People Stuff

Are you a “blue brain,” a “Phoebe,” or just a person trying to do your job?
This week on People Stuff, Dan and Michael dig into the strange afterlife of psychological typing — from Jungian archetypes to workplace “whole brain” seminars and gifted testing for seven-year-olds. Why do employers, schools, and BuzzFeed quizzes all want to turn us into caricatures of ourselves?

They’ll also diagnose Peter Thiel’s end-times theology, dismantle the eugenic logic of IQ tests, and fix the entire school admissions system (again). Plus, a listener wonders: if your friend only speaks in Sex and the City quotes, are they still your friend… or just a Carrie with Wi-Fi?

🔹 Why workplace personality tests are corporate astrology
🔹 The dark history of IQ testing
🔹 How BuzzFeed quizzes became proto-surveillance capitalism
🔹 Why “fixing” education means letting everyone in

As always, it’s academic insight meets anthropological mischief — because we’re anthropologists, and we know stuff about people.

🎧 Listen now at people-stuff.com or on Apple Podcasts: People Stuff

Are we what we eat? Should kale be a personality? Why are men suddenly shoveling raw beef into their mouths like feral crossfit raccoons? This week anthropologists Dan and Michael interview genetic counselor + legitimate adult Saanchi Shah, who tries to offer actual wisdom while the hosts spiral into food-based existentialism.

Topics include:

Paleo diets and why “we stopped evolving after the Ice Age” is terrible science

When gardening becomes prepping and prepping becomes a personality

The gym bro committed to 100% raw meat, 0% critical thought

The stolen 18-karat gold toilet named America

Why cities need public bathrooms more than they need tech incubators

Are you pizza if you eat pizza? (anthropology says… maybe yes??)

Also: squat toilets, Jain philosophy, steroid economics, and the eternal war between Neapolitan pizza and the casserole known as “Chicago-style.”

They tackle listener questions about what it means to feel out of place:

Why do perfect towns feel fake and claustrophobic?

Why do we always sit in the same seat?

And should you really avoid walking on a grave?

Along the way, they explore how humans build belonging through repetition, ritual, and spatial order — and how those same habits can make us feel trapped, haunted, or just plain weird.

Plus: Dan fixes superheroes (they’re fascists), Michael defends ghosts, and everyone learns something about the anthropology of being uncomfortable.

🎧 People Stuff — because we’re anthropologists, and we know stuff about people.

Dan and Michael tackle questions about:

🧹 A Zen priest frustrated by a fellow monk’s bad cleaning habits

💰 Whether kids should get paid for chores

🏚️ How to love a hoarder parent without losing your mind

Plus, in Fixing Shit, Michael fixes Congress by bringing back pork barrel spending (seriously). Along the way, they dust off some anthropological wisdom from Mary Douglas, talk about pollution, capitalism, and the importance of returning your grocery cart.

It’s messy, philosophical, and deeply funny—just the way we like it.

Takeaways 

Cleanliness is culturally specific and varies widely. The concept of the Rapture has been a recurring theme in religious discussions. Zen practices can lead to conflicts in communal living situations. Allowance for chores raises questions about parenting and financial education. Hoarding reflects deeper cultural issues related to consumerism and identity. Memory and emotional connections to objects can complicate decluttering efforts. Cognitive dissonance plays a role in how people respond to failed prophecies. Cultural narratives shape our understanding of cleanliness and order. The relationship between consumerism and identity is complex and multifaceted. Community obligations can conflict with personal expectations in shared living spaces.

Sound bites "

You can't fire your kid!" 

"This is a mutiny!" "

You have too much stuff!" 

Segments:

00:00 Introduction to the Podcast and Themes 

01:43 The TikTok Rapture and Religious Prophecies 

09:04 Zen Monasteries and Cleaning Duties 

17:19 Exploring Perspectives on Violence and Community 

19:05 Navigating Family Dynamics and Chores 

30:02 Reforming Congress: A Call for Institutional Integrity 

37:08 The Hoarding Dilemma 

38:01 Cultural Reflections on Consumption 

39:53 The Psychology of Stuff 

42:16 Generational Perspectives on Hoarding 

44:36 Memory and Identity in Material Possessions

47:21 Navigating Emotional Attachments to Objects 

49:31 Concluding Thoughts on Clutter and Memory

When (if ever) should you intervene with someone else’s child?

Why American parenting anxiety looks bizarre cross-culturally

Aka childhood autonomy, Japanese errand culture, and European stroller norms

TikTok detectives and the collapse of “mind your own business”

Gender identity, performativity, and why pink tea parties won’t destroy society

Judith Butler, trans theory, and early childhood gender development

Why you don’t actually control your kids’ socialization

Immigration panic, economic amnesia, and xenophobia with spreadsheets

Imaginary friends, ancestors, tricksters, and why your kid might not be “imagining” anything at all

Anthropology’s most comforting message: this is all extremely normal

Topics

🔹 Why men are turning to ChatGPT for emotional advice
🔹 The death of partying — and what it says about American loneliness
🔹 Can you separate baseball from capitalism?
🔹 What shamans and therapists actually have in common

Sound bites

"Alcohol is a social lubricant."

"Fandom is about shared suffering."

"Psychology can't critique society."

Takeaways

Psychology often prioritizes individual adjustment over societal critique.

The decline of social gatherings among young Americans is alarming.

Alcohol serves as a social lubricant, facilitating interactions.

Chatbot therapy raises questions about the nature of self-reflection.

Fandom is deeply tied to shared suffering and community.

Therapy has historical roots in shamanistic practices.

The politics of sports fandom can be complex and contradictory.

Suffering is a common thread in both fandom and therapy.

Psychology struggles with replicability and cultural specificity.

Therapists can be seen as modern-day shamans.

References 

In this episode, we mention and/or are influenced by the following:

An article on the decline of partying: https://www.derekthompson.org/p/the-death-of-partying-in-the-usaand?

Beastie Boys -- You Gotta Fight For Your Right To Party https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBShN8qT4lk

Karen V. Hansen -- "A Very Social Time: Crafting Community in Antebellum New England." University of California Press, 1994.

Claude Levi-Strauss "The Effectiveness of Symbols" 

In this episode of People Stuff, Dan and Michael discuss and/or are informed by:

“Unsinkable” by Daniel Mendelsohn https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/04/16/unsinkable-titanic-iceberg

“Removing Knowledge” by Peter Galison https://dash.harvard.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/7312037c-4c4a-6bd4-e053-0100007fdf3b/content

“On the Phenomenology of Giant Puppets Broken windows, imaginary jars of urine, and the cosmological role of the police in American culture” by David Graeber https://davidgraeber.org/articles/on-the-phenomenology-of-giant-puppets-broken-windows-imaginary-jars-of-urine-and-the-cosmological-role-of-the-police-in-american-culture/

“The Bridge [Broen på dansk]” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bridge_(2011_TV_series)

Dan and Michael discuss:

Living Right: Far Right Youth Activists in Contemporary Europe by Agniezska Pasieka

The Nazi Seizure of Power: The Experience of a Single German Town 1922-1945 by William Allen Sheridan:

 https://archive.org/details/naziseizureofpow0000alle_m2p7

The Jersey Devil: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jersey_Devil

The Sopranos e3 ep11, "Pine Barrens:" 

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0705272/

What We Do in the Shadows: 

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7908628/

Why do we feel like unique snowflakes when anthropology keeps insisting we’re mostly social slush? In this GSU-inspired bonus episode, we take on three very big questions from Professor Steve Black’s Intro to Anthro class in Atlanta:

1. Are humans individuals or societies?
A tour through Lévi-Strauss, Marx, language as a shared hallucination, and the soul-destroying statistical powers of Pierre Bourdieu. Also: Dan plays a medieval knight facing a bridge troll; Michael slanders anthropology’s early “culture and personality” era.

2. Why do human children stick around so long?
Brains take forever to cook. But also: orcas have fashion, elephants have funerals, and “alpha male” discourse should probably be flung into the ocean. Grandmothers—human and whale—turn out to be the real apex predators.

3. What will future anthropologists think of us?
Trash, plastics, climate collapse, and the high age of petroleum. Also: what survives? Definitely not your pen. Maybe your microplastics. Maybe your LLC.

Featuring:
• Hope as the first lesson of humanity
• Ass-wiping as the second
• Why naming a baby might matter more than conception
• Why anthropology ruins songs
• And why future archaeologists will think we were out of our minds

People Stuff—for everyone who suspects the human condition is 10% personal, 90% inherited nonsense.

Swedish Design by Keith Murphy can be found here: Swedish Design by Keith M. Murphy | Paperback | Cornell University Press

Rabelais and His World by Mikhail Bakhtin can be found here: Rabelais and His World by Mikhail Bakhtin | MIT Press

Find all things People Stuff at: https://www.people-stuff.com/