Nostalgia is not the most toxic impulse

twenty night. Two more dates coming. Yeah, keep your ears out and in the meantime, if you want to get tickets, you can go to s y s K live dot com, power by squarespace and we'll see you guys on the road. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Child's w W Chuck Bryant, There's Jerry, and this is Stuff you Should Know. There's so many things I could do right now. I could my Buddy theme song,

could sing the theme song the Thunder of the Barbarian. Okay. I could talk about tops baseball cards, yeah, and that that rock card stick dumb that came. Yeah, um, I don't think they have gum in baseball cards any more, do they? And maybe they just gave up the ghosts. They were like one wants that, nobody wants it. It took out some kid's eye and that was that. Uh yeah, nostalgia. So I think we should dedicate this show too, John Hodgeman.

Let's I thought we kind of implicitly dedicated every show to Hodgeman, but we do why explicitly this time? Hodgeman is uh, he is on record time and time again with the following quote, Nostalgia is the most toxic impulse. Oh yeah, that's he doesn't like a Christmas story? Does

he now think he's seen a Christmas story? But he uh, he is very adamant and has been on record many many times on his own podcast, Judge John Hodgeman and to me in person when he wants to go on about how much he hates nostalgia, about how bad it is and in his deal and I'm gonna mention him quite a bit in here. So he's either gonna listen to this and be like, oh my god, it's about nostalgia and these are my friends, or he's gonna skip it all together. I could see him skipping it all

together because he didn't want to hear about it. We maybe should clue him in and be like Hodgeman, you're in this. He'll listen to it a million times if you tell him that. So his notion is that, uh, it's a longing for a better time that does not exist, that we look back with rose colored glasses and it was not in fact better, and that it's toxic to do so, right, And that's absolutely a correct definition of nostalgia.

But no idea falls apart at the end when he says that it's toxic, because quite the contrary, nostalgia has been proven again and again to be quite helpful. Um, I don't even agree that that's the definition of nostalgia. I don't. I don't think it has to be longing for a time in your past, because for me, nostalgia is not longing for that. It is just very warm remembrances and wrapping myself up in that. God, man, I wish I could be fourteen again. You don't wish you

could be fourteen, No, not at all. I wish I could be twenty six again. Nostalgia. It's a pretty dope time in one's life, nostalgia. But I don't I don't look back and say man, And I also take issue with you know, sometimes things were better back then. Yeah. But Hodgeman makes a pretty good point, and so do

the social scientists that so support his point. Um, when basically, by definition, when you are experiencing the emotion, this very complex, weird, understudied emotion of nostalgia, you're thinking about something in a way that it really kind of didn't actually happen. Like the negative stuff gets cut out. Um, you know, like stepping on a rusty nail right after that great memory from camp or whatever. Uh, that part gets cut out, And I disagree with that, just the good stuff. So

I'm talking about like the studies that support it. Yeah, but they they don't think these studies are right because the subjective it's very personal. Like I can remember that social science for you. I can remember the smell of my grandparents house, their first house, and how much I loved it in that one summer I went on my first plane trip. And I also remember biting my tongue

off playing soccer and how awful that was. Like I don't edit that out and be like, no, everything about it was great, Like no, I bet my tongue off and it was terrible. Um. So okay, I think then what you're talking about is the difference between reminiscing, which is more of an episodic memory, and nostalgia, which is almost purely just an emotional memory. No, that's an emotional memory. All right. Well then you you'll just have to say I believe you, Chuck, I Burns, I believe you Chuck.

All right, So let's go back in time a little bit. Um. There's a Swiss doctor named uh Johannes Hofer, and he was studying some Swiss soldiers that were stationed abroad, and he said, you know what, there's something going on here. They are depressed, they're anxious, they can't sleep, they're tired, they're even having heart palpitations and fever. Um. They're angry, really easily um, and they just can't stop thinking about their home. It is almost as if they are home sick. Right,

And he coined the term. He coined the term um the nostalgia from Greek nostos, which means to return home and I'll go or al jos pain so the pain of yearning to return home. Yeah, it is what he described. He literally said, it's a cerebral disease of essentially demonic cause ideas of the fatherland, making them sick and longing for home. It's a no brainer. It's like these guys are fighting a war and they'd rather be back home. Yeah.

It sounds like he was describing PTSD though as well, maybe because when these attendant symptoms that he talked about, like not being able to sleep or eat and having fever and heart palpitations, that's not nostalgia. But Johannes Hoffer did um set the tone for nostalgia for centuries, so either it was viewed as a physical malady or disorder or disease or a psychological one up until basically the

nineteen eighties. To tell you the truth, UM. And at first, because the Hawfer's study of the Swiss soldiers UM, they actually thought that possibly it was just the Swiss who

were afflicted by nostalgia. And one of the other alternative explanations for it was that the constant clanging of cow bells had done something to the nerves connecting the ear drum to the brain and was basically driving these people crazy, wanting them to making them want to go home, or at least steal the cow bell, right, get it off the neck. You want to hear something weird. So Hawfer also said that, um, the ideas of the fatherland that were vibrating in the soldier's brains. Um, he said that

that was brought on by animal spirits. And I read this yesterday. The same night I was reading an article by Dr Jack Cavorkian about human experimentation among the condemned and executed, because that's what I do, right, He mentions animal spirits in the exact same way. So apparently there was a time when they thought that the they called but what we would now call the electricity and the central nervousist them animal spirits, right, one of those old terms. Right.

And I ran across it twice in one day, which is basically the bottom line haff phenomenon. I just thought that was so weird. I mean, like, yeah, and that's pretty obscure, you know, very It's not like, oh I saw eleven eleven on the clock again today, you know, right, those people animal spirits? Alright, So uh, fast forward a little bit. Uh, and we like you said, for many, many years it was looked at as a mental illness called melancholia or immigrant psychosis. Yeah, that was another thing.

They thought that just immigrants, semen, soldiers and kids who went off to school were the ones who suffered from it. Yeah. Basically, you get shipped off somewhere and you yearn for the place that you liked better, which is called just homesickness. Homesickness, right, but then different things. But but not until the the eighties even, um, did it begin to get separated. Yeah, and this article points out very astutely, I thought this was pretty good. Um, that homes Julia Layton joint. Yeah,

she's been around house stiff works for a while. She's a vet. Uh, not a veterinarian or a veteran soldier. Um, although I don't know, Julie, she might be both. Yes, you could have you never know, served the mp dogs as a vet in the army. In the army. Um, homesickness, Julie points out, is distressing, which makes a lot of sense. And that's different from nostalgia because nostalgia generally is even

though it is complex. Uh, and we'll get to all that, it is generally looked at as a feeling of like pleasant feelings watch over you when you think of the good old days, in direct contraditioniction to Hodgeman's ideas. Um, all right, so let's talk about it, okay, So um, Since it was up until again the late nineteen eighties viewed as basically an attendant symptom or somehow tied into

depression or some other psychological malady. UM, it wasn't until very recently that the social science has started to say, I don't know if that's necessarily true, let's look into it. So the actual study of nostalgia itself is extremely new, and um it's still very much understudy, which is to say that the social sciences has not yielded any kind of definitive answers to what nostalgia is, where it comes from.

The There seems to be a general consensus that it is an emotion, but the complex secondary emotion, meaning it's not anger, it's not fear, it's not joy. But it seems to be secondary and it seems to spring from um society in the same way that a secondary emotion like embarrassment or self consciousness UM has arisen from our experience in society. The nostalgist seems to have come in the same way. Yeah, and they've noticed some trends, which is about as good as you can do when you're

studying something like nostalgia. And when we talk about some of these real studies, it's they're frustrating for me to read, but we'll we'll get to those. But some of the trends. If you are a worry wart, you might be a little more prone to nostalgize because you know, you're you're trying to escape your worries and think about like a happier time when you're on the beach, toes in the

sand maybe, uh. And they experts think that if you are in transitional periods of your life, you're going to be more prone, Like if you're a kid growing into an adult, or if you are in your forties and fifties and you're transitioning into uh, let's say fifties or sixties. Well from in my forties, from middle age in two senior adulthood. Yeah, these transitional, big transitions in your life, you might might be a little more prone to sort of look at your life and think, because what have

I done with my life? Is also tied to nostalgia. And that makes sense utterly and completely because what they found with nostalgia is that it's a it's like you said, it's a means of escapism. And during these times where you're going from adolescence into young adulthood UM or middle aged into old adulthood, that's a that's a place of fear. You know what's coming next, and you start thinking about the good times that you've had. UM. Almost involuntarily, it

seems like nostalgia happens. You think, yeah, let me, uh, I'm a little nervous right now, let me nostalgize. It's almost like an involuntary mental trigger that takes place. Although that is a thing. Uh. Julia points out that, UM, people can use it almost like a bag of tricks if they are prone to depression to call upon these things. And it's like nostalgia can be a tool. I mean, you'd have to kind of conjure it up. Sure, no, no, I know you can, you know, but you don't necessarily,

that's not necessarily how it happens. And and they found that there are plenty of things that trigger like music, UM, like smells, uh, different things that you that basically serve as mnemonic devices in the formation of emotional memories. Um. And the thing that's come up from the study that has been done on nostalgia is that it seems to be universal. That's it's not culturally bound, and the triggers

that trigger nostalgia are also universal. So it'll be like a social memory of a social experience with friends and family, you know, and like that might be culturally bound, like Thanksgiving in America or Canada where they have fake Thanksgiving a month early, um, but then it might be Carnival down in Buenos Aireas or something like that, so that the actual experience might be culturally bound, but the trigger itself, having a good time at like a holiday is universal. Yeah.

So let's take a break. Uh, we'll come back and talk about triggers more after this, and we'll let Hodgeman take a deep then maybe run around the block because I since he's getting angry. So we're back, Yeah, we are. We had to establish that because I got confused. You mentioned music being a trigger that is very powerful. Um. And again it's it's variant among people's individual experience, but music, for me still I thinking about this is huge nostalgia trigger.

But I think I realized that almost add percent of the time, it's a song that I haven't heard for a long long time. So if I hear Jay Giles Fands Centerfold, great song reminds me of elementary school in a very powerful way and even specific things. But I've heard that song a gazillion times. I hear it once a week on classic rock radio, So it doesn't flood you with nostalgia. No, no no more. You've heard it too much.

It's over you. But if I hear a song from like all of my CDs are packed up in the attic, and most of those are from like a certain period of my life where I bought CDs, So if you hear true Blue, you just start weeping. With true Blue more recent than that. But if I hear a song from like one of my CDs from the mid nineties that I just may not have heard in a long time,

that is like super super powerful. Well, like what song I don't know, just like a song from my l a days maybe um or or just something I don't listen like, uh, something from college that I don't listen to anymore, and it's like never played on the radio. Like I'll hear Urban Dance squad deeper Shade of Soul, uh, deep shade of Soul. Right, remember now it sounds like a pretty nineties song though it was very nineties, and like,

you never hear that song anymore. So if I hear that song like just now, I just sang a little bit of it. How how are you feeling, I'm feeling great, I'm not. I'm not feeling toxic. Hodgman is mad at you right now. I know it feels wonderful. Stop stop so And I don't want to go back in time too then either, I'm just remembering, like, man, what a

great song that takes me back to college. Yeah, And and the reason why songs tend to be so powerful and potent um, especially from a certain age, typically adolescents, right, supposedly has to do with the way that the brain is working right then. You know everyone says teenagers have like raging hormones going on. Well, there is a lot more brain chemistry floating around than happens throughout the rest of your life, so it's easier to form very powerful

emotional memories. Um, and when when you're listening to music at that age, So that when you go back and listen to it, it's basically going back and you're a card catalog of a brain and unlocking that emotional memory so you get to experience it a little bit again. And then that's nostalgia brought on from by music. Yeah, that makes sense for me. The one that gets me the most is sent Yes, Senten tastes for me are really powerful too, so like um, the smell of um

Pillsberry cinnamon rolls and orange rolls. It's like Christmas age eight, like every time. Now do you ever eat that stuff? Now? I just did yesterday as a little trip down memory lane. Yes, well not as it you know, but it inevitably brought it on. Okay, so you didn't say, like I'm doing a nostalgia podcast, I'm gonna go get some of those sweet rolls. No, it was totally coincidental. Actually, like the

animal spirits. Yeah, what I've been doing lately is seeking out things that I haven't had and forever, just to see what happens. Oh yeah, So so basically you're the other day, you're like strange Days. Remember that movie with Refines. Yeah, boy, that takes me back, but with but with nostalgia. How what what flavor s? I did the same, always did a mixed cherry and coke. And I haven't had a slurpie since probably like high school. And it was it.

You know, that taste was so familiar and exactly how I remember. But it wasn't like, oh, this takes me back to those days. I'm just like, oh, this is interesting. I ate a circus peanut the other days. Now they're awful, but I haven't had one since I was probably ten. I've avoided those of my whole life. Yeah, and um those you know those uh, the other one that gets me of those, remember when you were a kid trick or treating and you would get those kind a chewy

peanut butter treats and the wax the waxy rappers. Yeah, I don't remember what they're called that, there were no name, like but email that really Yeah, it's got to be that orange or like those man instant of nostalgia. Nice not toxic. Yeah, it's wonderful. Um, peanut butter twicks can do that for me. It was one of my first favorite candy bars. I'll thought you about say like it takes me back to two eight, No, they had peanut butter twicks in the eighties, they tried it for a

little while they were all stopped. Yeah, they don't have those anymore, do they. Okay, is that one in your pocket? It's been tucked into my cheek right now. So a taste, they think, and induces nostalgia pretty heavily because the pathways carrying information from taste buds are in the limbic system and where scent is as well. Yeah, and your old factory bulb is super duper in the limbic system, and it's actually got a direct connection to the amygdala, which

helps experience emotions. And um, what's the other component of the olympics system, the hippocampus. Yeah, the hippocampus which sorts in stores memories. So your old factory bulb itself is almost literally plugged in to the two components of your brain that form emotional memories, which is one reason why I scent can trigger nostalgist so powerfully too. Yeah. Does that I wondered if that means that if it's more immediate, then it's stronger, like if it's just a quicker link,

maybe like literally the pathway is shorter. It could be interesting that I mean that's that's what Layton um supposed. Yeah, I don't think she'd uh pull that out of her head. I think that's the common belief, right for something that they don't understand that much. Yeah, And I that I think that's probably got to be coming through to dear listeners, right, that this is like this is there's a lot of grasping at threads going on, in part because it is just very um, it's very early on in the study

of nostalgia. There's not a lot of people studying it, and so the number of theories is kind of narrow, but a lot of it does make sense. Yeah, And when you look at these studies, which we'll talk about so many of them hinge on. All right, you're feeling nostalgic, All right, let's do something to you, right, Or you're not feeling nostalgic, Let's do the same thing to you, which I mean, this is a very tough study to

pull off. It totally is. And that's a big problem that the social sciences run up against, Like they are studying subjective reports. Well, the average person can't tell you how they're feeling, even when they sit there and think about how they're feeling. So there are standardized, standardized questionnaires that have become accepted in the field that that say this scores of persons like UM like feeling of nostalgia.

There's actually a questionnaire that that is designed to rate how nostalgic you are at the time you take it. Um and and there's there are ways to study. It's not just totally willy nilly, but when you compare it to something say like um biology or something like that, it's it's a little it's it's slightly whispier. Agreed, Um, Should we take a whispy break and talk about some of these studies to this? Yes, all right, buddy, we

teased on some studies. Uh and I don't want to say I made fun of them, but they're they're just I think you pointed out some of their inherent flaw. So let's talk about them. Um. Here is one where they had subjects read about different things. One was a tsunami disaster, one was like one bad thing, two good things.

One was a disaster, one was the successful landing of a space pro another one was the birth of a polar bear in a zoo, which I mean depending on like that right there, you might hate polar bears, you might hate zoos. You know, it's a good point. Uh yeah, it's a real good point. They probably shouldn't use that. And it's a problem with any kind of standardized questionnaire, whether it's the S A T or the Standardized Questionnaire for nostalgia totally. Uh So, after reading these they answered

questions assessing their current levels of nostalgia. What they found was the people who read about the tsunami, we're the most nostalgic, which led them to believe that people call upon nostalgia when they're not feeling good about something right,

and that use it. That is the prevailing predominant theory of nostalgia these days, that it is a um It is you can do it voluntarily, but it's basically an involuntary defense mechanism when we experience what's called discontinuity, and discontinuity comes in many forms, but all of it amounts to a reminder that we are going to eventually die one day, and that thought can come in all sorts

of different forms. It can come when we have a relationship that's breaking down, when we're far away from our social network. We there are any number of ways that were reminded of our own mortality, right, and one of

our big defense mechanisms is growing nostalgic. And uh, it's basically built in suicide prevention because it makes you wonder, like, if we didn't have a way to get back on track, like through nostalgia, and you just like entered a period of discontinuity and never got back to you know, life's good again, where would we be as a species? Who knows?

So nostalgia seems to be some sort of evolutionary trick where um, when we look into the void and think, oh God, I'm gonna die or my life is meaningless or whatever, we experienced nostalgia and it has this incredible flood of beneficial um effects on the person who's feeling nostalgic. I thought this one article was pretty great. When they were talking about discontinuity, they referenced Sweet Jude de Blue Eyes by Crosby Stills Nash and I think young right, Like,

I know, you know the song very popular? Can you sing it like an urban dance squad song? Come on, you know, sweet? I don't If you have heard any Crosby Steals in Nash song, you've heard this one. It's very very famous. I'm thinking Bob Seeger right now? Is it? Is it? The Bob Seger song is what you mean? But here's a line by Steven Stills, don't let the past remind us of what we are not now right.

That's again Hodgman's criticis Hodgman is not alone in his criticism that that it seems like, uh, nostalgia could lead you down this road where you're You're just like, oh, the past is so much better than the present. But apparently from study of nostalgia, it does the exact opposite. It affirms the meaning of your life. It reminds you that you are loved um, now here and now, and it get you back on track after um an experience

of discontinuity, which is bizarre. I'm gonna sing a little bit of it, Okay, you know, Uh I am yours, you are mine, We are what we are? What have we got to lose? That's that song I got you? That's so yeah. See, it's a great song. That's better than the Bob Seekers song. I think there is no good Bob Seeker song that's not true. Name one uh all time rock and roll, no terrible, worst song ever turned the page awful like a rock awful catman, Do kill Me. There's one though, that's not bad. I think

we've had this conversation before. I think I've been on record as being a big Bob Seeker hater. I'm not big on him either, but there's there's at least one or two. Oh you'd love him. You want to get you want to get married to him? All right, it's enough about me and Bob Seger. Yeah, see he got uncomfortable. Um, so I'm having a moment of dis kind nuity. Yeah.

We were talking about the studies, right, Well. I think what we were saying was that if you look at nostalgia from the way that Hodgeman looks at it, which makes sense, um, you would think, well, nostalgia is a bad thing, when in fact, studies have shown that nostalgia actually gets you back on track when you're feeling like, oh God, I'm gonna die one day, or oh I'm not loved or whatever. Rather than getting stuck in reminiscing about how great the past was compared to the present,

it reaffirms that the present is pretty great. Yeah, they said, uh, and we always say they like it's sort of an ambiguous body of sometimes we get called up by people who are paying attention. The researchers of nostalgia say they that UM positive mental states include UM higher self esteem, more socially connected, more generous, more altruistic or optimistic, worry less about the future and death and good and that makes it a part of terror management theory, which we

actually did a really cool episode one. It was one of those sleepers you know that probably not a lot of people listened to, but it was awesome. Yeah. And they did some other studies and this to me is really interesting. UM in China, uh was one study and elsewhere they have determined that nostalgic feelings might literally make you warmer, right, like physically warmer. And when I said, the warm thing watches over you. They think it might have played a role in evolution, like when you're colder

and you think of these thoughts, you get warmer. Yeah. From the study in China, UM they found that the study participants were when they were cold and they were nostalgizing, they were imagining themselves or they were remembering an experience in a warm place, and apparently it had the effect of making them feel physically warmer and less susceptible to

the pain of extreme cold. And another study to head nostalgic and non nostalgic subjects hold their hands in thirty nine degree fahrenheit water until they couldn't take it anymore, and if you were feeling nostalgic, you could hold your hand in there longer. So that proves that it warms you up right right, not really, but it's interesting, it is interesting. All of this is pretty interesting, and there is there is supposedly a point where nostalgia can become

harmful too. It's called pathological nostalgia, um where you basically do get locked into the idea that everything used to be better back in the day or whenever at some other point. But it's um rare compared to regular what's called personal nostalgia, which is all the nostalgia we've been talking about. And then there's the social nostalgia too, right

like when you didn't even live through it. Yeah, where um, you know, like seventeen year old today wearing like a Nirvana T shirt or a Fits T shirt or something like that, or being into that music or thinking like how great the nineties were, and it's like dude, we lived through the nineties. They were not great. But it's the same thing, like I love eighties stuff. I lived through the eighties, but um, I remember thinking the eighties sucked, and then you know, as an older person, when the

eighties came back, I'm like, yeah, the eighties were pretty fun. Yeah. I think that's kind of a company sometimes too, by this feeling of like I was born in the wrong time, Like, man, I would have been a great hippie in the sixties, and I just don't fit in here in the nineties. Sure, Like, personally, I think the seventies were probably the greatest decade of

all time. But that's ignoring the fact that like Richard Nixon was president, there was an oil embargo, There's all this bad stuff, whereas I'm just thinking like days and confused type seventies where everything was just great and happy and you know, and laid back, and that's nostalgia. It washes out the negative for everyone. But you Yeah, I would say Richard Lincoln Better is one of the more nostalgic filmmakers out there. He plays on that. Yeah, supposedly,

his new movie that's coming out is be Awesome. Everybody wants some is that what it is? So it's like Days and Confused, like four or five years later, right, Yeah, he said, it's sort of like a spiritual sequel, like not the same characters, but um, just sort of nineteen eighty that advent of when things were transferring to disco from Yeah, it's gonna be awesome. He's the best. That was a great movie. Dased and Confused agreed. Um. So the other thing that they found is that they did

a study. Clay Routledge of North Dakota State did a study there there. Specifically they with a name. Yeah, a real guy, so complained to him. Uh. He did a series of experiments with English, Dutch, and American adults, so he kind of had some different nationalities going on. It's not exclusively American, of course. He let them listen to hit songs from their youth and read lyrics, and afterwards people said, uh, they were more than likely to feel

loved and that life was worth living. Some more affirmation when they remember these good old days. Question do you feel life is worth living? Check yes or no? Uh? And finally I got one more thing. Um, they say, well, they do recommend that you not fall into that trap of pathological and yeah, of comparing the present to the

past so much. Uh. And they also found that certain kinds of people aren't as great with nostalgia, So maybe you should not indulge in nostalgia if your leery of intimate relationships, they found, or you're an avoidant person, says they have reap smaller benefits from nostalgia compared with people who crave closeness. So I don't know what that says about hand, but let's throw that out there. So, uh, what's your number one nostalgia thing? What gets it for

you more than anything else? Probably music? I got two things are tied for first. The smell of a used bookstore or comic book shop. That's mel of like that, I guess rotting paper. It reminds me of Mad magazines from back in the day. And they love them. The fat Christmas lights. Oh yeah, the big I could just faint from the nostalgia. Yeah, they're like they were the big Tachi ones that are coming back now. That's all my family ever used was the big fat ones. It

was like more Christmas light. You know, you call those tree burners. Yeah, yeah, we never caught a tree on fire, but yeah, they get pretty hot. You know what my dad did for a few years as we were opening our gifts. Towards the end, he would start dismantling the tree and pruning the limbs and putting him in the fireplace. He would literally burn the Christmas tree on Christmas Morning's here he Uh wow, that's very efficient, was he Germans? Why do we look at it? Uh No? Uh, I

should say is he? He is not? And I wish I would have given you a specific nostalgic thing, but um, you did urban dance. Uh No, just music in general taste, smell music got you nice. Put those three together and look out. Chuck's eyes roll back into his head and Hodgeman claps over him and says, get up. Uh. If you want to know more about nostalgy, you can type that word into search bar how stuff works dot com, And I said, search bars, it's time for listener mail.

This is from Christina about the makeup episode. He points out some good things. I think, Hey, guys have to weigh in on how makeup works. I think you failed to adequately acknowledge something. Uh. We are not, in fact at a stage where makeup is truly optional for women and I think we said that basically, did we Yeah, at the end, well, I think we said, like it should be your option, but I think she doesn't feel like it truly is an option, right, No, we said that.

We said, like the the very fact that there was, like, you know, taking a picture of yourself and posting on Twitter without makeup was rebellious. Says that it's still not really an option. We said that, all right, So forget it, Christina, We're not reading now, We're gonna read it. While many love wearing makeup, many women simply feel obliged to wear it and are in fact penalized if they choose not to, comes in the form of failing to be promoted maybe

or taking seriously getting raises, even being hired. It is a hugely expensive habit too, especially if you like to buy the prestige makeup brands. Yeah, so she recommended to people read an article from The Atlantic, which is always a good recommendation, called the makeup Tax, and it kind of sums up the problem like this, women invest time and money into doing the makeup because it impacts their relationships and their paychecks. While both genders tend to buy

haircut shaving cream and moisturizer. The price of makeup is something men never have to worry about. And then she goes on to point on point out just how expensive the gap is between like a man's haircut, no woman's hair cut even you know, yeah, oh it's huge. It depends on where you go. Yeah, but I mean if you're a woman that goes to a like a you know, not super cuts, right, it depends on where the man goes though too. If you go to a salon and you get like a cut in color as a woman,

you're paying like several hundred dollars. But that's the color jack both. I don't mean to be contrary. That's yes, I agree that they pay a lot more money. Christina. Yeah, I go to Great Clips. Big shout out to Great Clips. There's a free cut in your future. So Christina says, yeah, after my tenth cut, if you have the card, no, not a card, but they give you your receipt every now and then it says off your fat collar cut, which amounts to eight dollars. It's actually one than it's

like fourteen or fifteen. But remember in tipping it's fourteen. I give them twenty and you were like what Oh, yeah, that's right, that's right. Uh so Christine me all over again. She finishes up with I look forward to a day when wearing makeup is really truly a choice anyone of any gender in both individuals and institutions respect those choices. In the meantime, I choose to save my pennies and stick it to the man by not buying makeup and normalizing my own bear face. Good for you. Uh. And

Christina is a California native listening in Dublin, Ireland. Ahoy, as they say in Ireland, is yeah, all right, we'll find out. I think, I hope. Uh, thanks a lot, Christina, all points agreed. Uh. If you want to get in touch with us like Christina did, whether you're in Dublin or Los Angeles or wherever, you can tweet to us at s y ESK 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 as always, join us at our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com For more on this and thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff Works Com