0:06

Hey, this is Annie and you're listening to Stephane never

0:08

told you. Okay,

0:21

listeners, I've had my fair share

0:24

of fictional crushes. I'll admit it. I'm

0:26

going through one right now. I'm too

0:28

ambars to say it is. I

0:30

will take any and all guesses. If anyone

0:33

gets it, I will be shocked, shock

0:35

shock shocked. Um,

0:37

and I usually do crush on fictional characters

0:39

as opposed to celebrities like Luke Skywalker,

0:42

who was my very first crush, UM,

0:44

Harry Potter, who was my longest lasting

0:46

crush, and as I've mentioned before,

0:48

young Hercules as played by Ryan Gosling.

0:51

Um. If anyone else has seen that show, please

0:53

write it. And I feel like I'm literally the only

0:56

one since I am in

0:58

the throes of a fixed don't crush

1:00

right now. I want to look back at this

1:02

classic episode for some answers about

1:04

Paris social relationships, which I

1:07

hear folks get for podcasters.

1:10

The first time someone told me they shipped me in a

1:12

co host and sent fan fiction, that

1:15

was like the best day ever. So

1:17

please enjoy this classic episode.

1:22

Welcome to Stuff Mom Never told

1:24

You from how stupp Works dot Com.

1:32

Hello, and welcome to the podcast I'm Caroline

1:34

and I'm Kristen today

1:36

is a listener request. Um,

1:39

we got a letter, uh, you know, suggesting

1:42

that we look into shipping and one true

1:44

pairing, and of course I immediately was like, I

1:47

don't I don't know what that like, shipping

1:49

like transporting things I don't

1:51

understand. Oh my

1:54

goodness. In looking into this topic,

1:56

did we uncover a ton of

1:58

research? Yeah, it's fascinating

2:01

and I have a feeling they're probably some listeners

2:03

saying I know it. Shipping is one

2:06

prepairing. Of course, like

2:08

you, Caroline, I was unfamiliar

2:10

with this term, but once I started

2:13

reading about it, I started out over at

2:15

know your Meme dot com. It's like the first Google

2:17

result that you'll get when it comes up,

2:19

and it gives you a pretty good um

2:22

rundown of what it is. And

2:24

shipping is essentially

2:26

short for relationshipping. You

2:29

will also hear about relationshippers, which

2:31

would be shortened to shippers. And it

2:33

started out with

2:36

fans of the X Files

2:38

who were split between relationshippers

2:41

who really wanted to see Molder and Scully

2:43

get together versus the

2:45

no romos who felt that

2:48

any kind of romance between Molder and Scully would totally

2:50

ruin the show. And the

2:52

term has also pinned on Pokemon fans who

2:54

rooted for Jesse and James of Team Rocket

2:56

to get together and decided to call themselves

2:59

Rocket shippers. So all of that is

3:01

shortened to ship or

3:04

shipping, and this whole

3:06

thing is just people feeling

3:08

so attached

3:11

to these characters that they start

3:13

rooting for or against certain

3:15

things to happen in the show. Yeah, and we intentionally

3:18

did this episode during the week of

3:20

Valentine's because it's a

3:22

different angle of attraction

3:25

and emotional investment that we don't

3:27

hear much about. And obviously that the shipping

3:29

side of it gets really deep

3:32

into the world of fandom

3:34

and fan fiction. But as

3:36

we kind of jump into this rabbit

3:39

hole of shipping, it

3:41

emerges into a lot of areas that

3:43

we probably all have some

3:46

experience with. But

3:48

first, you mentioned one true pairing.

3:51

That's something that comes up a lot in shipping,

3:53

and essentially it's a couple that

3:56

a fan or a group of fans prefers

3:59

over all the other ships or

4:01

relationships, right, and they're not necessarily

4:04

the main characters. Sometimes people

4:06

focus fan fiction on, you

4:08

know, side characters. Who they want to get together

4:10

and maybe if they think the main guy should really

4:12

be in love with some other girl over here.

4:14

But you know, you could think of one true pairing as

4:16

like Buffy and Angel or

4:20

Ross and Rachel, who are cited

4:22

an insane amount in some of these studies.

4:25

Yeah, and this all segues

4:27

into this thing

4:29

called a para social relationship.

4:32

And it's an actual psychological term which

4:34

was coined by Donald Horton and

4:36

Richard Wall in nineteen fifties

4:39

six to describe sort

4:41

of an illusion of a relationship

4:44

that a viewer or a listener will have

4:46

with a performer or

4:48

some kind of character. Right.

4:51

And it's, you know, by definition, a one

4:53

sided relationship where the

4:55

feelings extend past the viewing

4:57

and into real life. You find yourself thinking

4:59

of out this person or character in

5:01

real life, and just the act

5:04

of watching or listening to uh

5:07

this performance will just reinforce

5:09

those feelings. It's kind of like if you develop

5:11

a crush on someone, the more you see them, the more

5:13

you like them. It's just that this happens to

5:15

be with someone that you'll probably

5:17

never meet. Yeah, and the manifestations

5:19

of these kinds of para social relationships

5:22

via shipping, fan fiction,

5:24

and with our celebrity

5:27

crushes that we get aren't new at all

5:29

with with fandom specifically,

5:32

know your meme talks about how in nineteen

5:34

thirteen a book called Old Friends,

5:37

New Fancies was published and

5:39

it was a remix, an old school

5:41

fan fix, remixing

5:43

characters from three Jane Austen

5:46

novels. And there's even Mr

5:48

Darcy fan art side note that

5:50

goes back to the early nineteen hundreds.

5:52

Um, and with celebrity culture, obviously

5:56

it's you know, it's been around for quite

5:58

a while, but it goes all the way back

6:00

to really the eighteenth century, which

6:02

is when you have the emergence of

6:05

the celebrity while all these

6:07

other new ideas are kind of boiling at the

6:09

time in terms of selfhood, individuality,

6:12

in the pursuit of passions.

6:15

Yeah, that's not something that I ever realized

6:17

that celebrity quote unquote started

6:20

so early, I mean relatively. You

6:22

know, it comes along with new consumerism, and

6:24

this is when we also get gossip

6:27

column no idea. Well,

6:29

and then you can tie into that not just

6:31

with our cult of celebrity, but

6:33

also digging into shipping

6:36

and one true pairing and fan fiction. The

6:38

evolution of all of this stuff has really

6:40

gone alongside the

6:43

development of different types of

6:45

communication technologies. Whether

6:47

you have, for instance, in the late nineteenth

6:49

century the rise of photography,

6:52

which helped stoke the popularity

6:55

of stage star Sarah Bernhardt,

6:58

and then in the nineteen and these

7:00

with mass journalism starting to rise,

7:02

you have something called jazz journalism, which I guess

7:04

were like the early celebrity tabloids.

7:07

Yeah, really focusing on entertainment

7:09

over news, glorifying celebrities,

7:11

you know, people like Charles Lindberg, you know, who

7:14

is a huge celebrity for his beats

7:16

of aviation. Um,

7:18

so why why the long held

7:21

focus? What are we what are we so obsessed

7:23

with celebrities for? Yeah, I mean,

7:25

and this is looking more moving away a little

7:27

bit from the fan fiction element and into

7:30

actual living people living

7:33

in Hollywood A lot of times that we want

7:35

to see photos of while they're getting

7:37

their groceries, Like why

7:40

why do we care when celebrities do

7:42

everything? And guess what, folks, there

7:44

are so many theories about

7:46

its. Scholars think about this stuff too.

7:49

Yeah, a lot of it. Theories

7:51

include just the facts, simple fact

7:53

that we enjoy living vicariously

7:55

through really beautiful, rich people.

7:58

That doesn't seem that hard to figure out. There's

8:00

also, of course schadenfreud, where

8:02

we take pleasure and the misfortune of others.

8:05

So if Lindsay Lohan gets arrested again,

8:07

or you know, somebody there's a picture of somebody tripping

8:10

and falling, we tend to

8:12

get a kick out of it. When

8:14

you move into the more kind of literary

8:16

look at things, linguists George Lakeoff,

8:19

who in his book The Political Mind,

8:21

posited that certain frame

8:23

based scenarios like rags to richest

8:26

stories really appeal to us because

8:28

they trigger an emotional response. They're

8:30

imprinted in our brains. Rags

8:32

to Richest story like Anaticle Smith, or

8:34

bad boys stories like Charlie Sheen. They're

8:37

very familiar to us, and so they gain

8:39

traction pretty easily. And because

8:42

we are all sort of exposed

8:44

in different levels to these celebrities,

8:47

it makes sense that Fred English,

8:49

who authored a Short History

8:51

of Celebrity, describes celebrity

8:54

as a type of quote unquote social

8:57

adhesive because, I mean,

8:59

big can help us find common ground. It

9:01

gives us something to talk about when

9:04

you don't know someone very well. If you can

9:06

find a celebrity or a

9:08

television show or a book that you have in

9:11

common Boom conversation.

9:13

I mean, I know every party I go to, I

9:15

talk about Ryan Gosling. Hear

9:18

that. I mean, I really don't talk about anything else.

9:20

Starr, Well, Ryan Gosling and Corgies

9:23

pretty much all I talk about. But

9:26

Daniel Boorsten back in nineteen six two

9:29

had a different theory. He said that,

9:31

um, we are subbing in celebrities

9:34

for gods and heroes of

9:37

your Basically, we're losing our religion,

9:39

we're losing our traditions, and so we

9:41

are looking to these beautiful, rich people

9:43

to fill holes left. Well, but

9:45

you still have room for real life heroes

9:48

too, of say, maybe

9:50

a Hillary Clinton or a insert

9:53

famous athlete whose name isn't

9:55

readily coming to mind. But no

9:57

matter whether that person is a movie star

9:59

or a politics shan or an athlete whomember

10:02

they are. Evolutionary psychology

10:05

maintains that it's really

10:07

ingrained in our humanity

10:11

to want to, you

10:14

know, pay attention to higher status people,

10:17

right exactly. Yeah, Like Slate

10:19

columnist Robert Wright, who wrote that

10:21

keeping up with all of the gossip

10:24

about people, whether it's people at work,

10:26

you know, celebrities in the news. It

10:28

can quote inform social maneuvering

10:31

for sex and other vital resources.

10:33

And that sort of information about who's

10:36

up, who's down, who's doing what, who's doing

10:38

whom uh is the

10:40

sort of information that's conducive to fitness.

10:43

Yeah, and also it's Slate columnist Jack Schaefer

10:45

even ties it to reproduction,

10:48

saying that, well, we're paying attention to these

10:50

people and who they're having

10:53

babies with. I mean thinking about how,

10:55

oh my god, pregnancy pictures of

10:58

movie stars these days. It's kind of crazy.

11:00

And in a very simplicit kind of way, Schaefer

11:03

describes how, way way back

11:05

in you know, our our human ancestors

11:08

time, we didn't need

11:10

an US weekly to tell us what the higher

11:13

status individuals were doing, who they were having babies

11:15

with. You look around, you see your group,

11:17

and you know what's up. But today

11:20

we almost need the celebrity culture

11:23

to keep us clued in to what

11:25

the higher status folk are up

11:27

to and wearing and buying and where they're vacationing.

11:31

Right, and he opines that women make

11:33

up the bulk of the readers of tabloids

11:35

and the subjects of tabloids because

11:38

we are supposedly checking out the alpha

11:40

competition. Well, I wonder if

11:42

that's you could make that same kind

11:44

of statement to about Like, Yeah,

11:46

women might pay attention more attention to Hollywood,

11:49

but plenty of guys are watching

11:51

ESPN for a lot of hours of the day too. So

11:55

in all of this kind of constant checking

11:57

on our favorite celebrities or lee

12:00

favorite celebrities, depending, you know, we're

12:02

kind of seeing that they've succeeded

12:04

in society. Maybe we want to attain some

12:06

of what they have. But when you

12:08

start focusing too much

12:11

on some things, you might start to become

12:13

obsessive and actually developed celebrity

12:16

worship syndrome. Yeah, this is

12:18

an actual obsessive, addictive

12:20

disorder in which, as you might

12:23

guess, a person becomes overly

12:26

involved with the details of

12:28

UH celebrities life.

12:30

And this really came to light UH in

12:32

two thousand two when a team of psychologists

12:35

developed the Celebrity Attitude

12:38

Scale to rank people along

12:41

the spectrum of how

12:43

deeply embedded celebrity

12:45

culture is in their lives right,

12:48

and they found three dimensions to celebrity

12:50

worship, basically three tiers of how

12:52

freaking obsessed you are and how much of a role

12:55

it plays in your life. You've got the bottom

12:57

tier, which is entertainment social. It basically

12:59

has added who It's like I just like to chat

13:02

with a friend about how hot this celebrity

13:05

is. UM. It just reflects the

13:07

social aspects of celebrity worship, getting

13:09

around the water cooler, talking about the hot guy on

13:11

the show last night. There's the next

13:13

here, which is intense personal and

13:16

it reflects individuals intensive

13:18

and compulsive feelings around the

13:20

celebrity. So you're not just talking about

13:23

what a good character the kid is or

13:25

whatever. You're going into fandom.

13:28

Then the next here is borderline

13:31

pathological, which is basically like,

13:33

if X y Z celebrity told

13:35

me to steal, I would do it. Yeah.

13:38

It's that level of obsession where you get

13:40

into scarier issues of

13:42

stalking UM and Speaking to

13:45

the BBC, Dr John Malty,

13:47

who is a CYC instructor at the University

13:49

of Lester who has studied the

13:52

celebrity worship syndrome,

13:54

says that around one person of people

13:56

that he's studied at least show more

13:58

of those obsession and old tendencies,

14:01

but a majority of us are

14:03

on that first here of the entertainment.

14:05

So shall we pay attention. We

14:08

might, you know, go to I

14:10

don't know, delisted every now and then, but

14:13

it doesn't consume our lives,

14:15

sure exactly, Um, but

14:17

you know, I mean this this does move

14:19

out of the realm of real, live people

14:23

and back to what we started talking about at the top of the podcast,

14:25

which is fan fiction developing

14:28

relationships with characters

14:31

not necessarily real people.

14:33

Yeah, you can develop very real in

14:35

a way, para social relationships,

14:38

not just with celebrities on the street,

14:40

but also with either

14:42

characters that celebrities might be portraying in shows

14:45

or you know, in literature, with your favorite

14:47

characters in books. And NPR

14:50

commentator Jake halpern I had

14:52

a great piece about this, talking about

14:54

his paras social relationship with a cast of cheers.

14:57

I loved it, I know, or he just

14:59

really wanted to go and

15:01

hang out with him. He felt like he could, yeah,

15:03

go and get a beer and make conversation,

15:06

right, And it goes back to that continuing relationship

15:09

that that Horton and Wall talked about when

15:11

they coined the term para social relationship.

15:13

Just that you know, Helper

15:15

and watches the show. Every week he knows

15:18

what Cliff and Norm are talking about at

15:20

the bar and he wants to join them, and that relationship

15:22

feels all the stronger for the fact that

15:25

he checks in with them every week and they

15:27

are exactly the same. That's another big part

15:29

of these para social relationships with characters

15:32

is that they're kind of always the same. Yeah,

15:35

And I kind of experienced this earlier

15:37

this year with breaking

15:40

bad in and in a not so positive

15:42

sense, like I did not want to go hang out with Walt,

15:44

don't get me wrong, but I in order

15:47

to catch up for the final season.

15:49

And don't worry, I'm not going to spoil anything for anyone who

15:51

hasn't seen all of it, um, but in

15:53

order to catch up, I binge watched it

15:56

because a lot of it was on Netflix, and

15:58

I found myself Caroline, thinking

16:01

about Jessie and

16:03

Walt and you know, like in

16:05

reactions to like things would happen

16:08

in my day, and I think, oh,

16:11

Skyler would totally not be down with that, you know,

16:13

like it was starting to get weird end the beginning of

16:15

the show, when I had very low investment.

16:18

That wasn't something that I ever thought would happen, but

16:20

I developed a very real, kind of strange

16:23

and unwanted attachment to these

16:26

characters. But when it comes to the

16:29

thought of making emotional

16:31

psychological connections with fictional

16:33

characters or with celebrities, you

16:36

might think, well, that might be a sign that something

16:39

is not so well adjusted, either

16:41

in your social life or your brain. But

16:45

research bears out different

16:48

and kind of counterintuitive results,

16:50

which we will get into. And we come right back

16:52

from a quick break and

16:55

now back to the podcast. So

16:58

we were just talking about connection two

17:00

characters on TV, characters and movies, uh,

17:03

fake people who you develop

17:06

these connections with after repeated

17:08

viewings of a show, And

17:10

Kristen had been saying that, you know, a lot of the research

17:13

is counterintuitive that you would think like the loneliest,

17:16

saddest people would be the ones to develop

17:18

all these relationships, and that's not necessarily

17:21

true, although some

17:23

studies have connected some

17:25

degree of loneliness with these

17:27

para social relationships. Yeah,

17:30

there was a study published in the Journal

17:32

of Experimental Psychology that it came

17:34

out in two thousand nine, and

17:36

it essentially found that

17:39

absolutely these familiar television

17:41

shows are sort

17:43

of loneliness bridges for us

17:46

we turn it on to kind of keep his company.

17:48

Maybe if we're at home alone or if

17:50

we are going through sort of a downer period,

17:52

we might be more likely to watch our

17:55

favorite television shows. Right,

17:57

And they just said that it's basically a lot less work

18:00

to turn on the TV than too struggle

18:02

to maintain connections with real

18:04

people, if especially if you are feeling

18:07

down, And they tested

18:09

the social surrogacy hypothesis,

18:11

theorizing that loneliness actually

18:13

motivates people to seek out relationships

18:16

even if those relationships aren't

18:18

real. Which not to make me sound

18:20

like I'm off the charts on the para social

18:23

relationship skill, Caroline. This also

18:25

reminds me of when I a

18:27

while ago went through a pretty

18:30

awful breakup and I just started

18:32

compulsively out of nowhere watching

18:34

How I Met Your Mother and I had to have

18:36

it on like in like a couple of weeks,

18:38

Like I just had to have it on in the background just to

18:40

have something on. And even

18:43

though I don't love the show, but

18:45

I couldn't stop watching the show, you

18:47

know, And it's about like, and it totally makes sense

18:49

reading this research because it's

18:51

about a group of friends like

18:53

who are dealing with relationships,

18:56

yeah, exactly. And when I lived by myself

18:58

in Augusta, you know, I be cooking dinner at

19:00

night and would find myself turning

19:02

the TV on to feel less

19:05

kind of lonely during dinner time, you

19:07

know, like having those voices

19:09

they're having people on TV, either

19:12

reading the news or a sitcom or something

19:14

made it feel like the house was full. And

19:16

if we move from things like television

19:19

programs back into the

19:21

realm of fan fiction and getting more

19:24

online with shipping and

19:26

one true pairing, I

19:28

think it serves a similar

19:30

kind of not just as a creative

19:32

outlet, but also I think it does

19:34

serve a social function as well,

19:37

because with one true pairing in particular,

19:39

people are so heavily invested

19:42

in these couples.

19:44

And it's funny though, like side note how

19:47

Ross and Rachel from Friends are examples

19:49

of almost every trope yeah

19:52

in in fan fiction, because like you

19:54

could look at them as the one true pairing, you

19:57

can also look at them as going through the quote

19:59

unquote official couple or deal syndrome,

20:01

where you know, people are identifying with these

20:03

characters, but these characters are being put through hell

20:05

there the show creators are toying with

20:07

your emotions. But then what's

20:09

interesting to see with one prepairing is

20:12

that it's so more active than us

20:14

just passively watching

20:17

television or even just having it on in the background,

20:19

because they really become the architects

20:22

of these fictional characters live.

20:24

So the point that you get into slash

20:27

fiction where characters are

20:29

having sex with other characters, and

20:31

they're all sorts of different pairings,

20:34

whether it's a ho ya ship

20:37

which is homo erotic positive

20:40

shipping, or sister ship

20:42

which yep, gets incestuous.

20:45

Uh, and on and on and on,

20:47

and this this is such a deeper

20:50

level of investment.

20:53

Yeah, well, I mean, I think it's worth looking

20:56

at how you even get that

20:58

involved, because I don't think I

21:00

mean, there have been a few characters I just don't

21:03

watch a lot of TV disclaimer, but there have been

21:05

characters historically where I have been like

21:08

super invested in them. You know, I

21:10

am obsessed with them almost, But

21:13

I have no idea what's behind that

21:15

and what even got me there. And one example

21:17

that I can think of is during high school, when

21:20

I'm going to bring it up, Christen, when I watched

21:23

La fem Nikita. Okay,

21:25

my favorite show. How many times have I mentioned this? But

21:28

so I'm a teen, been high school and

21:30

I'm watching this really incredibly powerful

21:32

kick butt woman every week, and

21:34

you know, it was toying with my emotions because they were going to

21:37

cancel that show like three thousand different times,

21:40

but that she stayed on the air, and

21:42

I just I really did feel like I developed this

21:45

relationship with her, like, well, if only

21:47

she knew me, But she's fake, so

21:49

she doesn't. But it's

21:51

interesting you say, though, that you were in high

21:54

school, because one factor that

21:56

psychologists have identified as sort of

21:58

predisposing you to form a paras

22:00

social relationships is being in periods

22:02

of transition. I was going through

22:04

a breakup when I went through my how

22:07

I met your mother just almost

22:09

dark spell. I wouldn't leave my apartment.

22:11

Um, and you were going through high

22:13

school. Is there a more transitional time

22:16

than that, right? And so yeah, people

22:18

who end up with this over

22:20

the top, either celebrity worship for

22:22

real life people or paras social

22:24

relationships with characters, they

22:27

tend to be going through life transitions.

22:29

And the same goes for elderly

22:31

folks. That's another big period of transition

22:34

with limited mobility and One

22:36

study was looking specifically

22:38

at the paras social relationships that

22:40

elderly people form with like

22:42

TV shopping hosts. Because

22:45

they are in that period of transition where maybe

22:47

they don't see their family as much, they have fewer sources

22:50

of information. They

22:52

are more susceptible to

22:55

these paras social relationships because they can't

22:57

get out and so they are lonely. We

22:59

have said already that loneliness is a motivating

23:01

factor for pursuing connections, and

23:03

so they end up being more likely to overuse

23:06

TV shopping channels because those hosts

23:08

are like friends to them because they're

23:10

probably talking directly to them. Right,

23:12

It's not like a sitcom necessarily where I mean, obviously

23:14

you can develop para social relationships,

23:17

etcetera, etcetera. But you know, sitcom

23:19

stars are talking to each other. The TV host

23:21

on the shopping network is looking right at you. Ah,

23:24

that makes so much sense in the saddest way possible.

23:27

I know, go hug a grandmother someone.

23:29

But I mean, research has shown that these para

23:32

social relationships can influence I

23:34

mean so much. They can influence our views

23:36

of social issues like gay rights. If

23:38

there are gay characters on TV, then

23:41

and you feel like you know them, then

23:43

you're more likely to change your view of

23:45

gay rights. It can even influence

23:47

teens views of how to achieve goals that

23:50

are related to the development of their identities.

23:52

Yeah, it's one thing that can also make p

23:55

says more effective, as

23:57

if that's why you have celebrities

23:59

who are saying, Hey, don't

24:02

flush tampons, that's not a p s

24:04

A anyone's ever done, probably, or

24:06

or learn to read things like that,

24:09

right, don't drink and drive, that's a p

24:11

s A. Thank you learned to read tampon

24:13

labels. I would make a horrible p s A writer.

24:16

Um, But speaking of tampons, let's talk

24:18

a little bit about gender, because

24:22

my assumption going into this was that this

24:25

is something that probably

24:27

is more appealing to women and

24:30

younger women. And it's not that it

24:32

doesn't occur with a lot of women. It's

24:34

just that men and women both experience

24:37

it, and we kind of experience it for different reasons.

24:39

We have different motivations for turning the TV

24:41

on, and we have different motivations

24:44

for leaving it on and coming back week

24:46

after week. Yeah, there

24:48

was one interesting study that came out.

24:51

It's a little dated, but it was looking at the intersection

24:53

of dating, gender,

24:56

and paras social relationships,

24:58

and it found that men

25:01

tended to form stronger PSRs

25:04

with TV characters when they were

25:06

anxious in their dating situation, whereas

25:09

women were the opposite. We

25:11

tended to form those para social relationships

25:14

when we were more secure. So it was in

25:16

a way we were we as in women were

25:18

using these characters

25:21

and TV shows as a way of sort

25:23

of more firmly securing our

25:26

dating situation. Yeah. They

25:28

they found that women tend to see TV as a

25:30

friend or companion, whereas men are turning

25:32

to TV to solve problems,

25:35

which is pretty interesting. Well, it's

25:37

also interesting is that Twilighting

25:39

the whole team Edward, team Jake. I mean, Twilight

25:42

is just rife with

25:44

para social relationships, fan fiction,

25:46

one true pairing, and go on and on and

25:49

on. I mean to the point that, uh,

25:52

fifty Shades of Gray was born

25:54

out of the fan fiction. You could

25:56

call it some kind what kind

25:58

of ship would that be? Or you take a

26:01

Bella character and you pair her up with a

26:03

guy who's really into bedious and I don't

26:05

know, I'm sure it exists. Um,

26:07

But Twilighting, though, is

26:10

a double form of para social relationship

26:12

where you have fans of Twilight

26:15

who transpose their

26:17

para social relationships with characters in

26:19

the book onto actors,

26:22

right right, And so that

26:25

led Robert Pattinson at one point to say, like,

26:27

they know that I'm playing a character, right,

26:29

I'm I'm just some brit from

26:32

you know, over across the pond. I'm not a guy.

26:34

But those kinds of para social relationships

26:37

they do have, really, they do have really

26:39

real results. They are a more eloquent way

26:41

to say that it's really real, but they

26:43

do have results on us, not just in terms

26:45

of making PSA is more effective, etcetera, etcetera,

26:48

or alleviating loneliness for the time being,

26:51

but also when those

26:53

characters like Robert

26:56

Pattinson and Kristin Stewart, Bella

26:58

and Edward break up, we

27:00

also feel that too. Oh,

27:03

the horror, the

27:05

heartbreak. No, I mean yeah, And

27:07

these these breakup feelings can be

27:09

felt for characters in a movie

27:12

or on TV, or for real life

27:14

people who you don't know but you sure

27:16

are sad about their divorce. Yeah, I

27:18

had. Really it made me feel

27:20

awkward to myself having

27:22

a an emotional reaction

27:25

to the announcement of Amy Poehler

27:27

and well our nets divorce, two people

27:29

I would love to meet, probably never will.

27:32

And who I thought was, Oh, I love both

27:34

of the things that they do in

27:36

television and movies. Why

27:39

did I care? It was the strangest

27:41

thing, Caroline. Yeah,

27:44

I I mean I I've felt that

27:46

too, you know, just like extreme sadness over

27:48

like you guys can't work it out,

27:51

there's not anything. What happened, What

27:53

happened, happened, what happened.

27:56

And so Kristen, not to make this

27:58

completely about La fem Nikita, like I do everything,

28:01

but there have been studies that look at

28:04

people's feelings about the

28:06

end of a show and so the

28:08

end of a relationship, a para

28:10

social relationship that they have with the character. And

28:13

like I said, you know, USA was going to cancel a Femniki

28:15

to like fifteen thousand times, and the fan

28:17

base, I mean I was only in high school, but like the

28:20

active online fan base went crazy and

28:22

actually got the show back

28:24

because people were so intensely invested

28:27

in the story. Yeah. Jonathan

28:29

Cohen is a researcher who has done a

28:32

couple of studies actually on these para social

28:34

breakups, and he's found

28:37

in a nutshell that yes,

28:40

we do feel them too, but the level

28:42

that we feel them is very much tied

28:44

to our psychological

28:47

attachment style. You hear this a lot

28:49

with a relationship psychology, where you

28:51

are usually fall into one or three categories

28:53

of being securely attached, avoidantly

28:56

attached. Was just like who don't

28:58

call me, I'll call you yeah, or

29:01

you have anxious attachment. And people

29:03

who are more anxiously attached, people

29:05

who might be in real life little more nervous

29:08

about the status of their relationships,

29:11

tend to feel

29:13

these kinds of para social breakups

29:15

a little more strongly than avoidantly

29:18

or securely attached people, right,

29:21

and Cohen was saying that because

29:23

it's not necessarily the people we would think

29:26

having these para social relationships, that

29:29

we should probably view PSRs

29:32

as an extension of people's social

29:34

relationships, not necessarily

29:37

compensation for a lack of

29:39

them, because, like we said, you know, men are if

29:42

they're anxious about their relationships, they'll turn to TV.

29:44

If women are feeling great about theirs, they'll turn to

29:46

TV. It's not necessarily that you completely

29:49

avoid human contact, because he

29:51

argues, if you were an avoidant

29:53

personality. You wouldn't want to

29:55

create relationships with characters on TV

29:57

either, right, right, Well, and it's

30:00

also good to point out too, that there have

30:02

been a number of studies, you

30:04

know, confirming and reconfirming

30:06

that para social relationships are not red

30:08

flags that you are a shut in and don't know how

30:11

to make friends. It's actually more tied

30:13

to characteristics of extraversion

30:16

and sociability. It's like you

30:18

said, it's an extension of these relationships.

30:21

Um, there's one other study which found that we

30:23

tend to rate these characters as closer

30:25

than acquaintances, but not as

30:27

close as close friends.

30:30

That's good, Yeah, yeah,

30:32

that is that's good. I'm I'm glad that we do

30:34

rate our friends higher than fictional

30:37

characters. And to bring up

30:39

yet another gendered aspect of

30:41

this research, Cohen points

30:44

out in his study of basically

30:46

anticipating the end of a series

30:49

that women who generally report stronger

30:51

PSRs did not report expecting

30:54

higher levels of distress as the

30:56

show was ending in their relationships with these

30:58

characters are ending, and he

31:00

says that that probably has something to do with the fact that we're

31:02

better able to cope with the end of real

31:05

life relationships slightly better than

31:07

men anyway, well and regardless

31:09

of gender. The one

31:11

thing that with all of this information

31:14

on para social breakups.

31:17

Great part about shipping and once

31:19

you're pairing in fandom

31:21

and online fan fiction and all these communities

31:24

that exist, is that you never have to break up.

31:26

Now you can simply dive into these

31:28

new worlds and create these new worlds and new relationships.

31:30

And and we also now have

31:33

more accessibility to real

31:35

life celebrities than ever before. And you also

31:38

have I bet there's some listeners who

31:40

might be familiar with the YouTube series The Lizzie

31:42

Bennett Diaries, where they did an incredible

31:45

job of having

31:47

social media updates

31:50

in real time as the show is going on.

31:52

So you felt like you

31:55

knew these characters as people because

31:57

they're in your Twitter feeds making

32:00

comments and people got,

32:02

you know, so into it. I think because of that

32:04

closer relationship they

32:06

were able to form.

32:09

Mhm, this is interesting.

32:11

It is interesting. I mean, it definitely made

32:13

me think about my media

32:16

consumption differently. Yeah,

32:19

it made me extra

32:21

thankful that I don't do much TV watching.

32:23

Although you know what I will say this, Sally,

32:26

my mother, Sally like goes she

32:28

would be so embarrassed if she knew I was saying this. She

32:30

goes to the store every Friday to pick up the

32:32

new tabloid round Um,

32:35

and when I go home for dinner or whatever,

32:37

like, she'll hand them off to me. And so that's

32:40

the only time I ever read tabloids is when Sally

32:42

hands them to me. And it's

32:45

easy to get caught up in that, Like as you're reading

32:47

it, I'm like, oh, my god, she's pregnant again,

32:49

or like, oh, she looks so beautiful

32:51

in that designer gown, you know, like it's

32:54

I can see how it is very easy to get caught up

32:56

in in the celebrity worship. Yeah, I mean,

32:58

and since this is a podcast, I feel like I need to admit

33:01

my own paras social podcast

33:03

relationships that I have with

33:06

the ones that I listened to on a regular basis,

33:08

Like Professor blast Off fans listen

33:11

Tegnataro is like a friend

33:13

to me in my head. I

33:16

wish I wish in my in my

33:18

living room too. Well, it's

33:20

easy because you know, especially it's

33:22

not like with a lot of things

33:24

like podcast or whatever. It's not like people

33:27

are very formally talking about

33:29

very formal things, you know. It's it's

33:31

like we're having a conversation right now, and I'm

33:33

sure people out there also feel included

33:36

in the conversation as we want you to. Yeah,

33:38

I would love for people to form paras social

33:40

relationships with us, Yeah,

33:42

for sure. But I hope that this

33:45

was entertaining. I know that we covered

33:48

a lot of territory, from the fictional

33:50

to the more celebrity

33:53

focus stuff, but it all ties

33:55

together, and I don't

33:57

know, to me, it was it was nice to see

33:59

how the world of fandom,

34:02

which we might think of as as

34:04

sort of a niche thing that we might not be that

34:06

engaged with, we all engage

34:08

in some form of it. Yeah, we all

34:11

do. It's just the fact

34:13

that I have ever felt disappointed that a celebrity

34:15

couple has broken up, Like when I

34:18

when I saw that Carrie Russell who

34:20

okay here here multi layered. I

34:23

was obsessed with Felicity when it was on

34:25

TV, and I started rewatching it on

34:27

Netflix not too long ago. So I'm just like Carrie

34:29

Russell, I just freaking love you. I think

34:31

she's adorable, and

34:34

then she gets married in real life

34:36

and I think her husband's all handsome and she's

34:38

so pretty and they've got this pretty kid,

34:41

and then I hear that they're getting a divorce and I'm like, no,

34:44

Felicity, No, And so

34:46

well, because that probably ties back into

34:48

the theory of how, you know, we

34:50

sort of live

34:53

through them a little bit. Yeah, and

34:55

if they're at the top of

34:57

the social hierarchy

35:00

and and we see them, you know, not being

35:02

able to quote unquote make it work, right, then

35:04

sure it can give us pause, like, well, that

35:07

can't If they can't be perfect, how could I be perfect?

35:10

But I don't think people should feel too

35:12

bad about it, you know, because it's kind of like

35:14

just if you're a freshman in high school looking

35:17

at the seniors in high school and their cool cars and

35:19

their cool clothes, and they get to do things, you

35:21

know, they have you know, cell phones

35:23

or whatever whatever the kids have these

35:26

days. They got their snapchats, their

35:28

snapchats, and there roulettes

35:31

and whatnot. Um, it's

35:33

kind of the same thing. It's just like, what are the cool

35:35

kids doing? Yeah? Yeah,

35:38

well, I definitely want to hear from listeners

35:40

on this does this ring bells for

35:43

you? Who do you have a par of social relationship

35:45

with? Let us know you can

35:47

write to us mom Stuff at Discovery dot com

35:50

or just tweet us at mom Stuff Podcast. You

35:52

can always send us a message over on Facebook.

35:59

And we've got a cup will of messages to share with

36:01

you now about our episode

36:03

on gender reveal parties.

36:09

So I've got one here from Megan, and

36:12

she writes, I have attended

36:14

a small party, but I haven't

36:16

hosted one, but when I went to had

36:18

no gifts involved in just an hour or so, a

36:20

fun chit chat and a delicious cake. If

36:23

people want to continue to have parties like this

36:25

in all caps, she says, go

36:28

for it. I don't have to bring a gift,

36:30

but I do get cake and get to talk to people

36:32

I mostly like. So sure, but

36:34

I have heard of these parties going a little overboard,

36:37

and I just can't stand behind that.

36:39

I agree, if you're going to have a shower, then that

36:41

should be the only time I should have to buy a gift for your baby.

36:43

And too many parties seems like too much work.

36:46

But I am a mom, so I have a different point of view

36:48

than you guys. Might I like the idea

36:50

of this type of thing. It seems super fun, and

36:53

I plan to do something similar with my husband and I have

36:55

another child. It wasn't something I knew of

36:57

when I had my daughter. And for me, and

36:59

like the party I went to, I will likely only

37:01

invite close family and friends, provide cake,

37:03

and keep it short. But I think sharing that moment

37:05

when you find out whether you're having a boy or a girl is kind

37:07

of sweet. Whether we have some kind of dyed cake

37:10

or icing or stuff balloons in a box, I don't

37:12

know, but most of these I've seen here pretty

37:14

cute and make for an adorable picture. To

37:16

me, it just seems like one of those things that if someone wants

37:18

to take the effort to do it, let them have it, as

37:21

long as they don't expect too much of

37:23

other people. So thanks Megan. You

37:26

know, right after we recorded that episode, I got

37:28

on Facebook and a

37:30

friend of mine from college had posted pictures of

37:32

her gender revealed party. Really and I looked

37:34

at the picture and I was like, is this what I think it is? Because

37:37

it was a picture of a small white cake and

37:39

on it were two football helmet and

37:41

one was pink and one was blue, and it said pink

37:44

versus Blue. And then the next picture

37:46

was the cut cake that had pink

37:49

cake inside of it. I

37:51

was like, man, Kristen and I are on

37:54

the ball. We got our fingers on

37:56

the pulse. That's

37:58

right, of something, of something.

38:00

The cake trends um

38:03

well. This letter is from Jennifer.

38:05

She said, in November, I

38:08

found out that not only was I pregnant, but that

38:10

I was twenty six weeks pregnant. Three

38:12

negative pregnancy tests, no weight gain, and

38:15

very mild symptoms, all of which could be put

38:17

down to other things, led me to believe

38:19

I was going through early menopause. I

38:21

found out at a regular doctor's appointment.

38:23

My husband got off work early that day and we got an

38:25

ultrasound that afternoon. We had already had

38:28

too many surprises that day and

38:30

decided not to find out the gender at the time,

38:32

so we were given a sealed envelope. We

38:34

wanted to keep the surprise for a while, and we wanted

38:36

to make sure not to get too many gender specific

38:39

clothes, toys, or decor for our child. However,

38:41

both of our mothers were really keen to

38:43

know where they whether they were getting a granddaughter

38:45

or a grandson. Also, answering

38:48

the question got to be kind of an annoyance

38:50

with the agreement of the friends who were throwing our

38:52

shower for us in January twelve, we

38:54

gave the envelope to our cake maker, another

38:57

friend and had her do a gender reveal

38:59

cake for our baby shower. That way,

39:01

a lot of the gifts we would get would be gender

39:03

neutral, we wouldn't be having a second party

39:06

that people might think they were required to bring gifts

39:08

for, and we could answer the question and

39:10

share our reaction with an awful lot of people

39:12

at once. Because our mothers and extended

39:15

families live more than a thousand miles away

39:17

from us in opposite directions, they couldn't be there,

39:19

but we were able to have friends set up webcams

39:21

for live streaming so that everyone could share the info.

39:24

One cutting into that cake and pulling

39:26

out the pink slice was a wonderful moment for us

39:28

to share with our families and our extended chosen

39:30

families. A k A friend, I

39:32

will say that I am a bit unsure about making it a

39:34

whole separate party and very much of

39:36

the belief that it is crasped beyond acceptability

39:39

to make it a second expected gift

39:41

giving event. So thank you, Jennifer.

39:44

I think your story is great

39:46

and I'm glad you got to share your special

39:48

moment with people via webcam,

39:51

and thanks to everybody who's written in to us, Mom. Stuff

39:53

at Discovery dot com is our email

39:55

address and the only other address you need to

39:57

know. To find all things stuff mom and A

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