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Why You Shouldn't Mess with a Social Psychologist

Thursday, April 28, 2011 | 4 Comment(s)

We study what people do and why they do them.

Sometimes, however, the "why" is not as important as the what.

For example.  A woman at a Milwaukee baseball game listed her actual cell number on a sign asking the Brewer's amazing (and Jewish!!!) left fielder to marry her.  Predictable to everyone but this woman, a whole crap-load of people called the number.  She shut her phone off.  Hilariously, the player, Ryan Braun, heard about this whole ordeal and called the number only to find it going to voicemail.  Upon hearing this, the woman turned her phone back on . . . commencing a whole crap-load more phone calls.



The moral of this little story is that when given a phone number in a public forum, people call it.  The show How I Met Your Mother employed this knowledge when they had Barney (aka neil patrick harris) stand up in an add at the Superbowl with "his phone number" listed on it.  Commence a crap-load of phone calls.  This same premise also works when phone numbers are said in movies, which is why they came up with the 555 prefix for fake numbers (e.g. 413-555-6767). 

Considering the amount of subtle marketing going on in TV shows now (Jeopardy has sponsored categories -- Top Chef is essentially Top Product placement --  Even sitcoms have pretty gratuitous product placement [come ON 30 rock, you're better than that.]), i have to think that this whole 555 business is a missed opportunity. 

People hate cold calls.  Oh how people hate them.  People hate them enough to go online and enter their phone number on a "do not call list" (how easily could that be used as a way to get people's numbers btw?).  I think some people leave themselves off "do not call" lists because they enjoy the release of telling people who cold call them off when they call during dinner (i'm looking at you dad).  But, generally speaking, i've never heard anyone say, "this guy called from Comcast last night to ask me if i wanted to expand my existing coverage, and we had the. best. time. ever!"  Doesn't happen.  So, if people don't like being called . . . and yet . . . when given any public phone number they will call it themselves . . .

You see what i'm getting at here.  If you make those 555 numbers into marketing firm numbers, when people call them, thinking they are being all subversive and cool, they end up talking to a person on the other end who answers, "thank you for choosing to take our brief 5 minute phone survey about product X."  Or, better yet, "thank you for volunteering to answer these few polling questions about your voting preferences."  Pew (polling service) and Gallup should be all over this shit.  You could even insert different phone numbers in the tv shows in different viewing regions, so as to categorize the responses geographically.  This is gold people.  It's like i'm giving away free money. 

i think, in a parallel multiverse there is a different version of me who has no inner need to do good and has made a crap-load (see how i'm tying the language together--that's called good writing :) of money off of these horrible life-worsening yet eminently profitable ideas.  I bet that version of me wears a lot of fitted suits and enjoys the feel of a tie around his neck. Fuck that me.  I hate that guy.

Chubby Bunny of Love

Sunday, April 24, 2011 | 0 Comment(s)

Easter is a confusing holiday.  It seems all filled of mixed metaphors with its resurrection slash eggs slash renewal slash rabbits slash jellybeans.  I have to say, from a jew's perspective, this holiday just comes off . . . sloppy. 

My earliest experience with Easter, however, was very positive.  In elementary school on Easter, random lunch trays were marked with tape on the bottom. and a bunch of them said "egg" which meant that you got a plastic egg filled with jellybeans (um . . . this was in the 80s . . . so i guess it was pre-childhood obesity).  I went about my business in the lunch line.  Got my fluff samich, per usual, and hunkered down at the long white fold-down tables that you only see in school cafeterias and food kitchens.  Munching away, the announcement about the tray prizes was made and immediately 100 kids flipped their trays upside down. i can only imagine that a good amount of food took to the air, but,  being as i was about 8 years old, details like you're making a mess didn't come close to registering in my candy driven mind.

On the underside of my tray i found a piece of tape, but i did not see the word 'egg'.  I knew it wasn't "egg" because i knew what that word looked like. 3 letters long. only 2 letters involved.  These are the type of words that elementary schoolers thrive at. we are short uncomplicated word learning monsters.  And that word on my tray had 6 letters.  and it was not "eggegg" either. 

I think i brought the tray up to a teacher.  And the teachers eyes lit up.  It turned out that one tray each lunch period . . . one lucky tray . . . said basket on it.  And that lucky kid got a huge wicker basket full of marshmallow bunnies and chocolate eggs.  I remember it being a shit-ton of candy.  The school must have been glad it went to a kid as scrawny as me (80% bone).  Giving that much candy to a chubby kid would not have looked good for anyone. 

That said, one of the five jewish kids in a almost completely christian school getting the big Easter day surprise was not an irony lost on my peers.  Let's just say i was advised to put the basket in my cubby and enjoy it at home.  And, the fact that an ADHD kid (animal) like me agreed with this recommendation tells me that this probably would have been a great inroad to teaching elementary schoolers about the Holocaust.  (too far?)
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In any event, later in life Easter once again became memorable as the first morning I ever woke up with mmf next to me.  While still keeping it very PG, mmf and i had an epic date which included dinner at an insanely loud restaurant (her choice), candle-pin bowling (my choice), then drinking 28oz of beer from huge Styrofoam cups while watching the end of the sox game (mutual choice), then T-ing back toward my place to go to another bar and meet my then roommate who attempted to embarrass me unsuccessfully.  and then.  after a bit of encouragement.  back to our apartment.  We remember the date, of course, because the next morning everyone in the house + sig. others went out to a big Easter brunch together.

Resurrection indeed.

Sleeping Bubonically

Saturday, April 23, 2011 | 0 Comment(s)

I've been sick.  ill.  and not beastie boys ill.  more gizmo wet after midnight ill.

Personally, i try my best to take an "airplane travel" approach to illness.  Which is to say, i try to sleep my way through it.  Because when you're asleep, it's magical.

For instance.  I can get on a plane in hartford, take a 'relaxation aid' in the form of a mild anti-anxiety med, and after the most pleasant of naps, i magically arrive in California.  i have no idea how this happened because i was asleep.  My best guess is that a couple of my guardian angels swooped down and fairy'ed me there (super pun). 

When the snot monster comes, i try the same approach.  Sleep it off.  Sleep through it.  Sleep hard.  This is a particularly helpful strategy for me because my illnesses are usually the result of totally overworking my body and mind until they meltdown.  In this current case, my tentative grip on health was additionally foiled by mmf getting the plague (the 10 day version of the 3 day cold im dealing with).  Because she loves me and learned at an early age the importance of sharing, she gave me a weakened version of her black death. 

During the past 48 hours of illness, i slept through 28 hours of it.  My body just couldn't seem to stay awake.  And who am i not to go with the flow.  Suffice it to say, these were very happy days for our puppy grover.  Essentially this meant he had free access to sleeping on the bed for almost a week (mmf's illness plus mine).  He loves this.  And as i am writing this i'm beginning to worry that maybe my puppy (much like his mother) is an evil genius.  Secretly infecting his parents with non-lethal totally debilitating diseases so as to lay them up and thereby giving him access to the almighty human-person bed.

bliss squared

It all makes sense now.  I feel like the tv detective right before the end of the show where my mind's eye is watching all the puzzle pieces fall into place.

oh no . . .  i'm at the coffee shop typing this . . . i've left mmf alone at home with the pup.  what if this is the moment he's been waiting for . . .   to put into motion the final phase of his plan  . . . .

*running home to see if ill they'll ever be a space for me on the human-person bed ever again* 

don't count on it.

Beautiful Bubble-Gum Babies, Ready to Party

Wednesday, April 13, 2011 | 1 Comment(s)

Undergrads are unavoidable.

And i don't mean the one's i work with.  The one's i work with are smart and driven and funny and great.  I'm talking more about the undergrads i interact with in dining commons, around the building, etc.  I don't know these students, we are but two ships ion the college sea at night. 

But i smell them.  And, i know you think i'm going to talk about BO and grossness and whatever.  But no.

It's the ladies this time.  For whatever reason it dawned on me today.  The women at this school smell like bubble gum.  And not just "bubble gum" scent, but also smells that i associate with bubble gum flavors.  Peach Punch, Green Apple-berry.  Shit like that.  And i don't get it.  Maybe this is one of those "im getting old" things, but i don't don't see the allure of smelling like Hubba-Bubba.  I can't see myself being like, "this chicks only kinda fly.  hairs all messed up, but she's funny.  i'm torn . . . but she smells like Grape Ape Jungle Chew, so i'm gonna go for it."

Maybe the thinking is that the guy (let me get hetero-normative here for a minute) will smell the bubble gum and it will remind them of baseball.  Thinking of baseball will make them want to "play ball" (so many sex/baseball metaphors to choose from). 

The only time i ever remember a girl smelling like sugar coated fruit is from my limited exposure to strippers.  You can understand how smelling like strawberries and cream can be an asset in the stripping business.  I mean, you want your customers to want to devour you (right?).  But, for the college population at large, is this what our culture has trickled down too.  Are Bubble-Yum scents for girls the next leggings with Ughs (i'm assuming that's how those are spelled).

I thought one of the reasons girls went to college was to avoid becoming a stripper?


(*editors note: i hold no strong moral or ethical qualms with stripping other than i don't think i would enjoy doing it myself and that it probably propagates bad societal gender politics.  but nothings perfect.

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