1 00:00:02,040 --> 00:00:07,040 Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works. Hey, brain Stuff, 2 00:00:07,080 --> 00:00:09,480 Speaker 1: Lauren bog Obam. Here, if you can think of a 3 00:00:09,560 --> 00:00:12,480 Speaker 1: terrifying monster from popular culture, I can show you a 4 00:00:12,560 --> 00:00:15,800 Speaker 1: version of that monster designed to be cute. From Freddy 5 00:00:15,840 --> 00:00:19,120 Speaker 1: Krueger and Godzilla to Cathulu and Pennywise the Dancing Clown. 6 00:00:19,400 --> 00:00:23,720 Speaker 1: We seem determined to transform our monsters into plushies, cartoon characters, 7 00:00:23,760 --> 00:00:28,000 Speaker 1: and other cuti's. But why let's take a second to 8 00:00:28,000 --> 00:00:31,400 Speaker 1: discuss what monsters and cute's actually are. You can go 9 00:00:31,480 --> 00:00:34,240 Speaker 1: down the rabbit hole on the cognitive origin of monsters, 10 00:00:34,240 --> 00:00:37,879 Speaker 1: but essentially, a monster is an unreal creature that's awesome 11 00:00:37,880 --> 00:00:41,680 Speaker 1: in size or novel in its chimerical combination of natural forms. 12 00:00:42,240 --> 00:00:45,120 Speaker 1: It threatens and terrifies us even as it relates some 13 00:00:45,280 --> 00:00:48,640 Speaker 1: lesson or understanding of the world around us. For instance, 14 00:00:48,680 --> 00:00:52,479 Speaker 1: a werewolf combines human and lupine characteristics, but also relays 15 00:00:52,479 --> 00:00:55,080 Speaker 1: a message about the dual nature of human beings. We 16 00:00:55,120 --> 00:00:57,720 Speaker 1: are both beast and something that aspires to be more. 17 00:00:58,920 --> 00:01:01,800 Speaker 1: Acuteness is easy year to nail down, if only because 18 00:01:01,840 --> 00:01:05,480 Speaker 1: it's so rooted in conditioned responses to human infants. The 19 00:01:05,520 --> 00:01:08,479 Speaker 1: features that we call cute in babies, big eyes, fat 20 00:01:08,560 --> 00:01:12,440 Speaker 1: cheeks are simply the ones that hijack human attention and response. 21 00:01:13,080 --> 00:01:16,000 Speaker 1: After all, the infant is the fruit of our genetic programming. 22 00:01:16,360 --> 00:01:19,360 Speaker 1: We can't help but attend to its needs. This view 23 00:01:19,400 --> 00:01:22,039 Speaker 1: of cuteness falls in line with Charles Darwin's theory that 24 00:01:22,160 --> 00:01:26,280 Speaker 1: natural selection favors creatures that, in infancy possess features that 25 00:01:26,360 --> 00:01:30,840 Speaker 1: cause adults to protect them. Austrian pathologist Conrad Lawrence went 26 00:01:30,880 --> 00:01:35,320 Speaker 1: on to outline these specific triggers involved, including short, thick extremities, 27 00:01:35,400 --> 00:01:38,160 Speaker 1: and clumsy movements in addition to the big eyes and 28 00:01:38,280 --> 00:01:42,400 Speaker 1: chubby cheeks. To what degree does cuteness hijack our senses? 29 00:01:42,400 --> 00:01:46,240 Speaker 1: Though scientists have observed one seventh of a second response 30 00:01:46,280 --> 00:01:49,680 Speaker 1: time and adults to unfamiliar infant faces, but not to 31 00:01:49,800 --> 00:01:54,320 Speaker 1: adult faces. Japanese study found that people who viewed images 32 00:01:54,360 --> 00:01:57,320 Speaker 1: of infant animals performed tasks better than those who viewed 33 00:01:57,360 --> 00:02:01,680 Speaker 1: images of adult animals. In other words, cute stimuli improved 34 00:02:01,720 --> 00:02:06,840 Speaker 1: performance in tasks that require behavioral carefulness. Were simply hardwired 35 00:02:06,880 --> 00:02:10,040 Speaker 1: to become careful guardians when cutei's called to us, and 36 00:02:10,200 --> 00:02:14,000 Speaker 1: that bleeds over into inhuman cute's as well the kittens, puppies, 37 00:02:14,000 --> 00:02:17,320 Speaker 1: and cartoon characters. Maybe those cute kitten posters in the 38 00:02:17,360 --> 00:02:21,160 Speaker 1: office actually serve a purpose after all. At this point, 39 00:02:21,320 --> 00:02:24,840 Speaker 1: it's easy to think of cuteness and monstrosity as separate entities, 40 00:02:25,080 --> 00:02:27,600 Speaker 1: but the two states may exist upon the same spectrum 41 00:02:27,600 --> 00:02:31,440 Speaker 1: of attention grabbing stimuli. Imagine a slider mechanism in a 42 00:02:31,480 --> 00:02:34,280 Speaker 1: program or video game. One direction takes you into the 43 00:02:34,280 --> 00:02:37,040 Speaker 1: realm of disgusting terror, and the other is a one 44 00:02:37,080 --> 00:02:42,040 Speaker 1: way ticket to cute town. Social scientist Maya Jejovska Brechinska 45 00:02:42,280 --> 00:02:45,519 Speaker 1: wrote a paper on this subject, Monstrous Cute Notes on 46 00:02:45,560 --> 00:02:49,120 Speaker 1: the ambivalent nature of cuteness. In it, she argues that 47 00:02:49,160 --> 00:02:51,800 Speaker 1: the cute and the monstrous exist in a single dimension, 48 00:02:52,040 --> 00:02:53,799 Speaker 1: and that there is a tipping point as to how 49 00:02:53,840 --> 00:02:57,880 Speaker 1: far you can push that cute slash monstrous slider. She 50 00:02:57,919 --> 00:03:01,320 Speaker 1: writes that this spectrum quote works inevitably as a sort 51 00:03:01,360 --> 00:03:04,520 Speaker 1: of pendulum, swinging to and fro, and thus being able 52 00:03:04,560 --> 00:03:06,639 Speaker 1: to play its role only up to a certain point, 53 00:03:06,960 --> 00:03:09,520 Speaker 1: where the sweetness becomes a mock and a pitiful or 54 00:03:09,560 --> 00:03:13,400 Speaker 1: ironic ulter ego of itself. In other words, it's possible 55 00:03:13,440 --> 00:03:16,960 Speaker 1: to push cuteness so far that it becomes sickening. If 56 00:03:17,000 --> 00:03:19,640 Speaker 1: we're to push too far in the other direction, arguably 57 00:03:19,720 --> 00:03:23,560 Speaker 1: the monstrous simply becomes ridiculous. Of course, in either case, 58 00:03:23,800 --> 00:03:28,639 Speaker 1: individual thresholds to cute slash monster overload will vary. Monsters 59 00:03:28,639 --> 00:03:31,600 Speaker 1: and cuts may stand at opposing exaggerations on the same 60 00:03:31,639 --> 00:03:34,600 Speaker 1: slider a visual stimuli. But why would we move that 61 00:03:34,680 --> 00:03:38,200 Speaker 1: slider to begin with? In making our monsters cute, we 62 00:03:38,280 --> 00:03:42,000 Speaker 1: diminish the underlying natural or cultural horrors that they entail. 63 00:03:42,560 --> 00:03:45,720 Speaker 1: In making the cute monstrous, we also dilute its brain 64 00:03:45,800 --> 00:03:50,200 Speaker 1: hijacking potency. This might also entail what psychologist Oriented Arragon 65 00:03:50,360 --> 00:03:54,400 Speaker 1: calls a dimorphous expression, in which an overly positive emotion 66 00:03:54,480 --> 00:03:57,960 Speaker 1: produces a negative reaction. If you've ever felt the desire 67 00:03:58,040 --> 00:04:01,440 Speaker 1: to pinch and overly cute into kitten, then you've felt 68 00:04:01,440 --> 00:04:05,080 Speaker 1: this phenomenon firsthand. When cute gets tough to handle, a 69 00:04:05,200 --> 00:04:08,520 Speaker 1: dash of horror balances it out. It would seem we 70 00:04:08,560 --> 00:04:12,200 Speaker 1: create monsters for a variety of reasons, to entertain, to warn, 71 00:04:12,320 --> 00:04:15,600 Speaker 1: or to chastise and thrill. We turn them cute to 72 00:04:15,680 --> 00:04:18,960 Speaker 1: dull their power or repurpose them for commercial gain, But 73 00:04:19,080 --> 00:04:21,600 Speaker 1: the slider can't always run back in the opposite direction. 74 00:04:22,040 --> 00:04:24,160 Speaker 1: We can only rob our monsters of their powers for 75 00:04:24,200 --> 00:04:31,880 Speaker 1: so long. Today's episode was written by Robert Lamb and 76 00:04:31,880 --> 00:04:34,840 Speaker 1: produced by Tyler Clang. To hear more about the monstrosity 77 00:04:34,880 --> 00:04:37,839 Speaker 1: slash cuteness spectrum, look for the episode of that title 78 00:04:37,880 --> 00:04:41,159 Speaker 1: on Robert's podcast Stuff to Blow Your Mind, And, of course, 79 00:04:41,360 --> 00:04:43,360 Speaker 1: for more on this and lots of other topics so 80 00:04:43,360 --> 00:04:45,840 Speaker 1: sweet you could eat them up, visit our home planet, 81 00:04:45,960 --> 00:04:58,520 Speaker 1: how Stuff Works dot com.