87: Mating Rituals & True Crime

Episode notes

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

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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?
National Science Foundation: Bright colors in the animal kingdom: Why some use them to impress and others to intimidate
2019 Paper: Facial masculinity does not appear to be a condition-dependent male ornament and does not reflect MHC heterozygosity in humans
Yale News: Yale study reveals mating tip for bird species: You should be dancing
The Guardian: Dinosaurs performed dances to woo mates, according to new evidence
Northumbria University: Study identifies high quality female dance movements
1995: MHC-dependent mate preferences in humans
2023 Paper: Do humans agree on which body odors are attractive, similar to the agreement observed when rating faces and voices?
2017 Paper: Humans as a model species for sexual selection research
2009 Paper: Dance dance attribution: exploring the relationship between dance and attractiveness in intial perceptions 
2020 Paper: Mutual mate choice and its benefits for both sexes
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Podcast.co: How Many True Crime Podcasts
Crime Reads: The Rise of the True Crime Podcaster
JSTOR: The Bloody History of the True Crime Genre
Henry Goodcole: Nature’s Cruel Steppe Dames
NYT: The Bloody History of True Crime Lit
Wellcome Collection: Paris Morgue
JSTOR: The Paris Morgue Provided Ghoulish Entertainment
JSTOR: The Murder Ballad Was the Original True Crime Podcast
Psychology Today: Why the True Crime Audience Is Predominantly Female
SAGE article: Why women are drawn to tales of rape, murder and serial killers
NYT: Is Our True-Crime Obsession Doing More Harm Than Good?
Gawker: True Crime is Rottnig Our Brains
TIME: The Human Cost of Binge-Watching True Crime Series
Reclamation: The Fascination With All That is Morbid and Macabre
Binghamton University: True Crime Adaptations and How the Public Surveils
University of Oregon: The true crime genre is popular, but is it ethical?