September 12, 2022 • 32 mins
Really love a TV show; a boyband; a sci fi movie; or a celebrity? We're often too embarrassed to admit adoring some things for fear that we'll be seen as frivolous or childish - but we may be missing out on the happiness benefits that geeking out can bring.
Dr Laurie Santos explores the joy of fandom with Benedict Cumberbatch obsessive Tabitha Carvan, YA author Jennifer Lynn Barnes and Star Trek actor (and geek-vangelist) Wil Wheaton.
For Further Reading:
Tabitha Carvan - This Is Not A Book About Benedict Cumberbatch
Wil Wheaton - Still Just a Geek
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. I blushed when I think about this, because it's like, oh,
it's like remembering it's Harvard First Sight. This is author
Tabitha Carbon. She's telling me how she fell for the
man of her dreams. I was getting a takeaway coffee
(00:38):
in a cafe, which was a novel experience to me
because I had been breastfeeding and pregnant for so long.
Like I just felt like I hadn't drunk coffee in
a thousand years. Before motherhood, Tabitha enjoyed an active career
and lots of interest in hobbies. But after motherhood, Tabitha's
two kids became the focus of her entire world. She
had no time for herself or her own emotional needs.
(01:00):
I wasn't depressed, I wasn't unwell. I was just preoccupied.
I just I realized I just didn't know who I
wasn't in or I couldn't hold on to any of
the pieces that used to be there. They were completely gone.
It was in this moment of personal crisis that he
finally appeared. I was waiting for my coffee and the
(01:20):
newspaper was open on a table and I saw an ad.
The ad inarcuous enough was for a new season of
the television series Sherlock Holmes, starring the actor Benedict Cumberbatch.
I had seen Benedict Cumberbatch many times before. I had
thought not much of him other than he was an
unusual looking man who appeared in many shows that I
(01:43):
seem to watch. But Tabitha's reaction to this Benedict photo
at this particular moment in her life felt very, very different.
Just the sight of this man pulling on a leather glove,
and I just had this surprising feeling which I could
only describe as yearning. Like I was, like, I want
to watch that show. Some things coming there is marianity.
(02:07):
I sat down to watch the latest episode of Sherlock,
and I just I found myself at this point completely
captivated by this man who I had seen a hundred
times before. This time he looked completely different to me.
I was mesmerized by his physical appearance, everything about him.
(02:27):
Just it felt like he shook my bones. I just
felt more alive and awake in the moment watching this
TV show than I had in the years previous raising
my children. And that's a shocking thing to say, because
you know, raising your children is supposed to be. It
is an objectively meaningful thing. But the reality is this
(02:50):
sitting down to watch this completely silly, trivial TV show
somehow affected me more emotionally than all those all those
years of mothering. Tabitha watched and rewatched all the seasons
of Sherlock. She became a roast with the actor's many movies.
(03:11):
She read and reread Benedict's online interviews, and she scrolled
and smiled endlessly, has countless online photos. Nearly all of
her free time was soon taken up with that distinctive
face of his. Tabitha had become a spin the Benedict Comberbatch.
So the thing about but to Comberbatch is that it
starts with the voice, like a jaguar trapped in a cello,
(03:34):
is how his voice has been described. The next thing
is the cheekbones, because it's very distinctive cheekbones, and then
the eyes actually make him look weird because they are
just too far apart on his head. And then I
think it's the lips, very full lips, excellent cupid bow,
excellent hair. Should like it going. But despite the joyful
thrill that her new obsession brought, becoming so obsessed with
(03:57):
a person she'd never met. Also made Tabitha feel kind
of embarrassed. I feel ashamed is actually it sounds an
extreme emotion, but it seemed like something you not peper
out of. It felt inappropriate, it felt juvenile, It felt
like an a mental and emotional regression to a time
(04:17):
that you're supposed to be completely done with by the
time you're almost forty. And it made me feel profoundly embarrassed,
to the point that I didn't tell anyone about it
for a long time. Now, it's entirely possible that you've
never fallen as hard as Tabitha did for some random celebrity.
You may not yet have felt the thrill and embarrassment
(04:38):
that comes with being It's called being cumber batched. Cumberbatched,
cumba bat cumba batched, cumber botched. That's that's when it
goes wrong. That sounds You may not personally know the
thrill in embarrassment that comes with being cumber batched, but
I'm guessing that at some point in your life you
had something that you really geeked out about, that band
(05:01):
or book or game or movie that you knew way
too much about that you spent are too much money
in time on the kind of thing you adored so
much that it went from being a regular, everyday sort
of appreciation to a full blown, geeky, guilty pleasure. But
could embracing a deep love of a seemingly trivial thing
and doing so openly and without guilt be the key
(05:21):
to feeling more connected and more present? Would each of
us become a lot happier if we two could at
least metaphorically get cumberbatched. Our minds are constantly telling us
what to do to be happy. But what if our
minds are wrong? What if our minds are lying to us,
leading us away from what we'll really make us happy.
The good news is that understanding the science of the
(05:43):
mind can point us all back in the right direction.
You're listening to the happiness. Laugh with me, doctor Laurie Santos.
As Tabitha's excitement over all things Benedict grew, she slowly
began revealing her obsession to the people closest to her.
(06:03):
Most of her friends admitted to being pretty confused. They
find it just inexplicable. It required an entire book for
me to explain. That book is entitled this is not
a book about Benedict Cumberbatche the joy of loving something
anything like your life depends on it. And initially what
I thought I was writing about was why did this
crazy thing happen to me, this perfectly normal person. You know,
(06:28):
it seemed beneath me. Sounds really snobby, but I mean
that is That is how I felt about something like
a celebrity crush, that it was not the kind of
thing that someone like me should fall into. Tabitha experienced
a complicated set of emotions, both about Benedict and about
her obsession with Benedict. She'd never felt more joyful or
(06:48):
alive as she did watching Sherlock, but spending so much
time being a fangirl came with a lot of guilt.
I was using my precious free time and precious free
brain space to think about this guy when I felt
like I should be using that time to either think
about my husband or my children. The housework. Was wasting
(07:08):
her time on something so trivial. Also made her feel selfish.
It's not about serving the needs of other people. It's
not about tending to the needs of your children, or
your family, or your domestic environment. It is something that
is just for you. She'd also seen how the actors
hardcore fans who lovingly refer to themselves as cumber bitches,
(07:32):
were portrayed in the news. The media called the cumber
bitches hysterical, crazed, cult like, and even terrifying. You know,
I didn't look at that and think, oh, yeah, these
are my people, like I want to join that community,
sign me up. That was a huge stumbling blog. I
was like, hell, no, I'm going to I'm not going
to put my hand up to being the subject of
(07:52):
these kind of insults. But Tabatha wasn't just afraid of
jeers and mockery. Her infatuation with her new crush was
so powerful that it scared her. Tabatha hadn't experienced anything
that extreme since she was a teenager. All I was
doing was simply pursuing a feeling which made me feel good.
It's amazing the extent to which that feel scary. But
(08:16):
intense feelings like this are kind of what fandom is
all about. I mean, the term fan comes from the
Latin fanaticus, meaning frenzied by the gods. These days, we
of course use the term for less divinely inspired circumstances.
It's just that some things seem normal for us to
fan over and some things don't. Take sports, no one
(08:37):
bats an eye if you spend hundreds of dollars on
T shirts and posters and bumper stickers to show your
devotion to a football team. No one calls you hysterical
if you scream at the television when your favorite basketball
player hits the perfect shot, or if you sulk when
the home team loses. I mean, sports fandom is so normalized.
You know, it's on the news every single night. That's wonderful,
(08:59):
Like it's a wonderful thing that we have nourished and
supported as a society because sports fans get huge return
on investment from that kind of dedication. And then, actually,
that is all I was feeling towards bag It. Kombabatch
was exactly the same thing. So how can we overcome
the stigma that has been historically attached to nerding out
(09:19):
and happily embrace our passions no matter what they are?
To find out? I tagged in an expert who understands
the joys and downsides of unashamed fandom. Good morning, good morning.
Can you hear us? I? Can can you see me?
Someone who's had a unique glimpse into both sides of
the fandom relationship. Now we can see you, and with
(09:43):
this seeing you comes the like oh my god, oh
my god, oh my god, geeking out. But I'm going
to try to hold it together. You're doing great. It's
also a celebrity who turns me into a bit of
a fan girl myself. It's weird to introduce myself. Hi,
my name is Will Wheaton. If you're a nerd like me,
Will needs no introduction. Will is an author, a blogger,
(10:05):
the host of the YouTube board game show Tabletop and
Most fa He played Wesley Crusher on Star Trek the
Next Generation. But these days Will is happy to be
known as a geek. In fact, just a Geek was
the title of his first memoir, which chronicled his first
steps towards fandom. It was third grade when we went
to the library and I got my first sci fi
(10:27):
book like. I devoured it, like I think I finished
it that day, and that really started me on the
path that I walked for the rest of my life.
Young Will was especially drawn to one particular sci fi franchise.
He fell completely in love with the nineteen sixties TV
show Star Trek watching it in syndication over and over
(10:48):
and over again, like every time it was on, just
everything stopped and I would watch that. That's what I
really really loved. So when I was fourteen and found
out I was auditioning for a new Star Trek series,
I was beside myself. It's pretty rare that a fan
gets to become part of the thing they love so much.
(11:10):
Will remembers what it felt like to put on his
first Starfleet uniform and to walk onto the set of
the Enterprise for the first time. When you get there,
you cannot see anything else except the reality of the
starship that you are on. I loved walking there. I
loved being alone there. I loved sitting in that set
and pretending it was all real. It was a really safe,
(11:34):
really happy place for me. But nerding out to Star
Trek stuff wasn't Will's only happy place, you see. Ever
since he was a kid, Will has allowed himself to
love lots and lots of nerdy things, all as deeply
as any cumberbitch worships Benedict. I am familiar with cumber bitches.
Will geeks out to dungeons and dragons and old school
(11:54):
arcade machines and tabletop board games and action figures and
comic books and fantasy novels and Harry styles do I
absolutely adore and I never would have liked. Why would
I listened to a boy band guy ever in my life?
That guy is amazing. What a remarkable human being and
so talented. As he explains in his new annotated memoir
(12:18):
Still Just a Geek, Will loves having the very intense
band based passion that scared Tabitha is so much. Being
a nerd is not about the thing you love. It's
about the way you love that thing. I really love
the part of me that wakes up and sings when
(12:39):
I'm around people who love the things with that kind
of unself conscious, non judgmental enthusiasm. Will is evangelical about
the benefits of just absolutely loving stuff. He's gone from
being just a professional geek to becoming a geek evangelist.
As it were, It's totally cool to be a nerd
and love stuff. Like I've always said, as long as
(13:00):
the thing you love doesn't hurt another person, love it
as hard as you can, and get as much out
of it as you possibly can. And it turns out
that science agrees with Will on this point. Being a
geek loving, dorky things like your life depends on it
has far more powerful psychological benefits than you might expect.
We'll explore why when The Happiness Lab returns after the break.
(13:29):
So when I was in high school, I was really
into Party of Five. I was really into Buffy the
Vampire Slayer, the original Roswell. I have a very long
list of all of these shows that I sort of
went through one by one. This is my former Yale student,
The Psychologist, a New York Times bestselling hy A fiction author,
Jennifer Lynn Barnes, And it would always be I like
(13:51):
watching the show and then it goes into the imaginative
but what if where you start running out all the
scenarios and coming up with theories and thinking about it
before the next episode comes. Because that was back when
I was watching week to week and that's sort of
my default mode of media consumption and has been my
(14:11):
entire life. Jen is an expert on this kind of fandom.
As a young adult fiction author, She's created a few
of her own big fan franchises. You should definitely check
out her hugely popular Inheritance game book series like actor
Will Wheaton. Jen is also a self proclaimed nerd. She's
seen many of the benefits of geeking out firsthand. I
(14:32):
did a lot of daydreaming about fictional characters. I did
a lot of that emotional investment, and it did, I think,
make me less lonely, but for a house. Most importantly,
Jen is also an academic psychologist who publishes on the
cognitive and emotional benefits of fandom. Jen has found that
if you look at the list of evidence based happiness
(14:52):
boosting strategies that I share with my students, geeking out
about your favorite TV show, film, or comic book seems
to check a lot of those boxes. Let's start with
one of the best known stress reducers around play, particularly
the kind that emerges when fans become so creatively engaged
with the characters they care about that they begin to
invent new adventures for them to embark on. I have
(15:14):
argued very specifically in specific publications that fan fiction is
a form of imaginary play, that it is parallel to
either daydreaming in adulthood or actual pretend play in childhood.
Jen and others have argued that when fans get together,
especially at Big fan gatherings like conventions or cons as
they're called, they tend to experience what's known as a
(15:36):
shared pretensive reality. It's kind of the adult version of
the happiness boosting flow that kids experience when they play
together with toys, that fun, cooperative imagined reality where you
get to joke around, be social, make believe, and create together.
This shared playful reality is something that geek vangelist Will
Wheaton really savers at a con that energy is everywhere.
(16:01):
One of my favorite things at a con is to
walk through the artist's area and the vendors hall and
see the small indie artists who make on believably gorgeous
works of art and jewelry and paintings and stickers, and
figuring they just make stuff to celebrate the fandom that
brings so much joy into our lives. But this creative,
(16:24):
playful side of geeking out is just the tip of
the fandom happiness iceberg. A lot of the well being
boost that comes from being a hardcore fan stems from
social connection, especially the kind you get from loving the
object of your geeki affection through what's known as a
parasocial relationship. So parasocial relationships are what media psychologists call
(16:44):
the one sided relationships that you form with people you
don't actually know through consuming media about them. And those
relationships can be formed with real people like singers, politicians, actors,
anyone you don't know. Para social relationships can also be
formed with people who don't exist, like Sherlock Holmes or
Lieutenant Wesley Crusher. And psychologically, based on the literature, it
(17:06):
doesn't seem to matter that much whether the person you're
forming a relationship with is a real person in your
favorite boy band or a fictional character that you've consumed
to show about. Either way, these relationships seem to have
a lot of the real world benefits of actual relationships.
A lot of the recent work on the benefits of
(17:28):
parasocial relationships comes from the University of Buffalo psychologists Shara Gabriel,
who proposed what's called the social surrogacy hypothesis, and this
hypothesis basically says that we are very social creatures with
a lot of social needs, but that our brains can
be very sneaky about how we are fulfilling those needs.
(17:48):
Let's say you have a spouse that supports you and
friends to hang out with, but you're a busy mom
who lacks a sense of adventure in her life. Your
brain will probably be on the lookout for someone, anyone
who can fill that excitement hole. And if a suraget
happens to come along, say a fictional character like Sherlock
who's smart and dashing and hangs out with you every
night on television, then your brain quickly latches on. But
(18:11):
we don't just use specific characters or celebrities to fill
our social needs. Let's say you're a geeky kid like
the young Will, who doesn't feel like he belongs. You
might gravitate towards an entire fictional world where nerds like
you feel more seen, and the evidence suggests that doing
so literally expands your horizons. Star Trek looks through the
screen and it says, there is the place specifically for
(18:35):
you in the future. I loved that. I loved feeling
like I wanted to belong somewhere. I wanted to be special.
And these people who are not recognizing how special you
are going to be forced to recognize it in the
future because it will be undeniable. And the science bears
out the importance of the kind of belonging that Young
(18:55):
Will and other fans get from Star Trek. There's evidence
that thinking about a beloved fictional character or world can
make you feel less lonely, and studies show that writing
about the target of your parasocial relationship can boost your
self esteem. So all of the sort of social benefits
that you can receive from real world relationships, it seems
like there's a version of those benefits that you can
(19:16):
receive from these fictional relationships as well. We geeka about
our favorite celebrity, we don't only get a social connection
boost from parasocial bonds. Fandom can also promote in real
life social connection, So it's often very common for a
friendship to start in fandom. You have a mutual interest,
you're hanging out at the same spots online, you're reading
(19:37):
each other's stories or talking about it. You talk when
the show is on, but then it goes past that
and these people become your friends, lifelong friends. Often the
social connection that comes from communities like these can lead
to the kind of well being bump that young will
experienced firsthand. My childhood was very much defined by loneliness
(19:58):
and isolation. I just couldn't find people who I felt
safe with. I had been raised to believe that all
these things that that were really important to me were
weird and kind of stupid. And when I found other
people who loved the things that I loved, actually found
people who loved me and accepted me and didn't judge
(20:21):
me and welcomed me into the community. But like, all
of that was a revelation to me. And I think
that's what fandom does for many people. It gives them
not just a community and not just friends, but that
sort of deep and very compelling feeling of this is
where I belong. Being a fan can also bring a
(20:43):
sense of identity. You become a trekkie or a cumber bitch,
you wind up being part of an in group. Research is,
like Jen have argued, identifying as a member of a
fan franchise works a lot like being part of any
group you identify with a bigger collective. They can give
you a sense of pride and boost your self esteem.
Studies show that fandoms also work like other in groups,
(21:05):
and that they tend to promote pro social behavior within
the group. Doing exactly the sorts of kind and generous
things for other people that we know can boost our mood.
But the in group identity that comes from being a
fan can also lead to the same darker psychological processes
that are observed in real world groups, especially when in
group identities get threatened. I mean, think of all the
(21:28):
awful atrocities committed by political, religious, or ethnic groups throughout history.
In the fan world, that dark side of in group
identity can lead to what's called toxic fandom. It's important
to point out that the vast majority of fans never
turn toxic. But when you have a very large fandom,
the one percent who has that level of investment and
(21:48):
who also maybe has some personality traits or tendencies that
would be problematic even outside of fandom, then you can
see those problematic things happening. Actor Will we Insolt just
how bad toxic fandom can be. His next generation character,
Wesley Crusher, provoked the ire of many Star Trek fans
as a smug teenager who seemed to save the day
a few times. Often. It wasn't Will's fault that Wesley's
(22:11):
character wasn't beloved by the viewers, but the fans aimed
their hate directly at the then eighteen year old actor,
and it was really rough. Those years of being harassed
so badly contributed to Will's decision to step away from
the part. I will throw my body down in front
of every single person who is being attacked by toxic
fandom right now, because I know what it feels like,
(22:34):
and I know that you don't deserve it. But despite
the toxic behavior he experienced, Will still believes that the
benefits of geeking out far away the negatives. Will has
also seen that being a fan can literally be life changing.
There were adult fans that hated Wesley Crusher, but Will
says that many younger fans were inspired to see a
teenager on the bridge of the Enterprise. Kids loved that,
(22:56):
And I know because I have met hundreds of thousands
of them who became adults who are scientists, who are researchers,
who are engineers, who are parents, who are politician who
grew up inspired by Star Trek. So geeking out, provided
you play nice, can be hugely beneficial to your connection
(23:17):
and your well being. But throwing ourselves fully into a
geeky pursuit is still a thing that many of us
are kind of embarrassed about. It can still sometimes feel
a bit cringe worthy. So how can we overcome all
the guilt and let our proverbial geek flag fly. After
the break Cumberbitched, Tabitha Carbon will share how she was
able to throw herself into her obsession wholeheartedly, and how
(23:40):
the benefits that came from that were far more powerful
than she expected. If you find something, anything, that sparks
this sense in you of fulfilling a want that is
just for you, not for anyone else, and if you
were able to embrace it, then it can lead you
places that you couldn't anticipate when you took that first step.
(24:03):
The happiness lab will be back in a moment. This
feeling that I had towards him was not something that
I was looking for in my life. Arthur. Tabatha Carvin
was initially scared by her level of obsession with the
(24:25):
actor Benedict Kumberbatch. She eventually came to accept her extreme
crush and all the joys that came with it. You know,
the thing that is scary about it is that I
haven't experienced that sense of wanting something so much and
pursuing it so wholeheartedly in a long time. And that's
actually not something to be afraid of. Tabitha's love of
(24:47):
the Sherlock star was something she initially enjoyed, an isolation
from other fans. That is, until she was grabbing a
book about the actor Arthur Shelf or her local library.
It fell open onto this page that had a post
it note and an invitation to visit this website to
discuss Sherlock and to look at photos Benedict Kumberbat display.
(25:09):
Having previous misgivings about joining the ranks of the cumber Bitches,
Tabatha's curiosity took over. It went to the forum and
connected with the person who left the note, and she
was someone just like me. Suddenly Tabatha wasn't alone. She
found a getway to her community. Yeah. I really believed
that when it first happened to me that I was
(25:29):
the first person this could possibly have ever happened to
to fall in such a way. It turns out no.
In fact, there are like millions of women my age
and much older in many cases who have just followed
the exact same experience, And when I connected with them online,
it just generated the most incredible energy. That energy is
(25:50):
exactly what the psychologist Jennifer Lenbarne saw time it again
and her scientific work on fandom, The comfort and joy
of belonging to a like minded crew. In those online spaces,
no one was ashamed or embarrassed or guilty, and it
just you know, they were just letting it all hang out.
It's just it was a one ful shared community experience.
(26:11):
The boost Tabitha got from connecting with the Cumberbatch community
and powder to go fully public, she stopped hiding her
love for Benedict. She didn't realize that being so vulnerable
would lead to even more opportunities to connect with the
people around her. The thing that struck me the most
is when I actually just went for it and like
stuck up the Benedict Cumberbatch pictures at my desk at
(26:34):
work and started wearing the Benedict Cumberbatch memorabilia. Yeah, people
just like it. People are grateful for them to have
something to talk to you about and far from being
a trivial obsession. Tabitha learned that finding Benedict had changed
the lives of his other fans and surprising and profound ways.
I was hearing about divorces, new relationships, redirections of sexuality
(26:59):
and gender to career changes, every single possible change that
you can possibly imagine, And they and they wanted to
talk about this change in the context of Benedict, because
in their mind those things were connected. Of course, Benedict
wasn't swooping in and personally convincing people to make these
happiness boosting life changes, but the powerful, one sided parasocial
(27:20):
relationship that these fans formed with the actor sometimes allowed
them to identify important, unfulfilled needs that they previously hadn't
been able to notice. They were at a point in
their life where they felt stuck, just as as I felt,
you know, they felt in some way that they were
not living a life that was representative of who they
wanted to be. Fan after fan explained to Tabitha that
(27:41):
allowing themselves to love something as trivial as a television actor,
and to do so so enthusiastically and so non judgmentally,
opened a doorway they hadn't anticipated. If you kind of
step through the doorway saying, you know, this is I
like this, You know this is something that is making
me happy. You know, it starts you down a path
where you can remember that capacity you have of doing
(28:05):
what you want and knowing what you want. You know,
to maybe remember those feelings that you had when you
were younger, when you knew who you were, or you
knew the kind of joy you were capable of. And
once you start to exercise that capability, it seems you
start to demand it more. You start to be able
to see in your life the ways in which you
(28:28):
can change your path to achieve it. But did Tabitha
also experience the happiness boosting doorway effect from geeking out
of a Benedict. God, it made me happier than I
was at the time. The doorway effect for me was real.
He completely got me out of a very bad place.
Tabitha has clear advice for those who maybe into a
(28:51):
celebrity TV series or film franchise, but are still reluctant
to give their passion free reign for fear of being
belittled or meant to feel self indulgent. You're entitled to it.
You're completely entitled to it. To just put up that
kind of block in reaching your own happiness to me
now seems crazy. She also has advice for those of
(29:11):
us yet to be comporpatched, people who still haven't found
that thing to geek out over. I don't like the
idea that people will hear this and think, but I
don't love anything, you know, I don't have a passion.
I understand that reaction entirely because that is how I
felt before. But I don't think you need anything else
to feel bad about. I think that you just need
(29:32):
to be conscious of your interests and facilitate them in
your life a little more, and also even just to
carve out a little bit of mental space for yourself.
And once you give yourself that mental space to notice
your interests, you also need to make sure that you're
mindfully paying attention, stay alert to that feeling of that
(29:53):
little spark of you know, intriguing, and instead of shutting
it down, instead of talking yourself out of it, instead
of feeling ashamed or embarrassed, or redirecting your energy onto
something that seems more important, just fan the flame of
that spark a little and see what happens next. And
(30:16):
as Tabitha herself is seen, what often happens next is
more unbridled joy and play and connection and even happiness
than we initially expected. It seems so trivial, it seems
so meaningless, it seems so pointless, you know that. I
think that's one of the reasons that so many people
cut themselves off at the pass when they have these feelings.
(30:37):
I'm not going to waste my time on this silly thing,
but ultimately it can lead you to extremely meaningful places
just by exercising that capability for joy. When that motivation
strikes to dive deeper than you initially feels appropriate into
some movie or sci fi series or celebrity crush, you
might feel embarrassed or like there have to be healthier,
(30:59):
more happiness promoting uses of your time. But the science
shows that geeking out about something, no matter how trivial
it is, can boost your sense of connection and presence.
When I'm a hardcore fan, you wind up harnessing an
important psychological trick that can make you kinder, more playful,
and more joyous. So unleash you're in her geek. Commit
to getting cumberbatched with your own unique target of joy.
(31:21):
You could do a deep dive into a traditional geeky
interest like star wars or video games or that hot
new TV star. Or you could geek out about a
topic all your own. You could become a sour dough
bread geek, or a croquet geek, or a history geek.
The key, as Tabitha put it in the title of
her book is to give yourself permission to love something
anything like your life depends on it. The happiness benefits
(31:44):
that follow might be more profound than you expect. The
Happiness Lab is co written and produced by Ryan Dilley,
Emily Anne Vaughan, and Courtney Guerino. Joseph Friedman checked our facts.
Our original music was composed by Zachary Silver, with additional scoring,
mixing and mastering by Evan Viola. Special thanks to Melabelle
(32:08):
heather Thing, John Schnars, Carli Migliori, Christina Sullivan, Maggie Taylor,
Eric Sandler, Nicole Morano, Royston Preserve, Jacob Weisberg, and my
agent Ben Davis. That Happiness Lab is brought to you
by Pushkin Industries and me Doctor Laurie Santos. To find
more Pushkin podcasts, listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
(32:29):
or wherever you listen to your podcast
Pushkin. I blushed when I think about this, because it's like, oh,
it's like remembering it's Harvard First Sight. This is author
Tabitha Carbon. She's telling me how she fell for the
man of her dreams. I was getting a takeaway coffee
(00:38):
in a cafe, which was a novel experience to me
because I had been breastfeeding and pregnant for so long.
Like I just felt like I hadn't drunk coffee in
a thousand years. Before motherhood, Tabitha enjoyed an active career
and lots of interest in hobbies. But after motherhood, Tabitha's
two kids became the focus of her entire world. She
had no time for herself or her own emotional needs.
(01:00):
I wasn't depressed, I wasn't unwell. I was just preoccupied.
I just I realized I just didn't know who I
wasn't in or I couldn't hold on to any of
the pieces that used to be there. They were completely gone.
It was in this moment of personal crisis that he
finally appeared. I was waiting for my coffee and the
(01:20):
newspaper was open on a table and I saw an ad.
The ad inarcuous enough was for a new season of
the television series Sherlock Holmes, starring the actor Benedict Cumberbatch.
I had seen Benedict Cumberbatch many times before. I had
thought not much of him other than he was an
unusual looking man who appeared in many shows that I
(01:43):
seem to watch. But Tabitha's reaction to this Benedict photo
at this particular moment in her life felt very, very different.
Just the sight of this man pulling on a leather glove,
and I just had this surprising feeling which I could
only describe as yearning. Like I was, like, I want
to watch that show. Some things coming there is marianity.
(02:07):
I sat down to watch the latest episode of Sherlock,
and I just I found myself at this point completely
captivated by this man who I had seen a hundred
times before. This time he looked completely different to me.
I was mesmerized by his physical appearance, everything about him.
(02:27):
Just it felt like he shook my bones. I just
felt more alive and awake in the moment watching this
TV show than I had in the years previous raising
my children. And that's a shocking thing to say, because
you know, raising your children is supposed to be. It
is an objectively meaningful thing. But the reality is this
(02:50):
sitting down to watch this completely silly, trivial TV show
somehow affected me more emotionally than all those all those
years of mothering. Tabitha watched and rewatched all the seasons
of Sherlock. She became a roast with the actor's many movies.
(03:11):
She read and reread Benedict's online interviews, and she scrolled
and smiled endlessly, has countless online photos. Nearly all of
her free time was soon taken up with that distinctive
face of his. Tabitha had become a spin the Benedict Comberbatch.
So the thing about but to Comberbatch is that it
starts with the voice, like a jaguar trapped in a cello,
(03:34):
is how his voice has been described. The next thing
is the cheekbones, because it's very distinctive cheekbones, and then
the eyes actually make him look weird because they are
just too far apart on his head. And then I
think it's the lips, very full lips, excellent cupid bow,
excellent hair. Should like it going. But despite the joyful
thrill that her new obsession brought, becoming so obsessed with
(03:57):
a person she'd never met. Also made Tabitha feel kind
of embarrassed. I feel ashamed is actually it sounds an
extreme emotion, but it seemed like something you not peper
out of. It felt inappropriate, it felt juvenile, It felt
like an a mental and emotional regression to a time
(04:17):
that you're supposed to be completely done with by the
time you're almost forty. And it made me feel profoundly embarrassed,
to the point that I didn't tell anyone about it
for a long time. Now, it's entirely possible that you've
never fallen as hard as Tabitha did for some random celebrity.
You may not yet have felt the thrill and embarrassment
(04:38):
that comes with being It's called being cumber batched. Cumberbatched,
cumba bat cumba batched, cumber botched. That's that's when it
goes wrong. That sounds You may not personally know the
thrill in embarrassment that comes with being cumber batched, but
I'm guessing that at some point in your life you
had something that you really geeked out about, that band
(05:01):
or book or game or movie that you knew way
too much about that you spent are too much money
in time on the kind of thing you adored so
much that it went from being a regular, everyday sort
of appreciation to a full blown, geeky, guilty pleasure. But
could embracing a deep love of a seemingly trivial thing
and doing so openly and without guilt be the key
(05:21):
to feeling more connected and more present? Would each of
us become a lot happier if we two could at
least metaphorically get cumberbatched. Our minds are constantly telling us
what to do to be happy. But what if our
minds are wrong? What if our minds are lying to us,
leading us away from what we'll really make us happy.
The good news is that understanding the science of the
(05:43):
mind can point us all back in the right direction.
You're listening to the happiness. Laugh with me, doctor Laurie Santos.
As Tabitha's excitement over all things Benedict grew, she slowly
began revealing her obsession to the people closest to her.
(06:03):
Most of her friends admitted to being pretty confused. They
find it just inexplicable. It required an entire book for
me to explain. That book is entitled this is not
a book about Benedict Cumberbatche the joy of loving something
anything like your life depends on it. And initially what
I thought I was writing about was why did this
crazy thing happen to me, this perfectly normal person. You know,
(06:28):
it seemed beneath me. Sounds really snobby, but I mean
that is That is how I felt about something like
a celebrity crush, that it was not the kind of
thing that someone like me should fall into. Tabitha experienced
a complicated set of emotions, both about Benedict and about
her obsession with Benedict. She'd never felt more joyful or
(06:48):
alive as she did watching Sherlock, but spending so much
time being a fangirl came with a lot of guilt.
I was using my precious free time and precious free
brain space to think about this guy when I felt
like I should be using that time to either think
about my husband or my children. The housework. Was wasting
(07:08):
her time on something so trivial. Also made her feel selfish.
It's not about serving the needs of other people. It's
not about tending to the needs of your children, or
your family, or your domestic environment. It is something that
is just for you. She'd also seen how the actors
hardcore fans who lovingly refer to themselves as cumber bitches,
(07:32):
were portrayed in the news. The media called the cumber
bitches hysterical, crazed, cult like, and even terrifying. You know,
I didn't look at that and think, oh, yeah, these
are my people, like I want to join that community,
sign me up. That was a huge stumbling blog. I
was like, hell, no, I'm going to I'm not going
to put my hand up to being the subject of
(07:52):
these kind of insults. But Tabatha wasn't just afraid of
jeers and mockery. Her infatuation with her new crush was
so powerful that it scared her. Tabatha hadn't experienced anything
that extreme since she was a teenager. All I was
doing was simply pursuing a feeling which made me feel good.
It's amazing the extent to which that feel scary. But
(08:16):
intense feelings like this are kind of what fandom is
all about. I mean, the term fan comes from the
Latin fanaticus, meaning frenzied by the gods. These days, we
of course use the term for less divinely inspired circumstances.
It's just that some things seem normal for us to
fan over and some things don't. Take sports, no one
(08:37):
bats an eye if you spend hundreds of dollars on
T shirts and posters and bumper stickers to show your
devotion to a football team. No one calls you hysterical
if you scream at the television when your favorite basketball
player hits the perfect shot, or if you sulk when
the home team loses. I mean, sports fandom is so normalized.
You know, it's on the news every single night. That's wonderful,
(08:59):
Like it's a wonderful thing that we have nourished and
supported as a society because sports fans get huge return
on investment from that kind of dedication. And then, actually,
that is all I was feeling towards bag It. Kombabatch
was exactly the same thing. So how can we overcome
the stigma that has been historically attached to nerding out
(09:19):
and happily embrace our passions no matter what they are?
To find out? I tagged in an expert who understands
the joys and downsides of unashamed fandom. Good morning, good morning.
Can you hear us? I? Can can you see me?
Someone who's had a unique glimpse into both sides of
the fandom relationship. Now we can see you, and with
(09:43):
this seeing you comes the like oh my god, oh
my god, oh my god, geeking out. But I'm going
to try to hold it together. You're doing great. It's
also a celebrity who turns me into a bit of
a fan girl myself. It's weird to introduce myself. Hi,
my name is Will Wheaton. If you're a nerd like me,
Will needs no introduction. Will is an author, a blogger,
(10:05):
the host of the YouTube board game show Tabletop and
Most fa He played Wesley Crusher on Star Trek the
Next Generation. But these days Will is happy to be
known as a geek. In fact, just a Geek was
the title of his first memoir, which chronicled his first
steps towards fandom. It was third grade when we went
to the library and I got my first sci fi
(10:27):
book like. I devoured it, like I think I finished
it that day, and that really started me on the
path that I walked for the rest of my life.
Young Will was especially drawn to one particular sci fi franchise.
He fell completely in love with the nineteen sixties TV
show Star Trek watching it in syndication over and over
(10:48):
and over again, like every time it was on, just
everything stopped and I would watch that. That's what I
really really loved. So when I was fourteen and found
out I was auditioning for a new Star Trek series,
I was beside myself. It's pretty rare that a fan
gets to become part of the thing they love so much.
(11:10):
Will remembers what it felt like to put on his
first Starfleet uniform and to walk onto the set of
the Enterprise for the first time. When you get there,
you cannot see anything else except the reality of the
starship that you are on. I loved walking there. I
loved being alone there. I loved sitting in that set
and pretending it was all real. It was a really safe,
(11:34):
really happy place for me. But nerding out to Star
Trek stuff wasn't Will's only happy place, you see. Ever
since he was a kid, Will has allowed himself to
love lots and lots of nerdy things, all as deeply
as any cumberbitch worships Benedict. I am familiar with cumber bitches.
Will geeks out to dungeons and dragons and old school
(11:54):
arcade machines and tabletop board games and action figures and
comic books and fantasy novels and Harry styles do I
absolutely adore and I never would have liked. Why would
I listened to a boy band guy ever in my life?
That guy is amazing. What a remarkable human being and
so talented. As he explains in his new annotated memoir
(12:18):
Still Just a Geek, Will loves having the very intense
band based passion that scared Tabitha is so much. Being
a nerd is not about the thing you love. It's
about the way you love that thing. I really love
the part of me that wakes up and sings when
(12:39):
I'm around people who love the things with that kind
of unself conscious, non judgmental enthusiasm. Will is evangelical about
the benefits of just absolutely loving stuff. He's gone from
being just a professional geek to becoming a geek evangelist.
As it were, It's totally cool to be a nerd
and love stuff. Like I've always said, as long as
(13:00):
the thing you love doesn't hurt another person, love it
as hard as you can, and get as much out
of it as you possibly can. And it turns out
that science agrees with Will on this point. Being a
geek loving, dorky things like your life depends on it
has far more powerful psychological benefits than you might expect.
We'll explore why when The Happiness Lab returns after the break.
(13:29):
So when I was in high school, I was really
into Party of Five. I was really into Buffy the
Vampire Slayer, the original Roswell. I have a very long
list of all of these shows that I sort of
went through one by one. This is my former Yale student,
The Psychologist, a New York Times bestselling hy A fiction author,
Jennifer Lynn Barnes, And it would always be I like
(13:51):
watching the show and then it goes into the imaginative
but what if where you start running out all the
scenarios and coming up with theories and thinking about it
before the next episode comes. Because that was back when
I was watching week to week and that's sort of
my default mode of media consumption and has been my
(14:11):
entire life. Jen is an expert on this kind of fandom.
As a young adult fiction author, She's created a few
of her own big fan franchises. You should definitely check
out her hugely popular Inheritance game book series like actor
Will Wheaton. Jen is also a self proclaimed nerd. She's
seen many of the benefits of geeking out firsthand. I
(14:32):
did a lot of daydreaming about fictional characters. I did
a lot of that emotional investment, and it did, I think,
make me less lonely, but for a house. Most importantly,
Jen is also an academic psychologist who publishes on the
cognitive and emotional benefits of fandom. Jen has found that
if you look at the list of evidence based happiness
(14:52):
boosting strategies that I share with my students, geeking out
about your favorite TV show, film, or comic book seems
to check a lot of those boxes. Let's start with
one of the best known stress reducers around play, particularly
the kind that emerges when fans become so creatively engaged
with the characters they care about that they begin to
invent new adventures for them to embark on. I have
(15:14):
argued very specifically in specific publications that fan fiction is
a form of imaginary play, that it is parallel to
either daydreaming in adulthood or actual pretend play in childhood.
Jen and others have argued that when fans get together,
especially at Big fan gatherings like conventions or cons as
they're called, they tend to experience what's known as a
(15:36):
shared pretensive reality. It's kind of the adult version of
the happiness boosting flow that kids experience when they play
together with toys, that fun, cooperative imagined reality where you
get to joke around, be social, make believe, and create together.
This shared playful reality is something that geek vangelist Will
Wheaton really savers at a con that energy is everywhere.
(16:01):
One of my favorite things at a con is to
walk through the artist's area and the vendors hall and
see the small indie artists who make on believably gorgeous
works of art and jewelry and paintings and stickers, and
figuring they just make stuff to celebrate the fandom that
brings so much joy into our lives. But this creative,
(16:24):
playful side of geeking out is just the tip of
the fandom happiness iceberg. A lot of the well being
boost that comes from being a hardcore fan stems from
social connection, especially the kind you get from loving the
object of your geeki affection through what's known as a
parasocial relationship. So parasocial relationships are what media psychologists call
(16:44):
the one sided relationships that you form with people you
don't actually know through consuming media about them. And those
relationships can be formed with real people like singers, politicians, actors,
anyone you don't know. Para social relationships can also be
formed with people who don't exist, like Sherlock Holmes or
Lieutenant Wesley Crusher. And psychologically, based on the literature, it
(17:06):
doesn't seem to matter that much whether the person you're
forming a relationship with is a real person in your
favorite boy band or a fictional character that you've consumed
to show about. Either way, these relationships seem to have
a lot of the real world benefits of actual relationships.
A lot of the recent work on the benefits of
(17:28):
parasocial relationships comes from the University of Buffalo psychologists Shara Gabriel,
who proposed what's called the social surrogacy hypothesis, and this
hypothesis basically says that we are very social creatures with
a lot of social needs, but that our brains can
be very sneaky about how we are fulfilling those needs.
(17:48):
Let's say you have a spouse that supports you and
friends to hang out with, but you're a busy mom
who lacks a sense of adventure in her life. Your
brain will probably be on the lookout for someone, anyone
who can fill that excitement hole. And if a suraget
happens to come along, say a fictional character like Sherlock
who's smart and dashing and hangs out with you every
night on television, then your brain quickly latches on. But
(18:11):
we don't just use specific characters or celebrities to fill
our social needs. Let's say you're a geeky kid like
the young Will, who doesn't feel like he belongs. You
might gravitate towards an entire fictional world where nerds like
you feel more seen, and the evidence suggests that doing
so literally expands your horizons. Star Trek looks through the
screen and it says, there is the place specifically for
(18:35):
you in the future. I loved that. I loved feeling
like I wanted to belong somewhere. I wanted to be special.
And these people who are not recognizing how special you
are going to be forced to recognize it in the
future because it will be undeniable. And the science bears
out the importance of the kind of belonging that Young
(18:55):
Will and other fans get from Star Trek. There's evidence
that thinking about a beloved fictional character or world can
make you feel less lonely, and studies show that writing
about the target of your parasocial relationship can boost your
self esteem. So all of the sort of social benefits
that you can receive from real world relationships, it seems
like there's a version of those benefits that you can
(19:16):
receive from these fictional relationships as well. We geeka about
our favorite celebrity, we don't only get a social connection
boost from parasocial bonds. Fandom can also promote in real
life social connection, So it's often very common for a
friendship to start in fandom. You have a mutual interest,
you're hanging out at the same spots online, you're reading
(19:37):
each other's stories or talking about it. You talk when
the show is on, but then it goes past that
and these people become your friends, lifelong friends. Often the
social connection that comes from communities like these can lead
to the kind of well being bump that young will
experienced firsthand. My childhood was very much defined by loneliness
(19:58):
and isolation. I just couldn't find people who I felt
safe with. I had been raised to believe that all
these things that that were really important to me were
weird and kind of stupid. And when I found other
people who loved the things that I loved, actually found
people who loved me and accepted me and didn't judge
(20:21):
me and welcomed me into the community. But like, all
of that was a revelation to me. And I think
that's what fandom does for many people. It gives them
not just a community and not just friends, but that
sort of deep and very compelling feeling of this is
where I belong. Being a fan can also bring a
(20:43):
sense of identity. You become a trekkie or a cumber bitch,
you wind up being part of an in group. Research is,
like Jen have argued, identifying as a member of a
fan franchise works a lot like being part of any
group you identify with a bigger collective. They can give
you a sense of pride and boost your self esteem.
Studies show that fandoms also work like other in groups,
(21:05):
and that they tend to promote pro social behavior within
the group. Doing exactly the sorts of kind and generous
things for other people that we know can boost our mood.
But the in group identity that comes from being a
fan can also lead to the same darker psychological processes
that are observed in real world groups, especially when in
group identities get threatened. I mean, think of all the
(21:28):
awful atrocities committed by political, religious, or ethnic groups throughout history.
In the fan world, that dark side of in group
identity can lead to what's called toxic fandom. It's important
to point out that the vast majority of fans never
turn toxic. But when you have a very large fandom,
the one percent who has that level of investment and
(21:48):
who also maybe has some personality traits or tendencies that
would be problematic even outside of fandom, then you can
see those problematic things happening. Actor Will we Insolt just
how bad toxic fandom can be. His next generation character,
Wesley Crusher, provoked the ire of many Star Trek fans
as a smug teenager who seemed to save the day
a few times. Often. It wasn't Will's fault that Wesley's
(22:11):
character wasn't beloved by the viewers, but the fans aimed
their hate directly at the then eighteen year old actor,
and it was really rough. Those years of being harassed
so badly contributed to Will's decision to step away from
the part. I will throw my body down in front
of every single person who is being attacked by toxic
fandom right now, because I know what it feels like,
(22:34):
and I know that you don't deserve it. But despite
the toxic behavior he experienced, Will still believes that the
benefits of geeking out far away the negatives. Will has
also seen that being a fan can literally be life changing.
There were adult fans that hated Wesley Crusher, but Will
says that many younger fans were inspired to see a
teenager on the bridge of the Enterprise. Kids loved that,
(22:56):
And I know because I have met hundreds of thousands
of them who became adults who are scientists, who are researchers,
who are engineers, who are parents, who are politician who
grew up inspired by Star Trek. So geeking out, provided
you play nice, can be hugely beneficial to your connection
(23:17):
and your well being. But throwing ourselves fully into a
geeky pursuit is still a thing that many of us
are kind of embarrassed about. It can still sometimes feel
a bit cringe worthy. So how can we overcome all
the guilt and let our proverbial geek flag fly. After
the break Cumberbitched, Tabitha Carbon will share how she was
able to throw herself into her obsession wholeheartedly, and how
(23:40):
the benefits that came from that were far more powerful
than she expected. If you find something, anything, that sparks
this sense in you of fulfilling a want that is
just for you, not for anyone else, and if you
were able to embrace it, then it can lead you
places that you couldn't anticipate when you took that first step.
(24:03):
The happiness lab will be back in a moment. This
feeling that I had towards him was not something that
I was looking for in my life. Arthur. Tabatha Carvin
was initially scared by her level of obsession with the
(24:25):
actor Benedict Kumberbatch. She eventually came to accept her extreme
crush and all the joys that came with it. You know,
the thing that is scary about it is that I
haven't experienced that sense of wanting something so much and
pursuing it so wholeheartedly in a long time. And that's
actually not something to be afraid of. Tabitha's love of
(24:47):
the Sherlock star was something she initially enjoyed, an isolation
from other fans. That is, until she was grabbing a
book about the actor Arthur Shelf or her local library.
It fell open onto this page that had a post
it note and an invitation to visit this website to
discuss Sherlock and to look at photos Benedict Kumberbat display.
(25:09):
Having previous misgivings about joining the ranks of the cumber Bitches,
Tabatha's curiosity took over. It went to the forum and
connected with the person who left the note, and she
was someone just like me. Suddenly Tabatha wasn't alone. She
found a getway to her community. Yeah. I really believed
that when it first happened to me that I was
(25:29):
the first person this could possibly have ever happened to
to fall in such a way. It turns out no.
In fact, there are like millions of women my age
and much older in many cases who have just followed
the exact same experience, And when I connected with them online,
it just generated the most incredible energy. That energy is
(25:50):
exactly what the psychologist Jennifer Lenbarne saw time it again
and her scientific work on fandom, The comfort and joy
of belonging to a like minded crew. In those online spaces,
no one was ashamed or embarrassed or guilty, and it
just you know, they were just letting it all hang out.
It's just it was a one ful shared community experience.
(26:11):
The boost Tabitha got from connecting with the Cumberbatch community
and powder to go fully public, she stopped hiding her
love for Benedict. She didn't realize that being so vulnerable
would lead to even more opportunities to connect with the
people around her. The thing that struck me the most
is when I actually just went for it and like
stuck up the Benedict Cumberbatch pictures at my desk at
(26:34):
work and started wearing the Benedict Cumberbatch memorabilia. Yeah, people
just like it. People are grateful for them to have
something to talk to you about and far from being
a trivial obsession. Tabitha learned that finding Benedict had changed
the lives of his other fans and surprising and profound ways.
I was hearing about divorces, new relationships, redirections of sexuality
(26:59):
and gender to career changes, every single possible change that
you can possibly imagine, And they and they wanted to
talk about this change in the context of Benedict, because
in their mind those things were connected. Of course, Benedict
wasn't swooping in and personally convincing people to make these
happiness boosting life changes, but the powerful, one sided parasocial
(27:20):
relationship that these fans formed with the actor sometimes allowed
them to identify important, unfulfilled needs that they previously hadn't
been able to notice. They were at a point in
their life where they felt stuck, just as as I felt,
you know, they felt in some way that they were
not living a life that was representative of who they
wanted to be. Fan after fan explained to Tabitha that
(27:41):
allowing themselves to love something as trivial as a television actor,
and to do so so enthusiastically and so non judgmentally,
opened a doorway they hadn't anticipated. If you kind of
step through the doorway saying, you know, this is I
like this, You know this is something that is making
me happy. You know, it starts you down a path
where you can remember that capacity you have of doing
(28:05):
what you want and knowing what you want. You know,
to maybe remember those feelings that you had when you
were younger, when you knew who you were, or you
knew the kind of joy you were capable of. And
once you start to exercise that capability, it seems you
start to demand it more. You start to be able
to see in your life the ways in which you
(28:28):
can change your path to achieve it. But did Tabitha
also experience the happiness boosting doorway effect from geeking out
of a Benedict. God, it made me happier than I
was at the time. The doorway effect for me was real.
He completely got me out of a very bad place.
Tabitha has clear advice for those who maybe into a
(28:51):
celebrity TV series or film franchise, but are still reluctant
to give their passion free reign for fear of being
belittled or meant to feel self indulgent. You're entitled to it.
You're completely entitled to it. To just put up that
kind of block in reaching your own happiness to me
now seems crazy. She also has advice for those of
(29:11):
us yet to be comporpatched, people who still haven't found
that thing to geek out over. I don't like the
idea that people will hear this and think, but I
don't love anything, you know, I don't have a passion.
I understand that reaction entirely because that is how I
felt before. But I don't think you need anything else
to feel bad about. I think that you just need
(29:32):
to be conscious of your interests and facilitate them in
your life a little more, and also even just to
carve out a little bit of mental space for yourself.
And once you give yourself that mental space to notice
your interests, you also need to make sure that you're
mindfully paying attention, stay alert to that feeling of that
(29:53):
little spark of you know, intriguing, and instead of shutting
it down, instead of talking yourself out of it, instead
of feeling ashamed or embarrassed, or redirecting your energy onto
something that seems more important, just fan the flame of
that spark a little and see what happens next. And
(30:16):
as Tabitha herself is seen, what often happens next is
more unbridled joy and play and connection and even happiness
than we initially expected. It seems so trivial, it seems
so meaningless, it seems so pointless, you know that. I
think that's one of the reasons that so many people
cut themselves off at the pass when they have these feelings.
(30:37):
I'm not going to waste my time on this silly thing,
but ultimately it can lead you to extremely meaningful places
just by exercising that capability for joy. When that motivation
strikes to dive deeper than you initially feels appropriate into
some movie or sci fi series or celebrity crush, you
might feel embarrassed or like there have to be healthier,
(30:59):
more happiness promoting uses of your time. But the science
shows that geeking out about something, no matter how trivial
it is, can boost your sense of connection and presence.
When I'm a hardcore fan, you wind up harnessing an
important psychological trick that can make you kinder, more playful,
and more joyous. So unleash you're in her geek. Commit
to getting cumberbatched with your own unique target of joy.
(31:21):
You could do a deep dive into a traditional geeky
interest like star wars or video games or that hot
new TV star. Or you could geek out about a
topic all your own. You could become a sour dough
bread geek, or a croquet geek, or a history geek.
The key, as Tabitha put it in the title of
her book is to give yourself permission to love something
anything like your life depends on it. The happiness benefits
(31:44):
that follow might be more profound than you expect. The
Happiness Lab is co written and produced by Ryan Dilley,
Emily Anne Vaughan, and Courtney Guerino. Joseph Friedman checked our facts.
Our original music was composed by Zachary Silver, with additional scoring,
mixing and mastering by Evan Viola. Special thanks to Melabelle
(32:08):
heather Thing, John Schnars, Carli Migliori, Christina Sullivan, Maggie Taylor,
Eric Sandler, Nicole Morano, Royston Preserve, Jacob Weisberg, and my
agent Ben Davis. That Happiness Lab is brought to you
by Pushkin Industries and me Doctor Laurie Santos. To find
more Pushkin podcasts, listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
(32:29):
or wherever you listen to your podcast
Popular Podcasts
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
40s and Free Agents: NFL Draft Season
Daniel Jeremiah of Move the Sticks and Gregg Rosenthal of NFL Daily join forces to break down every team's needs this offseason.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.