Your Brain on Ads: The Ancient Instincts Marketers Exploit

While we're up in space, can conspiracies about aliens exist in a pre-nuclear age? Plus: Dick rockets and everyone's favorite 1970s space movie ... Moonraker??!Listen to PEOPLE STUFF wherever you get your podcasts:🍎 https://apple.co/4y26Ed2🟢 https://bit.ly/4hxGybSAsk Dan and Michael anything: https://www.people-stuff.com/contact/Join the discussion on Discord: https://discord.gg/zDePB3aujHosted, written, and researched by Michael Scroggins and Daniel SoulelesProduced and edited by Matt Silverman

This week, Michael and Dan dissect the tried-and-true formula of negative political ads, how pharma commercials changed the doctor/patient relationship, and the mysterious consortium of billionaires trying to convince us that Jesus is more relatable than Muhammad. Listen to PEOPLE STUFF wherever you get your podcasts: https://apple.co/4y26Ed2 https://bit.ly/4hxGybS Ask Dan and Michael anything: https://www.people-stuff.com/contactJoin the discussion on Discord: https://discord.gg/zDePB3aujHosted, written, and researched by Michael Scroggins and Daniel SoulelesProduced and edited by Matt Silverman

Why do we care so much about people we've never met? This week on People Stuff, Dan and Michael are joined by trivia expert and television veteran Arianna Haut—whose résumé includes Jeopardy!, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, The Chase, and five seasons on Master Minds—to ask what television actually does to us. Why do celebrities feel like old friends? Is it ever acceptable to talk to a TV star at the gym? Does watching violent shows like The Wire make kids more violent? And what happens when television personalities start occupying more space in our emotional lives than the people sitting in the same room? Along the way, the crew debates whether streaming has become worse than cable, mourns the possible loss of New York City's legendary Jimmy's Corner bar, accidentally accuses Ted Cruz of being the Zodiac Killer, and wonders whether aging parents increasingly rely on TV personalities for companionship. It's an episode about celebrity, nostalgia, media panic, parasocial relationships, and the strange human tendency to build genuine feelings for people who have absolutely no idea we exist. Because television isn't just entertainment. It's one of the main ways modern humans learn how to be people.

This week on People Stuff, anthropologists Dan and Michael get their hands dirty with the real weirdness of modern life — from politicians oversharing on social media to waiters wanting crypto paychecks to a man who just keeps adding doors to his house. We’re asking the big questions: Should politicians be more boring online? Is crypto a union-busting fever dream? How many doors are too many doors to the spirit realm? And can you really fix vaccine hesitancy with darts and cash? Along the way, Dan and Michael explore why algorithms flatten culture, how anthropology explains “weird” behavior, and what liminality has to do with your living room. It’s people being people — and us trying to make sense of it. Timestamps: 00:00 — Intro: Touching grass, anthropologist-style 02:10 — What Fresh Hell: AI reading med school applications 08:35 — Question 1: Politicians and the bread-posting problem 18:45 — Question 2: Unionized waiters and the crypto crusade 30:20 — Fixing Shit: How to end vaccine hesitancy (dart guns included) 42:00 — Question 3: A contractor, a house, and too many doors 53:10 — Fake sponsor: Hyperreality™ — where billionaires graze 56:00 — Outro and credits In this episode, Dan and Michael discuss (and/or are informed by): The Paranoid Style in American Politics, by Richard Hofstader (https://harpers.org/archive/1964/11/the-paranoid-style-in-american-politics/) Boba Fett, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boba_Fett Dog the Bounty Hunter, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_the_Bounty_Hunter The Rites of Passage, by Arnold Van Gennep The Ritual Process, by Victor Turner

Ever wondered why people still warn you to check your kids’ Halloween candy for razor blades — even though it’s never actually happened? Or why politicians say, “a lot of people are saying…” when they clearly made it up? In this week’s episode, Dan and Michael Heard It Through the Grapevine, our resident anthropologists dig into how rumors, myths, and moral panics shape our everyday lives. They unpack the folklore behind Halloween candy scares, explore how gossip and political speech both rely on indirect attribution, and dive into what it means when your suburban neighborhood suddenly becomes deer country. From Levi-Strauss and Santa Claus to Donald Trump and talk radio, this one’s equal parts anthropology, humor, and exasperation at the human condition. 🎧 In this episode: The anthropology of Halloween and the myth of poisoned candy How politicians use marketing psychology to sell ideas Why gossip is dying (and what we lose with it) The strange suburban ecology of deer and hunters What ancient festivals and modern politics have in common   Works Cited The “Lloyd’s List Shipping Podcast” https://www.lloydslist.com/the-lloyds-list-shipping-podcast “Father Christmas Executed” by Claude Lévi-Strauss https://aphelis.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/LEVI-STRAUSS_1995_Father_Christmas_Executed.pdf Rabelais and His World by Mikhail Bakhtin https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262520249/rabelais-and-his-world/ “The Dead Baby Joke” by Alan Dundes https://www.jstor.org/stable/1499238 “A feral science? Dangers and disruptions between DIYbio and the FBI” by Michael Scroggins https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0308275X231157559   That’s it for this week’s People Stuff — the show where two anthropologists try (and sometimes fail) to make sense of people. If you’ve got a question, a dilemma, or just something deeply weird about humanity you’d like us to unpack, send it our way at people-stuff.com

Why can your closest friends insult you without consequence while a stranger's middle finger can ruin your entire day? This week on People Stuff, anthropologists Dan and Michael explore honor, reputation, shame, dignity, friendship, and status—from honor cultures and rural gossip networks to modern hiring rituals, HOAs, and the strange social rules that govern respect. Along the way they discuss: Why insults from friends strengthen relationships Honor cultures and reputation Why job hunting increasingly feels humiliating AI hiring, networking, and losing face The decline of the internet and "Dead Internet Theory" Homeowners Associations as miniature governments Golf balls, broken windows, and neighborhood politics Why gossip can function as justice Why capitalism thrives on labor insecurity Marine insurance companies hiding behind Latin The anthropology of dignity and humiliation If you've ever wondered why public embarrassment hurts so much—or why your HOA feels like a tiny authoritarian state—this episode is for you.

Why does wine make people unbearable—and civilization possible? This week, Dan and Michael uncork the anthropology of wine, from Roman vineyards to supermarket Pinot Noir, asking how globalization transformed taste and why Americans accidentally taught the world to make wine that tastes like vanilla jam. Along the way they answer listener questions about: 🍷 A Catholic priest in recovery who must choose between sobriety and appearing "normal" during Mass. 🍇 A wine shop owner who spent years chasing great bottles only to discover he can no longer stand the taste. 🎁 A young adult trying to decode one of humanity's oldest social rituals: what exactly are you supposed to bring to a dinner party? They also debate: Robert Parker and wine scores Goodhart's Law and why ratings ruin everything Natural wine versus supermarket wine Whether cannabis is replacing alcohol Why hospitality always comes with invisible social obligations Whether gifts are generous...or just civilization's favorite tax. Plus another fake sponsor that absolutely nobody asked for. Because somewhere between communion wine, dinner parties, and Corn™ lies the secret to being a functional human being.

Are you a “blue brain,” a “Phoebe,” or just a person trying to do your job? This week on People Stuff, Dan and Michael dig into the strange afterlife of psychological typing — from Jungian archetypes to workplace “whole brain” seminars and gifted testing for seven-year-olds. Why do employers, schools, and BuzzFeed quizzes all want to turn us into caricatures of ourselves? They’ll also diagnose Peter Thiel’s end-times theology, dismantle the eugenic logic of IQ tests, and fix the entire school admissions system (again). Plus, a listener wonders: if your friend only speaks in Sex and the City quotes, are they still your friend… or just a Carrie with Wi-Fi? 🔹 Why workplace personality tests are corporate astrology 🔹 The dark history of IQ testing 🔹 How BuzzFeed quizzes became proto-surveillance capitalism 🔹 Why “fixing” education means letting everyone in As always, it’s academic insight meets anthropological mischief — because we’re anthropologists, and we know stuff about people. 🎧 Listen now at people-stuff.com or on Apple Podcasts: People Stuff  

This week, Dan and Michael tackle one of humanity's oldest problems: staying cool. From heat waves and climate adaptation to office air conditioning, Finnish sauna culture, and the strange ways Americans think about bodies, risk, and comfort, they explore what sweating tells us about society. Along the way they discuss: why heat is political AI layoffs that companies are already reversing whether automation is actually making work better why Americans struggle with truly hot saunas tort law, lawsuits, and safety culture climate, infrastructure, and adaptation the anthropology of comfort As always, listeners write in with impossible problems, Dan proposes another questionable solution during Fixing Shit, and the episode ends with another completely trustworthy fake sponsor. If you've ever wondered why everyone complains about the weather, why employers keep firing and rehiring workers, or why Finnish people think American saunas are embarrassingly cold, this episode is for you.