that have penis

515
00:28:00,320 --> 00:28:02,760
Speaker 1: is going to crawl under the bed and hide from you. Yeah,

516
00:28:02,760 --> 00:28:04,840
Speaker 1: And it's sort of like if if you seek out

517
00:28:04,880 --> 00:28:08,720
Speaker 1: these pictures and these videos of cats, then on some

518
00:28:08,880 --> 00:28:12,960
Speaker 1: level you're you're courting approval from them. And it says,

519
00:28:13,119 --> 00:28:14,440
Speaker 1: you know, if you see a picture of a cat

520
00:28:14,480 --> 00:28:17,159
Speaker 1: and says, oh hi, it's not you know, it's the

521
00:28:17,200 --> 00:28:19,760
Speaker 1: cat's not saying oh, hello, hello, look at me, the

522
00:28:19,800 --> 00:28:22,600
Speaker 1: cat saying oh I didn't see standing there. It's that

523
00:28:22,720 --> 00:28:25,360
Speaker 1: sort of attitude. And so I love how he weaves

524
00:28:25,640 --> 00:28:29,359
Speaker 1: all of this together, this internet usage. So in that sense,

525
00:28:29,440 --> 00:28:32,159
Speaker 1: be the Lucky Cat is really a cat video that

526
00:28:32,200 --> 00:28:35,359
Speaker 1: takes back to the Edo period because it's a beckoning cat.

527
00:28:35,400 --> 00:28:38,400
Speaker 1: The cat is waving, the cat is saying hi, hello,

528
00:28:39,000 --> 00:28:41,680
Speaker 1: and and actually acknowledging you, even though it's just a

529
00:28:41,680 --> 00:28:46,719
Speaker 1: mechanical cat or or just even an unmoving uh image

530
00:28:46,720 --> 00:28:48,960
Speaker 1: of a cat. It's waving to you, it's beckoning to you,

531
00:28:49,000 --> 00:28:52,560
Speaker 1: and therefore it's approving of you. Messengers like the unrequited love.

532
00:28:53,040 --> 00:28:55,720
Speaker 1: And finally you have this cat saying yes, come here,

533
00:28:56,040 --> 00:28:58,880
Speaker 1: I will fold you into my arms. And then you

534
00:28:58,960 --> 00:29:02,000
Speaker 1: have somebody that got frustrated and said, forget it. I'm

535
00:29:02,000 --> 00:29:03,640
Speaker 1: not going to try and len these cats approval anymore.

536
00:29:03,640 --> 00:29:07,240
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make myself one out of stone, or I'm

537
00:29:07,280 --> 00:29:10,000
Speaker 1: gonna make one that actually mechanically waves at me, and

538
00:29:10,040 --> 00:29:12,520
Speaker 1: that will do it. It would be my cat gollumn, yes,

539
00:29:12,600 --> 00:29:17,440
Speaker 1: cat go yeah. Um. Clay Sharkey has an interesting TED

540
00:29:17,520 --> 00:29:21,360
Speaker 1: talk and he talks about something called cognitive surplus, and

541
00:29:21,400 --> 00:29:24,640
Speaker 1: then he weaves that into l O L cats and

542
00:29:24,680 --> 00:29:27,840
Speaker 1: he says that cognitive surplus is the ability of the

543
00:29:27,840 --> 00:29:31,800
Speaker 1: world's population to volunteer and to contribute and collaborate on large,

544
00:29:31,800 --> 00:29:35,040
Speaker 1: sometimes global projects. So he uses l O L cuts

545
00:29:35,080 --> 00:29:38,120
Speaker 1: as an example. Right, a lot of people from all

546
00:29:38,120 --> 00:29:42,200
Speaker 1: over the world contributing to this one effort essentially just

547
00:29:42,240 --> 00:29:44,320
Speaker 1: to make all of this laugh, which is a great thing.

548
00:29:44,760 --> 00:29:48,520
Speaker 1: And he says that um, it is made up of

549
00:29:48,560 --> 00:29:51,040
Speaker 1: two things this cognitive surplus. He says that it's the

550
00:29:51,080 --> 00:29:53,480
Speaker 1: world's free time and talents. And he says, the world

551
00:29:53,520 --> 00:29:55,720
Speaker 1: has over a trillion hours a year of free time

552
00:29:55,720 --> 00:29:58,360
Speaker 1: to commit these shared projects. I kind of I don't

553
00:29:58,400 --> 00:30:00,280
Speaker 1: know where he came up with that, staff, but that's

554
00:30:00,280 --> 00:30:03,640
Speaker 1: a lot. And then he says that, um, you know,

555
00:30:04,120 --> 00:30:09,600
Speaker 1: we as a collective power of world changing behavior, if

556
00:30:09,840 --> 00:30:12,920
Speaker 1: we can do the ll L cats that we could

557
00:30:13,240 --> 00:30:18,480
Speaker 1: potentially with that those trillions of hours actually committed to

558
00:30:18,560 --> 00:30:22,120
Speaker 1: something that is meaningful, I mean beyond making all of

559
00:30:22,160 --> 00:30:24,480
Speaker 1: us laugh, because that is meaningful. So he's saying, hey,

560
00:30:24,480 --> 00:30:26,360
Speaker 1: if you've got time to ll okay, you've got time

561
00:30:26,400 --> 00:30:29,680
Speaker 1: to cure cancer. I think he's saying, we can all

562
00:30:29,720 --> 00:30:32,080
Speaker 1: maybe not cure cancer, but you know, we could all

563
00:30:32,160 --> 00:30:34,000
Speaker 1: freak at least love each other a little more. We

564
00:30:34,000 --> 00:30:35,480
Speaker 1: could love each other a little bit more. We could

565
00:30:35,480 --> 00:30:39,720
Speaker 1: pool our efforts to try to tackle certain problems that

566
00:30:39,800 --> 00:30:43,800
Speaker 1: would rely upon individual efforts, um to to give their

567
00:30:43,800 --> 00:30:47,600
Speaker 1: talents to this one thing. It's an interesting concept. It's

568
00:30:47,720 --> 00:30:50,440
Speaker 1: very ted. It is it's very ted. Yeah, and it

569
00:30:50,480 --> 00:30:52,680
Speaker 1: does make me think again of cuteness as a as

570
00:30:52,720 --> 00:30:55,400
Speaker 1: an icon, cuteness as as an object of worship, a

571
00:30:55,440 --> 00:30:58,160
Speaker 1: little adorable cat made out of plastic that you put

572
00:30:58,200 --> 00:31:01,080
Speaker 1: on your desk and in a sense, you pray to

573
00:31:01,200 --> 00:31:03,280
Speaker 1: every time you look at it. You're you maybe not,

574
00:31:03,360 --> 00:31:06,680
Speaker 1: you're actually not Actually you're not actually saying any kind

575
00:31:06,720 --> 00:31:09,960
Speaker 1: of a prayer, but you are looking to it and

576
00:31:10,040 --> 00:31:13,880
Speaker 1: investing some level of cognitive energy into it and expecting

577
00:31:13,920 --> 00:31:16,080
Speaker 1: to gain from it. There you go. I mean, this

578
00:31:16,160 --> 00:31:18,720
Speaker 1: is as good as it gets when it comes to

579
00:31:18,760 --> 00:31:23,040
Speaker 1: trying to explain the love of cats, the obsession with

580
00:31:23,160 --> 00:31:26,920
Speaker 1: cats on the internet, and then touching on this idea

581
00:31:27,080 --> 00:31:31,000
Speaker 1: of kauai and uh, the ways in which it colors

582
00:31:31,000 --> 00:31:35,000
Speaker 1: our perception. All right, So there you have it, kauaite cute. Um.

583
00:31:35,040 --> 00:31:37,800
Speaker 1: I'm sure everyone has some little bit of insight on

584
00:31:37,840 --> 00:31:39,800
Speaker 1: this to share, and we would love to hear about it.

585
00:31:39,880 --> 00:31:42,880
Speaker 1: We'd love to know what is the little icon of

586
00:31:42,960 --> 00:31:46,600
Speaker 1: cute that empowers you throughout the day, or what is

587
00:31:46,640 --> 00:31:48,400
Speaker 1: the what is a little bit of cuteness that you

588
00:31:48,440 --> 00:31:53,160
Speaker 1: absolutely detest and uh and would I would actually interfere

589
00:31:53,200 --> 00:31:55,000
Speaker 1: with your productivity during the course of the day. Let

590
00:31:55,080 --> 00:31:56,360
Speaker 1: us know about that as well. You can find us

591
00:31:56,360 --> 00:31:58,640
Speaker 1: in all the usual places. Stuff to about your Mind

592
00:31:58,680 --> 00:32:00,680
Speaker 1: dot com as the mothership, but we're all so on Tumbler,

593
00:32:00,720 --> 00:32:04,840
Speaker 1: Facebook and Twitter, Google Plus, YouTube, Blower Mind, Stuff Show

594
00:32:04,920 --> 00:32:06,520
Speaker 1: and Julie. If they want to send us a good

595
00:32:06,520 --> 00:32:08,920
Speaker 1: old fashioned email, where can they do that? Well, it's

596
00:32:08,960 --> 00:32:11,200
Speaker 1: really quite easy. All you have to do is send

597
00:32:11,240 --> 00:32:19,040
Speaker 1: us an email at Blow the Mind at Discovery dot com,

598
00:32:15,960 --> 00:32:21,600
Speaker 1: YEA for moralness and thousands of other topics. Does it?

599
00:32:21,680 --> 00:32:28,800
Speaker 1: How stuff works dot com