Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My
Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And it's Saturday.
Speaker 1: Time to venture into the vault. This time we're gonna
Speaker 1: be going back to an old classic October episode that
Speaker 1: you did with Christian a few years ago. Right, that's right.
Speaker 1: This is the Halloween costume made me do it? Uh,
Speaker 1: this is the This is basically a study of what
Speaker 1: happens when we put on Halloween mask. How into what
Speaker 1: extent does it change who we are and how we behave.
Speaker 1: Is a child wearing a Halloween mask more likely to
Speaker 1: get into mischief than one that is not wearing a mask? Uh?
Speaker 1: It's a fascinating area of discussion. Gets into stuff like
Speaker 1: in clothes, cognition, etcetera. This was originally published on October.
Speaker 1: We hope you enjoy it today. Welcome to Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hey,
Speaker 1: welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is
Speaker 1: Robert Lamb and I'm Christian Seger. Hey, it is October,
Speaker 1: and we, if you haven't noticed, are covering a lot
Speaker 1: of topics that are around kind of the October theme
Speaker 1: of horror and Halloween but also things like being dead
Speaker 1: or burials are for today, we're gonna get real literal
Speaker 1: with it and talk about Halloween costumes. But we also
Speaker 1: want to let you know that towards the end of
Speaker 1: the month, we're going to be doing two kind of
Speaker 1: special things that we want our audience to know about.
Speaker 1: The first is that we're gonna be periscoping our listener
Speaker 1: mail starting on October twenty three, which is a Friday.
Speaker 1: So if you're on periscope or if you're not, sign
Speaker 1: up for it and you can check us out responding
Speaker 1: to our listener mail and kind of interacting with our
Speaker 1: audience in real time on that platform. Yeah, and if
Speaker 1: you don't know what periscope is, don't worry. I didn't
Speaker 1: know till life a few weeks ago. So we'll put
Speaker 1: up a blog post as well at some point here
Speaker 1: that will give you the deats on what exactly what
Speaker 1: we're talking about exactly. We'll be pushing the information out
Speaker 1: on our social media channels as well, which include Facebook, Twitter,
Speaker 1: and tumbler. On all of those platforms were known by
Speaker 1: the handle blow the Mind, and we don't just post
Speaker 1: our own stuff there. We curate content from all the
Speaker 1: kind of weird science e stuff that we find across
Speaker 1: the internet. Uh. And if you want to be included
Speaker 1: in that listener mail, don't forget that. You can always
Speaker 1: reach us at the email address blow the Mind at
Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com. The other thing that we
Speaker 1: have coming up at the end of October is the
Speaker 1: return of our video series Monster Science. Robert, you want
Speaker 1: to tell him a little bit about this? Yeah? Join
Speaker 1: uh Dr Anton Jessup, a kind of a daytime horror
Speaker 1: host VHS era basement creep who's going to walk us
Speaker 1: through the real world science behind us some rather outrageous
Speaker 1: monster movie nasties. Can you give us a preview of
Speaker 1: what kind of monsters we're gonna see in this? So yes,
Speaker 1: we're gonna you're gonna look at shambling mushrooms, You're gonna
Speaker 1: look at werewolves. We're gonna look into Big Trouble a
Speaker 1: little China when the creatures from that as well. That's exciting,
Speaker 1: as well as a certain character from Mortal Kombat. So cool. Cool.
Speaker 1: So what's great about that is you've got a wear
Speaker 1: Wolf episode coming up with that. We just published the
Speaker 1: episode on wolf Spain and so you know, we're trying
Speaker 1: to tie things together a little bit here. We also
Speaker 1: have an episode coming out about Egyptian mummification, and we
Speaker 1: have a mummy episode of Monster Science from the first season.
Speaker 1: So October, you can see, is our favorite month, which
Speaker 1: brings me to today's episode, Robert, what are you going
Speaker 1: to be for Halloween this year? We'll see this is
Speaker 1: a this is a complicated question, um with me, because
Speaker 1: I have the boy. The boy's gonna dress up and
Speaker 1: uh and and me and my wife have done kind
Speaker 1: of like combo costumes in the past, but now we
Speaker 1: have this, uh, this weird extra actor in the scenario.
Speaker 1: So like last year we did a Twin Peaks thing
Speaker 1: where remember that, Yeah, where I was the comic clock
Speaker 1: and character lady. Yeah, my wife was a clog lady
Speaker 1: and we dressed our son up as the dancing little guy.
Speaker 1: Um and and my my father in law played the
Speaker 1: tall man. Oh yeah, yeah, I do remember seeing that picture. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was a great idea. Yeah, so that one works.
Speaker 1: But now he's he's a little more insistent, like he
Speaker 1: wants to be a giraffe and like, you know how
Speaker 1: it's hard to work a giraffe into a team cost
Speaker 1: him ef. Yeah, absolutely, the only thing that comes to
Speaker 1: mind is like, what's that elephant children's story? Bob are
Speaker 1: Ye and like that. I don't want to dress up
Speaker 1: like ar Yeah you're not. You don't strick me as
Speaker 1: the book? Yeah I would. I would love to do
Speaker 1: a mummy like com bo cost him where we all
Speaker 1: dressed up as different takes on mummies. He could be
Speaker 1: a giraffe mummy, he could. Yeah, there's no reason why
Speaker 1: they wouldn't have mummified a giraffe. That would have been
Speaker 1: an interesting process in bombing all those draft organs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would think so. So yeah, maybe mommy giraffe. We'll see.
Speaker 1: How about yourself. I haven't nailed it down yet, but
Speaker 1: I have this old prison outfit that I used for
Speaker 1: a video I shot one time. So I'm kind of
Speaker 1: considering doing a Hannibal lecter thing. Uh, but it would
Speaker 1: involve me having to be strapped down to a dolly
Speaker 1: and being pushed around by somebody. And I don't think
Speaker 1: I can talk anybody into being you know, the orderly
Speaker 1: Barney from the from the Asylum that Animals. And that's
Speaker 1: the thing about it's about certain combo costumes is they're
Speaker 1: not all even handed. Sometimes they require somebody to be
Speaker 1: something kind of boring. Yeah, well some people are into that.
Speaker 1: I don't think My wife definitely wouldn't want to be Barney,
Speaker 1: so we'll come up with something maybe she can be
Speaker 1: Will Graham. Yeah. So the reason I ask is because
Speaker 1: today we're gonna be talking about Halloween costumes and how
Speaker 1: they relate to our culture but also to our identities
Speaker 1: and how we form and change our our identities in
Speaker 1: conjunction with what we're you know, costuming as Yeah, it hard,
Speaker 1: it's a really it's a really fascinating topic because when
Speaker 1: you put on a mask, when you put on a costume,
Speaker 1: you're engaging in a in a very a very powerful act.
Speaker 1: Here you are becoming somebody else, not only externally but internally,
Speaker 1: as we'll discuss, and it's been a it's played a
Speaker 1: vital role in traditional religions throughout history. It's uh, you
Speaker 1: can you can see both positive and negative, very negative
Speaker 1: aspects of mask and costume usage throughout time, and yet
Speaker 1: today we often just relegate it to just sort of
Speaker 1: childhood silliness. Right, Oh, the kids are gonna put on
Speaker 1: masks and go around parading through the community. Well when
Speaker 1: but if you stop and you think about it, it's
Speaker 1: it's terrifying, you know. Yeah, And I think that there's
Speaker 1: an argument to be made to that, and we're going
Speaker 1: to get into this that it's definitely over the last
Speaker 1: thirty years or so, maybe forty years or so, it's
Speaker 1: started to become an adult thing, at least in American culture,
Speaker 1: and that the rise of cosplay in sort of, I guess,
Speaker 1: nerd culture, but you know, I think it's gotten to
Speaker 1: the point where cosplay is is beyond nerd culture now.
Speaker 1: I was in the grocery store the other day and
Speaker 1: there's a magazine dedicated to cosplay that you can buy
Speaker 1: at your local supermarket. So I feel like that's sort
Speaker 1: of elevated past, you know, just just for geeks, when
Speaker 1: you can buy it like on the shelf there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's great to hear that, especially looking back. I
Speaker 1: definitely remember a time when I was still trigger treating,
Speaker 1: but among my peers, I was probably too old for
Speaker 1: such nonsense. And occasionally you would run, you would trigg
Speaker 1: or treat at a house and you'd see somebody your
Speaker 1: own age in there, not in costume, and they kind
Speaker 1: of look at you like, what are you doing? But
Speaker 1: then you know what they weren't doing having fun exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In fact, the dude in question I'm thinking about, it's
Speaker 1: like I looked him up on Facebook and he's still
Speaker 1: not having fun in this day. So I'm proud that
Speaker 1: I wore my my Halloween customes. But you know, but
Speaker 1: the thing is, is that guy and I'm sure, I'm
Speaker 1: sure anybody listening to the episode right now can identify
Speaker 1: with costuming and that sort of role play, identity change element.
Speaker 1: And there's a science to this too. This isn't just
Speaker 1: gonna be us riffing about what it's like to wear
Speaker 1: Halloween costumes. There's been a ton of studies on this way,
Speaker 1: more than I thought we would find. Actually, Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a like I knew there would be a tie to
Speaker 1: the topic of in clothed cognition that we'll talk about,
Speaker 1: and a long time listeners to the show might remember
Speaker 1: an episode in the past that dealt a little bit
Speaker 1: within closed cognition. But there's there are a number of
Speaker 1: studies that deal specifically with Halloween costumes and how Halloween
Speaker 1: costumes impact both children and adults. Yeah, so there are
Speaker 1: two specific things that I want to sort of start
Speaker 1: off with us maybe like thesis statements for this episode,
Speaker 1: and we'll see if they're approved by the evidence that
Speaker 1: we go through throughout the episode. The first is that
Speaker 1: there's this idea that Halloween is a and the costumes
Speaker 1: that we see in the acts that we see during
Speaker 1: it are a reflection of what's happening in our culture
Speaker 1: at that point in time, and that it's sort of,
Speaker 1: uh is also a transgressive element, right, that there are
Speaker 1: boundaries within our society that are some of them are
Speaker 1: asking to be pushed, and Halloween is the time when
Speaker 1: that happens. And you know, in some degrees that can
Speaker 1: lead to social change and other degrees, as we'll talk about,
Speaker 1: it's maybe a kind of social regression as well. But
Speaker 1: so I want us to keep that in mind that
Speaker 1: it it seems to be this period of time that
Speaker 1: reflects kind of I hate using this term, but the
Speaker 1: zeitgeist of what's going on in American culture at the time.
Speaker 1: And I understand that it's becoming more popular in some
Speaker 1: European nations as well, so um, you know, perhaps they're
Speaker 1: seeing that as well. Well. You know, just over the
Speaker 1: past ten years, you can look to one particular Halloween
Speaker 1: costume is playing a significant role in uh in social movements.
Speaker 1: That being, of course, the V for Vendetta mask, which
Speaker 1: is Halloween costume mask based on the motion picture. That's
Speaker 1: always fascinated me from the perspective of you know, and
Speaker 1: I'll talk about this later, but you know, in my
Speaker 1: outside life, I write comic books, and I attend a
Speaker 1: lot of comic book conventions throughout the year, and so
Speaker 1: I see a lot of costumes. And when the movie
Speaker 1: came out and all of a sudden, I started seeing
Speaker 1: a lot of people both at these shows and at
Speaker 1: Halloween wearing the Guy Fox mask, it really struck me
Speaker 1: as being ironic because there's such a um as you
Speaker 1: just brought up, there's such an association and symbolism of
Speaker 1: bellion associated with that that mask that I don't know
Speaker 1: necessarily that the customers themselves even knew it necessarily, even
Speaker 1: though the movie sort of presents that as a as
Speaker 1: a symbolic point. Yeah. Yeah, it's been. It's been a
Speaker 1: fascinating transformation with that particular man of the particular character. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So before we start talking about these studies, which you know,
Speaker 1: we're gonna be working our way from nineteen seventies six
Speaker 1: up until present day, there's been so many studies. Uh,
Speaker 1: I want to just throw out this fact for you.
Speaker 1: In one point four billion dollars were spent on Halloween
Speaker 1: costumes in America alone. And that's according to the National
Speaker 1: Retail Federation. That is a tremendous sum of money. And
Speaker 1: I guess I never really stopped to think about it before.
Speaker 1: But of course, like I don't know what it's like
Speaker 1: in other parts of the country, but here in Atlanta
Speaker 1: we have these these like pop up halloween stores where
Speaker 1: like there used to be uh, you know, like a
Speaker 1: department store like a Macy's or something, and it's since left.
Speaker 1: And for just the month of October, these halloween stores
Speaker 1: move in and all they sell their costumes and Halloween
Speaker 1: knickknacks and things like that. Uh. And I always it
Speaker 1: always struck me as like, wow, like can you turn
Speaker 1: a profit just in a month like that? And obviously
Speaker 1: you can if there's that much money going into it.
Speaker 1: And it's especially interesting to see that it's doing that
Speaker 1: kind of business. After all those kids melted in the
Speaker 1: Silver Shamrock mass That was a shame. That was a shame.
Speaker 1: I was young when that happened, But yeah, I can't
Speaker 1: believe in the snakes came out of their eyes. And
Speaker 1: we are, of course referring to Halloween three colon Season
Speaker 1: of the Witch, one of our favorite movies. Here' stuff
Speaker 1: to blow your mind. In fact, last year, Uh Joe,
Speaker 1: super producer Noel and myself got together with our partners
Speaker 1: and watched that movie. I don't know if it was
Speaker 1: on Halloween, but it was like the week of Halloween
Speaker 1: and it was great fun. Yeah, I think I watched
Speaker 1: it for the first time last year as well at
Speaker 1: night by myself the family was sleeping. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: think it's it's a very flawed film, but it has
Speaker 1: some it has some very just fantastic elements in it,
Speaker 1: from the just wonderful soundtrack by John Carpenter now and
Speaker 1: worth to uh the weird mix of like androids and
Speaker 1: occult magic and big scary corporations like on paper, it's
Speaker 1: it's a fabulous film, right. We were saying before the
Speaker 1: taping that it would be it's right for a remake,
Speaker 1: but it probably will never get remade. Like the idea
Speaker 1: of so the central conceit of the movie is that
Speaker 1: there's an evil magical corporation that is producing is it
Speaker 1: three Halloween masks? It's three. Yeah, it's like a witch
Speaker 1: a skull and I don't jack o lantern? Is that
Speaker 1: the other one? Uh? And and their children's masks And
Speaker 1: if these children wear their Halloween masks and watch a
Speaker 1: like evil magical commercial simultaneously, they will all die. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they will die and serve as some sort of a
Speaker 1: child sack five and they ancient ritual. It's a bizarre movie,
Speaker 1: but it's this was before Basically the idea I think
Speaker 1: was that the Halloween movies, before they were dominated by
Speaker 1: Michael Myers, were supposed to be like an anthology series.
Speaker 1: This is going to kickstart anthology Halloween. So each year
Speaker 1: we'd get a different Halloween film on the different plot.
Speaker 1: And sadly that didn't happen because nobody liked Halloween three
Speaker 1: until it had time to uh, you know, to cure
Speaker 1: and sure over over the years. It's like a fine one.
Speaker 1: It is. It is a fine one that not everyone's
Speaker 1: palate is going to be susceptible to. But at heart
Speaker 1: Halloween three season of the which is about masks changing
Speaker 1: children absolutely now in the movie, it changes them into
Speaker 1: a pile of goo and snakes and whatnot. But in
Speaker 1: reality it does seem to change our children into something else. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I wonder if, well, I wonder if those screenwriters of
Speaker 1: Halloween three were inspired by this first study, or maybe
Speaker 1: the first two studies we're going to talk about, because
Speaker 1: the first was in seventy six, the next one was
Speaker 1: in seventies seventy nine. Yeah, so the whole time when
Speaker 1: I'm reading these, I'm picturing the uh, the sort of
Speaker 1: idyllic uh nineteen late nineteen seventies setting of the at
Speaker 1: least the first two Halloween phrase. Um. So this is
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy six, Steady effects of d individualization variables
Speaker 1: on stealing among Halloween trigger treaters. This was published in
Speaker 1: the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology again in seventy
Speaker 1: six February. So, well, this is what happened. The psychologist
Speaker 1: involved covertly observed the behavior of a about a thousand
Speaker 1: trigger treaters at twenty seven different Seattle homes. So each
Speaker 1: each house has the same setup, one bowl filled with
Speaker 1: candy and an additional bowl filled with pennies and nickels.
Speaker 1: Because you know you're going triggar treating, you want to
Speaker 1: get some pennies. And nickels. Yeah, that's that strike struck
Speaker 1: me as weird. But I was also born a year
Speaker 1: after the study is conducted, so maybe it's something I
Speaker 1: missed out on. So um. The researcher answer the door
Speaker 1: when the Halloween trick or peters show up, and sometimes
Speaker 1: the researcher asks the matt the costume children what their
Speaker 1: names are. Oh, you're a de life looking which what's
Speaker 1: your name? Oh it's Susie. Other times they let the
Speaker 1: children retain their anonymity. They can continue to just be
Speaker 1: werewolves and mummies and witches. Right, And that's important because
Speaker 1: it helps to reinforce the identity. Right, Okay, are no
Speaker 1: longer Susan? Yeah, instead they are you know, broom Hill
Speaker 1: to the Witch and uh, you know Oscar the money
Speaker 1: or whatever. Um. So at this point the researchers say,
Speaker 1: all right, I have to go deal with something else
Speaker 1: inside the house. One shut the door. Only take one
Speaker 1: piece of candy, and then they shut the door. But
Speaker 1: they're they're watching through the peephole the whole time. Nice
Speaker 1: scientific use of the people. Yeah, they didn't have like
Speaker 1: a nest thing that they could mount on their wall
Speaker 1: and watched through their smartphone. Yeah, they're just going around
Speaker 1: like peeking through a curtain and scribbling on a notepad.
Speaker 1: The results, though, were kids who are allowed to remain
Speaker 1: anonymous stole money and extra candy roughly three times as
Speaker 1: often as those who gave up their names, and kids
Speaker 1: who came in groups, so just a complete pack of
Speaker 1: you know, short little gremlins. Um, those who came in
Speaker 1: groups both named and anonymous were more than twice as
Speaker 1: likely to steal as those who came alone. Wow, Okay,
Speaker 1: so I don't I guess the study The findings of
Speaker 1: this aren't all that surprising, knowing what I know, just
Speaker 1: from living life and having costume before and knowing other
Speaker 1: human beings. So that the the idea of the anonymity
Speaker 1: this is pre social media too, so I think that
Speaker 1: that has something to do with it as well. Right
Speaker 1: that we now know that anonymity leads to people doing
Speaker 1: things that they think that they won't have repercussions for it. Right. Um,
Speaker 1: But then that the group factor as well as is
Speaker 1: the really interesting one. So how the pennies come into play?
Speaker 1: Do they steal those as well? Nichols? Okay, And and
Speaker 1: my my reading of this, the study they didn't even
Speaker 1: say okay, also, you can take a amount of coins
Speaker 1: the right of the coins. They just left him there.
Speaker 1: It was like, yeah, this is just for decorations, and
Speaker 1: these kids just grab Yeah. It's it's also interesting to
Speaker 1: read this thinking about my own interactions with grantities are
Speaker 1: like three year olds, but watching them feed off of
Speaker 1: each other's energy. Like you get to three year olds
Speaker 1: in a room and they'll suddenly just start feeding off
Speaker 1: each other and displaying behavior that individually they wouldn't do,
Speaker 1: but they just they're just like there's a heightened susceptibility
Speaker 1: to group think and uh like you know, imaginative, uh,
Speaker 1: the association. It's it's interesting. Well we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about this throughout this episode, and there's a study that
Speaker 1: it's coming up that specifically refers to it. But that
Speaker 1: is like that zone that age around between three and
Speaker 1: five is sort of that zone where you're still you
Speaker 1: understand sort of you know when people say like you're
Speaker 1: a boy, or you know, you're um, you're from Atlanta,
Speaker 1: George jar or whatever, like you understand those words, but
Speaker 1: the actual identity part hasn't really like all glamed together yet.
Speaker 1: So the group think kind of thing seems to happen
Speaker 1: a little easier at that age. I mean, you are
Speaker 1: observing it right now. Oh yeah. Like my my son
Speaker 1: and his friend Leo, they had a time at the
Speaker 1: playground the other day where all they did is just
Speaker 1: marched around and chanted we are Daddy elephants the whole time.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and they don't do that on their own,
Speaker 1: but together they engage in that. So I feel like
Speaker 1: it's the same sort of energy at work now. I
Speaker 1: miss that. We need to we need to bring that back.
Speaker 1: We'll have after this. We're gonna have a weird Daddy
Speaker 1: Elephants session in office. Now. There's a nineteen seventy nine
Speaker 1: study that followed this up and and and indeed the
Speaker 1: researchers here set out to replicate the results of the
Speaker 1: seventy eight study. Uh. And this one is titled Halloween
Speaker 1: Masks and d Individualization. Uh And this was published in
Speaker 1: Psychology Reports April nineteen seventy nine. So this time they
Speaker 1: looked at fifty eight costume kids ages nine through thirteen,
Speaker 1: and all of them in this cases are unaccompanied by adults,
Speaker 1: so there are no adults there to, you know, to
Speaker 1: to inflict rules and regulations on the Halloween traditions. They
Speaker 1: This time, the researchers tell the children to take two
Speaker 1: and only two pieces of candy from a bowl. Uh,
Speaker 1: and then they shut the door. The same situation takes place.
Speaker 1: They peek around the corner through the people. This is
Speaker 1: what they found. Mass children were significantly more likely to
Speaker 1: violate the instructions grabbing a healthy fistful of candy sixty
Speaker 1: two percent of the time versus thirty seven percent for
Speaker 1: unmasked counterparts. That's interesting, especially because the age difference, so
Speaker 1: we're talking nine to thirteen year olds here instead of
Speaker 1: the much younger children in the first study. Also that
Speaker 1: what I'm noticing is that they're completely different authors for
Speaker 1: both studies. So this wasn't um the first team trying
Speaker 1: to replicate their efforts. It was an entirely different team,
Speaker 1: probably in a different part of the country. Well, and
Speaker 1: I think it's worth us explaining what they mean when
Speaker 1: they say d individual ation here, right, So that is
Speaker 1: a psychological process by which a person's identity is subsumed.
Speaker 1: This is the This isn't my language, obviously, Obviously I
Speaker 1: don't throw subsumed around a lot. But it's subsumed by
Speaker 1: the identity of a larger group, and in this case,
Speaker 1: the mask thing can can play into it. Right. Uh,
Speaker 1: I wonder if the kids were masked and they were
Speaker 1: by themselves, if this you know how this would play out? Well?
Speaker 1: In this uh, this is a particular study. They were
Speaker 1: they were unaccompanied by adults, so there were no adults. No,
Speaker 1: I mean no other children too. I guess, like, what
Speaker 1: creepy kid goes around all by themselves trick or treating
Speaker 1: at nine years old. Well, in the first study, they
Speaker 1: did find that kids who came in groups were more
Speaker 1: than twice as likely to steal what's those who came along.
Speaker 1: So yeah, there's definitely uh, you know, one is potentially
Speaker 1: a problem, but you can two together and they're just
Speaker 1: going to fall into that that group identity of the
Speaker 1: trick or treating fiends. So okay, So all right. The
Speaker 1: first thing that we're establishing here is that, uh, costuming,
Speaker 1: especially during Halloween, provides a certain amount of anonymity, and
Speaker 1: that within a group, it provides the potential for this
Speaker 1: d individual ation in which you divorce yourself from your
Speaker 1: day to day identity and allow yourself to be absorbed
Speaker 1: into the identity of this larger group. It's almost like
Speaker 1: a cult type. Yeah, I mean it's instantly. It makes
Speaker 1: me think of various and often vile scenarios where you
Speaker 1: have hooded individuals creating about and doing things. It's it's
Speaker 1: the same energy, it's the same mechanism, but entrusted to
Speaker 1: children as opposed to taken on by adults. Well, let's
Speaker 1: let's speed it forward a little bit, uh to maybe
Speaker 1: maybe a period of time that I'm sure everybody can
Speaker 1: relate to the being a child and dressing up in
Speaker 1: costume and maybe grabbing a fistful of candy. But there
Speaker 1: was a study, uh, and this was cited. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you noticed this, but this particular study was
Speaker 1: cited across the board and all the studies afterwards as
Speaker 1: like a sort of foundational source studies studies. Yeah. Uh
Speaker 1: so it's called dressing in costume and the use of alcohol, marijuana,
Speaker 1: and other drugs by college students. So no surprise. Uh,
Speaker 1: they did this study looking at twelve hundred college students.
Speaker 1: I don't remember what area of the country it is
Speaker 1: they might have they might have split it up, actually, uh,
Speaker 1: and no doubt they found that those that were in
Speaker 1: costumes were more likely to consume alcohol than those that
Speaker 1: weren't right, and they were also more likely to use
Speaker 1: drugs over the course of the night. Now, anybody who
Speaker 1: you don't even have to have gone to college, anybody
Speaker 1: who's been over the age of eighteen and has gone
Speaker 1: to an adult Halloween party where people are in costume,
Speaker 1: I think this will probably be a common experience. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have to admit that deer in college and and
Speaker 1: uh the time period following college, the most hungover I
Speaker 1: ever managed to get. Both times it resulted from a
Speaker 1: Halloween party. Oh yeah, yeah, I definitely saw some crazy
Speaker 1: stuff at Halloween parties when I was living in the
Speaker 1: Boston area. One time I went to a Halloween party.
Speaker 1: These people lived on the grounds of It was an
Speaker 1: abandoned This is going to sound made up, but it's
Speaker 1: a real thing. It was an abandoned mental institution on
Speaker 1: the grounds of a cemetery just outside of Boston, on
Speaker 1: top of an Indian area ground. I don't know if
Speaker 1: there was an Imperial ground, but they definitely had a
Speaker 1: Potter's field next door where you could you could see
Speaker 1: you know what I mean by Potter's field. But they
Speaker 1: just had like the bricks with numbers on them and
Speaker 1: things like that. Uh. And the people that I knew
Speaker 1: who lived there, Uh, they were basically paying rent to
Speaker 1: the town to live in this thing and make sure
Speaker 1: that people didn't come by and vandalize it. Um. So
Speaker 1: they threw this crazy Halloween party, and I mean you
Speaker 1: could you went into the base into this place and
Speaker 1: they had gurneys and strange jackets and like all the
Speaker 1: files on the patients were still there. That was the
Speaker 1: weird part to me was that the like the privacy
Speaker 1: element was not at all thought about, so essentially had
Speaker 1: a Session nine thing. It was very much like that. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I decided to go as a f X twin.
Speaker 1: That was which incarnation of it was the window Liquor twin.
Speaker 1: I had. You know, they actually made masks or that
Speaker 1: you could print out that we're that face. I was
Speaker 1: going to ask how you maintained that smile. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: had the mask and I had a white suit on
Speaker 1: the whole time. But uh, yeah, I saw some crazy
Speaker 1: stuff at that at that abandoned mental asylum. So I
Speaker 1: believe this study, I think most of us do. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't qualify this as a study that would blow your mind.
Speaker 1: This isn't stuff to blow your mind, but this definitely
Speaker 1: adds more fodder to our principle here, right, that like
Speaker 1: the costuming element, uh allows your identity to sort of
Speaker 1: be more fluid and flexible. Yeah. And I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: studies like this, they're not necessarily saying, hey, here's this
Speaker 1: crazy thing about your life that you never noticed before,
Speaker 1: but saying, hey, here's some science to back up that
Speaker 1: thing that we've all noticed. Because sometimes the thing that
Speaker 1: we think we know when you apply the rigors of science,
Speaker 1: who you realize, all right, this doesn't actually work the
Speaker 1: way we were thinking on surface level. So I've studies
Speaker 1: like this are just as important. Yeah. And so there's
Speaker 1: also this is when things start to get dark too.
Speaker 1: So um and no surprise, you know, I think that
Speaker 1: the older that we get that the costuming element brings along,
Speaker 1: Like I said at the top, right, it's a pushing
Speaker 1: of boundaries, so it brings along some taboo elements to it.
Speaker 1: So there's a study done in two thousand seven about um,
Speaker 1: basically race and mother ing in Halloween costumes, and it
Speaker 1: was specifically focused on college students. So again this is
Speaker 1: a you know, isolated to the college student area, although
Speaker 1: a lot of the examples that they can him up
Speaker 1: with were not necessarily isolated to that group. So this
Speaker 1: study is called Unmasking Racism Halloween Costuming and Engagement of
Speaker 1: the Racial Other and it was published in Qualitative Sociology.
Speaker 1: And basically the authors of this piece they present at
Speaker 1: the top in their abstract, they say that they think
Speaker 1: of Halloween as being a constructive space where people have
Speaker 1: the opportunity to engage in different identities, which includes racial concepts,
Speaker 1: and that there are some people who argue not necessarily
Speaker 1: these authors, although I think there's something to this, that
Speaker 1: Halloween is what we would think of as a tension
Speaker 1: management holiday. It's different from you know, Christmas or Thanksgiving,
Speaker 1: which probably create more attention. Uh. And they compare it
Speaker 1: to like New Year's or Mardi Gras, and that it
Speaker 1: allows it sort of frees us up from societal mores
Speaker 1: and gives us, you know, an opportunity for rebellion. It's
Speaker 1: they call it a ritual of rebellion that permits possible
Speaker 1: countercultural feelings, right. Uh. And in this case, you know,
Speaker 1: they say, well, you know, usually these holidays or the
Speaker 1: idea behind this is it's a reversal of social roles. Um. So,
Speaker 1: for instance, like subjugated groups, groups in a lower position
Speaker 1: are able to assume positions of power. And they connect
Speaker 1: this too. And I'll explain this theory a little bit
Speaker 1: more later. But um, there's a Russian theorist named Michael
Speaker 1: back Team and he has the kind of the big
Speaker 1: thing that he's known for theory wise is the carnival
Speaker 1: esque and they connected up to that theory, this idea
Speaker 1: of medieval europe carnivals, the same kind of thing people
Speaker 1: are in mass parading about creating mischief, the the the
Speaker 1: shift of power that takes place where often you have
Speaker 1: a fool king or the fool leader of the festival. Yeah,
Speaker 1: yep uh. But they also say, you know, there's this
Speaker 1: idea about Halloween in particular that's connected to this. The
Speaker 1: reason why in the US we give it such a
Speaker 1: national status, uh, is because it fosters that kind of
Speaker 1: social inversion. Right. So, Um, while holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving,
Speaker 1: for instance, are more institutionalized and focused on tradition and
Speaker 1: family and things like that, Halloween people think of Halloween
Speaker 1: as being that one night of the year where they
Speaker 1: can let go and they can enjoy a degree of
Speaker 1: license that they could that would otherwise never be attainable. Right, Um,
Speaker 1: basically they can get away with things that they wouldn't
Speaker 1: be able to get away with normally. So these the
Speaker 1: authors of this piece, though, they say, Okay, that's good
Speaker 1: and fine, but there's a racial element that's coming into
Speaker 1: play here that's displaying some some disturbing patterns of how
Speaker 1: white costumers are using that opportunity to uh not identify
Speaker 1: with other races, but to sort of uh make fun
Speaker 1: of and and sort of reinforce stereotypes of other races
Speaker 1: that they have. Yeah, and in this I think you
Speaker 1: you see varying levels of this. So so it's easy
Speaker 1: to imagine a straight up racially offensive costume, you know,
Speaker 1: where you're just you're just basically dressing up like the
Speaker 1: worst kind of stereotype for a particular racial group. But
Speaker 1: then on the other hand, you see, and I've definitely
Speaker 1: seen people do this before, where you're you're going after
Speaker 1: certain cultural icons. You want to you want to be
Speaker 1: that cultural icon, and you either don't realize or you're
Speaker 1: a little numb to the to the realization that to
Speaker 1: try to become that icon as a as a white individual. Um,
Speaker 1: you're you're engaging at least in some light racism, you know,
Speaker 1: like if you you decide, oh, well, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: a big hip hop fan and I really like this
Speaker 1: particular artist. That doesn't mean you can necessarily dress up
Speaker 1: as as him or her. In fact, that they noted
Speaker 1: that stuff like that happened at such parties. UM. One
Speaker 1: example that they had was there were apparently in the
Speaker 1: way the they studied this was that they had six
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty three college students across I believe it
Speaker 1: was Southeastern America collect journal entries about their costuming experience
Speaker 1: over the course of Halloween. And this isn't just what
Speaker 1: they costumed as, but what they saw at the parties
Speaker 1: that they went to. UH. And what was reported that
Speaker 1: there were two white men who went in black face
Speaker 1: as Venus and Serena Williams. And so this is two
Speaker 1: thousand seven, so not that long ago. UH. And then
Speaker 1: there was um, there were three women, all of different
Speaker 1: ethnicities who wanted to do the Charlie's Angels, the movie
Speaker 1: version of Charlie's Angels, and so UM, a Caucasian woman
Speaker 1: ended up doing the Lucy Luke character and was you know,
Speaker 1: like painting on makeup to make her self location and
Speaker 1: like you said, not really understanding it. But on the
Speaker 1: reverse side, they reported that there was a black male
Speaker 1: college student who went as eminem. So there's a lot
Speaker 1: of this playing around with race, gender and sort of
Speaker 1: you know, trying to explore identity. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: like some of some of these instances uh is identified
Speaker 1: by the authors weren't necessarily experimental, but we're more reinforcing
Speaker 1: ideas that they already had. Yeah, and an implicit racial
Speaker 1: bias definitely playing into a lot of these where it's
Speaker 1: it's not even happening at a at a you know,
Speaker 1: a conscious level, you're not you're not really thinking about it,
Speaker 1: but then these these various um um implicit biases rise
Speaker 1: to the surface. Yeah. I think this would be one
Speaker 1: of those situations if and they talked about it a
Speaker 1: little bit in this study, but that like, if you
Speaker 1: called out somebody for something like this, they would probably
Speaker 1: be shocked, right, they would go, oh, well, I no,
Speaker 1: I'm not racist. That's not what I was intending at all, Right,
Speaker 1: And in fact, they the whole idea here is that
Speaker 1: they thought of Halloween as being a safe context for
Speaker 1: exploring this kind of thing, but also that it's, uh,
Speaker 1: it's a time when the potential for any kind of
Speaker 1: insult is completely suspended, right, Like I think I just
Speaker 1: saw like not that this would be insulting, but it's
Speaker 1: just kind of stupid, like, uh, like a week or
Speaker 1: two ago that like one of the most popular costumes
Speaker 1: this year is a sexy Donald Trump, Like you can
Speaker 1: you can buy that off the rack, um, you know.
Speaker 1: So it's like I think that that's the kind of
Speaker 1: thing going on here, but at the same time as
Speaker 1: the authors are arguing that it's reinforcing racial bias and stereotypes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it reminds me too of I believe it was the
Speaker 1: first Halloween immediately following nine eleven in which a picture
Speaker 1: made the rounds of a couple who had dressed like
Speaker 1: somebody addresses the twin Hours and the other person addressed
Speaker 1: as an airplane. And it's funny that you say this
Speaker 1: go ahead because I have a personal story. I'm just
Speaker 1: saying it made the rounds, And quite clearly they were
Speaker 1: approaching this from the standpoint of it's a safe halloweens
Speaker 1: a safe zone and an outrageous costume is allowed, even
Speaker 1: if it is really too soon for that particular joke
Speaker 1: at that at that given point, and this was this
Speaker 1: was the month afterward, right, yeah, this was very very soon.
Speaker 1: So I uh specifically remember that Halloween right afterward, a
Speaker 1: guy who I knew went to a Halloween party as
Speaker 1: a dead pilot, uh, and he thought it was the
Speaker 1: funniest thing ever, and that he was you know, he
Speaker 1: wasn't he was trying to be offensive, but he was
Speaker 1: also just trying to kind of like again like push
Speaker 1: the boundaries people's buttons, get right, get a rise out
Speaker 1: of people. Um. And I remember him thinking it was
Speaker 1: like this super clever, funny thing and it just did
Speaker 1: it fell real flat with with everybody at the party. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now on the racial side of the situation, I have
Speaker 1: to admit that I'm I'm a big fan of some
Speaker 1: terrible movies, and one terrible movie that I really enjoy
Speaker 1: is Nothing but Trouble. I know what you're talking, really
Speaker 1: really bad film with all sorts of really will like
Speaker 1: horror elements, sort of tales from the crypt type elements
Speaker 1: thrown throughout. And then there's a great scene where Digital
Speaker 1: Underground performs so it's humpty hump. Uh, you know, get out,
Speaker 1: And so part of me has always wanted to be
Speaker 1: humpty hump. Yeh, but but I but I can never
Speaker 1: be humpty Hump. I can never take that on as
Speaker 1: a costume because of the racial aspects of doing it.
Speaker 1: And I'm comfortable with that. I'm not complaining about it.
Speaker 1: But like that's an area where like the voice that says,
Speaker 1: wouldn't it be cool to address this humpty hump, and
Speaker 1: the other the other part of me has to say,
Speaker 1: theoretically it would be cool, but you would probably be
Speaker 1: you would probably be crossing a line, and ultimately it
Speaker 1: would not be a comfortable scenario. Well exactly. So I
Speaker 1: think that what the authors of this study would argue then, right,
Speaker 1: is that like your preconception of race is that you
Speaker 1: understand that that would be crossing a line that you
Speaker 1: know is not necessarily appropriate. Whereas the Caucasian male who
Speaker 1: is in college and decides to go as Humpty Hump
Speaker 1: maybe already has some pre conceptions about what that means. Right,
Speaker 1: In fact, like that's the the kind of rapper outfit
Speaker 1: or like the other one that they talked a lot
Speaker 1: about was that you can buy prepackage sort of like
Speaker 1: ethnic thug outfits from these Halloween stores, or at least
Speaker 1: you could at the time they were doing this. Um.
Speaker 1: That that enhances your perceptions, your stereotypes of things, right, UM,
Speaker 1: And that it doesn't necessarily allow them to have the
Speaker 1: opportunity to to find the new beliefs or to learn
Speaker 1: and change. I don't know. I'm kind of interested, Like
Speaker 1: I wonder if if you do something like that and
Speaker 1: then you're sort of performing this other, this imaginary other
Speaker 1: that you have of like what it would be like
Speaker 1: to be in digital underground, Like like, uh, does that
Speaker 1: afford you the opportunity to sort of like put yourself
Speaker 1: in somebody else's shoes? I don't know. Yeah, it's um.
Speaker 1: The authors of this piece certainly didn't think so. But
Speaker 1: like the Digital Underground example, I can. The thing is,
Speaker 1: I can definitely imagine someone approaching that instead not even
Speaker 1: thinking about how d hump as an African American man
Speaker 1: and thinking, well, it's just as a ridiculous character with
Speaker 1: a funny nose and big for a coat and he
Speaker 1: talks in a funny voice and he got busy in
Speaker 1: a backstage bathroom. Yeah and yeah, lost his nose in
Speaker 1: a horrible accident. But um, yeah, but but but but
Speaker 1: in doing that, you you glide right over the racial connotation.
Speaker 1: So yeah, absolutely, so, I mean, like I'm sure, like
Speaker 1: I know, I've definitely seen stuff like this at parties
Speaker 1: I've gone to before. I'm sure a lot of people have.
Speaker 1: But they provided some very concrete examples outside of the
Speaker 1: six hundred and sixty three college students who reported for
Speaker 1: this study. Um, and one of them was I didn't
Speaker 1: know about this. Apparently in two thousand three, Louisiana State
Speaker 1: District Judge Timothy Ellender went to a Halloween party in
Speaker 1: blackface and he had an afro wig on and a
Speaker 1: prison jumpsuit. I think I remember seeing when they called
Speaker 1: him out on and he said, oh what, It's just
Speaker 1: a harmless joke, you know. And then you think about
Speaker 1: the connotation of like, well, this is a guy whose
Speaker 1: job it is is is to decide whether or not
Speaker 1: people go to jail or stay free, Like this is
Speaker 1: like hugely inappropriate. Um. But then um, there's also, like
Speaker 1: you know, just dominated in the media reports of people
Speaker 1: wearing black face at Halloween parties, in such outfits enacting
Speaker 1: images of police brutality, cotton picking, and even lynching. Um.
Speaker 1: So I mean that again too, it's like clearly showing that,
Speaker 1: like you don't really have all that much of an
Speaker 1: understanding for what it means to be of a different ethnicity.
Speaker 1: You know, those are the things that you associate with
Speaker 1: it like like uh So, anyways, that the third thing
Speaker 1: that I thought was really interesting where they they talked
Speaker 1: about these prepackaged costumes. There's two in particular they pointed
Speaker 1: out from two thousand to One was called the Vato Loco,
Speaker 1: which was this stereotyped mask of a Latino thug. And
Speaker 1: then the other one was called the Kung Fool uh.
Speaker 1: And it was like a caricature outfit, like a kind
Speaker 1: of like a karate um, what do you call him?
Speaker 1: Gu like outfit? Um. But that also included like a
Speaker 1: mask that made your eyes look slanted and like buck
Speaker 1: teeth that you would insert in your mouth. So it
Speaker 1: was like this real like racial physical stereotype of being Asian.
Speaker 1: And this is two thousand two. This isn't like nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty two. This is this is just like thirteen years ago. Um.
Speaker 1: So you know, they point out like that they think
Speaker 1: that the Halloween has sort of been thought of as
Speaker 1: a cultural space in which they can they being the
Speaker 1: people wearing these costumes, can sort of let this racist
Speaker 1: ghost out of the box. That's how they put it,
Speaker 1: not me, Uh, it's there. They get a little metaphorical
Speaker 1: with their language and the Halloween themes and stuff of
Speaker 1: this article. I wonder it would racist ghost be an
Speaker 1: appropriate Halloween costume, though it maybe if it were carried
Speaker 1: out with enough ghost of a racist Wasn't it thought out?
Speaker 1: You know? Em on American Horror Story and the which
Speaker 1: one I didn't watch that season, I think it was
Speaker 1: if I remember correctly, I think like one of the
Speaker 1: witches was was black, and she was able to use
Speaker 1: some kind of spell that summoned, um, the zombies of
Speaker 1: like racist farmers from around the area or something. Somebody
Speaker 1: correct me out there if I'm wrong on this, but
Speaker 1: I remember there being a very strange Halloween themed episode
Speaker 1: where they did this. It was like the punishment for
Speaker 1: these guys being slave owners, I think was that she
Speaker 1: was able to like summon their their spirits up again later.
Speaker 1: So I mean think about that, right, Like that's on
Speaker 1: national television, and um, that's not reinforcing stereotypes necessarily, but
Speaker 1: but you know what I mean, like there's these kind
Speaker 1: of like roles and identities that people are trying out
Speaker 1: and trying to understand things that are different from themselves, mothering,
Speaker 1: you know, they all kind of play hand in hand.
Speaker 1: I have to admit that I after reading enough, researching
Speaker 1: enough about witchcraft persecution, I'm I'm I'm a little weird
Speaker 1: about when I see like um which costumes, but also
Speaker 1: like you know, the new Vin Diesel which Hunter movie
Speaker 1: is the hero of this picture, and and it's it's
Speaker 1: kind of unsettling when you think of witchcraft persecution and
Speaker 1: and and and the and how these these stereotypes were
Speaker 1: used to send so many innocent people to their torture
Speaker 1: and death. Yeah. Absolutely, I mean, I yeah, I agree
Speaker 1: with you, And especially when you think about it in
Speaker 1: the context that like these prefabricated which costumes are being
Speaker 1: sold and you know, people are making what what did
Speaker 1: I say, one point for billion dollars off of this
Speaker 1: costuming industry, Uh, celebrating the persecution and torture and death
Speaker 1: of this Again, it's a subjugated group, right, Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know it's not it's certainly not one to one
Speaker 1: with some of the racial issues we're talking about earlier.
Speaker 1: In it's still a lot more complicated because you have,
Speaker 1: you know, you have various you know, myths and folk
Speaker 1: tales weaving their way in their um popular media, springing
Speaker 1: up out of equal parts of fiction and history. So
Speaker 1: it's it's a convoluted topic. But I I have to
Speaker 1: admit some of the witch costumes at least, you know,
Speaker 1: causele light to go on for me. Yeah, yeah, well,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe that's it's again back to that whole
Speaker 1: taboo thing, that the symbol of the witch, both in
Speaker 1: the guilt that we kind of feel when we look
Speaker 1: back at the history of it, and also the witches
Speaker 1: being like outside of the community, right is like the
Speaker 1: perfect kind of boundary pushing taboo for Halloween. In fact,
Speaker 1: one of the articles that I'm about to get into
Speaker 1: talked about how during Victorian time, Victorian time, you know
Speaker 1: those all of times, the American women, specifically withou dreps
Speaker 1: dress either as Egyptians or Gypsies because those were the
Speaker 1: two like most tab who kind of uh exotic other
Speaker 1: costumes that they could wear. And I guess you still
Speaker 1: see people of varying races dressing up as ancient Egyptians,
Speaker 1: Like maybe enough time has passed that there's like less
Speaker 1: people don't think of ancient Egyptians as being a contemporary race.
Speaker 1: But it's more of a like almost like dressing as
Speaker 1: an elf, right right, right, dressing as a character from
Speaker 1: a movie or something. Yeah, exactly, Alright, We're gonna take
Speaker 1: a quick break, but we'll be right back. All right,
Speaker 1: we're back, So okay. We've we've spotlighted that the masks
Speaker 1: and the costumes allow children to sort of feel like
Speaker 1: they can get away with certain things that they get
Speaker 1: subsumed into a group. We've spotlighted how it sort of
Speaker 1: can change how we think about identity and race, and
Speaker 1: and how it can also serve for us to get
Speaker 1: more drunk and to do a lot of drugs during Halloween.
Speaker 1: But then there's obvious slay a gendered element to it
Speaker 1: as well. Right, Um, any buddy who's seen over the
Speaker 1: last again, like thirty or forty years, there's definitely been
Speaker 1: an element of sexiness that's been brought into female attire.
Speaker 1: And in fact, I do want to point out like
Speaker 1: one of those um sources that I'm going to use
Speaker 1: when we're talking about this is from our sister podcast,
Speaker 1: Stuff Mom Never Told You. Kristen and Caroline have done
Speaker 1: at least two episodes on this topic, and Kristen has
Speaker 1: a really great post on the term slut oweing uh
Speaker 1: and what that means in the history behind it, and
Speaker 1: I don't really want to bring that into it, but
Speaker 1: that there's there's things connected to it in that post
Speaker 1: that I think have to do with our conceit in
Speaker 1: this episode, which is that costumes allow you to perform
Speaker 1: a different identity. Okay, I mean it matches up with
Speaker 1: a lot of what we've been talking about already and
Speaker 1: that you you take on this uh, this costume, you
Speaker 1: take on this different identity, and you have a little
Speaker 1: more licensed to be uh, sexier than normal, more revealing
Speaker 1: than normal, and more amorous than normal. Yeah. Absolutely, And
Speaker 1: in fact, um, there's a history professor uh that is
Speaker 1: named Nicholas is named his name is Nicholas Rogers uh
Speaker 1: and he actually says you know this, The costuming tradition
Speaker 1: of hallow Mass goes all the way back to being
Speaker 1: both a prayer for the dead as we sort of
Speaker 1: think of it um with the Halloween connotation, but also
Speaker 1: a prayer for fertile marriages. So there was already an
Speaker 1: element of kind of gendered sexiness to it. Um, not
Speaker 1: as such, not as we would think of it today,
Speaker 1: but like for instance, boys inquire used to dress as
Speaker 1: female virgins for Hallow mass. So cross dressing and sex
Speaker 1: and virginity and fertility were all elements from the start. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: that's good for anybody that is planning a kind of
Speaker 1: sexy costume this year. And if somebody calls you on
Speaker 1: it at all parts, why aren't you a zombie? Why
Speaker 1: aren't you dressed up as a sexy Egyptian or something,
Speaker 1: you can say, well, actually, I'm tying into some of
Speaker 1: the I'm doing some history. This is my history project. Um.
Speaker 1: So he talks also, this is where I got the
Speaker 1: thing about the Victorian costumes. Was also this Nicholas Rogers guy,
Speaker 1: and he said that that at that point in time,
Speaker 1: just like as we were just talking about, the Halloween
Speaker 1: was thought of as a knight to do something that
Speaker 1: they wouldn't ordinarily do and to have people look at them, right,
Speaker 1: So that's why they're dressing as Egyptians or gypsies. Then
Speaker 1: in the nineties seventies, this interesting thing happens where the
Speaker 1: sexy costume both for men and women emerged. Uh, and
Speaker 1: Christian's research and then this article that I found in
Speaker 1: Time called the Definitive History of the Sexy Halloween Costume
Speaker 1: both points to this that there were a lot of
Speaker 1: Halloween parades and gay neighborhoods in New York, West Hollywood
Speaker 1: and San Francisco, and out of these big, kind of
Speaker 1: raucous bacchanalia parties came the sort of genesis for what
Speaker 1: we think of now is like the modern sexy girl costume. Right. Um,
Speaker 1: so you get that, that event happens, and then, just
Speaker 1: like with anything, businessmen and marketers see that and they say, well,
Speaker 1: that seems like it's something that would make a lot
Speaker 1: of money. So they start designing these costumes, selling them
Speaker 1: and targeting adults. And so that's when we start to
Speaker 1: see sort of towards the late seventies, this emergence of
Speaker 1: the adult Halloween experience coming back. It's not just for
Speaker 1: kids anymore. And so you and I were just talking
Speaker 1: about this earlier, like when we were kids in the
Speaker 1: early eighties. Uh, there was sort of that weird stigma
Speaker 1: of like, well, at a certain point you shouldn't be
Speaker 1: out trick or treating anymore, you know. Like I definitely
Speaker 1: remember there was a point where like I was out
Speaker 1: and like a parent would answer the door and say like,
Speaker 1: aren't you a little old for this? You know, And
Speaker 1: I'd come up with some excuse like what you were
Speaker 1: in costume? Right? I was, Yeah, that's the thing. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you're if you're older kid and you're showing up
Speaker 1: at the doorstep and you have no when you're asking
Speaker 1: for candy, Yeah, and thin, that's you're kind of breaking
Speaker 1: the rules here exactly. I don't care how old you are,
Speaker 1: but you put them put some sort of mask on,
Speaker 1: so you you find that. So there's a two thousand
Speaker 1: six study on children's costumes done by sociologists named Addy Nelson,
Speaker 1: and she found that not only were they distinctly gendered,
Speaker 1: but that for women, the costumes that you know, these
Speaker 1: are off the rat costumes, not necessarily what people are
Speaker 1: coming up with on their own. They're usually princesses or
Speaker 1: beauty queens for the girls choices. Uh. And then there's
Speaker 1: also in two thousand and six, there was a New
Speaker 1: York Times article quoting a costume merchant, and he said
Speaker 1: that since the early two thousand's, the sexy iterations of
Speaker 1: costumes have compromised nine of the female costumes that he
Speaker 1: sells at his store. So Kristen, our colleague, basically makes
Speaker 1: the point, Okay, well, what's the reason behind the sexy
Speaker 1: costume boom. It's because they're popular because both women and
Speaker 1: girls are buying them. Uh and you know the there's
Speaker 1: marketing behind it. There's money to be had there. So yes,
Speaker 1: it's a cultured identity thing, but it's also an economic
Speaker 1: thing as well. Uh. And I'll also point this out
Speaker 1: for Christian because if any of you out there I've
Speaker 1: ever watched Kristen's video series for stuff mom never told you,
Speaker 1: you know that she likes to get into costume and characters. Uh.
Speaker 1: And she speculates that we're moving now from a period
Speaker 1: of just the sexy Halloween costumes to the ironic sexy costumes.
Speaker 1: So I think what she means by that is, like,
Speaker 1: I see this a lot when I go to like
Speaker 1: pop culture conventions, uh, like like sexy Darth Vader. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've definitely seen people sexifying characters or costumes that you
Speaker 1: wouldn't traditionally think of as being sexy. I saw a
Speaker 1: sexy version of what's the name of the main villain
Speaker 1: from Fury Road. Oh god, I know what you're talking about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a thank you super producer Noel just told us
Speaker 1: that it was a Morton Joe. Yeah. I saw a
Speaker 1: picture of that. Yeah. He and and of course that
Speaker 1: on its own is an interesting character to see so
Speaker 1: embraced among costumers and cosplay because he said, it's a
Speaker 1: horrible guy. He's just a horrible individual that I mean
Speaker 1: to embody any aspect of him. Um, I can think
Speaker 1: if you're thinking, you know, deep about it is troubling.
Speaker 1: I can top that. My wife just showed me the
Speaker 1: other day that a friend of a friend got a
Speaker 1: sleeve tattoo of a Morton Joe on her arm. I
Speaker 1: think consider this. That movie just came out like what
Speaker 1: three months ago. Uh, great movie, But like, what are
Speaker 1: you saying about the idea that you're like, I really
Speaker 1: like that warlord rapist who like keeps women locked up
Speaker 1: as like a concubine snastically And that's not just for
Speaker 1: those of you haven't read it. That's not just uh,
Speaker 1: you know, subjective read of the film like that is
Speaker 1: that's the plot of the plot of the movie. It
Speaker 1: portrays him as such, the the the harem that he keeps.
Speaker 1: These are not you know, sexy doll eyed individuals. These
Speaker 1: are abused and traumatized individuals based on their treatment. I'll
Speaker 1: add to that. Another thing that I see very often
Speaker 1: at conventions that I don't understand, and you know, forgive me, Uh,
Speaker 1: maybe you have an alternate reading on this is um
Speaker 1: Watchman costplay when people costplay as the comedian and the
Speaker 1: Golden Age Silk Specter together. So if you've seen, if
Speaker 1: you've read the book, or if you've seen the movie,
Speaker 1: you know, I guess spoilers for it, but like those
Speaker 1: two have an abusive domestic relationship that involves sexual violence. Uh.
Speaker 1: And you you know, I see that a lot. I
Speaker 1: see a lot of people, couples wearing those costumes together
Speaker 1: and kind of, you know, walking around like, isn't this fun?
Speaker 1: Isn't this cool? And I don't I don't get it,
Speaker 1: but clearly it has something to do with with what's
Speaker 1: going on here. I mean, this costuming and experiences outside
Speaker 1: of just Halloween, right, So, um, I imagine, and I'm
Speaker 1: sure there's studies that if they haven't been published already
Speaker 1: are being written right now furiously by some graduate student
Speaker 1: about pop culture conventions and costplay that they also allow
Speaker 1: for exploration of identity for other ing, for all these
Speaker 1: kinds of things that we're talking about here, right, So
Speaker 1: what do we have next? What what's up next on
Speaker 1: the plate study? So sticking with the gender theme, there's
Speaker 1: two more studies I want to talk about. In There
Speaker 1: was a study published in the Journal of Psychology called
Speaker 1: Age and Gender Difference in Children's Halloween Costumes. So we're
Speaker 1: bringing it back to kids, but we're sticking with the
Speaker 1: gender thing here. Uh, and it the people who wrote
Speaker 1: it predicted, uh that Halloween costumes for first and second
Speaker 1: graders would be less gender stereotyped than those for preschoolers
Speaker 1: and children in kindergarten. So again, remember when I was
Speaker 1: talking earlier about that that zone of three to five,
Speaker 1: the zone that your son is in right now. Uh,
Speaker 1: that this is an area of mine that the authors
Speaker 1: speculate is when identity is still in flux, right, And
Speaker 1: so there's an idea that gender really needs to be reinforced.
Speaker 1: So this scenario where the toddler or not the toddler
Speaker 1: really but they the young child three four year old,
Speaker 1: they say they want to dress as a princess, and
Speaker 1: you say, like, hell you are, You're dressing as a
Speaker 1: cowboy because I have a lot of expectations for your
Speaker 1: your your gender preference here, Yeah, exactly, And their findings
Speaker 1: confirmed this. Uh So they found actually the older boys,
Speaker 1: so when they're talking older boys, they're talking about like
Speaker 1: I think, over the age of eight, uh, they tended
Speaker 1: to prefer less masculine and more feminine costumes than the
Speaker 1: younger boys did. And the older girls preferred more masculine
Speaker 1: and less feminine costumes than the younger girls did. So
Speaker 1: there definitely was like a between the ages of three
Speaker 1: and five, there's that like reinforcing gender thing, and then
Speaker 1: there's like a period of time where they play, uh
Speaker 1: or maybe not play. I don't think there's like cross
Speaker 1: dressing as much as it's sort of like they're less
Speaker 1: concerned by that, right, But then it evolves by the
Speaker 1: time when we get into high school and college, as
Speaker 1: we've seen, into the sexy costume stereotype all right, you know,
Speaker 1: and that makes more you know sense that you can
Speaker 1: imagine a either a boy or a girl, and they're
Speaker 1: having a lot of expectations placed on them in the
Speaker 1: way that they dress every day, as well as some
Speaker 1: of these specialty costumes. Like there comes a point where
Speaker 1: you're gonna say, you know, I would like to maybe
Speaker 1: wear something that's not pink or you know, I would
Speaker 1: like to wear something that's colorful and flowing and um,
Speaker 1: you know, without and engage in that possibility without all
Speaker 1: of the adult baggage that the parents are are are
Speaker 1: possibly exactly how much of it is the parents saying
Speaker 1: I think you should be whatever, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Like in your case, bastion giraffe, Really, how about leather face? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a it's not gendered. You want him to yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but but no, I mean, like I do see that
Speaker 1: this kind of you know, gender openness and curiosity. Even
Speaker 1: in my own son, you know, where he likes ses
Speaker 1: somebody playing in address and it's like I'd like to
Speaker 1: run around address. And of course, without the adult baggage
Speaker 1: we place on that scenario, why not I totally remember
Speaker 1: that period of time. There was a point when I
Speaker 1: and my you know, upbringing wasn't particularly like conservative or
Speaker 1: I think of it as not being gendered, but of
Speaker 1: course it was um, and and saying like, you know,
Speaker 1: I wanted a Barbie doll to play with because the
Speaker 1: the girls in my kindergarten class all have these Barbie dolls,
Speaker 1: so of course I wanted one. Uh And I was
Speaker 1: discouraged from that and and and it was really like
Speaker 1: I couldn't make sense of it at that age because
Speaker 1: I was you know, they couldn't explain to me, well,
Speaker 1: if you do that, that's going to say a certain
Speaker 1: thing about you, and people are gonna make fun of you,
Speaker 1: and that's going to subsequently reflect back on me. Right.
Speaker 1: Uh So it was it was an interesting kind of
Speaker 1: thing to look back on that NoDEA with any siblings
Speaker 1: I do, Yeah, there ten years younger than me. Okay,
Speaker 1: so because I I have younger sisters, so they were
Speaker 1: always Barbie dolls in the house. So like they were
Speaker 1: they were there, and you know, I would play with
Speaker 1: the Barbie house. Sometimes they had a lot of cool stuff. Yeah, sure, everything,
Speaker 1: but a toilet in there. Well right exactly. And if
Speaker 1: you you know, as a as a kid of that age,
Speaker 1: if you're using your imagination with your toys, the gender
Speaker 1: element is probably not something you're even thinking of, right.
Speaker 1: But anyways, so so that ties back into what we
Speaker 1: were talking about earlier with the sort of preschooler Halloween mentality.
Speaker 1: So it's it's gendered, and then it's not gendered, and
Speaker 1: then don't forget. It also encourages you to steal or
Speaker 1: take a lot of candy. There's one more study, uh,
Speaker 1: that is called the Pink Dragon is Female, and it
Speaker 1: was published in two thousand in the Psychology of Women,
Speaker 1: Cord Quarterly. And basically what they did was a content
Speaker 1: analysis of all the children's Halloween costumes that they could
Speaker 1: find that were available, and they saw it as a categorization.
Speaker 1: They broke up into three categories, Heroes, villains, and fools,
Speaker 1: and they wanted to see whether or not these these costumes,
Speaker 1: you know, very very much like the last study we
Speaker 1: were talking about, reproduce or reiterate conventional messages of gender.
Speaker 1: And what they found was the yes, the female costumes
Speaker 1: were clustered around examples of femininity like we talked about
Speaker 1: earlier with the princesses and the beauty queens. But also, uh,
Speaker 1: there was a higher ratio of animal costumes for girls.
Speaker 1: And maybe I just never noticed this, or maybe it's
Speaker 1: because of my age. Food stuff costumes. So if girls
Speaker 1: didn't want to have gendered costumes, they could, I guess,
Speaker 1: be a strawberry or something or what would well this
Speaker 1: one at one of the costumes from Killen Mockingberg, right,
Speaker 1: was it addressed as food items? I don't remember that.
Speaker 1: You know, even with animals, you have these gender stereotypes,
Speaker 1: even we've encountered with my my son's favorite UH animal
Speaker 1: is the giraffe. And then you go in you try
Speaker 1: and find UH shirts for boys with giraffes. You don't
Speaker 1: find them. You find that the boys shirts have tigers
Speaker 1: and lions. Boys are not supposed to like herbivores for
Speaker 1: some reason. That's funny, because traps can be pretty brutal
Speaker 1: and tough when they want, draft can look after after itself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: bringing that neck around and throwing in an odd kick. Well, okay,
Speaker 1: so we've got the So the animals and food stuff
Speaker 1: seemed to be the compromise for young girls. For young males,
Speaker 1: the costumes are likely to feature villains, especially those that
Speaker 1: are symbols of death, which I don't know necessarily that
Speaker 1: how much I would read into that, given Halloween and
Speaker 1: the symbology of death that that you know, floats around
Speaker 1: that holiday and anything. But um, they did find in
Speaker 1: this content analysis that less than less than ten per
Speaker 1: cent of the costumes in two thousand were gender neutral,
Speaker 1: So the food stuff items, I'm assuming, h those were
Speaker 1: the only ones, you know, And that more often that
Speaker 1: male costumes had occupational roles, right like I'm a doctor,
Speaker 1: I'm a welder, or whatever, I'm a podcaster, uh, And
Speaker 1: that the female costumes were usually based on what their
Speaker 1: appearance was in their relationships. So all right, So to summarize,
Speaker 1: we've got, uh, the Halloween costumes build gender. They are
Speaker 1: a way that we construct race and identity. And then
Speaker 1: there's also a moral element that we've talked about, including
Speaker 1: both stealing and intoxication, allowing you to engage in behavior
Speaker 1: that you otherwise, uh, wouldn't engage in or wouldn't engage
Speaker 1: to that degree, you know. And one of the crazy
Speaker 1: things about this topic is that it's it's not just
Speaker 1: at Halloween. It's not just when we actually actively engage
Speaker 1: in the wearing of masks, be it for fun or
Speaker 1: as part of a religious ritual or or what have you.
Speaker 1: But any time we put on clothing we're in we're
Speaker 1: engaging in this kind of powerful rebecoming. Oh yeah, it's uh,
Speaker 1: you know, a form of communication. Yeah, how we dress,
Speaker 1: the things that we own, the things that we wear,
Speaker 1: even down to like what kind of car you drive,
Speaker 1: or what kind of pencil you use or whatever, Like
Speaker 1: all those things, whether we're conscious of it or not,
Speaker 1: are us communicating something about ourselves and identity to other people. Yeah.
Speaker 1: One observation that I keep coming back to whenever I
Speaker 1: dip my toe into this h This topic, uh, comes
Speaker 1: from a fatuleus book by Virginia Smith titled Clean A
Speaker 1: History of Personal Hygiene Impurity, which deals mostly with with
Speaker 1: that very concept, the idea that there's there's physical cleanliness,
Speaker 1: and there's societea of spiritual cleanliness, and the to just
Speaker 1: become irreversibly interwoven throughout history and many you know, I'm
Speaker 1: amazing and and sometimes very uh you know, missible ways.
Speaker 1: But she points out that modern cultural sociologists describe the
Speaker 1: human body as an unfinished body, a body created by
Speaker 1: nature but finished by humans. And so each of us
Speaker 1: called upon various bodies at various times. So there's there's
Speaker 1: a you know, there's a cybernetic element to this. You know,
Speaker 1: here we're inherently augmented by our technology, be that wristwatch
Speaker 1: or an implant, or just the clothing we wear, to
Speaker 1: tweak who we physically are and therefore tweak who we
Speaker 1: are inside. Yeah, that's interesting, especially because, like, you know,
Speaker 1: a topic that comes up on this show a lot
Speaker 1: is transhumanism or post humanism, and just thinking about it
Speaker 1: that way, like like we think of that as being
Speaker 1: a very kind of sci fi thing that's coming down
Speaker 1: the road, But just think about it, Like, my dog
Speaker 1: doesn't wear clothes other than the color that I put
Speaker 1: around his neck so I can walk him, right, he
Speaker 1: doesn't need to express his identity within clothing. Uh, We're
Speaker 1: not the kind of people to do this, but some
Speaker 1: people put their dogs in little outfits right in order
Speaker 1: to sort of do that same thing, to project identity
Speaker 1: through that. Well, I mean, you look at the most
Speaker 1: primal example possible and imagine, you know, some sort of
Speaker 1: a cave person prehistory kills a wolf skins, it wears
Speaker 1: the wolf hide. It's on several different levels, Like on
Speaker 1: one level, it's it's an augmentation of the body for
Speaker 1: just purely to stay warm or even to provide some
Speaker 1: level of protection in combat. And then on on a
Speaker 1: on another level though, that individual is taking on the
Speaker 1: hide of the beast, the being of the beast, which
Speaker 1: you know we touched on a little bit in our
Speaker 1: Wolf Spain episode. That's one of the models for wear
Speaker 1: wolf transformation. Is you wear a magical hide, yeah, or
Speaker 1: or the right exactly like the kind of barbarian wearing
Speaker 1: like wolf hides, or or even like wearing like the
Speaker 1: fur over their head or something like in taking on
Speaker 1: the role of the beast in combat. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: So when this we get into the idea of embodied cognition,
Speaker 1: which is a philosophical model in which an agent's cognition,
Speaker 1: the way you think, the way you engage, the way
Speaker 1: you interpret the world, is strongly influenced by aspects of
Speaker 1: an agent's body beyond the brain itself. So you know
Speaker 1: that entails not only how you feel about your body
Speaker 1: and how you appear, but then how you augment it
Speaker 1: through clothing. And to iterate too, there is an episode
Speaker 1: of Stuff to Blow your Mind from a couple of
Speaker 1: years ago that that you guys did specifically about in
Speaker 1: clothed cognition. So if you know we're going to touch
Speaker 1: on it here, but if you really want to take
Speaker 1: a deep dive, go back and check that out, and
Speaker 1: I'm sure we'll link to it and we'll have a
Speaker 1: link to that one on the landing page for this
Speaker 1: this episode. But yeah, you see this idea of the
Speaker 1: body as a constraint, like your body is holding you
Speaker 1: back from being who you are inside. The body is
Speaker 1: a regulator, so in this case, the the body's functions
Speaker 1: are are regulating cognitive activity. You can get into this
Speaker 1: whole mind body problem with it pretty pretty quickly. And
Speaker 1: this leads into an additional take on embodiment that deals
Speaker 1: particularly with garments, and this is in clothed cognition. And
Speaker 1: this stems from three initial studies by Hajo Adam and
Speaker 1: Adam Glanski from Northwestern University, and they've been examining the
Speaker 1: psychological and performance related effects that wearing specific articles of
Speaker 1: clothing have on the person wearing them. And they actually
Speaker 1: coined this term in clothed cognition. Okay, and this is
Speaker 1: where we get the sort of doctor cosplay experiment, right, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: So in fact, they're their primary experiments dealt with this.
Speaker 1: So in in one experiment, they they found that people
Speaker 1: physic physically wearing a lap coat, and that's key, not
Speaker 1: just looking at and at it, not just thinking about it.
Speaker 1: If they physically put it on, it increases selective attention
Speaker 1: compared to when they're not wearing a lap coat. Right.
Speaker 1: So it's like putting on a thinking cap, but thinking
Speaker 1: cap powered entirely by the symbolic nature of the cap.
Speaker 1: We think of the doctors being who serious and an observant,
Speaker 1: And then when we put it on, even though we
Speaker 1: have no illusions that we are becoming a doctor, but
Speaker 1: we are. It's like we're wearing the hide of that wolf.
Speaker 1: We're wearing the hide of that doctor and in doing so,
Speaker 1: becoming them a little bit cognitively. Yeah, there's a lot
Speaker 1: going on there, just in that one small experiment, in
Speaker 1: that it speaks to the kind of human nature. Uh.
Speaker 1: And he rants to cultural narratives and imagination. And again,
Speaker 1: you know, thinking back on Halloween and this idea of
Speaker 1: like is it for kids is it for adults? It's
Speaker 1: like we as adults every day are imagining and playing
Speaker 1: out these games scenarios in our head as we dress
Speaker 1: up the way we do. Yeah, And they found in
Speaker 1: some follow up experiments that it specifically had to be
Speaker 1: a doctor's coat. If they told it was the same
Speaker 1: lab coat and they said, oh, it's a painter's coat,
Speaker 1: didn't have the same effect. And in all cases it
Speaker 1: was the symbolic meaning of the the outfit plus the
Speaker 1: physical experience of wearing it. And so I think that's
Speaker 1: key to pretty much every model we've looked at here
Speaker 1: that you're taking on not just the appearance of the
Speaker 1: monster or the sexy Egyptian or what have you. You
Speaker 1: were taking on some aspect of at least what you
Speaker 1: presume to be the mind of that individual, of that
Speaker 1: racial group, of that type of person, or that just
Speaker 1: straight up monster. Yeah. And again I think that that,
Speaker 1: you know, explains the surge and popularity of costuming and
Speaker 1: cosplay in American popular culture right now. It's that has
Speaker 1: a lot to do with it. And maybe Halloween that
Speaker 1: one day year isn't enough for that kind of experimentation.
Speaker 1: People want to have more occasions in which they can
Speaker 1: do that and not have it be taboo, right, So,
Speaker 1: and I mean that's why you see more and more
Speaker 1: of that these days. You see like just here in Atlanta, Um,
Speaker 1: we were going to talk about Crampus a little bit,
Speaker 1: maybe we'll do a cramp this episode. Later on there
Speaker 1: there's a local crampus uh pub crawl situation that goes on.
Speaker 1: People dress up like this horned um Germanic monster and
Speaker 1: parade about. They've got this thing here in Atlanta too.
Speaker 1: It's like they probably have it in other cities now
Speaker 1: as well. But it's a zombie walk and it doesn't
Speaker 1: really I mean, I think it's during October maybe, but
Speaker 1: I think it has more to do with that the
Speaker 1: Walking Dead is shot here than it has to do
Speaker 1: with Halloween necessarily. But I mean they get like five
Speaker 1: people like all marching down the street through the city
Speaker 1: in zombie garb. So the rest of the year you
Speaker 1: go to you go to various carnival situations, go to
Speaker 1: New Orleans, you go to various cons and dress up
Speaker 1: as these individuals. So so yeah, we're kind of creating
Speaker 1: more and more opportunities for UH, for adults to engage
Speaker 1: in costume play and in costume recreation. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: it speaks to UH. Like I said at the top, again,
Speaker 1: like so Halloween is like a way to sort of
Speaker 1: reflect back what's going on in culture at the time
Speaker 1: and our sort of need for more opportunities to costume
Speaker 1: and uh play around with these identities. Seems to be
Speaker 1: a reflection of that as well, right, that there's more
Speaker 1: fluidity and flexibility, uh and acceptance of playing around with
Speaker 1: identity than the baby was when we were kids. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: back back then there they were still into you know,
Speaker 1: you're taking on a particular idea, nity, but it was
Speaker 1: the one you had to keep for the rest of
Speaker 1: your life, right and everything else. Yeah yeah, so so yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm all in favor of donning those costumes. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: that's why October is my favorite month of the year.
Speaker 1: You know, I love I love October, not just for Halloween,
Speaker 1: but for all the things that kind of come along
Speaker 1: with it, the the autumn, the corn mazes, uh, hay rides,
Speaker 1: all that stuff, Apple bobbing, and the podcast episodes and
Speaker 1: the related blog post. Absolutely nice segue. So again to
Speaker 1: remind you, we're gonna be doing uh podcasts all month
Speaker 1: that are fairly tied into the month of October and
Speaker 1: to Halloween themes. But also we've got coming up at
Speaker 1: the end of October, we'll be answering your listener mail.
Speaker 1: On ten twenty three during our first periscope session. Uh
Speaker 1: And and you know, as I've said before, we haven't
Speaker 1: periscoped yet, but I believe you can interact directly with
Speaker 1: us there too. You can type in questions for us
Speaker 1: and you know we'll try to answer them. Uh And
Speaker 1: moster Science. So we're big monster fans around here, and
Speaker 1: we've got four brand new episodes of Monster Science coming
Speaker 1: up at the end of the month. All through the month,
Speaker 1: we're gonna be posting the first two seasons of Monster
Speaker 1: Science to our social media accounts Facebook, Twitter, and Tumbler,
Speaker 1: where you can find us with the handle blow the Mind.
Speaker 1: And finally, if people want to reach out to us
Speaker 1: and let us know about their costuming experience and whether
Speaker 1: what kind of effects it's had on their identity or
Speaker 1: what they've seen with other people's identity, where can they
Speaker 1: reach out to us at and maybe we can respond
Speaker 1: to that during the periscope session. Oh, we just reach
Speaker 1: out to us at Blow the Mind at how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com for more on this and thousands of
Speaker 1: other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com