What's the Deal With Staring?

Gazing too long upon another person is almost universally viewed as anywhere from impolite to hostile, which is odd considering science isn't fully certain why we stare - and why we're so good at knowing when we're being stared at.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you should know from house Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and guest producer Role is
actually staying in here. I believe he's staring at It's
as funny as we speak. It's making my cheek blush

(00:24):
just the one though, Yeah, which is weird. It's a tease,
is what that is. I'm anything. I'm a big tease.
Uh spoiler alert? Okay, now that was it that your
cheek is hot? It's a post spoiler alert post. I
don't know if those work count. I think you can
set the internet off into a frenzy if you do

(00:46):
it the wrong way. Oh yes, we've done that before.
Oh yeah, that's right, say spoiler alert beforehand. Apparently. Yeah,
I thought you just spoiled it and the said spoiler
alert right as a tag. It's not how it works, Uh, Chuck.
Have you ever been to the grocery store? Uh? Yeah,
I was there yesterday. Were you? Did you go down

(01:08):
the steed buy cereal? I don't really buy cereal much either.
I I um hate cereal. You know. I'm just glad
it's still around but I just don't buy it myself.
Every once a while go down the cereal, it's just
almost to like visit old friends. Like there's the Count Chocula,
there's Fred Flintstone, or what the heck happened to Lucky

(01:28):
the Leopard con he doesn't look anything like you did
when we were kids, you know, look at Tony Tiger. Yes,
while while I'm walking down the cereal, I noticed like
they don't like hold my my gaze like they used to,
actually because you're not seven. No. Actually, there's this study
that found and I think to the last couple of
years at Cornell University, they have like a whole food

(01:50):
psychology program. You know, I love that stuff. Um, And
they did a study of like I think sixty five
different cereals and found that, um, the average gaze downward
gays is about a nine point six degree gays right
of just your normal human walking in the serial. So
like if you were looking at Tony the Tiger and

(02:12):
you were you were me in our normal adult height,
he wouldn't be locking eyes with us. But if we
were little kids, he'd be looking right into our eyes.
To Can Sam, To Can Sam, Lucky Captain Crunch which
we talked about. Yeah, the honey Comb's Maniac. Yeah, the
Goalen fiber stick. Sure, um, all of those guys they

(02:33):
look into little kid's eyes. And the whole reason why
is because, um, it builds brand trust and brand loyalty.
Among um cereal boxes where the character is looking right
into your kid's eyes on the cereal aisle, there's like
pent brand loyalty compared to like six among boxes that
don't have little characters looking into your kid's eyes. And

(02:55):
it all just kind of goes to show you, Like
the stair even being stared at by a lifeless cardboard
cartoon character is that powerful that it can It can
make you say, I want to eat what's inside of you?
You know, So the gaze it's powerful. Or like the

(03:18):
old days when I was single and I would go
into a bar and just like go right up beside
a lady and just stare at her face until she
looked at me. Make your eyes as wide as you
possibly could. They love that stuff. Sure, very powerful. It
shows what a panther you are. Creep is what that
would be. Sure, Yeah, And I mean that's a that's
a really great point. Like if it's a leprechn on

(03:40):
a cereal box. You're not threatened or intimidated by it,
but there's still some sort of power to its gaze. Right,
if you're another human being that is so powerful, it
has to be wielded very delicately. Because people don't like
to be stared at, as as this this House to
Works article points out, it's simply rude to stare. Yeah,

(04:01):
it can be. I mean, depending on what culture you
live in, it can be everything from intimidation tactic to
a to an affront to like something that's very aggressive.
Um yeah, it means a lot of things around the world.
But I didn't find a lot of cultures where it
was super nice. No, the closest thing I can find
was Argentina being called out um as it being socially

(04:25):
acceptable for men to stare at women. That doesn't mean
that it's welcomed, right, it's not welcome necessarily or wanted,
but it's not like what are you doing kind of thing.
But I couldn't find any culture around the world where
just outright staring is just normal and fine. It seems
to be like universally it makes people uncomfortable. It seems like, yeah, well,

(04:49):
this article we're gonna draw from a few, but one
from our own website. Why is it rude to stare?
Which it never really answers Actually no, it doesn't. Just
sort of give some reason stands to around. But um,
I did think they made a good point whoever wrote
this early on in the article, uh, that humans are
constantly categorizing things when we look around at anything, uh

(05:13):
from inanimate objects. You know, that desk looks comfortable, or
that chair looks nice, or that car is cool, or
that person is white. Uh, that person is a woman,
that person is attractive, that person isn't. Like we're always
scanning and dropping things into different mental boxes. And uh

(05:36):
so they make a pretty good point. I think whenever
something is just slightly off, um, like that person has
one leg it just the brain has an instinct to
to stay stay on that gaze a little longer because
it just disrupts the normal. Like that's a thing, that's
the thing, that's the thing, and that's a difference. So

(05:56):
let me look at that for a minute. And the
the whole idea behind us walking around constantly scanning our
environment is this idea that we've evolved to At first,
I guess probably hunt for predators. Remember, in like the
gun control episode, we talked about how humans can recognize
a gun in the environment as readily as recognizing snakes

(06:17):
or spiders. So we're training to to pluck stuff out
of our environment that may or may not be a
threat as we've kind of moved away from the possibility of, um,
you know, a bear eating you. Typically it still happens infrequently,
but for the most part, we're not threatened by bears. Right. Um,

(06:37):
We've we've that same ability has kind of moved into
this social realm where that whole in group out group
categorization that we've talked about two really kind of comes up.
And so we're walking around saying, you're okay, You're all right,
you may be a threat, So I'm gonna move over
here on the other side of the street. I don't
necessarily recognize you, but we can do all this like

(06:59):
pretty quickly. Right. But it's like you were saying, if
you see somebody with missing a face, for example, is
a good is a good one? Um? And I read
this Wired article that cited a woman who basically was
like she her husband shot her in the face, and man,
she walked around before a face transplant, like missing a
significant section in the middle of her face, and she

(07:20):
just was stared at all the time. She said she
had to get used to it. Um. This article points
out that all you're doing necessarily is taking in more
information than you're used to, and we we do that
by staring. It's a result of saying, there's more info
than I can just get through with a quick glance.

(07:40):
I need to look at you a little while longer. Uh.
And then there was a study at usc AS in
southern California telve. This one makes a lot of sense
to me because I think what you're doing is you're
satisfying a curiosity like, um, I guess Oscars histories is
a weird example now that he's gone through that thing.

(08:01):
But let's say pre that, uh, pre that incident, you
would see someone like Oscar Oscar pistories and say, wow,
I want to see how this guy runs without legs.
So I'm gonna look at him put on those blades
and and run. And of course he's a you know,
it's a spectator sport anyway. But I mean it happened

(08:22):
any day, like, uh, someone who's handicapped, Like, I wonder
how they drive a car with no legs, so it's
very interesting. So I'm gonna look at that and watch
them get in the car and have a specially outfitted
car with hand operation. So it's it's it's weird because
it's in that case, I don't think it's rude, but

(08:43):
you're walking a fine line, but it is still very rude.
Another UM non murderous example, like the second one you gave,
is UM. There was in this study at USC they
used UM women with a novel biological effectors, meaning in
this case that their arms hadn't fully developed, but they
were performing functions that people would normally use their hands

(09:05):
for with their residual limbs. Right, So someone might be like, wow,
how is she painting or cooking her dinner? Exactly? But
at the same time, you're right, you're walking that fine line,
so you're staring, but maybe you look away, but then
you look back and you kind of to take it
in in pieces, because we are in this weird position
where we want to take in but we're also socialized

(09:28):
to not stare as well, it's rude. Well, what they
determined in the study though, which sort of backs up
the idea that it is satisfying the curiosity is they
looked at the brains of people like staring at uh,
let's say the lady without the formed limbs. And after
they looked for a little while, the brain lit up
at first like, oh my gosh, what am I seeing?

(09:49):
This is super interesting, and then the brain normalized. I
was like, oh, okay, well that's how she cooks her dinner.
That's really neat exactly, and then they were able to
interact normally after that point. So it's almost like, as
long as your brain hasn't gotten enough information to its satisfaction,
you're not gonna feel comfortable. There's gonna be something weird

(10:10):
and different around. And if you interact with somebody before
you've sat your you've satisfied your brains, you need to
understand what the heck is going on there. Um, then
you might not interact with them as comfortably as you
would if you were able to sit there and take
it back. And they did this by having people watch
other people through like a one way mirror, I think,

(10:31):
and watched them for a few minutes their brains, I
guess became satisfied or figure it out, you know, what
the process was. And then after that they interacted with
the people much more normally than they did before they
were able to fully satisfy their brains curiosity. Yeah, it's
like this might be a pretty lame example, but it's
like if you have a huge ZiT on the end
of your nose and you walk into a group of

(10:52):
friends for a meeting, you might say it, just get
over with I got this huge ZiT on my nose,
like Fred Savage and Austin Powers the Mole, like acknowledging it. Hey,
I got this huge thing. Instead of being weird about it,
just ahead and take a good gander. Isn't it amazing?
And now let's just act normal. And then nine times
out of ten people are like, yeah, great, I just

(11:13):
put my hand in front of my face and pretend
that nothing's different. Is the makeup not working? But the
thing is, it's you know, it's it. You know you
people have zits themselves, fairly well understood and it's transient,
you know what I mean. So there is definitely looking
at somebody who is differently abled or um just different

(11:33):
in any way it can be considered rude, but especially
if that person has to put up with it again
and again. But I think there's just not that understanding
of what is the basis of it, and of course
kids are going to do that, and his parents you
are probably Johnny on the spot by saying, don't stare
at that person, that lady without a face. She you know,

(11:53):
it's not nice. Uh, Whereas the kids just thinking like
I've never seen someone without a face, right, and the
parent you I was thinking that same thing, but they're
just having to do the parental thing and you know,
like steal a quick glance and then tell the kid
not to stare because it's been socialized out of them. Yeah,
it's super interesting to me, but it seems to be
innate because kids do it and then they have to

(12:15):
be taught not to do it, right, So I wonder
almost if it's then in that, in that circumstance, if
it's like a vestigial trait, you know, like it's an
innate thing that like the kid is responding to the
kids evolutionary history, but it hasn't been socialized to not
do that yet. So there's like this social layer that's
being put on top of an evolutionary trait. So staring

(12:40):
seems pretty straightforward, so far right. Actually, it gets way,
way more complex, and we will dig into that right
after this. So we're back and we're talking about being

(13:10):
stared at, which, by the way, I didn't get a
chance to listen to it, but um, Robert and Julie
at stuff to blow your mind? Did this did a
staring episode a few years back? Safe to one, I
would guess, yeah, yeah, Um again, I don't know. I'm
sure they did, though, now that you mentioned so, um, Chuck,

(13:31):
we're talking about staring in how you know, maybe the
evolutionary adaptations to it. Um, And there's a further idea
that we've actually evolved. Our eyes have evolved to really
understand when somebody's looking at us, right. I think it's
pretty neat the gays detection system. Yeah, they make the

(13:52):
point in here, which article was just from this one
was from psychology today. Basically, the difference, the main difference
between humans and lot of animals is with people, you
can see a lot more whites of the eye than
you can with most animals. So the dark parts, that is,
the parts that look at you, Uh, you can really

(14:12):
tell when those things are moving around, right exactly. You
can tell when you're being looked at a lot more easily. Yeah. So, like,
if the dark parts are in the center of the eye, roughly,
you can assume that you're being looked at. If the
dark parts are to the right, the person is looking
to the right. If the dark parts are to the left,
vice versa. Right, Yep, I'm looking at Nual out of mine.
I guess you would say peripheral vision exactly. So, and

(14:35):
I can just I can relax because you're not looking
at me. You're looking at Nual, So I can go
back to knitting or starting fires whatever. Um, But Noel
needs to be on his best behavior. And that's actually
one of the two um suggestions for why we're so
responsive to being looked at. Like, there's there's a couple
of things. So this gaze detection system they've they've determined that, um,

(14:59):
if you are looking towards me, chuck, but over my shoulder,
and I can just kind of tell, right, so your
head is looking at me, your eyes are generally I mean,
but you're just like a degree or two off, Like
right now, is that weird? Yeah, right now you're say
it is kind off putting, but right now you're setting
off a different kind of neuron in my brain. Then
you are. Now that you're looking directly at me. Now,

(15:20):
different neurons are firing, like specific neurons for when someone
is looking right at you fire, which is exactly like
we have basically a region of the brain dedicated to that. Yeah,
and I have to say you and I are like
staring at each other way more than normal in this episode.
Oh yeah, interesting, or maybe we're just talking about it
more than you so I'm not sure. Uh. The other

(15:41):
cool thing is they you tend in your peripheral vision
to notice more when uh like, instead of someone just
looking at you straight on with their body in their face,
if someone is looking from the side and turning their
head completely uh to the right to look at you,
that will stand out a lot more in your peripher
vision than someone just standing staring straight at you. Yeah,

(16:02):
which is super weird. It really is. Today, when I
was driving in um there was this woman walking her
baby in a stroller down the street and I was
just looking at her kid, and I was driving parallel
to her, but my head I'm sure was turned toward them.
She wasn't looking anywhere near me, and just all of
a sudden, she turns her head and just completely like

(16:23):
meets my gaze right like like she saw somehow, probably
in her peripheral vision, that there was somebody in a
car looking at her kid and she needed to check
it out, so she threw the cover over the stroller
real quick. It's like a monster. Uh, yeah, it's it's
I don't know. I find all this stuff fascinating, Like

(16:45):
whether or not you can feel when you're being stared
at directly to your back. Let's say, well, that's something different.
So like this, all of the the sum up to this point, Uh,
we've been talking about stuff that can be explained away
using like your peripheral vision, noticing other people's body language, um,
looking at where the eyes are. Now we're getting into

(17:08):
just some weirdness and something called the psychic staring effect
or scope pastigia, or the feeling that you're being stared
at from behind, even though there's no way using your
normal senses, you should be able to tell that someone
is looking at you. Yeah, and this, Uh, there was
a paper. This is from the article of the Feeling
of being stared At. And there's an old paper from

(17:31):
from Science magazine called the Feeling of being stared At
by Edward uh Kitchener and he said, and this was
sort of a weird feedback loop, but he said, if
you go to the front of a room and you
have your back to everyone, you're gonna feel like you're
being stared at, and then you're gonna get nervous and
start fidgeting around, which will cause people to stare at you.

(17:54):
So that doesn't too much for me. He also he
also said, um, it's possible that it's um when you
think someone staring at you, you start to turn around
to see them, to catch somebody staring at you, or
to see who it is, and they'll then look at
you right. They notice you moving and they start looking

(18:15):
at you. Before you've made it all the way around,
you were looking at me, and you say, no, jerk,
didn't look at you until you turn around, looked at
me right, and then it just turned into a fist
fight every time without fail. So Tischner basically was like,
it's all illusory, it's it's done. He didn't really write
necessarily about all of his methods or study size or

(18:36):
anything like that, but um, he he felt like he
kind of settled it. Fifteen years later, there was a
guy who picked it up again. His name was je Coover.
He wrote another paper called the Feeling of Being Stared At,
and he tried a little more scientifically to figure out
what was going on, and he had a pretty cool
I thought his technique was pretty awesome. Um. He would

(18:58):
sit there and have a study participant with his back
to him, and he would roll a dice a die,
and if it came up even, he would not stare
at them for fifteen seconds. If it came up odd,
he would stare at them for fifteen seconds. And then
each time the person needed to write down what they
thought whether they were being stared at or not. Yeah,

(19:20):
and it was lined up pretty consistently. Um. But what
this UH points out, in what a few of the
other staring studies point out, is if you know you're
in a staring study, you may be more clued in
even if you're blindfolded to think like, oh, you know,
I feel like someone staring because I'm supposed to write
exactly like you're thinking about being stared exactly. So Um.

(19:43):
In this je Coover study from UM, he found that
people guessed at about fifty They were right about fifty
percent at the time, which is even with chance. Right,
So that suggests that you don't really have a any
kind of signal or scent that you're being stared at.
You're just guessing and you're primeed to being guests and

(20:03):
yeah like um. Follow up studies have shown that if
people are distracted with another task or if they don't
think the studies actually about whether or not they're being
stared at, they almost never guessed that they're being stared at. Um.
It only starts to show up in studies where you're
testing for that sense of being stared at and they're prime.
But even then they're just guessing at about the same

(20:26):
rate as chance. So Tishner and Coouver and others later
on over the years have basically suggested that scope pastigia,
or that feeling you're being stared at, is very widespread.
Most people believe that they can tell when somebody staring
at them, but that it's actually an illusion that isn't
necessarily explained in any of these but it is. It

(20:46):
is a widespread illusion that humans tend to suffer from
universally well and anecdotally. You might remember the times where
I feel like someone staring at me and someone is,
but not remember the times that you feel like someone
staring at you, and you look up and no one's
staring like you don't catalog that. Well. That was another
thing they found too, is that there's no no one's

(21:08):
ever found any any idea that you can tell when
you're not being stared at. It's just it's just being
stared at that we suppose you have a sense for
all right, Well, let's take another break here and we'll
talk about a few more weird staring studies right after this. Hey,

(21:32):
everybody out there in podcast land, we want to alert
you to what we're going to call a podcasting event,
an event like the moon landing, but for podcasting. Basically.
That's right. It's a new podcast from ge Podcast Theater
and Panopally called The Message. It's an eight episode series
that's pretty much gonna blow your scientific mind. Yep. The
Message follows the story of Nicki Tomlin, a PhD in

(21:53):
linguistics from the University of Chicago, who follows a team
of cryptologists at a research think tank called Cipher. These
resar riachers are trying to decode a message that was
received from outer space seventy years ago. It's gonna be
pretty awesome, man, that's amazing and if you want to subscribe,
and you should just go to iTunes look it up
or wherever you get your podcasts. Yeah, we'll be doing that,

(22:14):
won't we. That's right available now wherever you get podcast
including iTunes, g E, podcast theaters. The message All right, alrighty,

(22:34):
we're back. And here's a weird staring study. Yeah, they've
done a lot of them. And this is from an
article of the many creepy experiments and involves staring at
people on I O nine. Uh great website. So this one,
um the Stairs, a Stimulus to flight and human subjects,
was I thought pretty interesting and kind of a no brainer. Basically,
they would have someone stand on a corner and then

(22:55):
when people would pull up in their car at the
light of the stop sign, they would just stare at
them in their car, and then they would time how
long it took them to get the heck out of
there when the light turned green. And of course, naturally
they don't even release the results. Imagine it was about
the people sped out of there when the light turned green. Yeah,

(23:16):
they had a control group that they specifically didn't stare
at or look at, and they definitely left that intersection
much more slowly. Yeah, because there's not a creep leering
at you on the sidewalk. Yeah. That's a weird study,
but I mean, I guess it added to the scientific
body on staring by one. Um this one. I thought

(23:37):
this was interesting because it actually harkens back to uh
what Titchener studied too, was that there's this weird part
of the psychic staring effect where you you physically you
can feel like you're being stared at, Like the back
of your neck gets hot. When I was in college,
I used to like my scalp would get hot or something,

(23:57):
you know, like I could just I just knew I
was being stared at from behind. Um. And this this
study found that we we produce some sort of physical
effect when we're stared at. Right, So they had this
in this particular study, they had UM, a psychologist sitting there,
I guess interviewing a person, and then another psychologist would

(24:18):
be staring at the person while they were forced to
either read out loud or sing. Yeah, the person being
stared at would have to do those things. Yeah, thank
you for specifying that. And um, the other the second
psychologists would stare like directly at their cheek and the
person would blush all over, especially if they were having

(24:38):
to sing, but the cheek that was being stared at
would blush more, it would get hotter, like physically, they
would measure this. Yeah, it wasn't just anecdotally, like my
right cheek feels hotter. No, and it's no one has
any idea how this happens or why this happens. But
it's almost like the self consciousness that's produced in being

(24:59):
stared at is directed to the specific part of the
body that's being looked at. You know. That's very bizarre. Ye. Well,
because they haven't figured it out. I know, they'll probably
isolate something at some point. Yeah, eventually they will. But
I mean, like, if you start to compile like this
body of knowledge on staring, you get the idea that

(25:23):
we have a very loose grasp on the effects of
staring and what it what it does, and what it signifies,
and why it's around. You know. Yeah, it's pretty interesting.
I always loved those episodes. I do too. There was
this other study I thought was pretty interesting called gaydar
colon I gaze as identity recognition among gay men and lesbians,

(25:45):
and I tried to find a copy. I couldn't find
one that I didn't have to pay like fifty bucks for,
but I did read some summaries. It basically looks into
how how gay men and women use a stare to
either assess someone actuality or to broadcast their own sexuality.
And it's not always just a fixed gaze, you know,

(26:06):
not something like creepy stare. But it was mixed with
like body language and looking away, uh, and like a
flirtation at times. But I thought it was pretty interesting.
It's definitely not just like some heterosexual concept um and
staring is not just creepy. It's not just for flirting.
They've actually found in other studies that it's a it's
a way to um to ask for help actually, and

(26:30):
it gets results supposedly. Yeah, this one didn't make a
ton of sense to me. So, like, if you spilled
some groceries, I think is what this one study did.
If you drop some groceries and you bend over and
picked them up, If you just like kind of keep
to yourself and like bend over your groceries and you're
looking down at I mean, you got it, you know
what I'm saying. In this study, if you look up though,

(26:51):
and you're staring at a passer by while you're doing this.
They take that as an invitation, if not a directive,
to come help them pick up the groceries, and people
respond to that. It's the same thing. I think about it,
like if somebody is in a situation where they could
use help, but it's also ambiguous, like they kind of
got it, but did they really need help? If they're
looking at you, they're broadcasting help me. They are. It's

(27:14):
just kind of funny because I'm trying to think of
it just seems like a no brainer. Like if I
saw a woman in a parking lot who would like
spilled her groceries and I was walking by and she
looked up right at me as I was passing and
picking up, I wouldn't just so like, how you doing
and keep going, Yeah, boy, you look like you got
it under control, like I would. Of course I would stop.

(27:35):
But if she didn't look up, yeah, maybe I would
feel like I'm intruding, you know, so they doesn't want
me putting her hands on her groceries, right, And that
is like, like that is one of the theories behind
why we're so adept at catching other people's gazes is
that it's a it's a means of communicating non verbally,

(27:57):
very directly. Right. So, so that woman who dropped their groceries,
or anybody who drops their groceries, if they're handling themselves,
leave them alone. If they're looking up directly at you,
they're communicating with you. They have spilled their groceries. And
what they're saying is I could do some help with
some groceries taking them up. Um. And that's that. That
theory behind that, The idea that we communicate and and

(28:20):
engage in social behavior just from looking is called the
cooperative eye hypothesis. And it's basically this idea, that cooperative
eye hypothesis. It's a little worth but lit like I
could see like a math rock band. It's no Kathleen
Turner Overdrive maybe the best band name of all time. Um.

(28:40):
But this, this whole thing is that we we are
able to communicate, um, not just that we need help,
but also we tend to follow one another's gaze. If
one person is looking off in the distance and clearly
looking at something not zoned out, people are gonna look
over there. And it's basically the same thing as like
a herd of gazelle looking over what one because Ellen
hi alert is suddenly looking at Yeah. You wanna you

(29:02):
wanna have some fun. Go to New York City or
any city and just with one other person and just
go stand and both look up and stare at something
and then just sit back. Well you can't sit back,
but have a friend sit back and watch how many people?
And in New York, of course they won't stop and look,
but everyone that passes you by will look up and say,

(29:23):
what in the world are these two people looking at?
What are you looking at? Yeah? What's up there? You're
staring and you just don't say anything, And then a
game of telephone will break out. People will just start
making up what's up there? Yeah? And then it becomes
a what do you call it when people all get
together and dance at one time? Some flash mob? Flash mob?

(29:47):
That's an organic flash Yeah, you have a bunch of
people staring. Um, it's very boring flash mob. I got
one more, all right. The idea that UM being aware
of being stared at is basically keeps us in line
the idea that we're being stared at or watched. Yeah,

(30:07):
another socially pro social motivation. UM and I got another
grocery store. Example, I was at the grocery store yesterday
and I was walking in the parking lot and this
woman had her cart and I noticed her like looking around,
and she was about to leave her cart right there
and the parking lot next sor she saw me looking

(30:28):
at her, and she like just suddenly went and walked
it over the car corral. I could tell by her
movement she was not playing on going to the car
correl until she saw me watching her, and then she
took it to the car crawl. And I'm like, yes, exactly.
You engage in more ethical behavior if you think you're
being watched, and that would explain why we're so. We're
such a social species and they just having that height

(30:52):
and awareness that you're being watched is possibly part of that. Yeah,
that's one of my couple of big rules in life
are meaningless to most people. But always return your card, yeah,
you honest, people like, oh they pay people to go
around and get the carts. It's because they have to
write because of you. And the other thing is, uh,

(31:13):
always throw your movie theater popcorn and drinks away on
your way out. The people that just get up and
leave the movie theater with their popcorn bag and their
drink there. Yeah, I just don't get it like those are.
I'm just gonna go and say it. Those are the
worst people on the planet. If you want to become

(31:36):
canonized Chuck, not only should you return your cart, you
can do the opposite and take a cart from somebody
so they don't even have to take it back. If
you're on your way in, you have done that. That's
I rarely use the big card though. I'm I do
a lot of daily grocery shopping. Good way to go.

(31:57):
It's very Dutch, is it? According to the stuff for
the next article, it is. Yeah, Well I wear my
wooden clogs and ride my bicycle. Very stude of you,
Thank you? Are you got anything else? You know what?
This just reminded me. I did have one slight more
thing you've heard of? Viddlel igo. Um what Michael Jackson
had the skin condition where parts of your skinner lighter

(32:19):
than others. I posted on Facebook there was this uh
young woman who has viddle igo on her arms, and
she finally just got a tattoo and lovely script on
her forearm that said it's called a viddle igo, And
I posted about this, and then she apparently listened to
the show and she posted, thanks for sharing this guy. Yeah,

(32:39):
I thought it was kind of neat. But I'm curious
to hear from people that have I can't remember what
they call them in the studies, novel novel biological effects. Right, Basically,
you know something unusual physically that people might be prone
to stare at. I want to hear from people and
how you deal with that, or if you've gotten used
to it, or if you think it is super rude,

(33:02):
or if you're like, yeah, I would stare at me too. Yeah,
but that is a great call out. Yeah. Um, and
well let's see listener mail and then we'll hit it
up again. All right, uh La Tortos. My name is
Amy and I'm an English teacher living abroad in Malaga, Spain.
I'm a recent fan and only discovered your podcast when
I was desperate for something to listen to on the

(33:23):
metro rides when everybody comes to it. The first podcast
I listened to us how Nazis invaded Florida, and I
haven't stopped downloading now. The real reason I'm sending the
emails a little strange. I teach many adult classes my
students are always asking how they can practice listening to
native speakers. Many people don't know that in Spain all
of the American or English TV series or movies are dubbed.

(33:44):
I did not know that in Spanish voice that right
didn't have any I figured like a high percentage would be,
but not all of them, you know. Uh, so there
isn't aren't many options to practice listening skills. Once I
got addicted to your show, I started suggesting that my
higher level students listening does as well. Honestly didn't think
many of them would actually go home and start listening. However,

(34:04):
I was wrong, and this is an all caps Every
single one of them are now addicted like me. That's
so awesome, and then back to regular non all caps. Yeah,
so thanks guys. Uh. My students want me to send
an email to say thank you for speaking slow but
not too slow, and using vocabulary that makes any topic
of science, astrophysics, biology, and history easy to understand. I've

(34:28):
noticed a big change in their listening skills, and even
have the entertainment of teaching some puns and slang that
you both say on the show. It makes class much
more enjoyable. The only bad side is now they want
a tour of the UK so we can all come
to see you guys live. That's so cool. See everybody
in the United States. Oh, you guys aren't coming to St. Louis.
It can't possibly come to you. People are talking about

(34:49):
traveling from Spain to England to see Yes. Seriously, come on,
don't go to Milwaukee. I'm in Madison. Uh, keep on
showing out this podcast US and aste Lawego Amy Culver Amy,
thank you for that. I love that email. That's a
great email. Uh Asta Leavista to your class. Thank you

(35:11):
very much for writing in UM and Uh. That's wonderful.
I hope you guys keep listening. We're known for US slang,
aren't we get on the trolley? Chuck? Yeah, that old thing. Uh.
If you want to get in touch with us to
say hi in another language, that's cool. But like Chuck said,
we want to hear from you if you have a
novel biological effect or and get stared at and what

(35:34):
you do in dealing with that. Um. You can tweak
to us at s Y s K podcast. You can
join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff you should know.
You can send us an email to Stuff podcast at
how stuff Works dot com and has always joined us
at our home on the web, Stuff You Should Know
dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics,

(35:57):
is it how stuff Works dot com.