87: Mating Rituals & True Crime

Just how complicated can animal mating rituals be, and why did they even evolve them at all? And why is true crime Everywhere, and what can we learn from breaking down what makes it feel so icky?

Also see Tom's new Game Show in NYC this Sunday! www.OurFindingsShow.com

Things we Talk About:
Deathwatch Beetle
Red-Winged Blackbird
House Finch
Lesser Florican Video
Dance Analysis Video 1
Dance Analysis Video 2
Cruell Step-Dames
Carolina Buddies Murder Ballad

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:04:04) Mating Rituals
(01:03:01) True Crime
(01:46:08) Outro

Support us with a Max Fun Membership!

Join our Discord!

We also learn about: the adorable death watch beetle, the deep sea “ah fuck it - you’re here” approach, of course the man on the podcast thinks reproduction is easy, why are people on hinge so picky, hermaphrodite sea bunnies, there’s plenty of fish in the sea and the sea is fucking huge, sexual ornaments, peacock feathers made Darwin SICK, sexual ornaments to identify you’re doing it with the right species, you can hang your sexual ornaments all year long for other purposes, finch dating shows, carotenoids from skilled foraging make a brighter pigment is an indicator trait, or just go to a tanning salon, going to the gym is the same - false muscles, active at night - gives you a fright - active at day - wants to get laid, wow flies give eye contact during courting - that’s better than a lot of humans, the fly cha cha slide, drosophila simlish, nuptial gifts, Women! Want! Regurgitated Nutrient Liquid! the arms race of jumping birds, the “I’ll have what she’s having theory”, dancing mannequins, intermediate level of asymmetric arm movement, if anything the study shows how comical it is to try to boil down human mating, the famous shirt smelling study, what are you trying to show with a human mating study? we shouldn’t be reductive for human mating or for animal mating either, ascribing the gender binary to worms, there is no one easy tip to dating in nature, a double banger for nuance, early crime tabloids like Illustrated Police News, Jack the Ripper was dubbed by the press after all, the prison chaplain’s broadsides, nature’s cruel step-dames or matchless monsters of the female sex, I can’t stop myself from coming up with names fro these murders, true crime lit was a best seller at public hangings, some broadsides sold 30x more than the news, the unmissable attraction of La Morgue de Paris, American Murder Ballads didn’t need you to be literate, true crime as an indicator of media trends, the vicious cycle of true crime consumption, icky entertainment motivations, working against the wishes of survivors, if only the victim had had our sponsor - simply safe, the commodification of people’s suffering, what stories do we choose not to tell, true crime seems to say there is “right” kind of victim, but true crime isn’t irredeemable.

Sources:
Combermere Abbey: A Hard Day’s Night For The Beetles
Padi: Sea Bunny
Sea Slug Courtship and Reproduction
1978 Paper: Ultraviolet reflection and its behavioral role in the courtship of the sulfur butterflies 
1972 Paper: The Role of the Epaulets in the Red-Winged Blackbird, (Agelaius phoeniceus) Social System
Audubon: Are Brightly Colored Males Really the Best Mates?
Scientific America: Why are male birds more colorful than female birds?
.css-j9qmi7{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:row;-ms-flex-direction:row;flex-direction:row;font-weight:700;margin-bottom:1rem;margin-top:2.8rem;width:100%;-webkit-box-pack:start;-ms-flex-pack:start;-webkit-justify-content:start;justify-content:start;padding-left:5rem;}@media only screen and (max-width: 599px){.css-j9qmi7{padding-left:0;-webkit-box-pack:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;justify-content:center;}}.css-j9qmi7 svg{fill:#27292D;}.css-j9qmi7 .eagfbvw0{-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;color:#27292D;}