Ep34: She Doesn't Even Go Here

Imposter syndrome is one of the big talks of the town in the cosplay community. Let’s chat about an all too real topic that affects us all with special guests Dr. Scott Jordan and Dr. Eric Wesselman, psychology professors and all around geeks.

Note: This episode is not meant to treat or diagnose any illness, condition, or disorder.

If you enjoyed this episode you may also like: Ep 26 - Regina George (bullying and cosplay) 

Psych-Geeks: https://www.wglt.org/term/psych-geeks#stream/0
Film Culture: https://www.normaltheater.com/118/Film-CULTure
Dark Loop Productions: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCN5ddGv-AuqOj7iwdBxt_eQ
ReggieCon: https://about.illinoisstate.edu/reggiecon/

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Transcript

Ashlyn LaVie  0:15  
What is right? I mean... I feel like this is a subjective word.

Elle LaVie  0:19  
Well, you know, making your pattern before you try to sew your costume is probably the right order.

Ashlyn LaVie  0:24  
You're so picky.

Scott Jordan  0:24  
I guess improvisational sewing is not, uh, ...

Elle LaVie  0:28  
Improvisational sewing.

Ashlyn LaVie  0:30  
I like it. I like it. All right before I get to more fun things.

Elle LaVie  0:34  
Ash, do you wanna, we should probably introduce ourselves, Ash, and do that part. 

Ashlyn LaVie  0:37  
Hey guys, welcome back. I'm Ash. 

Elle LaVie  0:40  
I'm Elle. 

Ashlyn LaVie  0:41  
We are La Vie Cosplay

Elle LaVie  0:43  
And this is Sh*t Cosplayers Say. It is December of 2020. So because we are recording very early, because we're trying to be proactive in and not con-crunch our podcast,

Ashlyn LaVie  0:58  
 Whatever that is 

Elle LaVie  0:59  
Whatever that is. Proactive. I don't, I don't know what that means. We don't have any updates. 

Ashlyn LaVie  1:04  
Currently, there's a convention going on in Dallas, Texas. 

Elle LaVie  1:06  
There is a convention going on in Dallas, Texas. We'll see how that goes.

Ashlyn LaVie  1:10  
Yup.

Elle LaVie  1:11  
Maybe Texas is immune. I have no idea. 

Ashlyn LaVie  1:14  
No. 

Elle LaVie  1:14  
Not quite sure what's up with that.

It'll be called Super Spreader Con. 

Ashlyn LaVie  1:17  
Super Spreader Con. 

Elle LaVie  1:17  
Super Spreader Con.

Ashlyn LaVie  1:19  
COVID Con. Yep. COVID Con, I don't know if it's a big enough con to be considered Super Spreader Con. But as we have, as you can tell, we are joined by some very special guests today. 

Elle LaVie  1:30  
Yes, we have two of our friends that we have met at one of the many Quad Cons that we've gone to in the past. Gentlemen, do you want to introduce yourselves? 

Scott Jordan  1:42  
I'm Scott Jordan, cognitive psychologist from Illinois State University, also known as Zombie Scotty, the host of Dark Loops Productions channel on YouTube. 

Eric Wesselmann  1:52  
I am Eric Wesselmann, a social psychologist at Illinois State University. I don't have a cool moniker yet still working on that.

Also,

I'm one half of WGLT Psych Geeks,

Scott being the other half. And I also have a film blog called Film CULTure, with cult all caps.

Elle LaVie  2:17  
And we'll make sure that we put links to their shows and blogs in the notes so that you can find them because you're going to want to because, as we like to call them, the professors, as we often refer to them as

are incredibly enjoyable. And we always enjoy hanging out with them, we get the opportunity and they've had they've done some really cool things in the con community. Do you want to tell our friends a little bit about some of your adventures with being able to do some different speaking at different conventions? 

Eric Wesselmann  2:49  
Well so, as you mentioned, where we first met Quad Con, so I'm a Quad Cities alumni. And so when I found out that there were these sort of fan led cons in that area and reaching out into like Peoria I think is where we met. I got really excited, I would have loved to have had those things when I was growing up. So I contribute whenever I can. Also gives me an excuse to head back to see my family. So we do some panels there. And then we've also done panels at regional and even national conventions. I'll let Scott talk a little bit about those. 

Scott Jordan  3:26  
Hey, let's uh, let's talk about the cool Quad Con Quad Con stuff we've done recently, Eric's the one who has gotten us connected with Quad Con and

we got some panels and Lord Blood, Lord Blood-Rah was at the con and Eric invited him to join one of our panels and it was probably one of my favorite panels. We had an absolute blast. Eric and I have actually participated in his virtual con earlier this year. Last year, when Eric and I were at Quad Con, we did this thing called Buckets-o-Blood. And

and basically people who asked questions during the panel, picked a domino out of a Jack o' Lantern trick-or-treat bowl and then we drew a domino at the end and whoever won at won a book. Eric and I publish in a series called Sterling's pop culture series, edited by Pop Culture Psychology, edited by Dr. Travis Langley. So we give one of those out after every gig to an audience member who participates just because it's so fun. And then Eric and I, Eric and I started doing the con things back in. We didn't start in 2015. But we met Dr. Travis Langley at Wizard Con in Chicago, in 2015. And we saw his book on display at that time, which was

Eric Wesselmann  4:46  
Dark and Stormy Knight 

Scott Jordan  4:47  
Batman and Psychology: A Dark and Stormy Knight, right? So we looked at it and then they were doing a panel on The Walking Dead and we went to the panel and it was legit psychology and we said okay, we want in.

And he said, well, we're doing a book on Star Trek, but you need to have a chapter to us in two weeks. And we said, okay, we can do that. I can't speak for Eric, he can, he can speak for himself on this. But for me, you know, it's been a real nice full circle aspect to my career starting off as a kid watching cartoons on Saturday morning, when there were no such things as cons and reading fantasy novels and comics and stuff. And the longer later years of my life, being able to bring that back to the stuff I love in psychology is, is incredibly rewarding and extremely satisfying. So yeah, 

Elle LaVie  5:04  
And I know for your, your classes, you guys sometimes use some of these comic books and different fandom esque materials to teach your classes as well. Yes? 

Scott Jordan  5:48  
Eric's done a whole class on X-Men, so I'll let him- I'll let him talk about that. 

Elle LaVie  5:52  
I would take all of Professor Eric's classes if I was at the university.

Eric Wesselmann  5:59  
I've taught two classes on on psychology and comics. One was just sort of a general, mostly superhero titles, although not exclusively, and I just kind of jumped around. And then recently, I did one that was specifically focused on the X-Men universe, and so a lot of comics, but we also watch some different versions of the animated series.

Scott Jordan  6:19  
(Simulates X-Men: The Animated Series Opening Theme) 

Eric Wesselmann  6:21  
Yep pretty much very heavily the mid 90s one, but they did see some episodes of Wolverine and the X-Men. We watched a couple episodes of the show The Gifted, which was a live action adaptation of the X-men universe on Fox, which was just absolutely phenomenal. It's one of the few things I've binge watched and you know, till the sun came up. And I've taught psychology and film. I've done a few little sort of mini classes for our Honors Program. I did one on Batman, I did one where we watched some anime, we focused on one whole class on Full Metal Alchemist. We did the All is One episode. So that was fun. 

Scott Jordan  6:54  
Yes, yeah. Eric and I taught a senior sem a few years ago. And we called- I called it Wild Identities and basically went over some theory and science of identity. And then we applied it to pop culture phenomena. I had some grad students help me teach it and one of them taught the students Princess Mononoke, they had them watch the movie together. And then students roleplayed the different characters put themselves in different identities. In the next semester, I'm teaching a senior sem called Lovecraft Country, the psychology of identity place in trauma. And we're not going to focus just on the HBO series Lovecraft Country, but we're going to look at Lovecraft himself and what Gothic, what the Gothic meant, what Southern Gothic means and how that relates to identity place in trauma. So it's very exciting to have everything come to this way. And, and one of the reasons we can do this is because pop culture is increasingly Well, I'll call discipline relevant. In other words, you know, literature has always been discipline and relevance, right. But when you you know, for the past four years, when you've wanted to find a good story, you haven't gone to the news, right? You've gone through good shows on television, and that's because they're telling the best stories. For me, it's just a really cool time to be doing what I'm doing. 

Elle LaVie  8:07  
As you all have probably picked up on the professors are definitely as geeky if not more so than we are. But they know their stuff. 

Scott Jordan  8:19  
I deny nothing.

Ashlyn LaVie  8:21  
They have more experience at being geeky than we do.

Elle LaVie  8:24  
That's-that's probably true. 

Scott Jordan  8:26  
Well that's just- that's just the miles, alright.

Unknown Speaker  8:30  
It's not the age, it's the miles.

Elle LaVie  8:34  
We have brought them on because they have a plethora of knowledge in relationship to psychosocial aspects of fandom, we've had quite a few conversations about the psychosocial aspects in regarding cosplay. And when we met up to figure out what we were going to talk about today, we realized we could probably talk for hours and hours and hours and hours, because there's just so much to say. So for today, we settled on a topic that has been really difficult in the cosplay community, particularly during the pandemic, I've seen it get much, much worse than it was ever before. And that is the concept known as imposter syndrome. Which Ash will tell you I deal with frequently.

I'm very bad at this. 

Ashlyn LaVie  9:29  
Yup.

Elle LaVie  9:30  
I have a very large problem with imposter syndrome 

Ashlyn LaVie  9:33  
And do a lot of people that we know. 

Elle LaVie  9:36  
Yes. So I have found that the more talented a person a lot of times the bigger the imposter syndrome issues. But the definition of this concept, which I believe I pulled from Wikipedia, because I mean, why wouldn't you pull anything except for Wikipedia. 

Scott Jordan  9:53  
We can hang.

Elle LaVie  9:55  
So imposter syndrome can be defined as a collection of feelings of inadequacy that persist despite evidence success. So an imposter in this case so not imposter, like, Among Us, we're not being sussed.

Ashlyn LaVie  10:11  
You are sus. 

Elle LaVie  10:12  
I am not sus. An imposter in this case is someone that suffers from chronic self doubt and a sense of intellectual fraudulence that overrides any feelings of success or external proof of their competence. So a person who is competent, but has a lot of self doubt, and is not confident themselves in what they are or are not able to do, which is basically a great definition of myself. So, I will admit it. 

Ashlyn LaVie  10:44  
We didn't tell you this was gonna be a therapy session. 

Elle LaVie  10:49  
I'm used to providing the therapy to the-

Scott Jordan  10:51  
We are not licensed, okay. 

Elle LaVie  10:52  
So, I've gotten better over time. 

Scott Jordan  10:55  
Right. 

Elle LaVie  10:56  
I've gotten better over time. But imposter syndrome, also, as I'm sure we know, tends to link into actual psychiatric conditions as well like depression and anxiety. So, you know, I've noticed that those that also have those conditions will typically have more of a struggle with this concept, depending on what's going on.

Scott Jordan  11:20  
I'm really glad that you mentioned what we would call comorbid conditions, right? Because when you were giving us the definition of imposter syndrome, I thought that's pretty diagnosable, right. It's pretty intense. My experience of using the concept is, is not quite as clinical. And I was glad that you mentioned the idea of depression and anxiety, because I would argue there's the phenomenon of imposter syndrome, which I can talk about later, in terms of what I think it is neurologically. There are also other factors that can be part of who one is, that would make that phenomenon of what we call an imposter syndrome go in different ways than someone who may not have those comorbid conditions.

Elle LaVie  12:04  
Yeah, we've definitely made no qualms about being honest that I have anxiety and depression issues at times, because to any community that you're in any hobby that you have, anything that you do, those types of conditions affect how you do them, and how you approach them. 

Scott Jordan  12:22  
Absolutely. 

Elle LaVie  12:23  
Especially with competing, that's always been kind of a hurdle. And I know that for a lot of people that I know that struggle with this concept of imposter syndrome do typically have a comorbidity of anxiety or depression, or ADHD is sometimes a struggle with this too, because you want to do A but your brain's decided you're doing B. So although B is not very useful, that's what your brain decides you're doing at this time. So you're going to scroll your phone for two hours instead of you know, cutting out that waistband that you need to for your skirt that's been sitting in your sewing room for a week. 

Scott Jordan  13:06  
Right.

Ashlyn LaVie  13:07  
Only a week?

Elle LaVie  13:07  
Not me, no. 

Ashlyn LaVie  13:09  
Oh, okay. 

Elle LaVie  13:10  
So this struggle is something that cosplayers talk about a lot, particularly right now, when you're feeling this immense pressure to do because you technically have more time. 

Scott Jordan  13:24  
We have that same problem. 

Elle LaVie  13:25  
But due to that right, but but due to that collective trauma concept 

Scott Jordan  13:29  
Right 

Elle LaVie  13:29  
that is going on right now, with the pandemic, technically you have time, but you don't have like mental capacity. And this is leading to a lot of people who have never even experienced things like imposter syndrome or anxiety to be experiencing those feelings and emotions and that mental state. And they're not quite sure what to do about it, 

Scott Jordan  13:34  
Yeah

Elle LaVie  13:52  
how to understand it. And that's why we brought on people who actually have professional experience in this concept besides me who just experiences it. Maybe you guys can shine some lights for friends on kind of although social media is our only outlet right now, how to kind of combat and work around some of these imposter syndrome concepts that we have going on.

Scott Jordan  14:17  
If I could quickly just go back to say something about our current current COVID context, and then maybe, Eric-

Elle LaVie  14:22  
Yes, please.

Scott Jordan  14:22  
Eric could answer your question directly. One of the interesting things I hope people pay attention to in the situation that we're in is time is not the issue. In other words, when we live our daily lives and time feels scarce, we feel like we're making all our individual choices and our life is playing out because of that. And that's not that's a pretty typical individualist American narrative about who we are and how we do we do, right? The thing is moments like this, make it clear how many other factors have to be in your in place in your world every day for you to be you even though we live in a culture that makes us believe that the main causal factor in who we are is choices we made in our make our frontal cortex, life has been on this planet well before our frontal cortex evolved, and all the stuff of those living systems is in what we are, I hope that one of the things we take out of this culturally is to recognize how truly interdependent we are with each other as well as the cultural space we've created. And then we can be a little more understanding of the plights of others and not condemn them so much on this notion of you made these individual choices that are making you be in this bad space. So I really hope we pay attention to that only 20% of the world lives the way we do and that's Europe and the United States, and the rest of the world sees itself as much more interconnected with context. They see themselves as constituted by their relationships with their family, as opposed to me being me. And then that's just a relationship I have. So I really hope that kind of way of talking and thinking comes to the fore, and dare I say, starts to have a bit of an impact on our political situation. And I'll stop there.

Elle LaVie  16:07  
So that is an amazing point. And I do think that more and more people are seeing the value of community, and relationships, when we are suddenly forced to not be able to have those 

Scott Jordan  16:22  
Yep.

Elle LaVie  16:22  
In-person things, those things that we took for granted that we didn't realize that we needed so much. 

Scott Jordan  16:27  
Exactly. 

Elle LaVie  16:28  
I never would have said before that I need conventions, but I do.

Scott Jordan  16:34  
Eric, do we say that to each other?

Eric Wesselmann  16:36  
Yeah. So that actually gets very much into my, my wheelhouse that my expertise are on on belonging and social connection and social exclusion, and the needs that are satisfied by by social interactions. And so yeah, I mean, cons, fandom, are very much a part of that. Now we can get some of it virtually, right, that has its own pitfalls, as you alluded to. But at the same time, as we've been doing virtual panels, it's not the same, right? I mean, it has the benefits that anyone can watch any panel anytime. And you don't have to choose between the three panels that are going at the same time, you just stream when you want, but you don't have that time to just shoot the breeze with someone over, you know, coffee or a fermented beverage or something like that. Don't have the thrill of the hunt as you're rifling through this long box of comics or whatever. Your, you know, accrochement of choice is. So we do miss some of that. And some of it is social. Some of it is just internal.

Elle LaVie  17:37  
There's a lot of sensory experiences that go with physically being in the moment that, you know, we're all a little deprived of right now. And you miss that feedback. Because it's like being one one removed. We've we've done a couple live shows on Twitch and you feel like one step removed from your audience, because they're not there. You're not getting the reactions in real time. And it just, it's missing something, you know 

Ashlyn LaVie  18:03  
Yeah, it's missing a lot of their personal component. Like Elle said, if we're doing a show live, like we can see facial expressions, we can see immediate auditory reactions and a situation like twitch were deprived of all of that.

Scott Jordan  18:16  
I call them the little adventures, right? So Eric and I were in San Diego, not this summer, of course, the previous summer for the whole week, basically. And we went to a Ray Harryhausen panel, of course, he's passed, it was representatives of his Institute. He's the guy who did all the dynamic Dynavision, stop motion monsters. So they gave a talk. And I was thrilled to be there, like a 12 year old sitting in front row. And then this young man gets up and he says, Hey, you know, I'm a dancer, and one of the things I like to do is to Pop and Lock like a Ray Harryhausen creature. And the guy sits there and dances for everybody. It was just the best, right and then I caught up with him outside the when it was over, I caught up with him and I asked him if he would dance for me. So I could get a film of it on my camera. It's just those little spontaneous adventures that are, you know, can happen at a con but can't happen in daily life because no one's going to Pop and Lock Ray Harryhausen monsters at work, right? But if I go-

Eric Wesselmann  19:14  
Well, I might.

Scott Jordan  19:17  
Alright, y'all heard it here. Eric's gonna do a Pop and Lock for us. You know who you're around. And so the spont-, the spontaneous things that happen are just going to be the things that you kind of love. For example, getting up in the morning and going to see the world premiere of Scooby-Doo: Zombie Island 2, I mean you never do that in daily life. We arrived here but at the con, you had that opportunity and those little adventures essential to feeling fresh, feeling alive, feeling dynamic. And when you when you can't have that then somewhat at a loss

Ashlyn LaVie  19:53  
That makes me think of an adventure we had when we went to Colossalcon last year where we were purposefully sneaking around the hotel to go a different way to our friends' room. 

Scott Jordan  20:03  
Well-

Elle LaVie  20:04  
Just because we could, 

Ashlyn LaVie  20:05  
Because we could 

Elle LaVie  20:05  
We weren't drunk. We just wanted to

Ashlyn LaVie  20:07  
Because we could. 

Elle LaVie  20:08  
We were off on a secret mission. 

Ashlyn LaVie  20:10  
Yes.

Scott Jordan  20:11  
Were you cosplaying at the time? 

Elle LaVie  20:13  
I don't think we were. 

Ashlyn LaVie  20:15  
I don't think so. I think we had just changed. 

Elle LaVie  20:18  
We had gone and gotten our Kalahari chalices filled 

Ashlyn LaVie  20:22  
But which we hadn't drank yet. 

Elle LaVie  20:23  
But we hadn't drank them yet. And we decided that we wanted to go on a secret mission back to the hotel room.

Scott Jordan  20:30  
See, that's what a con will do to you, right? 

Ashlyn LaVie  20:32  
Yep. 

Scott Jordan  20:32  
The hotel becomes a dungeon.

Elle LaVie  20:35  
Well, and now we're all trying to replace that with social media, which obviously is not the same. 

Eric Wesselmann  20:45  
No, it's very, very much curated. The image that people are putting out is one that they want you to see. You know, there are the flaws are not there. And then some of those flaws are important. Because if you know, something happens live, and y'all have a good laugh together, 

Scott Jordan  21:00  
Right, 

Eric Wesselmann  21:01  
right, because everybody's been there. Right? There's amount of grace, I think that people are more likely to afford each other in person, I'm looking at a screen, I don't see the other person so that you know, I'm going to say something horrible on their feed, because I'm not going to see their reaction. Right. It's almost like I'm just writing a diary, except that diary is kind of public.

Elle LaVie  21:22  
There's a few of those out there, basically, that are diaries that are public, or also noticed with our community, because obviously a lot of people have lost their jobs in in this pandemic process that suddenly people are trying to make cosplay into a monetary value, which is also causing a lot of stress for a lot of people that we know, I mean, even those of us that aren't doing monetary are trying to compare ourselves to the cosplayers that literally it is their job, they have all day to make videos and 

Scott Jordan  21:56  
Right. 

Elle LaVie  21:56  
tutorials and that imposter syndrome kicks in because you're like, I'm not doing enough because there isn't anything else to do right now but social media, so you feel very boxed in the people you're comparing yourselves to, are the people that are able to do it full time.

Scott Jordan  22:11  
I'm probably going to talk a lot about context today, just because why on God's Earth would our culture's most on the edge creative types have to struggle? In other words, there's no reason why we don't have a living wage in this culture. There's a way to organize how we're all together, where instead of condemning people for not having money, we could be celebrating the creativity we unleash by by supporting people, no one's talking to anybody that way, by the way, right? This culture is just not talking about how can we unleash our creativity unless it's to make a buck? I would argue that it's very dangerous. And they think we've seen the results of that the past 40 years. So I'm not going to give political sermons and such. But when people are out there suffering by themselves, trying to think about what can I do? What can I do? What can I do? I would want them to understand that that is not the only way to think about the situation that we're in right now. But it is the way we have been cultural-, culturalized to experience ourselves in this moment. Right, and that just makes things worse.

Ashlyn LaVie  23:19  
Well, and I think another important topic that you just kind of touched on very briefly, is the way that our culture happens to look at the arts, in terms of their monetary value. One of the things we've noticed right now, especially is that people are looking to the arts as some form of escapism or entertainment for the because there's nothing else that they can really do. If you're staying at home and social distancing, and not having that social interaction. A lot of people are turning to either movies, theater, recordings, novels, physical art, YouTube, I mean, podcasts, to all those sorts of creative outlets as a way to kind of escape the situation that they're in. But as a culture for a very long time, we've kind of ignored that as a type of career path that we think that people deserve a living wage in which I think is unfortunate. So because so many people are expected to do things for exposure, or just because well, you're a creative type. So you should want to do this without putting into all the years and hours of training and practice and all the failures that lead up to the finished product. 

Scott Jordan  24:32  
I'll say one thing, once the species figured out how to keep that fire going all night, and then carry it with you to go somewhere else. And then carry it with you to once we figured out how to do that creativity paid for itself for the rest of our species existence. Right.

So the idea that somehow every creative individual has to prove their worth to the culture is the exact opposite of I would argue how we should be conceptualizing. Creativity is what we are. It's how we got out of the swamp into the condo. And we need to, to be able to effectively address and respectably address the constraints facing 21st century human culture. We've got to unleash creativity. Eric and I work at universities, and they're almost the last bastion of paid creativity, in the sense that students go there. And they're exposed to things they will not be exposed to in another place in their life when they're gone. And it's an opportunity to maximize your own openness, be exposed to things you won't be exposed to. And that's just not the way we're talking about it anymore. We're defunding the arts in the K through 12 world, forcing them to somehow prove their financial value. This is the exact opposite of what will work,

Eric Wesselmann  25:52  
At least classically, in Western culture, the way that Renaissance etc, looked at university was this exposure to various different perspectives, you know, the liberal arts, philosophy, sciences, all of that, you know, the idea of being a renaissance scholar means that, you know, you're perhaps a jack of all trades, but master of none. Right. But you can think broadly. I listen to NPR sometimes when they're interviewing people from liberal arts institutions, and there's always the discussion of, you know, how do you justify your existence? Because, you know, are you placing people or, you know, jobs or whatever,

Scott Jordan  26:27  
You have imposter syndrome.

Eric Wesselmann  26:29  
And I've always appreciated in those interviews is that the, the point that the representative institutions always making is that when they go out to job fairs, for example, people who are hiring, you know, want transferable skills, they want innovation, right? thinking outside the box, what the hell does that mean? Well, it means that, you know, when you can make connections across different boxes, and start mixing my metaphors here, you know, have to be able to stop and say, Hey, this thing I learned in my art class, you know, makes me think about this thing I learned in my chemistry class, the people who are expertise in those areas have been so siloed, that they're not they don't they can't make that connection. They're not used to thinking that way. Right? So I love being able to teach, you know, pop culture narratives in my classes, because it's not something students are used to, you know, and they may never pick up a comic book again, or whatever, but, but they've had that experience to go beyond. I've memorized this definition, I know how to pick it out of a lineup. And that's all they learned.

Scott Jordan  27:27  
The concept liberal arts actually means to liberate one from the dogma of common sense. So basically, when you go to a university, you are developing Uncommon Sense, we are seeing the competition between common and Uncommon Sense in our culture. Right now, I just want to say that's what liberal arts means is to liberate one from dogma. But the dogma of common sense, the stories we tend to develop in in ways that aren't checked, that universities are set up to check. You guys have got the energy, you've got the creativity, and if old people like me could just get the policy set up to unleash it, I think we'd be in a different place.

Elle LaVie  28:15  
It's kind of like trying to constantly climb a ladder that continues to grow, and you never quite get to the top. That's kind of how I always think of it and I've had some other people explain that both in regular life and in cosplay, where like, you feel like because there's, it's particularly with cosplay. There's so many of you, that you feel like you constantly have to keep trying to prove yourself and prove your worth, as a cosplayer, to be like, worthy of your hobby, which when you think about it doesn't make any sense. Because it's a hobby. Ideally, unless you're trying to monetize it, which is becoming a very common thing in cosplay is, and that's a very American thing. Where we feel like we need to monetize everything, because it's not good enough, unless we're making money off of it. We get that question a lot where we don't, you know, right. As of this episode, we don't have a Patreon. We don't sell merch, we're not, you know, we might do it at some point. But we have no plan on making this our full time job. We say that all the time. This is not our full time job. This is something that we do and a lot of people are like, why do you spend time doing this podcast when you're not making any money off of it? Well, the point isn't too monetize it but because we're told that for something to be worth something, you have to get money for it. That that becomes a very common question for us. 

Eric Wesselmann  29:45  
You know, but when asked, you know, why are you doing it? like my first response in my mind, because I've been asked that to why I'm writing on psychology and comics or teaching it and my response is because I can and I like it.

Elle LaVie  29:58  
Yeah, Exactly. 

Eric Wesselmann  30:00  
Now, I also do want to recognize that that's part of my privilege, right? That I am in a situation, socioeconomically even within my particular job, there are plenty of psychology departments where not only would this not be valued, but it might actually go against me. And I'm very privileged that I'm not that I'm in a situation. I'm not just saying that because my boss is here.

Elle LaVie  30:24  
This thing with social media and social media, obviously, Ash and I are old enough that it has not been part of our lives forever. We aren't as attached to likes and comments and things as the 20-something generation that is behind us. And I know that right now, with that being the only social outlet, I'm seeing a lot of what you're talking about, like with competing, but with posting, where they're doing these very specific posts and doing these very certain things, just to get the responses. And then when they don't, they get very upset, and then they feel like they failed, or that they're not worth anything because their post isn't getting hundreds of likes, and like I've had that happen every once in a while, myself, even where you start getting a little concerned like, oh, are these cons that booked us for guesting gonna want to keep booking us if we're not still getting likes on Instagram? Because, you know, there are still some conventions that base whether or not you're allowed to guest on how many Instagram followers you have, which the algorithm come on that's like the big source of the imposter syndrome right now is fighting the social media algorithms. And then feeling like you're failing, because the algorithms are failing, and then you might be doing fine. But if you're basing what you're putting out creativity on what types of social media feedback you're getting, you're just gonna end up in this awful circle. 

Scott Jordan  31:56  
Yes, you are. 

Elle LaVie  31:57  
Yeah, it's gonna make you go down and down and down and down further. And I mean, Instagram is their algorithm is atrocious, like, everybody gotta chill with Instagram. It's not like Facebook, where you don't reach anybody. But so everyone's trying to find the new like, the new thing is the Tiktok, which we don't understand, because we're too old. The new thing is the Tiktok. So now everybody feels like they have to have video setups in their houses, to keep up with the social media trends to be worthy of continuing to cosplay. It's a little mind boggling for me being a little bit older, that it's not something that has always been in my life. But I'm seeing a lot of the stress in our younger community members, they're in a tough spot, our early 20 to mid 20s, where they probably just started working, they don't have all the time that the teenagers have to make videos and things of that nature, stressing out that their momentum in the community is going to fall because they can't keep up with the trend. Because the trend is now based on how much of that time do you have at home? And how much mental capacity do you have to keep up with the specific trend? There are some people who have a lot of mental capacity and time. And then there's a lot of us that don't, it's like you can almost feel the stress in people's stories. The apologies, there's so many apologies in stories. I'm sorry, I haven't put out a new post. I'm sorry that I haven't done a new video. I'm sorry that I'm not posting work in progress. I had done that at one point. And then at one point, I made a post and went I'm not going to be sorry, because what am i sorry for? This is my hobby, and I have to live my life and it will do what it does when it does. That's part of the reason we're on hiatus right now is we both went this is not enjoyable right now, we need a break, because what is the point of doing it if you're not enjoying it?

Eric Wesselmann  33:57  
So you said something earlier that I've been sort of perseverating on. So I didn't know much about imposter syndrome before this, like I knew the colloquially so I decided, you know, most of my expertise is I know how to delve into into research and, and read it and figure it out. So I gave myself a crash course on imposter syndrome research. Now earlier you mentioned this isn't your career, right? This is just a hobby. So why, you know, why do you still feel it? You that seemed to be the question you asked me looking through the literature, most of the work on imposter syndrome sort of assumes it's in the career domain. But I don't think it has to be exclusively that I think the bigger part is that it involves a domain that's core to your self concept. We can have hobbies that we kind of enjoy casually. And then we can have hobbies that we might consider ourselves fans of. Right? And when you take that step, it moves closer to how you define yourself, right? It's not the only way you define yourself. right but it's a big part of it. Even if you are not making money off something if you're I'm saying You I don't mean you specifically. I mean, the colloquial, you now,

Ashlyn LaVie  35:02  
I mean you specifically, Elle, but- 

Elle LaVie  35:05  
I mean, this all applies to me. Let's be perfectly honest, this is fascinating.

Eric Wesselmann  35:10  
Well and I mean, it's, you know, I used you too because I feel it myself in various ways. And that's what I think is interesting about the literature is whether it's talking about a job, or what I'm thinking is just something that's core to yourself. It is something that we all can feel to some degree, some of us may feel it more regularly than others. Some of us may only feel it in certain contexts, right? But this is why I've seen some people sort of try to avoid using the word syndrome, because it's sort of as Scott mentioned earlier, it's sort of pathologizing, or clinicalizes it I think I just created a word there

Scott Jordan  35:46  
Awesome dude.

Eric Wesselmann  35:47  
Thank you. But but it is, it is something that we, we struggle with

Scott Jordan  35:51  
This concept that we call identity, looking at how the brain works in terms of in relation to who we think we are, who we believe ourselves to be, I have this phrase that I've used for about 10 years, it's called identity follows circumstance. And what that means is, in order for you to feel yourself to be someone that someone has to have happened many, many, many times, just like when you learned to walk, your body had to incorporate gravity and your own mass into how your brain and muscles were coordinated. And they only work now because it's unconscious, put yourself in an unpredictable environment, for example, an uneven staircase. And you can't use that unconscious stuff anymore, because it's predicting the regularities you've lived through. So what that means is that your memories are constantly providing a background for your experience of whatever moment you're in. For me, imposter syndrome, is this idea that your unconscious assumptions about who you are, have not caught up with the the actual successes that you have experienced. And we can never predict what about our experience is going to become who we are. We talked earlier about all these little adventures that happen and cosplays that we don't often experience as motivators for why we go. All of these things that happen as we do something become part of what we expect later. And it becomes part of who we think we are. If you look generationally at the impact of COVID, you two, have extensive experience being with people at cons when you were hit with the COVID world, your identity as cosplayers you believe yourself unconsciously to be cosplayers, because you had done it over and over and over. Right? Younger people haven't had that yet. So when they got thrown into COVID, they don't have this rich wealth of, of identity, about being a cosplayer that they can bring to the fore, when they're looking at all those likes on social media. And for them, their identity about being cosplayers is being mediated by these two dimensional images, they don't get to hang out and go out and have a beer later, they don't get to have those little adventures that you guys have. That's all wrapped up in what it means to be a cosplayer. So therefore, they're very vulnerable, because they don't have the wealth of experience that the two of you have, I think we're seeing right now. And I guess I started with this earlier, we're seeing right now how much we're dependent on the context we're in to sustain a certain identity. And these young people who are trying to develop young adult identities in this, in this non adult space is just extremely difficult, because there's nothing but the likes, there's nothing but the words, when you're at a con and you sit there and have a conversation with someone, the two of you, your bodies start to resonate. In other words, you take turns talking to each other, you laugh, all kinds of complex things happen, that just can't happen on zoom, or Skype. They can't bring that to their memories, right? They don't have that there. So you guys are much more immune to the kind of stresses they might be experiencing. And the only advice I can give them is the same advice I give anybody who tries to parse out an identity based on popularity. It's a trap. Because you end up not being yourself, you end up being what the public likes. Now, you already said earlier, I stopped thinking that way that therefore makes you less immune to that's stress now like we all like to be liked. And we like the likes, you know, my maximum likes on a Facebook post. Usually, if I have a good one, it's maybe 36. When I get that 36 like post it's cool, right? So we like that stuff. At the same time. In my age and with my my life of experience, I'm not as vulnerable to, to the stresses caused by selection or D selection or inclusion or exclusion in those media. It's not that I mean, I'm vulnerable to it, but there's this whole world of experience. I bring to it. These the younger people, they, unfortunately, they just don't right now don't have the opportunity to, because they don't understand because our culture doesn't understand that who we become is about everything we're in, all of that becomes activated when we're thinking about it. And when we're in the moment, and so your experiences in the end are going to help, you know, flesh out who you are later on. And if they're at home, setting up video studios, I mean, some of the stuff I've seen is basically professional modeling, I mean, believably sophisticated photographs, that, you know, they sat there and shot for hours, to get just the right angle, and then you know, they Photoshop the hell out of it, when it was done. This level of production, it's a different thing than sewing something together, going to a place and being with other people who are wearing costumes. It's It's, it's, it's almost bordering on professional modeling. That's never a space you want to compete, because then you really become a slave to the basis, the most basic aspects of the human condition. And I'll stop there.

Ashlyn LaVie  41:07  
Well I'm curious for like, like you had mentioned. And like Eric had mentioned earlier, when we were talking about social media posts, and how you're only putting out what you actually want people to see, in those situations, I'm curious to see how the community as a whole is going to react to some of these personas that people have created on social media, once we are finally able to get back into kind of the norm of what we're used to being the norm before COVID, where we get to see people in person and deal with them on a regular basis, and how the identities that people have created on social media are going to relate to the identities that kind of evolve, as they're put back into interpersonal relationships, one on one socially. And I think a lot of what you were talking about, as far as you know, us being a little bit more immune, and having kind of those freedoms, it's very similar to us not making this our full time job, like we don't rely on what other people or sponsors, or patrons, or what have you want as far as content goes, we are not slaves to what the money would dictate. So we're able to have a little bit more creative freedom, in terms of these are the topics that we think are important. And these are the topics that we want to talk about without having to worry about, oh, well, are we gonna get funded for this?

Scott Jordan  42:38  
Oh, Eric, and I do the same thing in our, you know, do you get a grant or not. And in a lot of universities, you can't get tenured, if you don't get external grants, which means that your research gets dictated by what the what the funding agency thinks is important. And one thing that I've worked very hard in my department to do since I've been chair for over a decade is to increase what I call intellectual diversity. And to have everybody appreciate each other as creative scholars, you've got to publish in peer reviewed work, your work has to be examined by the public experts to try to create one of those as being better than the other is actually anti evolutionary, it's anti diversity. And it kind of arrogant if you actually think you know what the best thing is, that's not how keeping fire came to be. So, the money is actually a constraint, it's not freedom.

Ashlyn LaVie  43:31  
Well, and I think there's a lot to be said about something that you have passion in talking about or creating in or researching something that you're interested in. There's a lot to be said about what the final product quality wise is going to be if it's something you're passionate about versus something that you're just kind of assigned. I think most recently, I don't know if you guys have followed the information about Tonester from TikTok, the paint mixer who got fired from his old job? He is- 

Elle LaVie  44:00  
Oh yes. 

Ashlyn LaVie  44:00  
He's got over a million followers on TikTok because of these paint mixing videos and he got fired from his place of employment for it, somebody recognized that passion and creativity that he had and actually recruited him into their paint company instead. So now they've got this very passionate and dedicated employee who already has a very high social media following- 

Scott Jordan  44:22  
Yeah

Ashlyn LaVie  44:23  
-who is only going to benefit their business. 

Eric Wesselmann  44:25  
Your discussion of, or your point about how being in the pandemic and, and sort of that restricting our interactions to just this sort of curated polished virtual space, it takes a lot of our basic human needs, whether we grew up in the with social media, or whether we've kind of aged into it, it kind of forces us to be less complex in terms of the way that we exist. And the way that we get our needs met, for those of us, you know, in this virtual space here, who didn't grow up with social media, right, we have various ways that we get interpersonal validation, right, and social connection, whether it be through our jobs, or our friend circles, or whatever. Now we're all kind of deprived of that, right. So where we previously might have thought of our ourself in different spheres as being somewhat complex, we have to get all of that validation in a very narrow channel, right. And if you're starting to mix it now with not just I want someone to say they like what I did, because that makes me feel good. But I also have to get some money out of it. You know, and this is the only way that I can get that. Which whereas, you know, before now you might have gotten compliments on your your, you know, costumes, just idiosyncratically walking by someone, now you only get it in this format. And people behave differently digitally than they do in person for a lot of reasons. I think it's very, very dangerous, because we're being forced to be less complex, hope that we can bounce back.

Scott Jordan  46:05  
Know that we'll adapt whatever context throws our way short of you know, famine and nuclear war, we'll move forward, whatever, but the forward is not what we know. No one knows what forward means. So I agree with you on that.

Elle LaVie  46:21  
It'll definitely be an adventure when things start to slowly go back. But they're never going to go back to what they were before because you can't duplicate. I mean, after this kind of an event, things are going to change. That's just how it works. Like you've been changed by your environment and what has been occurring. So I'm, I'm interested to see what convention culture looks like when it returns, and what parts of some of this social media focus sticks, and what parts of it start to kind of float off and what the new, quote unquote normal for the cosplayer kind of looks like, once we start having a hybrid of in person and online, I think we'll have kind of an interesting, I don't even know, I mean, I'm sure it's gonna be interesting. I just don't have, any idea what its gonna look like.

Scott Jordan  47:16  
I think you're gonna see the emergence of digital platforms for different con structures. Ace Comic Con, Wizard Con, creating subscriptions, producing content year round that's available virtually. And what's really really cool about that is that annual get together will mean that much more. Eric and I, we went to Wizard Con for the f-, well Er I don't know, I went for the first time in 2015. I went there for the weekend, we had fun, we came home and I didn't have any Wizard Con thoughts in my mind. Until I went to the next Wizard Con, that's going to change with this content, I know they're going to create an I know mean, Scott's predicting, you're going to get just the community is going to expand to an annual continuous monthly virtual content, distribution, whatever, like TV shows, by the way. And then when you come then to that annual event, you're going to have this whole monthly experience or content experience of those people virtually that is just going to amplify I think the fun people have at the annual event, the unleashing of creativity that's going to happen is going to be something we've not seen. So we're all in a crap situation right now. And I think I think it's going to be rather glorious when we get out of it. It's gonna be different for me I'm totally into this virtual this virtual con stuff. I don't know when you guys started your podcast, I-

Elle LaVie 48:48
Two weeks before everything shut down for the pandemic. 

Scott Jordan 48:52
Yeah, and now-

Elle LaVie  48:53  
Literally like we did C2E2. 

Scott Jordan  48:56  
Yeah. 

Elle LaVie  48:56  
Which was like the the broadcast of our podcast starting and then two weeks later everything shut down.

Eric Wesselmann  49:04  
Yeah 

Ashlyn LaVie  49:04  
Yep 

Scott Jordan  49:04  
And after a year or two of doing this this will be part of your identity as cosplayers right 

Ashlyn LaVie  49:09  
Absolutely. 

Scott Jordan  49:09  
and this, so that's part of that's part of how it's all going to change. I myself love this stuff, I had started Dark Loops last March for a professional organization known as the Science, the Society for My Matter Research and I was going to do a podcast, where I'd call in scientists and philosophers, and we talk about sci fi movies. And then it just became what it is. Because I could do it, as Eric said earlier. And and I just love these conversations and the highest number of watches anything that I've done, have had received as maybe 100 and some. At the same time, you know, when I do like you're doing in your podcast, I want that long, drawn out second glass of wine after dinner conversation, right? That's what I want to have. Because I think that's a lost art in our culture. And I want people to have the opportunity to listen to that. Now, people I've heard people say, well, YouTube's only about 17 minutes this or that? It's like, Well, no, YouTube might seem to you like, it's about that, right? Because that's what you're looking for. But I'm putting something out there. And for the people that might want something different. And it keeps me going, provides a new way for me to be Scott Jordan. So COVID sucks. At the same time, once we learned how to keep that fire going, creativity paid for itself. And you guys are probably experiencing yourself a little bit differently these days, because you've got this podcast thing. That's that's just what we do. We keep reinventing ourselves that that's what it takes. Otherwise, we just get buried. 

Ashlyn LaVie  50:41  
Yeah. 

Elle LaVie  50:42  
Yep.

Ashlyn LaVie  50:42  
I do think that we're gonna see a lot more of the virtual stuff going forward. Like you had mentioned, there were only a handful of cons that did the virtual ticket previously. But I would expect to see a lot more conventions now that they realize they can technologically handle doing virtual content to go ahead and have that extra like subscription service where maybe their main events is broadcast over the internet for anybody in the world to come and enjoy this little piece of their con while it's happening. For the people that aren't able to attend in person.

Scott Jordan  51:16  
Yeah, we saw the evolution of the con this last summer. I'm not gonna say any names, because I like to participate in all of them. But 

Ashlyn LaVie  51:22  
Yes. 

Scott Jordan  51:24  
One con really, really well known con, Eric and I did a panel with Wakanda Forever: The Psychology of Black Panther. And this con put their very recognizable logo on our video and let the world watch it for free. So not only do we have now the street cred of having their logo on one of our videos, 4000, 4200 people across the world have watched that video, that would have never happened at a con, we would have gone up, 

Ashlyn LaVie  51:52  
Yep 

Scott Jordan  51:53  
There would have been people in the room. I think Eric and I have maxed out at 150, no maybe 300 maybe. And and that's it, and it's gone. And there's no record. That was for me, that was brilliant on their part, because the whole thing then was nothing but a goodwill commercial. Right. And then there's another con that put all that stuff behind paywalls that elicits a different vibe in the consumer. Right. And it doesn't come across as a goodwill gesture. And then there's another con series that basically developing this distributing content every once in a while vibe, that for free. But you have to pay for photos and personal interviews. And I think that's another brilliant take the freeness It's a commercial man. Okay, just get your commercial out there. And so we're seeing that evolution take place right now for this evolution to be taking place so clearly right in front of us is, right? It's just my kind of stuff because we've all been pent up in our homes doing this kind of thing for so long. So I'm really looking forward to getting back.

Eric Wesselmann  52:59  
Ain't no party like a con party.

Elle LaVie  53:00  
It's true. I mean, I don't know if if you guys have not gone to Colossalcon you should. Because that's literally all it is.

Scott Jordan  53:09  
Sounds like fun. Sounds like a colossal blast.

Elle LaVie  53:12  
I'm going to guess when this comes out, which will probably be about March, we probably haven't quite returned to the con scene. In the meantime, what advice would you want to give to cosplayers to kind of working their way through this difficult time with? Am I doing enough? Am I not doing enough? and kind of combating with social media a little bit?

Scott Jordan  53:38  
I'll just say one thing, and then I'll stop. You have to be aware of your ambition. You have to sit down and you have to ask yourself, what are you going to be upset if you don't have? What are you going to be upset about if you don't have it? And then you have to look at everything that goes on when you're getting that and ask you oh so am I going to be upset if I'm not sewing? If I'm am I going to be upset if I'm not meeting my friends? It was what what because that'll tell you what you really want. And I think once you can become a bit insightful about what you want, then you've got another frame to put it in when you're suffering when you don't get it. But if you don't bring it to consciousness, if you don't become aware of you want, then all you do is suffer when you don't get it, I don't think ambition is something we can get rid of. Ambition is like love, you're not in control of it. So recognize it as a part of you that you don't control and it's your passion, try to become cognitively aware of what it is. And I'm not saying get rid of it. But don't don't lie to yourself with platitudes like, Oh, I really don't care if I win, what a bunch of crap. Y'all care if we win. 

Elle LaVie  54:41  
We all care.

Scott Jordan  54:43  
Exactly. So don't do that to yourself, be honest with yourself. And that allows you to be honest with things that you might call failure. But when you call that failure, you're totally devalue the adventure. Right? So try to do as much as you can you just dig the adventure. Invalidating the struggle is the surest way to just constant misery,

Eric Wesselmann  55:06  
I'll add to, in addition to being honest with yourself, be kind to yourself, and recognize that what you are seeing everyone else, quote unquote, do that once again, very curated, 

Scott Jordan  55:17  
Also that that you may not have the experience to deal with right now. Like I said, you guys have a lot of experience that you can bring to the moment. And you guys turned it into a podcast. And I have to admit, I'm doing the same thing with Dark Loops, right, as a part of my life that I want to keep going. So instead of waiting around to be invited to all these things, you know, I create this space, and not being upset when I don't want when my likes don't compete with YouTube reactions, you know, I'm not gonna it's just not gonna happen. Give yourself like Eric said, be kind to yourself. And hopefully, we'll have a culture in the coming years, that'll spend a little more time talking about how we all really are related to each other connected to each other and, and everything that happens is part of who we are. So we can be a little kinder to not just each other, but the world. And the way we think about the world. And okay, I said I wasn't going to say

Eric Wesselmann  56:13  
And I remembered my thread, 

Elle LaVie  56:14  
Oh good

Eric Wesselmann  56:15  
Which in some ways is channel Scott anyway, because I'm pretty sure this is something he said to me or something that emerged out of our various beer conversations. The word should is funny, right? So earlier, in the podcast, you talked about what people are being told they they should be doing, or they shouldn't be focusing on or whatever. And when someone tells you what you should be doing, they're really telling you what they think is important, 

Scott Jordan  56:37  
Yep

Eric Wesselmann  56:37  
What they they should be doing and putting that on you. And if that's not what you want to do, don't let them come into your brain and tell you what, what should is because that's, that's their values, their identity, right? And so, if you want to just have this as passion, hobby, right, and you don't want to make money off it, then don't right don't feel like you have to unless it's something that you are, you're honest with yourself that you want to bring it back to what Scott said, 

Scott Jordan  57:06  
No, Eric you make a very good point. Why are they telling you what you should do? Because they need you to be a certain person so they can be who they think they're supposed to be? But then why does Why would they tell you what you should do? Why does that matter to you? So we what we do is we say, Oh, I don't care what they say. And she doth protest too much? Of course you do. That's why you said anything in the first place. This is most intense, probably in families, right? These are relationships that we just never can get out of because they're in us. And mom leave me alone, why do you always judge me, right? Well, why do you care that your mom's judging you, the neighbor judges you all the time and you don't care. So recognize that dependence, and don't beat yourself up because you are dependent on people. That that that culture just beats the hell out of us because being dependent on people is weak, and this is precisely the way of thinking about human beings that has gotten us to where we are in this culture. Don't spend time as Eric said, saying should right wrong just ask yourself why

Elle LaVie  58:08  
Just processing all the things this has been a fascinating conversation. 

Ashlyn LaVie  58:12  
This is a very fascinating conversation. Definitely. Thank you so much for joining us. 

Elle LaVie  58:20  
It makes me miss graduate school. I don't think I've had this stimulating of a conversation in at least three years. So thank you for that 

Scott Jordan  58:26  
Thank you for inviting us and we very much appreciate chatting with you guys.

Elle LaVie  58:30  
Well then-

Ashlyn LaVie  58:30  
And maybe when we can do this in person again. We could do this in person. 

Scott Jordan  58:34  
Oh we would definitely hang out and we'll argue about the third season of Titan Absolutely.

Elle LaVie  58:39  
Let's do it. Yes, cuz we will hopefully see you guys at Planet Funk Con. Cross our fingers.

Scott Jordan  58:45  
I've got to go to Funk Con. I have to go. Eric's been there. I haven't. So- 

Elle LaVie  58:48  
It's a good time. Because I know before it got cancelled. I know Eric had asked if I was available for a panel with- I think you were gonna have me play Harley weren't you? for a panel?

Eric Wesselmann  58:58  
That was gonna be I think at a Quad Con

Elle LaVie  59:00  
Ooh it was at Quad Con. That's right.

Eric Wesselmann  59:01  
Because I was giving a Joker talk there as well. 

Elle LaVie  59:04  
That's right. 

Eric Wesselmann  59:05  
But no we, so yeah, whenever Funk Con does happen again, I think I've been sort of in conversation with them. And I think we'll be able to, to figure out at least one panel, if not, maybe more, as soon as I hear from them. We'll talk a little bit more about [inaudible]

Elle LaVie  59:19  
Yes, sure. Yeah, I know I signed our contract, we have a contract. 

Ashlyn LaVie  59:25  
That's weird.

Elle LaVie  59:26  
What

Scott Jordan  59:26  
You have a Funk Con contract.

Elle LaVie  59:30  
A Funk Con contract. 

Scott Jordan  59:31  
You should frame that, man, that's pretty cool.

Elle LaVie  59:35  
Right. Well, would you like to tell our friends again, where they can find you if they would like to hear more about your research and your different talks that you give?

Eric Wesselmann  59:45  
Definitely find both of us on the Illinois State University's Department of Psychology homepage. And you can also find some of our podcasts as the site as the WGLT Psych Geeks at WGLT.org. Just Google, you know, search Psych Geeks there. And then I've got that blog called Film CULTure that's through the Normal Theater. If you Google that. And then you know, there's that's Sterling's Popular Culture Psychology series, edited by Travis Langley, that we contribute to.

Scott Jordan  1:00:17  
All the places Eric mentioned, you can find, find me You can also find me on Dark Loops Productions channel on YouTube. Basically, what we do is podcasts regarding live life, the arts, the sciences, and all things pop culture. They're long podcasts, they're not short. Also, there's a thing we're doing at Illinois State University called ReggieCon con that asks the question: what's your story? And basically, we do monthly virtual con panels, focusing on a particular comic or graphic novel that celebrates diversity and inclusion. So, so far, we did. Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá's Daytripper, the Midnight Angels to celebrate LGBTQ LGBTQ month. And then we have four, four panels coming up in spring, you can find that at Illinois State, Illinois State backslash ReggieCon or just type in ReggieCon in Google. And those are free open to the public. And we do our best to answer all the questions that come up on while we're online. So

Elle LaVie  1:01:23  
Oh, and I'll make sure that if you guys send me any links, I'll post them again in our notes so that our friends can click the links and hang out. Oh, I think I'm gonna have to check out ReggieCon because that sounds pretty fun.

Scott Jordan  1:01:40  
Oh, very cool. Thank you.

Elle LaVie  1:01:42  
See, see what musings you come up with for different topics and things 

Scott Jordan  1:01:49  
We just you you get four nerds together and you just kinda have fun, you know, 

Elle LaVie  1:01:53  
Well yeah, obviously 

Scott Jordan  1:01:54  
Just gotta have fun

Elle LaVie  1:01:55  
That's whe whole point in the end.

Scott Jordan  1:01:57  
Yeah, it's also a really, really cool thing about contemporary culture is the nerds won. really is a dominant force in culture right now. And what I love about is that it's a culture created, devoted to inclusivity diversity and creativity. So I'm in 100%,

Elle LaVie  1:02:13  
thank you again so much for joining us. Hopefully we can have you both back in the future for another wonderful conversation. You want to close us out Ash? 

Ashlyn LaVie  1:02:25  
Yeah, again, I'm Ash. 

Elle LaVie  1:02:27  
I'm Elle. 

Ashlyn LaVie  1:02:28  
We are La Vie Cosplay. 

Elle LaVie  1:02:30  
And this is Sh*t Cosplayers Say