Seemingly Unrelated

The hot button issue for Gen Z (according to media run by not Gen Z) is the impact of photo filters on body image and mental health. This sudden surge in access to easy to manipulate tech has launched a thousand think pieces about FOMO, impossible fitness standards, and a host of ills directly connected to too much social media and too much envy for outrageous lifestyles.Is this trend particularly new? What is the underlying mechanism that pushes people to slavishly follow the latest filtered trend? More importantly why did the guy who came up with this theory used to hide under tables at parties to spy on the guests?Find out in episode 12 of Seemingly Unrelated where we go #nofilter to discuss the link between Tiktok's AI generated beauty and a 19th century passion for pretending you are related to nobility.Subscribe to the audio only version on: https://shows.acast.com/seemingly-unrelated Find the videos on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@SeeminglyUnrelatedPod Want even more Seemingly Unrelated content? Get bonus episodes for as little as $2/month as well as the list of sources for this episode on our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/SeeminglyUnrelated

Is there a secret, dark history lurking behind those friendly lucky cat statues that welcome you into your favorite Chinese take out place?This week on Seemingly Unrelated we dive into the Maneki-neko, aka Beckoning Cat, aka Lucky Cat, which has become a symbol of pan-Asian businesses around the world. All in pursuit of answering the question: why is this guy so popular?We'll explore the potential heroic legend of the Maneki-neko, it's brief stint as a symbol of the Yoshiwara pleasure district in Tokyo, a journey through an oft ignored mass migration of servants to the Americas, and a special visit from Hello Kitty who is apparently not actually a cat?!Find out all the secrets, and maybe some get some good fortune with episode 11 of Seemingly Unrelated!Subscribe to the audio only version on:https://shows.acast.com/seemingly-unrelatedFind the videos on Youtube:https://www.youtube.com/@seeminglyunrelatedpodWant even more Seemingly Unrelated content? Get bonus episodes for as little as $2/month and find all the sources we used for this episode on our Patreon:https://www.patreon.com/c/SeeminglyUnrelated 

Sometimes, things that are so completely different and range wildly in their impact have a single, slender, fascinating thread that binds them together. Pulling on that thread, not just merely remarking upon it, but finding out what it means and how it matters is exactly what we do on this podcast.Today's episode finds the tie that binds three disparate elements: The CIA's attempt to win the Cold War through culture with the Congress for Cultural Freedom. The assassination of Robert Kennedy by Sirhan Sirhan. As well as, the 2nd place runner up in the pre-1983 video game crash Mattel's Intellivision. What could they possibly have in common? Listen to find out. ‘Blue Sky Rangers Intellivision History’.  https://history.blueskyrangers.com/.Boellstorff, Tom, and Braxton Soderman. ‘Transplatform: Culture, Context, and the Intellivision/Atari VCS Rivalry’. Games and Culture 14, no. 6 (1 September 2019): 680–703. https://doi.org/10.1177/1555412017721839.‘Defending Sirhan Sirhan | Bentley Historical Library’. https://bentley.umich.edu/news-events/magazine/defending-sirhan-sirhan/.Gorney, Cynthia. ‘Sirhan’. Washington Post, 20 August 1979. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1979/08/20/sirhan/75cd41f0-e570-4bc4-ac93-83f251eec765/.Library of Congress, ‘Robert F. Kennedy’s Assassin | https://www.loc.gov/exhibitions/drawing-justice-courtroom-illustrations/about-this-exhibition/assassination-and-murder-trials/robert-f-kennedys-assassin/.‘Remembering the Congress of Cultural Freedom - ProQuest’.  https://www.proquest.com/docview/206723938?accountid=11862&sourcetype=Scholarly%20Journals.Severo, Richard. ‘George Plimpton, Urbane and Witty Writer, Dies at 76’. The New York Times, 26 September 2003, https://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/26/obituaries/george-plimpton-urbane-and-witty-writer-dies-at-76.html.‘The Assassination of Robert Kennedy | History Today’.  https://www.historytoday.com/archive/months-past/assassination-robert-kennedy.The Paris Review. ‘Invisible Ink: At the CIA’s Creative Writing Group’,  https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2024/01/09/invisible-ink-at-the-cias-creative-writing-group/.X. ‘Who Is Sirhan Sirhan? His Life before the RFK Assassination’. Los Angeles Times, . https://www.latimes.com/california/newsletter/2021-08-30/sirhan-sirhan-robert-f-kennedy-essential-california.

 There's been a buzz in the news lately about immigration causing all sorts of issues around the world. This isn't the first time that proposals to ban entire groups have been championed, and that has caused some serious problems in the past. This week on Seemingly Unrelated, find out how Spelling Bees helped bring an end to the disastrous Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and proved that diversity is a strength, not a problem needing to be solved. Anna P. Kambhampaty, “How Indian Americans Came to Love the Spelling Bee,” The New York Times, July 3, 2021, sec. Style, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/03/style/spelling-bee-south-asian-americans.html; https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/05/07/learning/07LODTimesMachineLN/07LODTimesMachineLN-videoSixteenByNineJumbo1600.png; “About the Bee | Scripps National Spelling Bee,” accessed January 20, 2025, https://www.spellingbee.com/about; “Daily News from New York, New York - Newspapers.ComTM,” , https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/435742927/; “Daily News from New York, New York - Newspapers.ComTM,” , https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/435742927/; “Immigration and Nationality Act,” accessed January 20, 2025, https://www.lbjlibrary.org/news-and-press/media-kits/immigration-and-nationality-act; “Immigration Laws.,” image, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA, accessed January 20, 2025, https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdclccn.22019016/?st=gallery; “Milestones in the History of U.S. Foreign Relations - Office of the Historian,” https://history.state.gov/milestones/1921-1936/immigration-act; “NPC Centennial Spelling Bee | National Press Club,” accessed January 20, 2025, https://www.press.org/events/npc-centennial-spelling-bee; “The Women Win in Congress Spelling Bee | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives,” accessed January 20, 2025, https://history.house.gov/Collection/Listing/2007/2007-111-002/; “Today In History: Luce-Celler Act Signed in 1946 | South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA),” https://www.saada.org/news/20140702-3609; “Chinese Exclusion Act (1882),” National Archives, September 8, 2021, https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/chinese-exclusion-act.  -- Andrew D. JohnstoneE-mail: jstone.wmuc@gmail.com

Does January 1 make any sense as New Year's Day? Why not March 21 or even the first day after Labor Day just like school used to be. It turns out there is a very convoluted story to answer that question and it might be connected to how successful you are in keeping your resolutions this year. Dickson, Joanne. ‘Where Did the New Year’s Resolution Come from? Well, We’ve Been Making Them for 4,000 Years’. The Conversation, 1 January 2023. http://theconversation.com/where-did-the-new-years-resolution-come-from-well-weve-been-making-them-for-4-000-years-196661.Dickson, Joanne M., Nicholas J. Moberly, David Preece, Alyson Dodd, and Christopher D. Huntley. ‘Self-Regulatory Goal Motivational Processes in Sustained New Year Resolution Pursuit and Mental Wellbeing’. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 18, no. 6 (2021): 3084. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18063084.Hallinan, Blake, Bumsoo Kim, Saki Mizoroki, Rebecca Scharlach, Tommaso Trillò, Mike Thelwall, Elad Segev, and Limor Shifman. ‘The Value(s) of Social Media Rituals: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of New Year’s Resolutions’. Information, Communication & Society 26, no. 4 (12 March 2023): 764–85. ttps://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2021.1983003.https://billpetro.com/. ‘History of New Year’s Resolutions: Where Did They Begin?’ https://billpetro.com/history-of-new-years-resolutions/.Jasiński, Jakub. ‘New Year in Ancient Rome « IMPERIUM ROMANUM’. https://imperiumromanum.pl/en/roman-religion/roman-feasts/new-year-in-ancient-rome/.Magazine, Smithsonian, and Maris Fessenden. ‘Ever Heard of the Bontebok? It’s an African Animal Humans Nearly Destroyed, Then Saved’. Smithsonian Magazine. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/ever-heard-bontebok-its-one-african-animal-humans-nearly-destroyed-then-saved-180955885/.NCR. ‘Why March 25, the Annunciation, Was Once New Year’s Day’, 25 March 2020. https://www.ncregister.com/blog/why-march-25-the-annunciation-was-once-new-year-s-day.Oscarsson, Martin, Per Carlbring, Gerhard Andersson, and Alexander Rozental. ‘A Large-Scale Experiment on New Year’s Resolutions: Approach-Oriented Goals Are More Successful than Avoidance-Oriented Goals’. PLoS One 15, no. 12 (December 2020): e0234097. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0234097.‘The Octave of Christmas’. https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/octave-christmas/.‘When Is Easter? | Royal Observatory’. https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/when-easter.

Subscribe to Seemingly Unrelated on Youtube, Apple Podcasts, Spotfiy or go to seeminglyunrelatedpod.com to subscribe however you like.Find us on Patreon where we have a bonus episode about Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer for just $2. https://www.patreon.com/c/seeminglyunrelated/ Happy Holidays from Seemingly Unrelated! We're here just ahead of Santa Claus himself to look into the rise and fall of that seemingly most festive food of all, chestnuts. Are chestnuts roasting on an open fire actually a holiday tradition? Who in God's name is St. Martin and what does he have to do with caroling? Were people really able to pay their taxes with chestnuts? Settle in round the fire and have a listen to find out these answers and more! ‘American Chestnut History | The American Chestnut Foundation’. Accessed 16 December 2024. https://tacf.org/history-american-chestnut/.archive.ph. ‘“The Christmas Song” | Yule Laugh, Yule Cry: 10 Things You Didn’t Kno…’, 13 December 2013. https://archive.ph/oeE3g.Contributor, Josh Swartz. ‘Chestnuts Were Once Such a Huge Part of Life in America’s Appalachia Region, They Were Used as a Form of Currency’. Business Insider. Accessed 16 December 2024. https://www.businessinsider.com/appalachian-history-chestnut-currency-2018-5.Foley, Malcolm, and Hugh O’Donnell. Treat or Trick? Halloween in a Globalising World. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008.Hepting, George H. ‘Death of the American Chestnut’. Journal of Forest History 18, no. 3 (July 1974): 60–67. https://doi.org/10.2307/3983346.Planchart, Alejandro Enrique. ‘The Geography of Martinmas’. In Western Plainchant in the First Millennium. Routledge, 2003.‘The Story Behind ’The Christmas Song’ : NPR’. Accessed 16 December 2024. https://web.archive.org/web/20200523021136/https://www.npr.org/transcripts/572408088.Why Don’t We Roast Chestnuts Anymore?, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LO3Ro6yKiZc.