Why Are We Like This?

Is Disneyland still magical—or are we nostalgic for the people we used to be when we visited?

In Part 2 of our Season 2 premiere, we're continuing our conversation with Paul Barrie, host of Window to the Magic, to explore what happens when the place we love changes, our expectations evolve, and the memories we cherish become part of the experience itself.

From the evolution of classic attractions and Disney's growing emphasis on intellectual property to the rising cost of admission, crowded parks, and the pressure to maximize every minute, we unpack the tension between preserving the past and embracing the future.

But what if the magic was never really about the rides? Paul shares deeply personal stories about family, memory, and the power of sound to bring people back together. We also explore the quiet corners of Disneyland, the lost art of simply being present, and why sometimes the best park experience doesn't involve riding anything at all.

And in the end, we return to the question at the heart of this conversation: Are we nostalgic for Disneyland itself, or are we nostalgic for ourselves when we were at Disneyland?

The magic may still be there. Where we find it—and whether we're still looking for it—might be the real question.

🎙️ Why Are We Like This? — Season 2 Premiere, Part 2

Join us as we keep asking questions, challenging assumptions, and making sense of the things that make us who we are.

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Disneyland is supposed to be the happiest place on earth—but what happens when the magic doesn't feel quite the same anymore?

We're kicking off Season 2 of Why Are We Like This? with a special guest: Paul Barrie, host and creator of Window to the Magic, who's been capturing the sights and sounds of Disney parks since 2005.

Paul joins us for a conversation about nostalgia, growing up, and the sounds that make Disneyland feel like Disneyland. We explore whether the magic changes as we get older, how the behavior of other guests can affect our ability to stay immersed in the experience, and whether modern conveniences like mobile ordering and Lightning Lane are making the parks better—or pulling us further away from the magic.

Along the way, Paul challenges some of our assumptions, we debate what it means to be present, and we ask a bigger question: when an experience no longer feels the way it once did, has it changed—or have we?

This is Part 1 of our Season 2 premiere. Welcome back!

Find Paul and experience the parks through Window to the Magic.

🎙️ Why Are We Like This?

Send us a quick "Fan Voice Mail" with this link!

Download this and future episodes of our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocketcasts, and anywhere else to find your favorite shows. You can search Why Are We Like This? and please be sure to subscribe, and/or write a review if possible to help build our show.  Have an idea for a future episode, or want to join us for a conversation? Send us a message with the link above!

Why do we love to hate Ross?

Friends became one of television's biggest sitcoms by turning six twenty-somethings into a kind of chosen family—and decades later, we're still watching, laughing, quoting, and arguing about them.

For our Season 1 finale, we're talking about why Friends became such a phenomenon, why the chemistry between its six leads still works, the show's influence on fashion and hair, and of course... Ross.

Was Ross and Rachel's relationship a great romantic love story—or one of the most exhausting storylines in sitcom history? Why was Ross so threatened by Rachel's independence? And what exactly was going through his head when he decided that “we were on a break” meant “sleep with someone else immediately”?

We'll also give Ross his due by revisiting some of his funniest moments—from leather pants and Unagi to the keyboard, the teeth, the spray tan, and everything in between.

With our returning friend Jessica, we're revisiting Friends, the phenomenon it became, and the character we just can't stop loving to hate.

The One Where We Hate Ross.

And with that, Season 1 is a wrap. ❤️

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Download this and future episodes of our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocketcasts, and anywhere else to find your favorite shows. You can search Why Are We Like This? and please be sure to subscribe, and/or write a review if possible to help build our show.  Have an idea for a future episode, or want to join us for a conversation? Send us a message with the link above!

Why are humans so destructive?

What makes someone scratch the paint off a Disney attraction, vandalize public property, attack a stranger online, leave trash behind, or make choices that put an entire community at risk?

What starts as a question about destruction quickly becomes a conversation about ownership, entitlement, powerlessness, empathy, and our need to feel seen.

We talk about why people may destroy things that belong to everyone, why social media makes it so easy to forget the human being on the other side of the screen, and whether some destructive behavior is really an attempt to leave a mark—to prove that we existed.

We also get personal, revisiting some of our own destructive moments, from water balloons and miniature golf to the strange power of realizing you can get someone else to do something simply because they want to impress you.

And eventually, we arrive at a much harder question: what happens when we don't process the pain, frustration, and chaos we're carrying inside?

Maybe humans aren't inherently destructive. Maybe we're human beings trying to find somewhere to put everything we haven't learned how to process.

And perhaps the hardest thing isn't destroying something outside ourselves. It's turning the mirror around and taking responsibility for what needs to be healed within us.

🎙️ Why Are We Like This?

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Download this and future episodes of our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocketcasts, and anywhere else to find your favorite shows. You can search Why Are We Like This? and please be sure to subscribe, and/or write a review if possible to help build our show.  Have an idea for a future episode, or want to join us for a conversation? Send us a message with the link above!

Why do we love James Wan?

Jarrod and Robert dive deep into the James Wan horror universe, revisiting all five Insidious films in chronological order and exploring what makes these movies so much more than simple possession stories.

From Lin Shaye's evolution into the emotional anchor of the Insidious franchise, to the terrifying logic of The Further, the Bride in Black, the ghosts that look almost too real, and the surprisingly complex character arcs woven throughout the series, we unpack why James Wan's horror stays with us long after the credits roll.

We also venture into The Conjuring, Annabelle, The Nun, and Sinister—and debate what makes some horror genuinely effective, why the first Sinister may be one of the hardest watches of the entire bunch, and why sometimes the scariest place to watch a scary movie is… your own house.

Plus: why we prefer streaming movies at home, the movies that are actually worth seeing in a theater, and our dream idea for a Twilight Zone-style series set inside the Warrens' haunted museum.

Grab the popcorn, turn down the lights (or don't), and join us for a very spooky conversation about why we love being scared.

🎙️ Why Are We Like This?

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Download this and future episodes of our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocketcasts, and anywhere else to find your favorite shows. You can search Why Are We Like This? and please be sure to subscribe, and/or write a review if possible to help build our show.  Have an idea for a future episode, or want to join us for a conversation? Send us a message with the link above!

“What Happened to the Magic of Disneyland?”

Disneyland was once a place where you could escape the real world and immerse yourself in something magical. But on a recent visit, we found ourselves asking: what happened?

From constant phone use and social media to endless monetization, intellectual property taking over the parks, and an experience that increasingly feels more transactional than magical, we explore how Disneyland has changed—and whether the magic really disappeared, or whether we simply grew up.

Because maybe the real irony is this: we went to Disneyland to escape the modern world, only to find the modern world waiting for us inside.

We talk nostalgia, technology, commercialization, and the strange experience of realizing that something you once loved may no longer exist in quite the same way.

Was the magic lost—or did we just change?

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Download this and future episodes of our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocketcasts, and anywhere else to find your favorite shows. You can search Why Are We Like This? and please be sure to subscribe, and/or write a review if possible to help build our show.  Have an idea for a future episode, or want to join us for a conversation? Send us a message with the link above!

What happens when the dark, seductive world of Bret Easton Ellis meets the glossy, meticulously crafted universe of Ryan Murphy?

In this episode of Why Are We Like This?, we dive into The Shards—a story of beautiful people, beautiful places, drugs, sex, violence and the loneliness hiding underneath the veneer. But our conversation quickly becomes about something much bigger: the loss of childhood, the consequences of growing up too soon, and what happens when young people are left to navigate the world without the guidance they need.

We explore why we're often drawn to the very things that make us uncomfortable, whether disturbing art can expand our empathy, and how our own experiences create the “keyhole” through which we see the world.

For Jarrod, Bret Easton Ellis's work also hits closer to home, opening a conversation about alienation, self-destructive choices, finding chosen family, and the difference between perpetuating our wounds and healing them.

Because maybe the reason artists keep revisiting uncomfortable places isn't because they're stuck there.

Maybe it's their process to process.

And maybe that's why we stay curious. 🎙️

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Download this and future episodes of our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocketcasts, and anywhere else to find your favorite shows. You can search Why Are We Like This? and please be sure to subscribe, and/or write a review if possible to help build our show.  Have an idea for a future episode, or want to join us for a conversation? Send us a message with the link above!

Why Do We Have to Be Right?

Why is being wrong so uncomfortable?

In this episode of Why Are We Like This?, Jarrod and Robert take a closer look at our need to be right—and what that need might actually be protecting.

Is being wrong really a threat to our identity, our intelligence, or our sense of control? Or have we simply learned to confuse being wrong about something with being wrong as a person?

The conversation explores vulnerability, ego, intellectual humility, and the ways our own experiences can limit how we see the world. Jarrod introduces the idea of our “keyhole perception”—the understanding that each of us sees only a portion of the larger picture—and Robert reflects on what happens when we become comfortable admitting that we don't have all the answers. 

Along the way, they talk about changing our minds, why being open to new information is a strength rather than a weakness, and why sometimes the most liberating thing we can say is simply:

“I don't know.”

Because maybe being wrong isn't the problem.

Maybe our need to never be wrong is.

And perhaps the answer to life isn't having all the answers—but being willing to embrace the questions.

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Download this and future episodes of our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocketcasts, and anywhere else to find your favorite shows. You can search Why Are We Like This? and please be sure to subscribe, and/or write a review if possible to help build our show.  Have an idea for a future episode, or want to join us for a conversation? Send us a message with the link above!

Why do we want to matter?

Is it survival? Ego? Legacy? Love? Or something even deeper?

This week, Jarrod and Robert explore one of the most fundamental questions of the human experience. From childhood bullying and people-pleasing to celebrity culture, social media, and the pursuit of fame, they examine why so many of us look outward for validation—and whether the answer has been within us all along.

Maybe mattering isn't about being remembered.

Maybe it's about how we experience our own lives.

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Download this and future episodes of our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocketcasts, and anywhere else to find your favorite shows. You can search Why Are We Like This? and please be sure to subscribe, and/or write a review if possible to help build our show.  Have an idea for a future episode, or want to join us for a conversation? Send us a message with the link above!

What started as a conversation about why Jarrod doesn't enjoy musicals quickly became something much bigger.

From Grease 2 and Book of Mormon to Death Becomes Her, drag, comedy, and storytelling, we explore why some art feels authentic while other art feels performative. Along the way we discuss nostalgia, originality, stereotypes, cancel culture, and why the best conversations aren't about changing minds—they're about expanding them.

This isn't really an episode about musicals.

It's an episode about honesty.

Stay Curious.

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Download this and future episodes of our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocketcasts, and anywhere else to find your favorite shows. You can search Why Are We Like This? and please be sure to subscribe, and/or write a review if possible to help build our show.  Have an idea for a future episode, or want to join us for a conversation? Send us a message with the link above!