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The Sexualization of Evil is a Modern Phenomenon... But Why?

In this thought-provoking video, we dive deep into the cultural phenomenon of evil characters becoming increasingly sexualized in modern media. From vampires to witches, we explore how our perception of villains has shifted over time and what this says about our society.

Key topics covered:

  • The evolution of vampire portrayals from Nosferatu to Interview with the Vampire

  • How witches transformed from scary to sexy in popular culture

  • The impact of progressive ideologies on the portrayal of evil in media

  • Analysis of the "forbidden sexy wrongness" trope

  • The role of disgust-based morality in shaping cultural narratives

  • How the left-right political divide influences media representation

  • The sexualization of evil as a reaction to changing social norms

  • The impact of promiscuity on female sexual preferences in media

  • Cultural degradation and its correlation with product quality

  • The phenomenon of "restock videos" as a female-oriented super stimulus

Whether you're a film buff, cultural critic, or just curious about the intersection of sexuality and morality in media, this video offers a fascinating look at how our perception of evil has evolved over time.

[00:00:00] Sirens in Greek myths were seen as beautiful, attractive, and evil. Yes. But, the stories were not told in a way that was designed to titillate you, and make you desire the siren. It was meant to teach you to be afraid of things that are evil. That use beauty to attract people.

Speaker 4: Moon, the stars, the moon,

Well, I mean, I think they were trying to moralize and show that other people will use, like, seduce you for evil purposes. Well, which is, which is just steal your penis while you were asleep or something. It wasn't like they seduced your penis off. I would be, I, I thought like, look, I don't know. It could be a rumor, but some people are saying there's a few women in this town that steal penises.

I'd be like Let's put together a commission, people. We need to investigate. I know it's probably not true, but better safe than [00:01:00] sorry, right guys? Better safe than sorry. Am I right? I mean, look, look, look, that old crony panhandler lady, did she really contribute that much to the economy? Is it worth risking our penises? in this ultra lefty mindset, ugly meant morally good.

Yeah. Beautiful meant morally evil. However, these people are still human, right? And they still are more aroused by things that are beautiful. So they need to uglify them within a context. Holy smokes.

Would you like to know more?

Hello Simone! I'm excited to be here with you today. Today we are going to discuss an interesting phenomenon, and it is interesting both in how lazily people dismiss it as a phenomenon. Okay. And in its implications for both our current culture, our evolutionary history, and humanity [00:02:00] more broadly.

Specifically, what I am talking about here, It's the modern phenomenon of evil things or things that were historically evil being coded as sexy, whether it's vampires or werewolves or witches. And the first thing people will be say is, of course, evil things are sexy, but they weren't always is sexy. And I don't know, two things, one patently not true.

We discuss it in our book. It's. We'll get to the forbidden sexy wrongness, which is wrong. Yeah. I mean, two, it wasn't always the case. In most cultures throughout history, even our own, evil wasn't sexy until like the, the 80s, maybe? Like, okay, take something like vampires, right? Yeah, original Dracula was Well, not [00:03:00] just that, but you look at the revitalization of vampires with Nosferatu, right?

Like, like that was the popular vampire of, when was Nosferatu popular? But also Dracula himself was not. Attractive from my memory, like in, in the book, in Bram Stoker's book. And then of course the original old movies was interview with a vampire, really the first movie to sexualize vampirism. Yeah, I think interview is well, so keep in mind interview is a vampire was done off of a book that had already become popular.

That was sexualizing vampires. Yeah.

So as much as a culture nerd as I am, I wasn't going to trust my off the head memory of was there any mainstream, sexually charged vampire movies before interview with the vampire? So I went to AI to ask and I got to mainstream, sexually charged empire movies or. And this is, I guess it shows how mainstream this was before [00:04:00] this. , one was the 1970s, the vampire lovers, this hammer horror film, explicitly portrayed lesbian vampires, and it was quite sexually charged for its time. And then the 1972 black ULA. This blaxploitation film featured a suave sexually appealing vampire protagonist.

Speaker: Yes, I only hunt Blackulous. Man, I specialize in hunting Black vampires. I don't know what the PC name for that is.

And I'm sure you can tell these are not at all cultural phenomenon in the way that interview with the vampire was.

So it does appear that interview with a vampire was the cultural inflection point. Too sexy vampire is being a mainstream concept.

But yeah, no, all vampires were, were sexualized. There was a scene, for example, in the. In the original Dracula book by Bram Stoker in which women vampires in Dracula's castle were like, I don't know, kind of leering at like, here is the thing about the Bram Stoker, Dracula sexualization of [00:05:00] evil is it was very similar to.

Like sirens, historically.

Speaker 4: The sun, the stars, the moon, the stars, the moon, the stars, The wind, the stars, until the end again.

Sirens in Greek myths were seen as beautiful, attractive, and evil. Yes. But, the stories were not told in a way that was designed to titillate you, and make you desire the siren. It was meant to teach you to be afraid of things that are evil. That use beauty to attract people.

If you look at modern iterations of this, they are not treated like the [00:06:00] sirens of old. It is about glorifying the raw sexuality associated with some acts of evil. As we see an interview with a vampire. And this is also a really interesting thing of this phenomenon. I mentioned this to someone and they're like, Oh, wow.

You know, Twilight, because this is what they go to in this generation. They're like, Twilight, you know, they're not really that evil, right? Like, they don't, like, Well, there, there are the, the, the good vampires and there are the evil vampires. It depends on what faction you're in. The movie that really created this genre, I would say, like, like, really, really, really, really set it in stone was, it's not the first.

I don't know, was it Dust Till Dawn before this?

[00:07:00]

Because they don't play as good vampires. But the was Interview with a Vampire. And Interview with a Vampire, these guys are unmitigatedly evil. Killing innocent children, evil. Enjoying killing random people for fun, evil.

Speaker 7: Claudia! What have you done?! Bridget!

Speaker 6: Leave a corpse here to rot

Be glad I made you what

Speaker 7: you are. You're dead now, like that damned corpse. Now get rid of

there is no genuine [00:08:00] redemption of them as any sort of a good thing outside of they care for other vampires, sometimes, and whiz conditions.

That is the, the totality of it. of their plot development as characters, okay? And I would note, this is not me shitting on the movie. I actually love Interview with a Vampire. I think it's fantastic. And I think It's long. It's long. But everyone in it's really good. Young Kiersten Dunst is amazing in it.

It's it's like a braveheart good like I consider it like a true classic level good And I would note that in this period you had other iterations of this. It wasn't just vampires. It was like witches as well So, you know somebody was like well, you know again not evil and I put out something like the craft right the craft was an early movie that really, really glorified the Wiccan movement.

[00:09:00]

Speaker 9: You're a witch! They were right. Nancy, come on. Get off the bed. Let's go. She's a witch too, you know. I mean, the only reason you're in love with her is because she cast a spell on you. No. Yes. Sad but true.

Speaker 8: Nancy, get off to bed.

Look, you scared the shit out of him. Thank you very much. Let's go.

Speaker 9: No. He's gonna pay. You're just jealous. Jealous? You don't even exist to me! You are nothing. You are shit. You don't exist. The

sorry! Sorry, my yeah. But also unironically said that the Wiccan movement had an evil component to it. Yes. The core antagonist of the movie is one of the members. Or before the craft, if you want to talk about like people are [00:10:00] like yeah, witches aren't sexy. Who said like people were trying to sexualize witches?

Speaker 10: I am beautiful. Boys will love me.

Speaker 11: Hey, Cupcake, don't I get your phone number, your area code? You want my route schedule?

Speaker 10: Oh, thou wouldst hate me in the morning.

Speaker 11: No, I

Speaker 10: wouldn't. Oh, believe me, thou wouldst.

Speaker 11: Party pooper.

Hocus Pocus.

Hocus Pocus. These are unironically evil witches. And it is They kill children. Only one of them is sexualized. But she's really sexualized. And And not in a way where she is like a siren sexualized. Where the sexuality is seen as something scary. No, she's just dumb blonde sexualized. Yeah. And you can contrast that with earlier representation of witches.

Even, even in fairly modern periods. Like, what's the one I'm thinking of here? Witches, right? That's what it's called. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They were all gross and scary.

Speaker 12: [00:11:00] The doors, are they locked and

miserable witches! You're good for nothing worms! Everywhere I look,

I see the repulsive sight of hundreds, of revolting little children. Why?

One child a week is no good to me! We will do better better is no good either! My orders are every single child eliminated. Do I make myself clear?

Yeah. Is that what you wrote it? Yeah. Yes. And there is not a ounce of sexuality in those witches. No, yeah. They're, they're extremely, yeah, first they're Karens and then they're witches.

[00:12:00] There's nothing sexual there. No, I, I actually love that. Karens are all witches. Just assume all Karens are witches. That is, that is the takeaway of witches. Thanks, Mr. Doll. Just imagine every Karen you ever meet is secretly a witch and stay away from her. But and people might dismiss this. They might be like, Well, that was a children's movie and the protagonist says that we're children.

So how could that be sexual? Oh my gosh. And I'm like, Hocus Pocus, mother And Hocus Pocus is also like quite, I don't, I don't know if it could have been made today because actually the bigger sexual theme is with the adolescent male protagonist being a virgin.

Speaker 13: It will raise the spirits of the dead when lit by a virgin on Halloween night. What happened? A virgin lit the candle.

Speaker 14: And he's a virgin.

No, being, being also super hot for the, the female, like of his, like female co lead, I guess the girl at his [00:13:00] high school.

First he hits on her and she turns him down. And then finally you know, they start their misadventure with his little sister in tow who to embarrass her older brother points out how his, her older brother comments on her. What did she call them? Like Kazonga's boo, like something like she, she talks about like the words that he uses to describe her boobs.

 By the way, Danny, I love your costume. I really like yours, too. I couldn't wear anything like that because I don't have any What do you call them, Max? Yabos. Max likes your yabos.

Speaker 15: In fact, he loves them.

 And then she also imitates him masturbating to her in the movie. I'm pretty sure. Yeah. So it's, it's a little racy. It's a little racy. If you had known that a guy had masturbated to you in high school, like what would your reaction be? [00:14:00] An eye roll, I guess. Yeah, like, it's just, it's just, I'm just pointing out how racy that movie was.

One thing that I want to square with you though, on this whole well, witches used to be not sexy, was also still the interplay of evil with sex. Now, Dracula wasn't sexy, but he would enter women's rooms at night and suck their blood. Witches weren't sexy, but they would steal your penis. And that was a big deal.

And historically speaking, you had things like succubi, you had things like incubus, which were, you know, even during the medieval period, these were, if you look at medieval art, they were not supposed to be beautiful, but they used sexuality to seduce men. Yeah, I guess, was it, was it just that then they were trying to moralize and show that Sexuality is gross and yucky.

Well, I mean, I think they were trying to moralize and show that other people will use, like, seduce you [00:15:00] for evil purposes. Well, which is, which is just steal your penis while you were asleep or something. It wasn't like they seduced your penis off. Yeah, but sexually buying an inky bus would make you have, like, wet pee.

Yeah, but people, there were more, there were more materials. About how do we deal with the witch problem and find witches? Then there were materials about how do we deal with the succubi problem. I would be, I, I thought like, look, I don't know. It could be a rumor, but some people are saying there's a few women in this town that steal penises.

I'd be like Let's put together a commission, people. We need to investigate. I know it's probably not true, but better safe than sorry, right guys? Better safe than sorry. Am I right? I mean, look, look, look, that old crony panhandler lady, I, did she really contribute that much to the economy? Is it worth risking our penises?

So I, yeah, no, so I'm, I, I, no, but [00:16:00] how, how do you square this? How do you square that close association with evil and sexuality in the past, despite the fact that these people weren't presented as not the same thing? Sirens to sexuality, Inky by and succubus to sexuality, purely. malevolent and to be avoided.

They were not dark and attractive. And here we need to talk about the misconcession. Banned things are attractive. Okay. Yes. Myth. It's a complete myth. You can look at correlations around how banned an activity is to how likely it is to turn somebody on. And there's basically. Almost no correlation. The mistake that people make here is they think about the things that turn them on, that they're not allowed to talk about.

And all of those things are banned. And then they assume, ban the things, turn them on. [00:17:00] So, let me give an example here, right? You know, fire, right? Or jumping off a cliff. Like, these are things that are banned for good reasons, like jumping in a fire or jumping off a cliff. Okay. There's no community that these things turn on. Right? Or, okay, think about something that's, like, actively, like, super shamed. Like, digging up a dead body and having sex with it, right?

Like, to you, the average viewer, that is a super banned thing. Do you have any desire to do that? Like, has it ever crossed your mind that that would be a hot thing to do, despite how banned it is? No. The the, the, the, the idea that the level to which something is banned is correlated with how hot it is, is a fiction created by people who are just thinking about what turns them on that they're not allowed to talk about and how banned those things are instead of correlating all banned [00:18:00] activities to sexual profiles.

So that doesn't explain it. I think you, Simone got part of it here. The part of it is, is that these things were already tied to sexuality, but they hadn't been morally elevated as okay to be tied to sexuality yet. Oh, so you think this correlates with societal comfort with sexuality in general?

Because that's kind of what happened around this, like starting at the 60s, sexuality became more okay. That is one thing that did change. I actually think it's tied to something we have talked about in other episodes, which is the inversion of moral frameworks. So let's talk about this. Okay. In the past, if you go to the 80s and 90s, the way the right which was the dominant cultural force in America at that time, Motivated its voters with a disgust based moral framework things that [00:19:00] disgust you are morally Reprehensible and bad.

We've talked about this a lot in our Disgust to cringe to vitalism framework video. I don't need to go further on how this works Framework died out or anything like that. Watch our video on it if that's what you're interested in. But the origins of wokeness were brewing in this time period. And you see this in movies like Starship Troopers, which we'll talk about one of our best videos ever made is the Starship Troopers video.

We did, we argued that it's actually the best argument for conservative values ever made specifically because it was made by a progressive. But during this time, progressives reacted to this by saying, well, If they think disgusting is the sign of something's evilness, then I'm going to think disgust is a sign of something's goodness, right?

And this is why Vanderhoven, when he was making Starship Troopers, he's like, I assumed everyone would know it was fascist and evil because I chose only attractive actors. Right. And you're like, wait, what? You thought [00:20:00] attractive actors were a sign of, of, of obvious evil, but in his world, even back then in this ultra lefty mindset, ugly meant morally good.

Yeah. Beautiful meant morally evil. However, these people are still human, right? And they still are more aroused by things that are beautiful. So they need to uglify them within a context. Holy smokes. Okay. I see where you're going with this. How fascinating. But it gets more interesting than that. At the same time as this inversion began to come about, A secondary inversion became, became about, which is the moral sanctity of a group was not determined by their actions or their ideology.

It was determined by

how weak they were. [00:21:00] And we saw this once when people were talking about how they knew that we were bad guys. They say, you are bad guys. You must be white supremacists because. You name your kids with Roman names like Octavian. And I'm like, the Romans conquered my people, buddy. Like, what are you talking about?

Like the Romans, I do not consider them a white ethnic group. First of all they were a Mediterranean ethnic group that conquered the Northern European ethnic groups, but they did great things. Okay, they, they are, for me, worthy of admiration, even if they conquered my savage ancestors.

Speaker 27: The angle of the arrow wounds show the man is isolated and shot from close range.

The evidence leaves McKinley with little doubt why the man's life is taken. To be buried in that ditch at Stonehenge with the injuries he has, Suggests we have a sacrificial victim.

Speaker 28: Prepare to defend the eagle! [00:22:00]

Speaker 29: Hyah!

Because! of their cultural, technological, philosophical, and literary accomplishments because of their ability to exercise military force on their neighbors in a civilizing way.

That is something worthy of admiration in my perspective. Right. But to them, the opposite is true. When they look for groups to lionize, they will look at you know, like we had with, with whatever their name, like Bambi slaughter or [00:23:00] Savage Bambi or something in the Eurovision, the one who is all like anti Israel and with a witch and like, I'm a witch and I'm queer.

Speaker 17: What makes me special?

Speaker 18: Do you know, do you know what makes me special? I'm a queer. What?!

Speaker 22: She looks angry. Yeah.

Speaker 23: A face like that, I'd be angry too.

You

Speaker 25: shut up.

And, and, and you see this, they, they genuinely do in the way that they retell history. Always lionize the weaker party. The weaker party was the just party. You know, you, you look at early American history and you look at all the I, I will say that it was [00:24:00] a very morally complicated time, but I think to frame, for example, the settlers as just a morally negative force in their interactions with the Native Americans is anti historic.

There were good Native American tribes from a moral, modern moral perspective. Or you could, you could put it differently. You could say they were peaceful. Or more peaceful. There were more peaceful tribes and then tribes that were dramatically more savage than, than the colonists. Yeah. And yet that's just not talked about.

It's not talked about how many colonists children were graped and murdered. It's not talked about how many of them were skinned because what is scalping other than being skinned in the hive? If not, Well, there were worse things that they did. There were much worse things that they did. Oh, yes.

Pulling them apart with clamshells. Yeah. Yeah. The clamshell thing is what I'm thinking of. Yeah. They, they took clamshells and nipped off their skin until they died. No, it was, it was a little different than that. But it was something [00:25:00] about clamshells while you're alive and then something else bad happens.

And it, yeah, I think it mostly involved being skinned alive. Yeah.

Um, uh, Safe!

The point being is that history. Is morally complex, but generally, when I'm looking to the groups, I'm lionizing. I'm looking to the groups that won in a historic context. I'm looking to the groups that produced more philosophical works that produced more technological works and that ultimately we're able to through multiple measures have their culture survive.

Right? And again, these aren't necessarily my ancestors. [00:26:00] My ancestors were conquered and civilized by the Romans. Not the other way around, okay? Look at, look at my skin. I'm not a descendant of Roman. And I can look at my 23andMe. I'm not a descendant of Roman. Yet, I respect them. I respect the ancient Greeks.

I respect the ancient Egyptian demons. I respect the ancient Persians. When I read something, probably the closest ancient work to my ancestors is what's that dumb work? Beowulf. Beowulf is retarded. It is not something that I would lionize at all. It's boring. It doesn't have interesting messages in it.

It is the work of a savage people. What were you going to say, Simone? I'm just looking up how the Powhatan tribe typically use torture in their conflicts. But where this gets interesting is in a modern context. So in a modern context, You see something like the lefties supporting Hamas, right?

Yeah. And I literally think that the, the, the, the driver of this support [00:27:00] is the group's weakness when contrasted with their rival, because you look at Israel. Israel's like the most pro LGBT state in the Middle East. They are the most diverse state in the Middle East in terms of like actual, and people can be like, well, you know, there's other diverse states.

Yeah, there's other diverse states where like the outsiders are basically treated like slaves, you know, whether you're talking about like Qatar or the UAE. But no, Israel isn't like that. There might be slight differences based on, you know, whether or not you are Jewish or Muslim, but it is nothing compared to the rest of the Middle East.

Nothing, nothing, nothing. This is a beacon of everything the left says. That they value, and yet they denigrate it. And they, they rise up, the people who are throwing LGBT people off roofs, who say that their plan is to systemically eradicate an entire ethnic group, you know, from the river to the sea. And, and by the way, the, the Arab version of that phrase is from the river [00:28:00] to the sea, only Arabs.

Like it's, it's, it's very clear, like the way that this has been whitewashed. Well, but with Jewish slaves, let's not forget that necessary element of the plan. Yeah, the original plan was that they would enslave the Jewish people at least the technically competent ones, and then just kill any of the ones that were involved in the war.

They wouldn't be allowed to live free, of course. They would live, you know, they are genuinely monsters. It's genuinely monstrous and people can be like, well, the people of Gaza are not Hamas. And I'm like, yeah, well, the people of Gaza both voted for Hamas at a higher rate than the people of Germany voted for the Nazi party.

And they support Hamas at a higher rate than the people of Germany supported the Nazi party. To that one hapless subscriber of this podcast who's now become an instant unsubscriber who supports Palestine, sorry. I support Palestine and I was kicked off of Reddit for supporting Palestine so I'm based and you know He's wrong to say that like Kamala [00:29:00] Harris is more fascist than Donald Trump and I'm like, oh, yeah But it's this moral inflection that we see on the left, which I find really really fascinating What are your thoughts, before I go further?

This makes a lot of sense. At least it clicks into the broader theory of Oh, everyone, like characters, kids book illustrations, all these people have been made progressively uglier and weaker over time, that that is supposed to be equated with good, that some people even see it as a perversion of Christian values that the meek shall inherit the earth, and that, you know, being strong and wealthy is a bad thing.

Which, I don't know, I could see that sort of being how some people justify this theme. It just, it fits in very neatly with that philosophy, and that to be powerful, to be strong, to be wealthy to be [00:30:00] sexy, is to be evil, so it would make sense that evil characters are monsters and sexy and that we still want sexy and beautiful.

So we just watch them. I'm actually going to reframe this for you because I do not think that one, this is definitely not downstream Christianity. Anybody who says that is just insane is downstream of a a reaction against disgust based morality. But when you, well, and the moral system of woke ism, which is to say.

All differences between populations are primarily due to discrimination. And that being the case, the more a group is out competing other groups, the more evil they are at an intrinsic level. This is why leftism always ends in anti semitism, because Jewish populations, for cultural reasons, outcompete their neighbors.

And so it's always going to lead to them denigrating that population. Because there [00:31:00] is no explanation for group differences other than discrimination or, you know, Asian populations. We did our Asians are actually that much smarter video, but Asian teens study on average 11 more hours a week than white teens.

Yet, that cannot be within the urban monoculture's explanation or justification for allowing a disproportionately Asian population to get into our university system or to get into positions of power because there can be no explanation for group differences other than oppression, and when that is, it is discrimination and unfair rigging of the system in one group's favor, and so when that's taken into account, Well, now you have this framework where powerful is a genuine and honest signal of evil.

And, oh God, there was a secondary point I really wanted to make here. How does this relate to vampires, witches, everything like that, right? Okay. If you as a [00:32:00] vampire have to be worried about the public finding out who you are, right? It doesn't matter that you kill innocent people. All right? It doesn't matter the effects that has on other people.

It doesn't matter because you are not in control because you are afraid about your identity being revealed. All moral acts are excusable. And a sign of personal defiance and honest and good defiance to the extent where I think you see this reflected in Hamas, right? It doesn't matter that you great children.

It doesn't matter that you behead babies. It doesn't matter that you, by the way, to the progressives who think that story was a myth. No, it was the number of babies that were beheaded that was being talked about. There was baby beheading definitely happening. Because you gang graped people. People to death, you know, that doesn't mean anything because you are the weaker one.

So you get to do whatever you want, [00:33:00] whenever you want to do it. And that is morally justifiable. And, and so I think that that is where you get this covered, but I think we want to talk about a secondary thing here, which is really interesting. Which is the way that progressive women have begun to relate to dominance due to overly sexualizing themselves.

We've talked about this in other episodes, but it appears that there would have been two core sexual strategies women could opt into in a historic context. One is for monogamous relationships But the other is if you are a sex slave being passed around this happened a lot in a historic context We see it in both literature sources and from dna records And you would likely need to not hate that that's happening to you if you're going to survive and how does your body know which situation it's in?

It knows based on how many partners you have. And we have mentioned based on Ayla's data, we see this in her data as well. The more partners somebody has as a female, the more they're into violence based sexuality. [00:34:00] And so part of what we might be seeing here is a preference for violence based sexuality due to the promiscuity of the female population.

And a, this is an outlet to engage with morally sanctified violence based sexuality. Thanks, everybody. That's one thing. Right. But then the second thing is, is I think women don't know how to relate to dominance anymore. If you see moral dominance, i. e. a male who is just a dominant male, caring figure who helps you and open doors for you and is there for you as a sign of some sort of moral failing as many do.

Right. So you cannot be aroused by, you know, astronaut Mike Dexter because he's a bad guy, right? Like he, he plays by the rules. How do you, where bad guy is defined by what I think you and I would call a generically good and well mannered man. You need to find other outlets and they [00:35:00] find that in this denigration by these ethereal characters.

Ah, okay. So, evil being sexy is also a product of changing norms around female sexuality, causing women to be more sexually what's the word? Promiscuous. That's the word. And that promiscuity. Leads them to be aroused by less friendly committed partners. Therefore, in media, we're seeing an increase of dark triad traits and evilness being what people are turning to sexually what women are turning to sexually out of interest.

And I guess when it comes to the sexy and evil nexus. It does seem to be more of a male character's thing than a female character's thing. Yeah, you get a few female characters, but it's, it's, it's [00:36:00] definitely lower. Actually I'd say that it's the crazy sexy metric, which is more what female evil is associated with.

The two characters here being Harley before she was made gross and Jinx. Catwoman a little bit too, at least in the Tim Burton version, which is the best and only version that we should be concerned with. Cause I'm yeah, it's the best and only Catwoman.

Speaker 33: The thought of busting Batman makes me feel all Dirty.

Speaker 34: Gotta go. Girl talk.

Speaker 33: Oh, I forgot I'm not married. Bruce Wayne, why are you dressed up like Batman? Because he is Batman, you moron. Well, that was very brief. Just like all the men in my life.

Speaker 35: The so called normal guys who always let you down. Sickos never scare me. At least they're committed.

Amazing. Amazing. Amazing. It can [00:37:00] only be one definitely top tier cinema.

One of the best films ever made. And I really mean that I do think it's one of the best films ever made. Wow. So this has two. Okay. So Tim Burton's Batman and interview with the vampire. I mean, there's a lot of good films out there. Those are good. No, there aren't anymore, okay? The young generation needs to learn that there was a time when people made good film.

And that time has long passed. Yeah, that may be a good different episode in terms of quality changing over time. Yeah. Because I was just thinking about it the other day while cleaning out our attic, like, wow, I better hold on to this. Like we don't have a need for it right now, but the, the versions of this that are constructed now that I can buy now are lower quality a suitcase in this case and also some garments.

And I just, when it comes to clothing, even when it comes to media, books, movies supplies, backpacks, appliances, even cars in some cases. The quality that we're getting. And of course, designer [00:38:00] luxury goods as well. Like, you know, Louis Vuitton used to be something that was consistently very, very high quality.

Now, you know, you buy a lot of clothes from couture designers supposedly, and they will fall apart after the same number. of wares that something from Banana Republic or Primark will, you know, it's, it's sad. So yeah, I, I see what you're saying there and I, I think that's a broader theme too, is that it's weird that as culture, per our view at least, has degraded which is not the fault per se.

Of progressive values are being left leaning. It's the fault of a super virus that has taken over that movement and parasitized it. But the degradation of culture has also correlated. So highly. With the degradation of clothing, quality, food, quality in some, in some instances building quality, think about houses built today.

Media [00:39:00] quality, book quality, video game quality, as we discussed in another episode. It's interesting. You're absolutely right. And I think that this degradation can only be resisted through a Well, certain types of social resets is what we really hope for. It's not going to be AI, because what people have pointed out with AI, which I think is really astute, is that people expect revolutions to be often in the form of some fundamentally new or different product or service, when sometimes the revolution takes place in something becoming Mass produced and a lot less expensive to the average person.

So quality is actually worse on average, but now everyone can access it. Like I just watched a really interesting YouTube video on how the Bic pen revolutionized literacy because for the first time a non quill based pen and an [00:40:00] affordable pen became available to the masses. They could actually write more.

Which is interesting. And I think this is because it's a much more subtle thing that's happening. Something, you know, becoming affordable and also just not that great. It doesn't seem that impactful, but it's intensely impactful. Think about like, I think airline flights similar, right? You know, airline flight used to be.

For what you could get at the time, you know, highly luxurious, you know, really, really quote unquote high quality. And now you're kind of in like a Greyhound bus in the sky wedged in with a bunch of people but so many people can access it now maybe fewer than it used to be cause it's so expensive but still, so that's interesting.

And I wonder, yeah, this seems to be one of those things, but not the only thing, does any of this connect and correlate to the. Sexy ex Halloween costume, like, sexy?

Speaker 36: Halloween is the one night a year when a girl can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it. [00:41:00] The hardcore girls just wear lingerie and some form of animal ears.

. Unfortunately, no one told me about the slut rule. So I showed up like this.

Speaker 37: Why are you dressed so scary? It's Halloween.

 No, I actually think that's a totally different phenomenon. I think that that was just people realized, Oh, I can dress however I want during Halloween I want to be sexy, but I have to be scary?

No, it was that they realized I can dress however I want during Halloween even beyond normal sexual mores Rules that would normally say you can't wear that at school. You can't wear that at a party Well, they don't apply at Halloween. So why not? She's how sexy I'm being if those Rules around modesty don't apply on this particular day.

That's interesting. Yeah. One thing that I can't square with my past self is why I wore such revealing clothing, despite being so physically self conscious. [00:42:00] I don't know. Why did you, did you wear revealing clothing? I don't remember. I wore many skirts. So there was that. Yeah, I did. Yeah. Like many skirts and high high stockings was like one of my.

And what, what, what go to staples from, we'll say age 15 to 26, like a little after I met you, I started dressing conservative after I met you. You actually, I seem to remember this a little bit. You didn't look very good in miniskirts. No, I didn't. But I still wore them. They're not, like, tinting on you.

No. I have, like, stocky legs. I don't like my legs. But I'm a woman. Like, women don't like a lot of elements of their body. No, you're very pretty. It just, it doesn't That's nice. He's going in for the save, ladies and gentlemen. Yo, hold on. You're digging the hole deeper, Malcolm. The miniskirt sexy look synergizes with [00:43:00] crazy, unhinged, or bubbly.

It does not synergize with With calculating calm, cool, reasonable collective hotness. Yeah, but I was playing the manic pixie dream girl trope before I met you. So not well, Simone. Yeah, I know. Not come off when I met you. I did not think many pixies dream, bro. I was like, Oh, this girl is desperate to have somebody to, to, to.

That's just because I thought you were amazing. You, you don't understand. I didn't, I didn't come off like other days. Yeah. No, definitely not. No, definitely not. I was turning people away and then trying to get out of all my other dates and then I met you and was a little too thirsty, apparently. But yeah, I, I, I, it's odd to me that women want young women want to reveal so much of their bodies when, at least if they're anything like me or anything like they signal publicly, they're very self conscious about elements of their bodies.

I mean, do you remember the decision [00:44:00] that went into doing that? Did you think that you would do it? The people would respond more positively. No, no, it wasn't. It was never about other people. And I think people get so confused when they think that women dress and put on makeup for other people. And that's so not true.

They put it on for themselves. I thought they were cute, I guess. And I saw them on other people and I thought they looked cute on other people. So it was like, I wanted to be in on that. But I wasn't on you. Is it that you wanted to look at yourself in the mirror and be like, Oh, no, I know a lot of it's more and you can see this and how many women choose to dress.

They see stuff that they think is pretty and they put it on them. They're not thinking about how they look on it. They're thinking about how the thing looks. Or how it looks on a model and they're like this pretty thing like I want our daughter Titan does this she'll find stuff That's pretty and she'll put it on her and it it's not because she thinks it's gonna look good She's like, ah, like I will accessorize [00:45:00] with this pan on my head How do you counteract this instinct in young women it culturally speaking?

I Well, you know, I think young women who grow up on camera and have terrible family influencer parents see themselves so much that I think they realize real quick what they actually look like. I grew up at an age when having images of me was still kind of unusual. So I didn't necessarily know what I looked like.

And so I think, and especially now, because even just, I take so many pictures of our, our kids and we have a family album that like plays in our house on our screens. I think our kids just seeing themselves in our family album would be probably enough for them to see whether or not they were pulling off a look.

I also think that our family is going to be well known for editorializing on anyone's non uniform wear. And just having like cruel commentary. So having siblings [00:46:00] does, I think, help. In fact, I know fewer people who had siblings, like a lot of them, and have terrible fashion taste. Oh, true that. Yeah.

Because I think you just get ruthlessly bullied when you look like a doofus and you have a lot of siblings. That is actually true. I've noticed that.

What was that? One of the pumpkins fell. That sounded like glass shattering. Well, it shattered. It was one of the light up pumpkins. I know. It's okay. All right. Love you to Decimone. You are amazing, amazing, amazing. Thank you for being my wife. And I think we have to go get the kids now. I love you. Oh, by the way, I, I realized something on the subject of super stimuli and social media and also different things that get to different genders. There is a super stimuli [00:47:00] genre on tech talk and other shorts based platforms that disproportionately seems to attract women. And it is the genre of restock videos that are often marketed as ASMR as well, but they're all marketed as restock.

And this is. You basically just see what a restock video is. I don't know this term. It's fascinating. It is typically you as a viewer are just seeing hands restocking anything. So common restock videos are of refrigerators, freezers, even ice trays. Female hands always because this is a female genre. People are restocking their Stanley cups.

People are restocking their guest bathrooms, their powder rooms, their bathrooms, their pantries. And what they're doing is you're just seeing hands. Sometimes cleaning out the thing first, like a purse or a fridge or a closet, and then they are restocking it with brand new products in quick succession, very fast cuts sometimes tapping on bottles or whatever for the ASMR part.

But I'm [00:48:00] realizing that it is very much, and I, cause I see even our daughter Titan doing it and I do it all the time, this, I think that there's a female instinct towards squirreling things away. Like I'm putting my, like my little food stores and my little box and it's safe now and like packing and being ready.

And I've got all my stuff in my jewelry too. They get these little fancy jewelry boxes and they put the jewelry in the little box, the other box. Oh, I seen it. No, no, no. You, you, you haven't, I'll send you like a, a comp, like a compilation of restock videos, and you'll, you'll see that. They've basically on social media, it, there's been this evolution of a super stimuli of this because people have found organically over time.

That when they take video of themselves, restocking people's like women's women's eyes dilate, and they're just like, I need to see more of this. And there are people who all they do, and they have millions of views is just restock their fridges. In fact, fridge, restock videos and shorts are so. [00:49:00] Big now that there are even people who are trying to find their niche by doing themed restocks.

Speaker 40: Fart [00:50:00] Fart

Like wait, what? Yeah, like bridgerton themed fridge restock or like everything and it's like wait, what wait, what would a bridgerton fridge restock look like? It would look like first taking everything out of your fridge and then putting everything back in your fridge But in really girly containers and also putting little like flower, like flowers everywhere in your fridge.

Bridgerton like about the past. Yes. Bridgerton is a Regency era romance fantasy show. Containers the Regency themed container. No, it's just There's no logic to this is this is corn as it's women. It's women. Okay. We combine one super stimuli with another, which is historical romances that must equal sales.

But then there's also like summer themed and like when people do ice tray restocks, for example, they, they have purchased. [00:51:00] Tons of different expensive silicone based ice molds. And then they've made tons of different themes of ice. Like this is smoothie ice. This is Kahlua ice. This is tiramisu themed cold brew coffee, ice cubes, you know?

And then they just put them all into freezer into like, and of course, most of these things involve buying lots of little plastic trays and you're unloading packaged goods into these little trays in a way that looks really neat and organized. You'll see it's a whole genre, but I think it's really fascinating as.

It's a female super stimuli and it is absolutely the same as like a very, very busty woman on Pornhub. It, there's no, it is pushing the same kind of button and that there's some deep evolutionary, like, like this, this correlates with my survival. And it's definitely the same. Fascinating to me. This, this genre that it even creeps into like my Instagram feed and I find myself watching it and thinking, Oh, it's bad.

It's bad. But it's also so good. [00:52:00] Anyway let's let's get to the podcast

Discussion about this podcast

Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm
Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm Collins
Based Camp is a podcast focused on how humans process the world around them and the future of our species. That means we go into everything from human sexuality, to weird sub-cultures, dating markets, philosophy, and politics.
Malcolm and Simone are a husband wife team of a neuroscientist and marketer turned entrepreneurs and authors. With graduate degrees from Stanford and Cambridge under their belts as well as five bestselling books, one of which topped out the WSJs nonfiction list, they are widely known (if infamous) intellectuals / provocateurs.
If you want to dig into their ideas further or check citations on points they bring up check out their book series. Note: They all sell for a dollar or so and the money made from them goes to charity. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08FMWMFTG