WEBVTT - Laughing During Horror Movies 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:04.320 Stuff to Blow Your Mind New York Comic Con Stranger Things. Yes, 0:00:04.519 --> 0:00:07.800 it all comes together on October six, from seven pm 0:00:07.840 --> 0:00:11.200 to eight thirty pm at Hudson Mercantile in Manhattan. If 0:00:11.240 --> 0:00:13.160 you're in the area, join us for Stuff to Blow 0:00:13.200 --> 0:00:16.880 Your Mind Live Stranger Science as we explore the exciting 0:00:16.920 --> 0:00:20.799 science and tantalizing pseudo science underlying the hit Netflix show 0:00:20.880 --> 0:00:23.799 Stranger Things. Stuff you missed in history class has a 0:00:23.800 --> 0:00:26.360 show right after us in the same venue, so you 0:00:26.400 --> 0:00:29.440 can really double down on your stuff. And hey, the 0:00:29.520 --> 0:00:31.680 three of us would love to meet you. This is 0:00:31.680 --> 0:00:34.120 the opportunity to do it. Learn more and buy your 0:00:34.120 --> 0:00:38.720 tickets at New York Comic Con dot com. Slash n 0:00:38.880 --> 0:00:46.000 y c C hyphen presents Welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:46.040 --> 0:00:55.080 Your Mind from how Stuff Works dot com. Hey, welcome 0:00:55.080 --> 0:00:56.880 to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name is Robert 0:00:56.920 --> 0:01:00.680 Lamb and I'm Christian Seger, and hey, we've both just 0:01:00.760 --> 0:01:03.480 saw the movie It in the movie theater. And this 0:01:03.560 --> 0:01:05.960 is rare because you don't get to the movies as 0:01:06.000 --> 0:01:08.240 much as I do. But we have both been able 0:01:08.280 --> 0:01:10.600 to see a movie in the theater and experience it 0:01:10.680 --> 0:01:13.280 pretty recently. Yeah, and I mean a lot of people 0:01:13.280 --> 0:01:16.399 are checking it out. Yeah, it's it's become quite a hit. 0:01:16.720 --> 0:01:19.600 So when I was at the movies watching this, there 0:01:19.640 --> 0:01:21.640 was this woman in the theater who is in the 0:01:21.680 --> 0:01:23.760 back a couple of rows from me, and she just 0:01:23.880 --> 0:01:27.000 kept screaming every time Pennywise would show up, like this 0:01:27.240 --> 0:01:30.920 howling scream, and this caused her. Then she would laugh 0:01:31.160 --> 0:01:34.399 in response to her own screaming, and everyone else in 0:01:34.400 --> 0:01:36.560 the theater then would laugh as well. So there's this 0:01:36.760 --> 0:01:41.080 like weird moment where like everybody was laughing over this 0:01:41.200 --> 0:01:44.840 movie of this just horrible depictions. Then I saw that 0:01:44.920 --> 0:01:50.919 movie Mother a week later. Yeah, yeah, and that didn't 0:01:50.920 --> 0:01:54.760 happen at all. No one laughed, No, there was no 0:01:54.840 --> 0:01:59.880 nervous laughter, there was no screaming. It was just this unrelenting, traumatic, 0:02:00.520 --> 0:02:03.360 uncomfortable horror playing out in front of you. And so 0:02:03.400 --> 0:02:06.880 I'm wondering, is there some kind of metric of successful 0:02:07.040 --> 0:02:10.040 horror here or is it just like different subgenres when 0:02:10.240 --> 0:02:13.600 people feel like it's okay to laugh nervously versus they're 0:02:13.600 --> 0:02:16.720 just enraptured with with what is so scary in front 0:02:16.720 --> 0:02:19.200 of them. Well, yeah, and then of course these are 0:02:19.200 --> 0:02:22.160 two very different films. I understand with with kind of 0:02:22.200 --> 0:02:26.880 different target audiences, so when I very much account but yeah, 0:02:27.000 --> 0:02:30.320 I I share some of your concerns about my my 0:02:30.400 --> 0:02:32.440 fellow viewers. I mean, this is a reason I one 0:02:32.440 --> 0:02:34.120 of the reasons I don't go to movie theaters that much, 0:02:34.160 --> 0:02:37.800 because ultimately I would rather watch anything in my living room. Um, 0:02:37.880 --> 0:02:41.360 it's only the whole timing aspect of of like a 0:02:41.400 --> 0:02:43.280 film you're really excited about. It's going to get me 0:02:43.320 --> 0:02:45.720 to go to the theater because otherwise I'm not crazy 0:02:45.760 --> 0:02:49.600 about the theater. It's you know, it tends to be overpriced. 0:02:49.919 --> 0:02:52.600 You gotta go if you if you're gonna if I 0:02:52.639 --> 0:02:54.080 go in my and I go with my wife, then 0:02:54.080 --> 0:02:55.520 I have we have to get a sitter. It's just 0:02:55.560 --> 0:02:58.800 the whole whole pain and uh. And you know, life 0:02:58.840 --> 0:03:01.680 moves so fast now at our age that it's like 0:03:01.720 --> 0:03:03.919 a movie. Like when you're a kid, if you didn't 0:03:03.960 --> 0:03:06.840 see Batman in the theater, it's like forever in the future. 0:03:08.280 --> 0:03:10.600 It's like two months, yeah, and two months like that's 0:03:10.720 --> 0:03:14.000 gone like that, like movie after movie, I'm like, oh, 0:03:14.040 --> 0:03:16.200 that Marvel film seems kind of kind of cool. Maybe 0:03:16.240 --> 0:03:18.360 I'll check that out. And then it's on, you know, 0:03:18.600 --> 0:03:21.680 direct streaming. But of the many things that bother me 0:03:21.720 --> 0:03:26.919 about the the movie theater going experience, there's certainly the 0:03:26.919 --> 0:03:29.840 the audience reaction to not only scares, but to just 0:03:29.960 --> 0:03:33.519 graphic violence in general. You're you're watching it, you're immersed. 0:03:33.639 --> 0:03:37.520 Something scarier violent happens and someone responds with laughter. It 0:03:37.600 --> 0:03:40.320 throws me out of the experience of watching the film. 0:03:40.560 --> 0:03:43.000 But then I also have this weird moment where I'm like, 0:03:43.040 --> 0:03:45.960 what are we as a species? Who? Where? What have 0:03:46.040 --> 0:03:49.160 we done culturally so wrong? How do what is our 0:03:49.200 --> 0:03:52.840 relationship with depictions of violence in our in our fiction 0:03:53.320 --> 0:03:55.440 that that will that allows this to happen, That I'm 0:03:55.440 --> 0:03:58.920 hearing somebody cackle while someone's being like bludgeoned to death 0:03:59.040 --> 0:04:01.840 or something. Well, I have to admit, Robert, I'm probably 0:04:01.840 --> 0:04:04.360 one of the people that would annoy you in that respect, 0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:08.200 because during it there were points where I giggled gleefully. 0:04:09.320 --> 0:04:11.760 But I think when I think back on it, it 0:04:11.880 --> 0:04:14.080 was more out of the sheer excitement that as a 0:04:14.120 --> 0:04:17.080 horror fan they were able to make a film that 0:04:17.200 --> 0:04:19.960 was actually as dark and horrifying as the novel, And 0:04:20.000 --> 0:04:22.680 I was so I thought I was going to be 0:04:22.680 --> 0:04:25.800 disappointed going into it. And you know this, horror fans 0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:28.760 were like junkies, were always on the lookout for the 0:04:28.800 --> 0:04:31.440 next good story that's going to come out in the genre. Right. 0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:33.880 We're just always hoping, will this be it? Will this 0:04:33.960 --> 0:04:36.159 be the next cool thing? And more often than not, 0:04:36.200 --> 0:04:38.680 we're disappointed. So I think when I was giggling, it 0:04:38.760 --> 0:04:41.080 was more out of happiness that this thing wasn't failing 0:04:41.080 --> 0:04:44.040 my expectations, you know. And I've been getting a lot 0:04:44.240 --> 0:04:48.240 of questions about what you're talking about in relation to 0:04:48.279 --> 0:04:51.040 the movie it because it's been so popular. A lot 0:04:51.120 --> 0:04:53.680 of people are saying to me, because they know that 0:04:53.800 --> 0:04:56.240 I write horror and that I'm a fan of horror, 0:04:56.640 --> 0:04:59.080 what is it that you like about horror? What you know? 0:04:59.120 --> 0:05:00.760 They say it to me as if like I'm a 0:05:00.839 --> 0:05:03.880 damaged human being and they need me to explain you 0:05:03.920 --> 0:05:06.760 know that I'm not, uh, And I guess for me, 0:05:07.080 --> 0:05:10.000 I see storytelling as a way of learning through the 0:05:10.040 --> 0:05:12.240 surrogate figures that are playing out in the story in 0:05:12.279 --> 0:05:15.040 front of you, right, And this is essentially our method 0:05:15.160 --> 0:05:18.400 for explaining to each other how the world works. So 0:05:18.600 --> 0:05:22.160 cautionary tales like horror seem to me to be culture 0:05:22.560 --> 0:05:27.000 designed to enhance our survival rate, and something like it 0:05:27.040 --> 0:05:29.840 is a glimpse is something that's larger than us, because 0:05:29.880 --> 0:05:33.039 obviously it's not a real clown running around and murdering people. 0:05:33.080 --> 0:05:36.560 It's some kind of monstrous, cosmic entity. Yeah, so you've 0:05:36.560 --> 0:05:40.039 got this whole idea that there's something beyond our understanding 0:05:40.080 --> 0:05:42.880 and something that scares us by simply showing us that 0:05:42.920 --> 0:05:45.720 we are just not as significant as we like to 0:05:45.800 --> 0:05:50.000 think we are. And there's something oddly zen about that 0:05:50.000 --> 0:05:53.240 that I like when you learn to be content with 0:05:53.360 --> 0:05:56.600 your lack of significance and you just can accept that 0:05:56.680 --> 0:06:00.760 you don't understand everything and you never will. And I 0:06:00.800 --> 0:06:04.800 think there's room for laughter there as well. Yeah, I 0:06:05.240 --> 0:06:07.920 would agree with with that. You know, I I write 0:06:08.200 --> 0:06:11.440 horror as well, and I don't think of myself as 0:06:11.440 --> 0:06:14.000 a as a horror writer per se. Like, I think 0:06:14.000 --> 0:06:17.679 it's more a matter of exploring the reel through the unreal. 0:06:18.279 --> 0:06:22.479 And if you were exploring something that is inherently dark 0:06:22.640 --> 0:06:27.560 or inherently fantastic, inherently ridiculous or surreal, I mean that's 0:06:27.560 --> 0:06:32.000 going to color your unreal method of exploring it. But yeah, 0:06:32.000 --> 0:06:34.960 I think it's more about it's it's more about what 0:06:35.080 --> 0:06:37.279 that that that endpoint, like, what are you trying to 0:06:37.279 --> 0:06:41.000 explore about the real world? Right? So then let's back 0:06:41.080 --> 0:06:44.600 up for a second here, because we're both practitioners and 0:06:44.720 --> 0:06:49.120 fans of this, but there's something going on here with 0:06:49.160 --> 0:06:53.760 the human experience when people are laughing at horror movies. 0:06:53.839 --> 0:06:59.240 So let's try to unpack this and look at the history, biology, 0:06:59.279 --> 0:07:02.720 and psychology of laughter. Yeah, because I think the main 0:07:02.760 --> 0:07:04.960 issue here is that you can either say I'm the 0:07:05.000 --> 0:07:08.159 only person in this theater who's sane and everyone else 0:07:08.240 --> 0:07:11.360 is having an insane or a logical reaction to the horror. 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:14.119 That's one way to approach it. But the more likely 0:07:14.160 --> 0:07:17.880 explanation is that what is happening here is normal, and 0:07:17.920 --> 0:07:20.360 if we look at it, it'll reveal something about our 0:07:20.360 --> 0:07:23.920 relationship to humor, our relationship to horror, and just the 0:07:24.000 --> 0:07:27.600 human experience itself. All right, So let's let's start with 0:07:27.680 --> 0:07:32.119 just laughter and humor in general. So studies have shown 0:07:32.120 --> 0:07:36.040 that various apes, rats, dogs, birds, dolphins, they all do 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:39.000 something that resembles laughter. But of course everything is a 0:07:39.000 --> 0:07:43.800 little bit more complicated with humans, and laughter itself is complicated. 0:07:44.120 --> 0:07:45.920 You know what, when you hear it, it's that mix 0:07:45.960 --> 0:07:52.160 of rhythmic vocalized, you know, involuntary actions. It begins with 0:07:52.200 --> 0:07:55.320 a set of gestures, a crack in the facial features, 0:07:55.400 --> 0:07:58.040 and then the emergence of sound, and that exact sound 0:07:58.120 --> 0:08:02.200 is gonna gonna very tremendous. I mean, you've you've all 0:08:02.240 --> 0:08:05.120 heard countless versions of laughter, you know, like the deep 0:08:05.240 --> 0:08:11.720 resonating laughter of say Brian blessed Um, who played, of course, 0:08:11.760 --> 0:08:15.400 of the character Vulcan and the flash Gordon, the tittering 0:08:15.520 --> 0:08:18.880 laughter of say the character Knox Harrington, or David Thulis 0:08:19.280 --> 0:08:22.480 played by David Threwis in The Big Lebowski, or you know, 0:08:22.520 --> 0:08:26.040 any example of sardonic laughter or sexy laughter. I mean, 0:08:26.040 --> 0:08:28.560 the list goes on and on. But when we we 0:08:28.720 --> 0:08:32.000 belt out a hearty laugh, we we feel it throughout 0:08:32.000 --> 0:08:36.000 the body. Uh, even the arm, leg, and trunk muscles, 0:08:36.000 --> 0:08:41.079 fifteen facial muscles contract and we feel the unmistakable stimulation 0:08:41.440 --> 0:08:44.280 of the zygomatic muscle, the main lifting mechanism of your 0:08:44.320 --> 0:08:49.839 upper lip. Meanwhile, the epiglottis partially closes the laarnix, interfering 0:08:49.880 --> 0:08:53.240 with respiratory system, making air and take ir regular you gasp. 0:08:53.280 --> 0:08:57.000 In extreme situations, you even have your your tear ducks 0:08:57.080 --> 0:09:01.079 kicking in and contributing tears um as well. Maybe your 0:09:01.080 --> 0:09:04.040 your nose is running. It becomes this. We often forget that, 0:09:04.280 --> 0:09:08.240 like a really true full body laugh. It's like being 0:09:08.320 --> 0:09:12.440 gassed with something. In extreme situations, you pee your pants. Yeah, 0:09:12.559 --> 0:09:16.640 it happens now. Of course, for you to laugh, you 0:09:16.679 --> 0:09:19.400 need some sort of stimuli, and the most common stimuli is, 0:09:19.440 --> 0:09:22.760 of course, humor. But humor itself is a tricky subject 0:09:22.760 --> 0:09:25.520 to understand that we've been we've been banging our heads 0:09:25.559 --> 0:09:28.559 against it for thousands of years. So I thought it 0:09:28.640 --> 0:09:30.280 might be helpful to just go ahead and roll through 0:09:30.280 --> 0:09:33.280 a few basic theories regarding a humor so that we 0:09:33.320 --> 0:09:35.120 can move forward. And I think as we go we'll 0:09:35.160 --> 0:09:40.320 find that in trying to um explain what humor is 0:09:40.559 --> 0:09:43.320 and how we react to humor, we also get into 0:09:43.320 --> 0:09:47.280 that area of horror. Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Hobbs, they all 0:09:47.400 --> 0:09:50.360 argued the superiority theory of humor, which states that we 0:09:50.400 --> 0:09:55.200 simply find the misfortune of others amusing. Yeah, this is schadenfreud, 0:09:55.280 --> 0:09:58.319 of the great German term for finding pleasure in somebody 0:09:58.360 --> 0:10:01.600 else's misfortune. Yeah, and he view. You see someone trip 0:10:01.640 --> 0:10:03.880 and you laugh, or you trip and someone laughs at you. 0:10:04.240 --> 0:10:09.160 This seems like a perfectly solid explanation for everything that's occurring. Now. Meanwhile, 0:10:09.200 --> 0:10:12.120 Sigmund Freud, he championed the champion the relief theory, which 0:10:12.120 --> 0:10:14.080 states the comedy is a way for people to release 0:10:14.160 --> 0:10:17.760 suppress thoughts and emotions safely. And this can include everything 0:10:17.840 --> 0:10:21.520 from you know, cutting a slice of you know, confert 0:10:21.800 --> 0:10:25.480 you know, controversial say social commentary, or are just a 0:10:25.559 --> 0:10:31.640 simple fart joke. Now. Emmanuel Conta Flip favored the incongruity theory, 0:10:31.679 --> 0:10:35.280 which suggests that humor blooms when people notice the disconnect 0:10:35.320 --> 0:10:38.520 between their expectations and the actual payoff. I went in 0:10:38.600 --> 0:10:41.440 to smell that flour on your lapel and it squirted water. 0:10:41.840 --> 0:10:46.120 That was unexpected. That was hilarious. Now. One that one 0:10:46.160 --> 0:10:49.319 of the more recent theories that that I find quite 0:10:49.320 --> 0:10:52.599 attractive is the benign violation theory, and this holds that 0:10:52.880 --> 0:10:57.120 humor arises when benign subject matter and violent or dangerous 0:10:57.160 --> 0:11:00.720 subject matter overlapped, overlap and allow and the laugh itself 0:11:00.800 --> 0:11:03.040 is a way to communicate to others that a previously 0:11:03.080 --> 0:11:07.480 perceived threat is not a real danger. Now, none of 0:11:07.520 --> 0:11:09.840 this is a subtled debate. You can argue for any 0:11:09.880 --> 0:11:11.920 one of these, and maybe there's a little truth in 0:11:11.960 --> 0:11:14.440 all of them, but especially for our purposes here, I 0:11:14.480 --> 0:11:17.480 do really like the benign violation theory because it explains 0:11:17.559 --> 0:11:21.520 humor and laughter in terms of communication. After all, we 0:11:21.600 --> 0:11:25.320 are social organisms. I mean, we we banned together. That's 0:11:25.320 --> 0:11:28.440 where we found our survival in a in a dangerous 0:11:28.520 --> 0:11:32.720 world of limited resources. So it makes sense that allowed 0:11:32.960 --> 0:11:36.120 vocal expression, not only a vocal expression, but a very 0:11:36.120 --> 0:11:39.560 physical expression is we've described, would have some sort of 0:11:40.240 --> 0:11:43.840 a communicative role. So when we drilled down even further, 0:11:44.520 --> 0:11:48.160 we look to the work of a guy named Robert Provine. 0:11:48.240 --> 0:11:51.840 He's a neuroscientist and psychology professor at the University of 0:11:51.880 --> 0:11:55.760 Maryland in Baltimore County, and he conducted laughter research for 0:11:55.800 --> 0:11:58.880 this book that he wrote, and he observed real world 0:11:59.000 --> 0:12:02.840 laughter in more than a thousand episodes in public places. 0:12:02.880 --> 0:12:06.800 And Provine described his approach as trying to understand laughter 0:12:07.320 --> 0:12:11.880 from the position of a visiting extraterrestrial. So essentially, what 0:12:11.880 --> 0:12:15.000 would an alien make of the sounds and faces we're 0:12:15.040 --> 0:12:18.720 making when we're laughing. So he first defined what a 0:12:18.880 --> 0:12:22.720 laugh is, and he quantified it as a series of 0:12:22.880 --> 0:12:27.640 short vowel like notes or syllables that are each seventy 0:12:27.679 --> 0:12:32.280 five milliseconds long and are repeated at regular intervals about 0:12:32.280 --> 0:12:36.439 two hundred and ten milliseconds apart. Now, there's no specific 0:12:36.520 --> 0:12:40.800 vowel sound that defines laughter, but similar vowel sounds are 0:12:40.840 --> 0:12:43.600 typically used for the notes of a given laugh. Right, 0:12:43.640 --> 0:12:48.000 So we're not going uh oh e I, you know, 0:12:48.160 --> 0:12:50.839 like you're not combining all the various different vowels. Is 0:12:50.920 --> 0:12:55.160 usually the same one over and over again. So there's 0:12:55.240 --> 0:12:59.440 usually a strong harmonic structure to laughter, with each being 0:12:59.480 --> 0:13:02.280 a multip full of a low frequency. So when you 0:13:02.320 --> 0:13:06.760 look at laughter's harmonic structure on a sound spectrogram, you 0:13:06.800 --> 0:13:10.520 actually find that there are evenly space stacks of short 0:13:10.760 --> 0:13:13.760 horizontal lines in the spectrum, and the notes and the 0:13:13.840 --> 0:13:18.559 inter note intervals between them, those carry the actual information 0:13:19.000 --> 0:13:22.880 that helps us identify a sound as laughter. So, for instance, 0:13:23.040 --> 0:13:25.480 if you were to use like editing software and you 0:13:25.520 --> 0:13:28.640 cut out the spaces between laugh notes, you would still 0:13:29.040 --> 0:13:32.000 recognize it as laughter. But if you cut out the 0:13:32.080 --> 0:13:37.559 notes themselves, it just sounds like a long, breathy sigh. Essentially, 0:13:37.800 --> 0:13:41.360 all human laughter is a variation on this basic form, 0:13:41.400 --> 0:13:45.960 and we typically start seeing it in babies around three 0:13:46.080 --> 0:13:50.040 and a half to four months of age. And Provide 0:13:50.080 --> 0:13:53.600 also found the following stats. He found that less than 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:57.840 twenty of the laughter incidents he cataloged were in response 0:13:57.880 --> 0:14:02.200 to something that was actually funny. Instead, people more often 0:14:02.240 --> 0:14:06.120 are giggling or chuckling at innocuous statements like, for instance, 0:14:06.440 --> 0:14:10.160 I see your point and then somebody goes And what's 0:14:10.160 --> 0:14:12.640 even more interesting is that the person who produced the 0:14:12.760 --> 0:14:17.400 laugh provoking statement was forty six percent more likely to 0:14:17.440 --> 0:14:20.800 be the one who chuckled themselves. So it's more likely 0:14:20.840 --> 0:14:23.479 that people tell a joke and then they laugh at themselves, 0:14:23.680 --> 0:14:27.360 then somebody else laughs at them. In only eight of 0:14:27.440 --> 0:14:31.080 the one thousand, two hundred recorded episodes that Provine looked 0:14:31.080 --> 0:14:35.480 at did they find that laughter interrupted what someone was saying. 0:14:36.000 --> 0:14:39.680 Nine point nine percent of the time, laughter occurs in 0:14:39.720 --> 0:14:43.440 these tidy, natural breaks. And this is weird because I 0:14:43.480 --> 0:14:47.200 think I'm probably the point zero one percent of the population. 0:14:47.240 --> 0:14:50.880 Then who laughs in ways that totally interrupted conversation? Anybody 0:14:50.880 --> 0:14:53.800 who's listening to me on these podcasts will probably attest 0:14:53.840 --> 0:14:56.520 to that. Also, I'm the most awkward person to go 0:14:56.560 --> 0:14:59.680 to the movies with because I laugh a lot inappropriately. 0:14:59.720 --> 0:15:02.760 I got dirty looks in the theater for laughing maniacally 0:15:03.320 --> 0:15:07.320 at movies like American Psycho and Hannibal. Well, I mean 0:15:07.360 --> 0:15:10.320 American Psycho. In Hannibal, you do have to admit that 0:15:10.800 --> 0:15:13.600 they play with black comedy a little bit. That's what 0:15:13.640 --> 0:15:16.160 I thought. Yeah, as I was watching them, I was like, oh, 0:15:16.280 --> 0:15:19.560 this is supposed to be dark humor. I was laughing 0:15:19.600 --> 0:15:21.520 in response to it, and people were looking at me 0:15:21.560 --> 0:15:24.120 like I was a madman, Like you're laughing at this 0:15:24.240 --> 0:15:26.400 naked man running down the hall with a chainsaw. But 0:15:26.440 --> 0:15:29.640 that scene is legitimately hilarious because they're going to such 0:15:29.720 --> 0:15:33.920 pains to hide as genitalia. Because and that made an 0:15:33.920 --> 0:15:39.200 otherwise terrifying, otherwise terrifying scene, uh, comedic because they're because 0:15:39.240 --> 0:15:41.920 of what they're clearly doing from a blocking standpoint, there's 0:15:41.960 --> 0:15:46.080 a lot that's silly about that scene started on un Hannibal. 0:15:46.160 --> 0:15:49.240 There's a lot selling that as well. Now as far 0:15:49.280 --> 0:15:54.640 as laughter interrupting conversation, uh, and and even with yourself, 0:15:55.680 --> 0:15:59.960 you know, I I tend not to interpret people's laughter 0:16:00.080 --> 0:16:02.720 in conversation as an interruption. Maybe it's I kind of 0:16:02.720 --> 0:16:05.080 think of it in the same way that you generally 0:16:05.080 --> 0:16:10.800 wouldn't say that applause interrupts a performance, you know. Um 0:16:10.800 --> 0:16:13.640 it just it seems like we if you're engaging with 0:16:13.680 --> 0:16:16.520 the conversation with somebody and there's laughter happening on one 0:16:16.600 --> 0:16:20.880 or both sides, that that is factoring into the communication, right, 0:16:21.000 --> 0:16:23.520 unless it's just occurring with you know, in a state 0:16:23.520 --> 0:16:27.000 of madness. Yeah, exactly, That's how I see it. So 0:16:27.280 --> 0:16:30.120 for instance, I think the stats actually back this up too, 0:16:30.200 --> 0:16:32.120 and this is why I tend to laugh the way 0:16:32.160 --> 0:16:36.240 I do. But uh, probably more unconsciously than conscious. Indicates 0:16:36.520 --> 0:16:39.320 that most people use laughter in the same way we 0:16:39.440 --> 0:16:41.920 use verbal pauses. And what I mean by that is, 0:16:42.320 --> 0:16:46.120 rather than quietly wait to respond while we're collecting our thoughts, 0:16:46.520 --> 0:16:50.200 we're using the stilted laughter to hold our place in 0:16:50.240 --> 0:16:52.840 the conversation. It's the same thing is when people use 0:16:53.360 --> 0:16:56.680 like or you know, as verbal pauses in a in 0:16:56.760 --> 0:16:59.040 a sentence that they're saying out loud so that they 0:16:59.040 --> 0:17:02.840 can kind of compose themselves first. And as podcasters, we 0:17:02.920 --> 0:17:05.920 have to admit not only do we do this like 0:17:06.040 --> 0:17:08.959 every human who communicates in any language does, because this 0:17:09.040 --> 0:17:12.000 is just a natural part of human communication. But boy, 0:17:12.040 --> 0:17:15.000 do we get a lot of messages about it. I 0:17:15.000 --> 0:17:17.800 don't know. I haven't really noticed any messages about it recently. 0:17:18.119 --> 0:17:20.480 Maybe not recently. Yeah, maybe it's because we've been doing 0:17:20.480 --> 0:17:22.879 the show for a long time. I remember when I 0:17:22.960 --> 0:17:25.680 first came on Stuff to Blow your Mind, I got 0:17:25.720 --> 0:17:28.800 a lot of notes about it. Well, there is an 0:17:28.800 --> 0:17:32.720 exercise in sort of, you know, cutting down one's use 0:17:32.760 --> 0:17:35.320 of those words. But also I think people that was 0:17:35.359 --> 0:17:39.320 into this show and certain other shows like this realize 0:17:39.359 --> 0:17:43.760 that it is, for the most part, an organic conversation. Yeah. Granted, 0:17:43.760 --> 0:17:46.680 it's not the same as a full blown conversation. It's 0:17:46.720 --> 0:17:50.159 kind of a performance conversation with notes on hand. It 0:17:50.160 --> 0:17:52.400 would be a very weird conversation if you were having 0:17:52.600 --> 0:17:54.000 if you were trying to talk to somebody and they 0:17:54.040 --> 0:17:57.080 were referring to note cards the whole time. But we're 0:17:57.080 --> 0:17:59.879 also were not scripted show. And if you have if 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:03.200 it's scripted, then yeah you can you can cut out 0:18:03.200 --> 0:18:06.120 all of those likes and yeah, exactly, And I think 0:18:06.119 --> 0:18:09.160 there's different expectations of what people think we might be 0:18:09.200 --> 0:18:11.840 doing on this show, right, Like some people think that 0:18:11.960 --> 0:18:15.080 everything is completely scripted and that we're just reading the 0:18:15.119 --> 0:18:18.280 whole time to each other, and then other people think 0:18:18.359 --> 0:18:21.080 that it's totally extemporaneous and we have all of these 0:18:21.119 --> 0:18:23.640 facts in our head and it's just spouting them off 0:18:23.680 --> 0:18:25.880 back and forth to each other. Really it's a mix 0:18:25.920 --> 0:18:29.320 of the two. So provide back to his research. He 0:18:29.480 --> 0:18:33.199 proved essentially that laughter is inherently social and it's a 0:18:33.200 --> 0:18:37.840 tool of communication, and it's not always or often actually 0:18:37.880 --> 0:18:40.199 in relation to something that's supposed to be funny. He 0:18:40.240 --> 0:18:43.840 found that participants were actually thirty times more likely to 0:18:43.960 --> 0:18:47.280 laugh in the presence of others than they were when 0:18:47.280 --> 0:18:49.959 they were a quote, truly alone. What he meant by 0:18:49.960 --> 0:18:52.480 this is not counting in response to TV shows or 0:18:52.520 --> 0:18:56.560 other media. So when we're totally alone, apparently we seem 0:18:56.600 --> 0:18:59.760 to hardly laugh at all. Yeah, I did it. Certainly 0:18:59.760 --> 0:19:02.000 mag is up with my experience of watching comedies, Like 0:19:02.040 --> 0:19:05.880 I really don't like watching comedies by myself, because there's 0:19:06.440 --> 0:19:09.879 there's very little joy to be had trying to laugh 0:19:10.000 --> 0:19:13.520 or or never inevitably setting there not laughing while something 0:19:13.720 --> 0:19:16.960 humorous takes place. Yeah. I think maybe this is why 0:19:17.000 --> 0:19:20.600 I surround myself with animals, because even if my wife 0:19:20.640 --> 0:19:23.880 isn't home, I spend half my day talking to them 0:19:23.880 --> 0:19:27.760 and laughing at them or like having like little interactions 0:19:27.800 --> 0:19:30.800 with them. And they're just like, dude, we don't understand English. 0:19:30.840 --> 0:19:34.639 You know, they understand laughter probably, but not necessarily whatever 0:19:34.680 --> 0:19:38.200 I'm saying to them. You know, I just and weirdly 0:19:38.280 --> 0:19:40.960 inherently communicative in that way. I think if I was 0:19:41.000 --> 0:19:43.680 by myself and just laughing and talking to myself, it 0:19:43.720 --> 0:19:46.000 would feel stranger to me. I mean, that's the ultimate 0:19:46.040 --> 0:19:48.159 beauty of having any kind of pet around. Is it 0:19:48.160 --> 0:19:51.760 gives us license to sit around and talk to ourselves. Oh? Absolutely, yeah. Yeah. 0:19:52.240 --> 0:19:55.240 Uh So it's also worth noting, just broadly about this, 0:19:55.560 --> 0:19:59.159 that social scientists have confirmed too that laugh tracks on 0:19:59.240 --> 0:20:03.760 television show those actually do increase audience laughter, and not 0:20:03.840 --> 0:20:08.480 only that, they increase people's rating of comedic materials. So 0:20:08.520 --> 0:20:11.360 we have yet another social aspect that's going on here 0:20:11.760 --> 0:20:14.439 with laughter. I really do not like the idea that 0:20:14.520 --> 0:20:18.119 science is backing up the laugh track tracks. Yeah, it's true. 0:20:18.280 --> 0:20:22.320 We have an entire brain Stuff video episode all about uh, 0:20:22.600 --> 0:20:25.000 laugh tracks in the history of them that Joe actually 0:20:25.040 --> 0:20:27.400 worked on and it's a it's really good. Oh cool. 0:20:27.440 --> 0:20:28.680 We'll have to throw a link to that on a 0:20:28.760 --> 0:20:30.479 landing page for this episode at stuff to Blow your 0:20:30.480 --> 0:20:33.000 Mind dot com. And we should consider getting a laugh 0:20:33.000 --> 0:20:35.720 track for this, uh show. That's a great idea. Yeah, 0:20:35.840 --> 0:20:38.200 I know the listeners would hate. Are there any podcasts 0:20:38.240 --> 0:20:41.119 out there with laugh tracks? Surely there must be, Huh 0:20:41.160 --> 0:20:46.919 that would be interesting. Cereal's got to have a laugh track, right, Okay. 0:20:46.960 --> 0:20:50.480 So there's also an evolutionary theory that's related to the 0:20:50.480 --> 0:20:53.080 whole laughter thing and it was proposed in two thousand 0:20:53.160 --> 0:20:56.199 five and the Quarterly Review of Biology, and this was 0:20:56.240 --> 0:21:00.640 by Matthew Gervas and his advisor David Sloan Wilson. Basically, 0:21:00.720 --> 0:21:04.080 they looked at the research of this nineteen century French 0:21:04.200 --> 0:21:08.320 physician named Guillaume Duchane. He was this guy this is 0:21:08.359 --> 0:21:12.600 the electrocution of the fac Yes, so he would go 0:21:12.680 --> 0:21:18.560 around and zap people's faces with this little electronic mischief box. Well, 0:21:19.119 --> 0:21:21.040 he wouldn't just go around and do it. It was 0:21:21.080 --> 0:21:24.320 like a psychopath. No, he wasn't just going up to 0:21:24.359 --> 0:21:26.960 strangers and doing it. Sorry, Yeah, he was doing it 0:21:27.000 --> 0:21:29.480 too too willing volunteers in a hospital, but he wanted 0:21:29.520 --> 0:21:32.199 to see what would happen, and the volts evoked a 0:21:32.280 --> 0:21:35.800 certain kind of smiling. Uh. And this is what Robert 0:21:35.840 --> 0:21:38.760 was referring to earlier. This is where the zygomatic major 0:21:38.880 --> 0:21:42.360 muscles get raised along the corners of our mouths. Right. 0:21:42.880 --> 0:21:46.639 But he could never get the mischief box to reproduce 0:21:46.720 --> 0:21:49.520 the kind of laugh or smile we get when we 0:21:49.640 --> 0:21:53.679 actually find something truly funny. This laugh is way more complex, 0:21:53.840 --> 0:21:56.560 and yeah, it uses the zygomatic major muscles, but it 0:21:56.640 --> 0:22:00.879 also uses the obicularis oculi muscles, and those are the 0:22:00.920 --> 0:22:03.560 muscles that are around our eyes that form crow's feet. 0:22:03.880 --> 0:22:06.360 This is why you hear that phrase A real smile 0:22:06.720 --> 0:22:09.880 is in your eyes. The first smile, the one that's 0:22:09.960 --> 0:22:11.800 just with your mouth. That's just what we do to 0:22:11.880 --> 0:22:15.160 be polite. I call it a dead smile. And it's 0:22:15.200 --> 0:22:18.080 unfortunately what I usually end up producing when I'm asked 0:22:18.080 --> 0:22:21.840 to smile for a camera. Right, So, like anytime I'm whatever, 0:22:21.960 --> 0:22:23.840 like somebody wants to take a picture, I had the 0:22:23.920 --> 0:22:28.040 hardest time genuinely smiling, and there's always like somebody on 0:22:28.080 --> 0:22:29.800 the other end. It's just like, oh, why can't you 0:22:29.840 --> 0:22:32.000 just smile? What is what are you doing? You know 0:22:32.080 --> 0:22:34.479 that kind of thing, And it's because I'm conscious of 0:22:34.480 --> 0:22:36.840 the dead smile. Look, yeah, I mean it's just a 0:22:36.880 --> 0:22:39.520