WEBVTT - The Monstrosity/Cuteness Spectrum 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:06.119 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuffworks 0:00:06.160 --> 0:00:14.600 dot com. Hey you welcome to stuff to Blow your mind. 0:00:14.640 --> 0:00:18.040 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. Hey, Robert, 0:00:18.520 --> 0:00:23.280 have you seen all these cute Jason Vorhees dolls and 0:00:23.360 --> 0:00:27.200 cartoons and fan art all over the Internet. Of course 0:00:27.240 --> 0:00:29.240 you have. I've at least seen some of it. But 0:00:29.600 --> 0:00:31.800 I know you shared with me an image of Jason 0:00:32.000 --> 0:00:35.840 plush doll, and I had not encountered that specific cute 0:00:35.840 --> 0:00:38.800 horror before. So he's got the machete and there's blood 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:42.720 on the machete. But he's adorable, but he has blood 0:00:42.720 --> 0:00:44.960 on it, like you know, murder weapons. I mean, even 0:00:45.000 --> 0:00:47.720 if we didn't know who he is, the context here 0:00:47.840 --> 0:00:49.680 is that this is a killer. Yeah. He's got a 0:00:49.760 --> 0:00:53.440 huge head, huge low set eyes. He just looks so sweet, 0:00:53.440 --> 0:00:56.280 little stumpy limbs. He's like a little cute baby Jason. 0:00:56.760 --> 0:00:59.400 And there are cute Freddy Krueger's in the same way, 0:00:59.480 --> 0:01:04.679 cute Freddy Kruger cartoons, dolls, toys, uh things all over 0:01:04.720 --> 0:01:08.400 the Internet. And you've seen the cute vampires, the cute werewolves, 0:01:08.440 --> 0:01:10.679 cute versions of the girl from the Ring. I looked 0:01:10.680 --> 0:01:14.320 it up that exists cute predators from the movie Predator. 0:01:14.400 --> 0:01:16.399 I saw that that's that's kind of easy, because the 0:01:16.440 --> 0:01:20.200 predator already has a sort of baby shaped head. You 0:01:20.319 --> 0:01:24.280 just make the eyes bigger. They're cute xeno morphs. You'd 0:01:24.280 --> 0:01:26.360 think that'd be difficult to do, but they're all over 0:01:26.400 --> 0:01:31.240 the internet. What is with this epidemic of monsters originally 0:01:31.280 --> 0:01:34.800 imagined to be horrifying, threatening to haunt our dreams, to 0:01:34.880 --> 0:01:37.720 chase us through our nightmares, to murder us and our friends, 0:01:38.040 --> 0:01:41.440 and instead we're making all these versions of them that 0:01:41.520 --> 0:01:45.679 are adorable, with infantile characteristics that you just want to 0:01:45.760 --> 0:01:49.160 hug and snuggle. It seems inevitable, doesn't it, even even 0:01:49.200 --> 0:01:53.200 in weird cases like, for instance, the Babba Duke, which 0:01:53.240 --> 0:01:56.640 is like a child murdering monster, right, And then the 0:01:56.680 --> 0:01:59.120 same with penny Wise the clown. Like you would think 0:01:59.120 --> 0:02:02.920 that Pennywise, this thing that appears as a clown in 0:02:03.000 --> 0:02:06.520 order to, you know, drain the essence out of children 0:02:06.520 --> 0:02:08.960 and pull them into horrify them and pull them into sewers. 0:02:09.120 --> 0:02:11.120 You would think that would be beyond our ability to 0:02:11.160 --> 0:02:13.359 make cute. And yet just the other day I was 0:02:13.400 --> 0:02:17.320 looking at a cute pins of Pennywise, I'll cute it up. Yeah. Well, 0:02:17.360 --> 0:02:19.080 if you want to go in the cosmic direction, how 0:02:19.120 --> 0:02:21.720 about all the cute Illifid montheror the cute you know, 0:02:22.000 --> 0:02:26.240 uh cathuloom with those stuff. Yeah, when cute cute plush case. 0:02:26.280 --> 0:02:28.000 When my son came into my life, but I was, 0:02:28.040 --> 0:02:30.440 one of the first things we gave him was a 0:02:31.200 --> 0:02:35.640 plush Cathulu, which he loves. And it's an adorable looking creature. 0:02:35.720 --> 0:02:38.200 But yeah, he doesn't even know that it is essentially 0:02:38.200 --> 0:02:40.480 supposed to be a scary monster. I guess it's not 0:02:40.919 --> 0:02:43.080 funny to children in the same way it is funny 0:02:43.120 --> 0:02:45.760 to adults. No, that he just sees it as a cool, 0:02:45.800 --> 0:02:48.520 pretend little creature. It's like if you encountered snuff alophagus 0:02:48.760 --> 0:02:51.720 and then somebody said, oh, yes, stuff alophagus is actually 0:02:51.919 --> 0:02:54.600 a patterned after this hideous monster, right, this thing that 0:02:54.720 --> 0:02:57.960 snorts you up as a liquid through its trunk. Though, 0:02:58.000 --> 0:03:01.200 I do want to say, before this epidemic of cute 0:03:01.200 --> 0:03:04.400 cartoon versions and cute dolls and stuff like that of 0:03:04.440 --> 0:03:08.240 say Freddy Krueger, there is a precedent for this within 0:03:08.600 --> 0:03:13.120 the horror media itself. Because you've seen the Freddy Krueger movies, 0:03:13.240 --> 0:03:16.280 right the Nightmare on Elm Street. I've seen the first one, 0:03:16.400 --> 0:03:19.440 and I've seen the remake, and I like both of those, 0:03:19.480 --> 0:03:22.000 and the rest it's just mostly clips and just the 0:03:22.040 --> 0:03:27.919 pop cultural absorption of this ever ridiculous Freddy Krueger that 0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:30.959 that you know, that that has all these catchphrases and 0:03:30.960 --> 0:03:35.880 and ingenious kills. That's that all the compilers together for me. Well, 0:03:35.920 --> 0:03:39.560 there there's definitely an arc throughout the series where, over 0:03:39.640 --> 0:03:42.400 time the Freddy Krueger of the first movie and the 0:03:42.440 --> 0:03:44.920 first night Nightmare on Elm Street, I think Wes Craven 0:03:44.960 --> 0:03:47.480 went out of his way to make him not just 0:03:47.560 --> 0:03:50.320 a threatening monster, the standard kind of monster that will 0:03:50.400 --> 0:03:54.520 hurt you and chases you, but to make him repulsive 0:03:54.920 --> 0:03:58.160 and really just nasty. I mean, Freddy Krueger in the 0:03:58.200 --> 0:04:01.520 first movie is a character who's supposed to be a 0:04:01.680 --> 0:04:06.960 child murderer, and there are these suggestions of perversity and 0:04:07.000 --> 0:04:11.800 this this kind of gross creepiness, not just threatening monstrosity, 0:04:12.000 --> 0:04:14.480 and so from that point, I think it's really amazing 0:04:14.560 --> 0:04:17.239 that over the arc of the series Freddie becomes sort 0:04:17.279 --> 0:04:20.680 of almost something like an anti hero, Like he's never 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:24.919 actually a good guy, but he stops becoming this gross 0:04:25.160 --> 0:04:27.520 creep that you don't even want to look at, and 0:04:27.560 --> 0:04:31.600 becomes this jokester who dances and mugs for the camera 0:04:31.760 --> 0:04:36.320 and has one liners, makes jokes, and he becomes the 0:04:36.400 --> 0:04:39.800 star of the films. He becomes the reason people watch it, 0:04:39.880 --> 0:04:42.760 and it's because he's fun and he's comic. He becomes 0:04:42.760 --> 0:04:45.960 the crypt keeper, he becomes Hull Cogan. Uh. And then 0:04:45.960 --> 0:04:50.560 it's certainly by Jason versus Freddie you're probably rooting for 0:04:50.600 --> 0:04:52.320 one or the other. He is, like, there's kind of 0:04:52.320 --> 0:04:55.920 a fifty split there that that you may be backing 0:04:56.000 --> 0:04:58.599 this character in the brawl. Yeah, and maybe you could 0:04:58.680 --> 0:05:01.359 chalk that up in the Fredd movies just to the 0:05:01.400 --> 0:05:03.800 actor who played him, Robert England, being a great and 0:05:03.920 --> 0:05:06.440 likable actor, despite the fact that he settled with this 0:05:06.520 --> 0:05:11.400 incredibly repulsive role. Uh, maybe Robert England just bleeds through 0:05:11.440 --> 0:05:13.359 so much that you want to make him more and 0:05:13.440 --> 0:05:15.960 more likable. Well. It it even got to the point 0:05:15.960 --> 0:05:19.440 when they when the remake of Nightmare Him Street came out. Um, 0:05:19.480 --> 0:05:21.880 a lot of people didn't like it. I actually really 0:05:21.960 --> 0:05:23.280 enjoyed it. I thought it was. I thought it was 0:05:23.320 --> 0:05:25.080 a fine hard film. I didn't like it, he didn't 0:05:25.080 --> 0:05:28.520 like I. I I enjoyed it. But then again, I'm less 0:05:28.520 --> 0:05:31.320 attached to the series. But but one of the criticisms 0:05:31.320 --> 0:05:33.440 that I saw level at it was how could you 0:05:33.480 --> 0:05:37.600 make Freddie a pedophile? How could you make this his avert, 0:05:38.040 --> 0:05:41.360 make this creepiness in his character so avert, as if 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:44.520 that like ruined a hero and not just made a 0:05:44.600 --> 0:05:47.440 grotesque monster a little creepier. I think it was always 0:05:47.520 --> 0:05:51.039 kind of implicitly suggested back in the first movie. Look, 0:05:51.120 --> 0:05:53.680 I mean, they never said that outright that I recall, 0:05:53.760 --> 0:05:55.800 but it's always there in the fact that, like we 0:05:55.800 --> 0:05:58.479 were saying, he's not just a threat, he's a creep 0:05:58.560 --> 0:06:02.200 he's perverse. Yeah, So it's it's interesting to see how 0:06:02.200 --> 0:06:06.360 people responded to kind of a doubling down on on 0:06:06.360 --> 0:06:10.400 on the grotesque monstrosity of the character in a way 0:06:10.400 --> 0:06:14.760 from the ridiculous pop culture version of the character. Right, Yeah, 0:06:14.760 --> 0:06:17.040 the version in the remake is not going to be 0:06:17.080 --> 0:06:19.960 doing I don't know, Domino's pizza commercials or whatever Freddie 0:06:20.000 --> 0:06:23.159 was doing in the eighties. But of course Freddy Krueger 0:06:23.200 --> 0:06:25.200 and the Nutmaar on elm Street series is not the 0:06:25.279 --> 0:06:29.440 only series where we see a monstrous, horrifying character transformed 0:06:29.480 --> 0:06:34.560 over time into something that's more approachable, more likable, more identifiable, 0:06:34.640 --> 0:06:37.320 maybe even kind of snugly. This happens a lot in 0:06:37.400 --> 0:06:40.680 horror literature and even in horror folklore. Yeah. Yeah, we're 0:06:40.720 --> 0:06:44.279 definitely going to get into some examples from from folklore 0:06:44.320 --> 0:06:48.320 and legend, particularly some examples from Japanese folklore, because as 0:06:48.360 --> 0:06:52.400 we're talking, we inevitably talk about both monsters and the 0:06:52.440 --> 0:06:54.800 world of cute. Like you have to go to Japan, 0:06:54.839 --> 0:06:58.040 because Japan is h is the home not only of 0:06:58.080 --> 0:07:03.320 some pretty hideous folkloreic monsters, but also kauaii. This this 0:07:03.520 --> 0:07:08.120 notion of of of like overt just overpowered cuteness, the 0:07:08.160 --> 0:07:11.280 hello Kitty level of cuteness that has not only taken 0:07:11.360 --> 0:07:15.360 Japan by storm, but has has spread its cuttly tentacles 0:07:15.360 --> 0:07:18.760 into just about every portion of the earth. Yeah, it's 0:07:18.760 --> 0:07:23.480 like overclocking the adorability process almost to the point of insanity. 0:07:23.840 --> 0:07:26.320 And I should also point out that this also goes 0:07:26.320 --> 0:07:30.320 the other way. Of course, just as monsters often become cute, 0:07:30.600 --> 0:07:32.680 there are also plenty of examples of people taking something 0:07:32.720 --> 0:07:35.760 cute and making it monstrous. Um I kind of did 0:07:35.760 --> 0:07:38.360 it just a few minutes ago talking about snuffle Up, 0:07:38.360 --> 0:07:41.120 I guess. But you you inevitably see people who say, 0:07:41.160 --> 0:07:44.840 do a love crafty and take on totoro or and 0:07:44.840 --> 0:07:47.600 then there's a whole area of Kauai known as Kauai 0:07:47.640 --> 0:07:50.120 and noir, which is like dark cute where they have 0:07:50.200 --> 0:07:54.080 something that pretty much intentionally has a lag or maybe 0:07:54.080 --> 0:07:58.320 a tentacle in both the cute and the monstrous content bucket. 0:07:58.360 --> 0:08:00.520 I feel like this is something that very often happens 0:08:00.560 --> 0:08:03.720 in comedy animation. I think you know, shows like South 0:08:03.800 --> 0:08:07.280 Park and Futurama and Simpsons and stuff like that always 0:08:07.320 --> 0:08:09.640 have a scene at some point where a very cute 0:08:09.720 --> 0:08:13.640 animal turns out to be a horrifying killer. So in 0:08:13.640 --> 0:08:17.280 today's episode, we're gonna explore this. We're gonna explore what 0:08:17.480 --> 0:08:20.320 is the relationship between the monstrous and the cute, why 0:08:20.440 --> 0:08:23.120 is there there this interesting interplay? And in doing that, 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:25.800 we're going to, of course discuss a little bit about 0:08:25.840 --> 0:08:27.440 what a monster is. So I think we've hit that 0:08:27.520 --> 0:08:29.680 harder in previous episodes. Here stuff to blow your mind. 0:08:29.680 --> 0:08:31.680 We're gonna talk about what it is to be cute. 0:08:32.200 --> 0:08:35.040 What's going on when something cute hijacks our brain? And 0:08:35.080 --> 0:08:36.520 then at the end of the episode, we're going to 0:08:36.559 --> 0:08:41.640 look to really three specific examples of Japanese monsters that 0:08:41.760 --> 0:08:44.800 may or may not be transformed into something cute. We'll 0:08:44.840 --> 0:08:48.520 be discussing the Only, the Kappa, and the Tango. All right, Robert, 0:08:48.559 --> 0:08:51.640 what is a monster? Oh? Well, you know it's it's 0:08:51.679 --> 0:08:55.200 it's like cute. It's like pornography. We know it when 0:08:55.240 --> 0:08:57.959 we see it, right, But if you if you really 0:08:57.960 --> 0:09:00.160 have to, you know, if you really force somebody to 0:09:00.160 --> 0:09:02.439 to define it, what you tend to think about something 0:09:02.480 --> 0:09:06.120 that is awesome inform or size. It's novel and it's 0:09:06.200 --> 0:09:09.800 chimerical combination of natural forms, you know, like it's got 0:09:09.840 --> 0:09:11.360 the head of a sea horse in the body of 0:09:11.360 --> 0:09:14.760 a cow. That's a monster um or you know, you 0:09:14.760 --> 0:09:17.240 know where it's just a giant sea horse. A sea 0:09:17.280 --> 0:09:19.200 horse the size of the school bus would also be 0:09:19.200 --> 0:09:23.840 a monster. I subscribe to the Metallica theory of monster dum, 0:09:23.920 --> 0:09:26.320 which is that a monster is the thing that should 0:09:26.320 --> 0:09:30.160 not be. It's a thing that you behold and realize 0:09:30.200 --> 0:09:33.480 that it is not only not something you recognize from nature, 0:09:33.520 --> 0:09:36.920 but it's something that you do not wish nature had. Now, 0:09:37.280 --> 0:09:40.040 obviously we violate those norms all the time because we 0:09:40.080 --> 0:09:43.040 get into monsters. We we find ourselves at home thinking 0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:45.400 about monsters, and we kind of do wish there was 0:09:45.440 --> 0:09:49.320 a giant mummy crocodile with laser eyes. Right, But at 0:09:49.400 --> 0:09:51.960 least in theory, the thing a monster is is it 0:09:52.080 --> 0:09:56.040 violates natural categories in some way and it horrifies you, 0:09:56.160 --> 0:09:58.560 makes you afraid, makes you not want it to be there. 0:09:58.920 --> 0:10:01.760 And as we discussed in our episode The First Monster, 0:10:01.960 --> 0:10:06.200 which which came out previously for for this year's Halloween, um, 0:10:06.240 --> 0:10:09.080 there's often a message there, if if not a message 0:10:09.080 --> 0:10:11.920 that is tied up in the monster's form, then tied 0:10:12.000 --> 0:10:15.480 up in the monsters presence or in the stories about it, 0:10:15.520 --> 0:10:18.880 Like this monster is a danger to you because of why, 0:10:18.960 --> 0:10:22.760 because you went somewhere, or you did something, or you're 0:10:22.800 --> 0:10:25.920 engaged in a culture that went somewhere did something. Yeah. 0:10:26.120 --> 0:10:29.400 Rarely do monsters appear in folklore without some kind of 0:10:29.480 --> 0:10:33.320 warning or social message. Right. Okay, so that's monsters in 0:10:33.320 --> 0:10:38.240 a nutshell. But but how about cute cute? Uh is 0:10:38.559 --> 0:10:42.040 in a way easier to nail down, but also just 0:10:42.280 --> 0:10:45.200 as ambiguous as monstrosity. Well, it's one of those things 0:10:45.200 --> 0:10:48.600 that everybody can identify it by sight, you know, you 0:10:48.640 --> 0:10:51.559 can tell, well, that's cute, that's not, that's cute, that's not. 0:10:51.640 --> 0:10:54.440 But when you're asked to give a set of criteria 0:10:54.480 --> 0:10:56.880 for how you're making the decision, you'd you'd often come 0:10:56.960 --> 0:10:59.280 up at a loss for words. Right, what's certainly the 0:10:59.280 --> 0:11:01.840 eyes of the whole there, But we can tease it 0:11:01.840 --> 0:11:04.880 apart to a certain extent. We can say, look at 0:11:05.920 --> 0:11:10.800 almost a universal images of of the cute and see 0:11:10.880 --> 0:11:13.800 what's connecting with us there, and then figure out why 0:11:13.800 --> 0:11:17.360 it's connecting with us. So, for instance, kittens, babies, or 0:11:17.480 --> 0:11:20.920 of course Hello Kitty, which is essentially a kitten combined 0:11:21.000 --> 0:11:24.040 with a baby or a small child with psychedelic color schemes. 0:11:24.080 --> 0:11:29.199 Psychedelic color schemes. And then of course many cute creatures 0:11:29.240 --> 0:11:32.400 of either real ones or fanciful ones. What do they have? 0:11:32.440 --> 0:11:36.200 They have big adorable eyes or perhaps big jowls, baby 0:11:36.240 --> 0:11:40.640 like cheeks. They're kind of Winston Churchill's yeah no no, 0:11:41.160 --> 0:11:44.040 so yeah, there do appear to be some biological roots 0:11:44.080 --> 0:11:46.800 to our recognition of cuteness. It does seem to go 0:11:47.000 --> 0:11:52.000 into our mammalian brains and not just into cultural categories. 0:11:52.000 --> 0:11:54.160 So culture may very well inform a lot of what 0:11:54.200 --> 0:11:58.240 we find cute downstream of these biological cues. So, in 0:11:58.240 --> 0:12:01.280 his eighteen seventy two book The Freshion of the Emotions 0:12:01.320 --> 0:12:06.120 in Man and Animals, Charles Darwin suggested that natural selection 0:12:06.200 --> 0:12:11.000 is probably gonna favor creatures which, in infancy possess features 0:12:11.040 --> 0:12:13.959 that cause the adults of that species to protect them 0:12:14.040 --> 0:12:16.719 and take care of their needs. Right, if you are 0:12:16.720 --> 0:12:19.560 a species that has a genome that says we usually 0:12:19.559 --> 0:12:22.880 give birth to babies we find repulsive and don't want 0:12:22.920 --> 0:12:27.000 anything to do with, that species, isn't gonna do very well, right, 0:12:27.160 --> 0:12:29.160 or at least you're gonna have a situation like the 0:12:29.200 --> 0:12:32.480 Komodo dragon, where the young of the Komodo dragon they 0:12:32.559 --> 0:12:34.560 pretty much they're on their own right and they have 0:12:34.640 --> 0:12:38.840 to protect themselves from such threats as adult komodo dragons exactly. 0:12:38.880 --> 0:12:41.839 So this would be in species that need to spend 0:12:41.920 --> 0:12:44.600 a lot of time protecting and caring for their young. 0:12:45.040 --> 0:12:48.840 This is something we see in mammals right, and other species, 0:12:48.920 --> 0:12:52.560 but especially in mammals. So a lot of Darwin's book 0:12:52.600 --> 0:12:55.800 deals with things like the screams of infants and how 0:12:55.840 --> 0:13:00.200 the scream of an infant elicits parental attention. But you really, 0:13:00.240 --> 0:13:03.040 if an object is screaming at you, you don't you 0:13:03.120 --> 0:13:05.560 just you know, don't you just find it annoying? Like 0:13:05.640 --> 0:13:07.280 you want to get away from it. Like if there's 0:13:07.320 --> 0:13:10.040 just us an orb in a room screaming at you, 0:13:10.080 --> 0:13:13.640 I wouldn't want to care for it. I would run away. Correct. Yeah, 0:13:13.640 --> 0:13:17.199 If if a human on a train is screaming, um, 0:13:17.520 --> 0:13:19.720 either may be you want to find out what's happening. 0:13:19.720 --> 0:13:22.760 You might even want to help. But there's there's at 0:13:22.800 --> 0:13:25.760 least that question mark phase of the screaming. Right, what 0:13:25.920 --> 0:13:27.640 is going on here? Let me find out so that 0:13:27.679 --> 0:13:30.760 I can act accordingly. Yeah, it's attention getting, But the 0:13:30.800 --> 0:13:33.240 demands of an infant have to be more than simply 0:13:33.280 --> 0:13:35.960 attention getting to be adaptive. They have to be sharpened 0:13:36.200 --> 0:13:40.240 to appeal to specific vulnerabilities in the adult caregiver's brain, 0:13:40.440 --> 0:13:46.360 like vulnerabilities that soften anger responses and encourage protectiveness, and 0:13:46.440 --> 0:13:50.920 encourage generosity and sharing of resources and so forth. So 0:13:51.080 --> 0:13:54.520 something about the infant version of an animal has to 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:57.839 convince the adult version of that animal to feel an 0:13:57.840 --> 0:14:01.679 attachment and to make sacrifices on behalf of this little creature. 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:03.920 Now we'll talk about this more in a second. But 0:14:04.000 --> 0:14:08.120 in some species these appeals for parenting could be straightforwardly chemical, right, 0:14:08.200 --> 0:14:12.199 Pheromones and scent would be examples. But couldn't these biological 0:14:12.240 --> 0:14:16.160 appeals also be visual? It makes sense, right, that's and 0:14:16.679 --> 0:14:18.960 one of the most immediate ways to interact with with 0:14:19.040 --> 0:14:21.880 an object or being is you see them and then 0:14:22.040 --> 0:14:24.960 you respond. Right. So, in the middle of the twentieth century, 0:14:25.000 --> 0:14:29.680 the Austrian ethologist Conrad Lorenz, who I guess we should 0:14:29.720 --> 0:14:32.120 maybe acknowledged it's always weird, like should you bring this 0:14:32.200 --> 0:14:35.320 up or not? He was also a Nazi. After World 0:14:35.320 --> 0:14:38.200 War Two repudiated his views. I'm not aware that his 0:14:38.280 --> 0:14:40.760 ideology played any role in coming up with this schema 0:14:40.800 --> 0:14:43.280 we're about to talk about, but I guess it's worth acknowledging. 0:14:43.400 --> 0:14:45.840 Oh yeah, I mean, I think it's always worth noting 0:14:46.120 --> 0:14:49.160 when a scientist has that in their background, because in 0:14:49.240 --> 0:14:51.920 some cases you you definitely have science that it was 0:14:52.240 --> 0:14:57.360 skewed or compromised by its association with the Third Reich. Uh, 0:14:57.440 --> 0:14:59.480 so you have you have to at least acknowledge that 0:14:59.480 --> 0:15:02.080 it was there in order to determine if it was 0:15:02.120 --> 0:15:04.400 a factor. Yeah, I mean, like you had people doing 0:15:04.440 --> 0:15:08.000 science that was ideologically determined, not very objective. But I 0:15:08.040 --> 0:15:11.440 don't think that's necessarily the case in this case. So 0:15:11.680 --> 0:15:16.560 Larens plunged into this field by observing animal species and 0:15:16.600 --> 0:15:19.800 coming up with what's known as the Kinschen Schemma or 0:15:19.840 --> 0:15:22.520 the baby schema. It's a list of features that he 0:15:22.600 --> 0:15:27.040 believed were sculpted in order to trigger or release caregiving 0:15:27.080 --> 0:15:31.600 behaviors in adult animals. And he gave about seven criteria. 0:15:31.760 --> 0:15:33.640 So let me know what you think about these. Robert 0:15:34.520 --> 0:15:39.080 A large head Okay, Yeah, babies have big heads. Predominance 0:15:39.160 --> 0:15:41.360 of the brain capsule. So that's going to mean not 0:15:41.440 --> 0:15:44.160 just a large head, but sort of the large forehead, 0:15:44.280 --> 0:15:46.520 like the swelling of the upper part of the head, 0:15:47.800 --> 0:15:53.080 large and low lying eyes, a bulging cheek region. There's 0:15:53.120 --> 0:15:58.600 the Churchill jowls. We're talking about, short and thick extremities, 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:03.880 a springy or elastic consistency. Yeah, they when you when 0:16:03.880 --> 0:16:07.440 you poke them in a soft body, there's your plush doll. 0:16:07.960 --> 0:16:13.200 And finally, clumsy movements, Yes, the toddling of the toddler right, 0:16:13.720 --> 0:16:17.720 and subsequent studies have found evidence to partially support Lorenz's schema. 0:16:17.800 --> 0:16:20.080 So this is one reason to think that, you know, 0:16:20.440 --> 0:16:22.840 even if he's got some kind of crazy ideology, there 0:16:22.920 --> 0:16:25.360 might be something to this because subsequent studies seem to 0:16:25.400 --> 0:16:28.120 find some of the same stuff is true. So I'll 0:16:28.120 --> 0:16:31.200 mention one study from two thousand nine published in Ethology 0:16:31.240 --> 0:16:34.320 by Melanie Glocker at All, and this is called baby 0:16:34.400 --> 0:16:39.560 schema in Infant Faces induces cuteness, perception and motivation for 0:16:39.640 --> 0:16:42.840 caretaking in adults. And what they did in this study 0:16:42.920 --> 0:16:46.880 was they used real photos of infants digitally manipulated to 0:16:47.040 --> 0:16:50.760 accentuate or to downplay some of the features that are 0:16:50.760 --> 0:16:55.120 in line with Lorenz's criteria. And so among a group 0:16:55.160 --> 0:16:59.360 of undergraduates, the study found that the faces manipulated towards 0:16:59.440 --> 0:17:01.760 the criteria as a meaning they manipulated them to have 0:17:01.920 --> 0:17:06.119 larger eyes or a rounder face or a higher forehead, 0:17:06.520 --> 0:17:10.600 were judged to be cuter and elicited greater motivation for caregiving. 0:17:10.640 --> 0:17:14.120 People said they were more likely to give care to these, uh, 0:17:14.160 --> 0:17:17.080 these more baby scheme of faces than the ones where 0:17:17.080 --> 0:17:21.800 they really downplayed those criteria, giving them smaller eyes, smaller 0:17:21.840 --> 0:17:26.280 foreheads and narrower face and stuff like that. Now I've 0:17:26.280 --> 0:17:28.560 got a picture here, Yeah, I'm I'm looking at this 0:17:28.680 --> 0:17:32.879 right now. So, um, basically we have an array of 0:17:32.960 --> 0:17:36.200 six images, three per row. So we have this grid 0:17:36.240 --> 0:17:40.000 of baby heads here that we're looking at and um 0:17:40.040 --> 0:17:43.199 and in the idea that there's a change in uh 0:17:44.040 --> 0:17:47.320 like cuteness from left to right. Yeah, So you've got 0:17:47.359 --> 0:17:50.280 like normal baby heads in the middle, and then on 0:17:50.320 --> 0:17:54.159 the right you've got ultra babified baby faces with like 0:17:54.200 --> 0:17:58.000 these gigantic eyes, really round faces, really sort of low 0:17:58.119 --> 0:18:01.919 faces with large foreheads, big brain capsules. And then on 0:18:01.960 --> 0:18:05.960 the right you've got unbabified baby faces that look sort 0:18:05.960 --> 0:18:09.119 of more like the kid in the omen or they 0:18:09.200 --> 0:18:12.080 look more adult. Basically, they look more like old men, 0:18:12.359 --> 0:18:14.639 you know. They're they're kind of in that category of 0:18:14.680 --> 0:18:18.159 like the older baby babies that when you look at 0:18:18.200 --> 0:18:20.399 them and maybe you you cringe a little bit before 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:24.440 you tell the parents that it's a beautiful baby. Yeah, 0:18:24.480 --> 0:18:28.000 And they tend to have like smaller eyes, a smaller forehead, 0:18:28.880 --> 0:18:32.399 a narrower head, and a less rounding of the skull 0:18:32.480 --> 0:18:36.480 that they look they look like weird adults rather than babies, 0:18:37.160 --> 0:18:38.919 you know. And it's interesting to to look at this 0:18:38.960 --> 0:18:42.080 and think of it in in light of our basically 0:18:42.160 --> 0:18:45.600 our evolved reaction to these faces. I was looking at 0:18:45.680 --> 0:18:48.280 a study that said the scientists have used magneto and 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:52.200 cephalography to observe a seventh of a second response time 0:18:52.560 --> 0:18:55.760 in adults to unfamiliar infant faces, but of course not 0:18:55.840 --> 0:18:58.840 adult faces. And that's going to that's uh, that difference 0:18:58.920 --> 0:19:01.840 is gonna be manifest in this array of faces as well. 0:19:01.880 --> 0:19:04.840 Like the cute or the baby, the more immediate your 0:19:04.840 --> 0:19:07.239 response to it, I imagine. So, like you see this 0:19:07.320 --> 0:19:10.800 cute baby face with the highly babified features, and you're like, 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:13.120 whoa that I need to pay attention to that. Yeah, 0:19:13.160 --> 0:19:14.800 I've got to look at that, and if it needs something, 0:19:14.840 --> 0:19:16.720 I guess I will go buy it some milk or 0:19:16.760 --> 0:19:19.640 some pudding or whatever it is. Baby's eat, right. Put 0:19:19.720 --> 0:19:22.480 zip ties on all my cabinets, those horrible plastic things 0:19:22.520 --> 0:19:26.200 and all my wall plugs. I know, I'm still trying 0:19:26.240 --> 0:19:29.200 to work through all the baby proofing on my house. Really, yeah, 0:19:29.240 --> 0:19:31.600 there's still some annoying baby proofing that I haven't quite 0:19:31.680 --> 0:19:36.040 like broken by forcing a grower open. But so one 0:19:36.040 --> 0:19:39.239 of the interesting things about the recognition of cuteness and 0:19:39.400 --> 0:19:42.040 it's biological function is that it appears to work not 0:19:42.160 --> 0:19:46.280 just within species. Now, I can't see any real reason 0:19:46.800 --> 0:19:51.560 that you would evolve to have a caregiving preference for 0:19:51.680 --> 0:19:54.240 animals other than your own species. So it might be 0:19:54.280 --> 0:19:56.800 one of those things that's just a byproduct of something 0:19:56.840 --> 0:19:59.640 that's highly adaptable. Yeah, I mean, we're all we're related 0:19:59.680 --> 0:20:02.640 to all the the other mammalion creatures, and and they're 0:20:02.640 --> 0:20:05.720 all they all have the basically basically the same survival 0:20:06.240 --> 0:20:10.040 um techniques in place in terms of parental care for 0:20:10.119 --> 0:20:12.359 the infant. Yeah, and it's kind of obvious from our 0:20:12.400 --> 0:20:15.879 experiences with kittens and puppies and so forth. But experiments 0:20:15.880 --> 0:20:19.399 do confirm that our appreciation for cuteness goes beyond the 0:20:19.440 --> 0:20:22.840 infant Homo sapiens. One example is a study found by 0:20:22.880 --> 0:20:26.000 Anthony Little from two thousand and twelve published again in 0:20:26.080 --> 0:20:30.920 Ethology called Manipulation of Infant Like Traits Effects Perceived cuteness 0:20:30.920 --> 0:20:35.159 of infante, adults and cat faces. So it found that 0:20:35.480 --> 0:20:40.520 among images of three types of faces, babies, adults, and cats, 0:20:41.240 --> 0:20:43.479 first of all, people found the babies and the cats 0:20:43.600 --> 0:20:47.360 cuter than adults. But then also when the faces from 0:20:47.400 --> 0:20:51.639 all three categories were manipulated to have baby scheme of characteristics, 0:20:51.680 --> 0:20:55.640 for example decreasing the jaws, eyes, and increasing the forehead height, 0:20:55.920 --> 0:20:58.880 people found them cuter. And this worked for adult faces, 0:20:58.960 --> 0:21:01.800 for human baby face is and for cat faces. Okay, 0:21:01.840 --> 0:21:04.160 so getting into kind of the Betty boot area there 0:21:04.480 --> 0:21:11.119 of like the weird like infantile but but arguably attractive 0:21:11.160 --> 0:21:14.600 adult female. Yeah, it's it's just seeming to imply that 0:21:14.720 --> 0:21:18.919 we have the same kind of caregiving response or cuteness 0:21:19.000 --> 0:21:23.000 response to faces of all different types of creatures, no 0:21:23.040 --> 0:21:26.520 matter what age and no matter what species. Even if 0:21:26.520 --> 0:21:28.840 there's a face and you make these certain types of 0:21:28.960 --> 0:21:32.240 changes to the face, we think it's cute usually and 0:21:32.320 --> 0:21:35.480 we respond with all you know, zip tide, the chemical cabinet. 0:21:36.280 --> 0:21:38.000 You know, it's interesting to think of it in terms 0:21:38.040 --> 0:21:42.480 of survival adaptations for non human animals when you think 0:21:42.680 --> 0:21:47.679 of of domesticated animals, cats and dogs, because certainly, I 0:21:47.680 --> 0:21:50.399 think that I've certainly read some studies that argue for 0:21:50.480 --> 0:21:54.480 the the the cat's ability to essentially hijack us by 0:21:54.480 --> 0:21:56.760 making us think it's a baby on some level, you know, 0:21:56.840 --> 0:21:58.760 and and and I think dogs do that too to 0:21:58.840 --> 0:22:01.040 a large extent, as it's sorta with puppies. So I 0:22:01.040 --> 0:22:04.600 could see it as a situation where uh, an infant 0:22:04.680 --> 0:22:08.639 dog or or cat that is either found or s 0:22:08.640 --> 0:22:11.720 obtained when the parents are killed like suddenly, those are 0:22:11.840 --> 0:22:16.000 less likely to be then killed and eaten or skinned 0:22:16.080 --> 0:22:18.800 or left for dead by the humans who have found 0:22:18.840 --> 0:22:22.360 it if it hits those same triggers you know. Now, 0:22:22.640 --> 0:22:25.240 another study I came across, the two thousand twelve Japanese 0:22:25.240 --> 0:22:28.360 study publishing p OS one, and they tested the effect 0:22:28.600 --> 0:22:32.560 of viewing kauai images or cute images on attentiveness, and 0:22:32.600 --> 0:22:36.800