Something You Should Know
Why Audiences Behave the Way They Do & The Hidden Benefits of Uncertainty - SYSK Choice
06 Dec 2025
Chapter 1: What are the benefits of smelling a Christmas tree?
Today on Something You Should Know, the benefits of smelling a Christmas tree and all it can do for you. Then the psychology and magic of an audience.
It's interesting how unanimous audiences can be. When something funny happens, you don't like get half the audience laughing and the other half of the audience growling. Audiences tend to pick up energy from the other people and they tend to reach unanimity.
Also, three powerful ways that will help you get more done in less time. And the art and science of uncertainty and why being unsure of yourself can actually be a good thing.
It's a real game changer when you can begin to see that uncertainty is a wonderful signal that you don't know.
Chapter 2: How did audiences evolve in their behavior and reactions?
And now you can investigate. In fact, uncertainty is actually highly related to curiosity.
All this today on Something You Should Know.
Ah, the Regency era. You might know it as the time when Bridgerton takes place, or as the time when Jane Austen wrote her books. The Regency era was also an explosive time of social change, sex scandals, and maybe the worst king in British history. Vulgar History's new season is all about the Regency era, the balls, the gowns, and all the scandal.
Listen to Vulgar History, Regency era, wherever you get podcasts. Something you should know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers.
Hi, welcome to Something You Should Know. One of the great things about the holiday season, I think most people can agree on, is all the smells that smell like the holidays. And the one smell I think that universally is loved is the smell of a Christmas tree, a pine tree. The power of pine is supposedly actually good for you.
For centuries, some people have gone to great lengths to get access to ancient pine forests for their healing powers. The scent of pine has been found to reduce stress, hostility, and depression. A 15-minute walk through a local Christmas tree farm exposes you to some powerful aromatherapy the old-fashioned way.
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Chapter 3: What are effective productivity techniques to enhance efficiency?
Be sure to take some deep, slow breaths as you stroll through the evergreens. That scent of pine can even help relieve chest congestion and supposedly soothe sore muscles. And that is something you should know. You may not have thought about this very much, but I have. And that is the magic of an audience.
Chapter 4: What is the significance of audience energy during performances?
Think about it. When you watch a movie or a play or some other performance with other people as part of an audience, It is a very different experience than watching alone. For example, you might watch a comedy in a theater and laugh your head off along with the rest of the crowd, but watch that same movie by yourself in your living room? You're almost guaranteed not to laugh as much.
Maybe not at all. Being part of an audience changes things.
Chapter 5: Why is uncertainty considered a powerful tool for decision-making?
It is itself an experience. So what is it about audiences? How did someone even come up with the idea of putting people together in a group to watch something? And then how did the audience members learn what to do when they watched it? Here to discuss the power and the magic and the history of audiences is Robert Viagas.
He is editor-in-chief of Encore Monthly, the national theater magazine, and he spent much of his career working at Playbill, the iconic theater program company. He's author of a book called Write This Way, A History of the Audience. Hi, Robert. Welcome to Something You Should Know. Hello, Michael. So I don't remember when I first realized the importance and the significance of an audience.
But I do remember there's someone talking about it that made me think like, you know, imagine a TV game show without an audience or a late night comedy show without an audience. Like the audience is not just there to watch it. It's part of it. It's part of the show. And when did you first kind of get in on this?
Well, you know, I've been going to see things since I was a kid. And a lot of other people, I think they approach it. They feel like they're fish in water. They don't realize that they're in something, that they're part of something. And yet it's an incredible experience.
Chapter 6: How can embracing uncertainty lead to better outcomes?
experience for people. You respond differently when you're part of an audience. And I noticed this early on. Now, I think I may have mentioned that I've seen more than 2000 shows just on Broadway alone from my years at Playbill, but I've been a member of movie audiences, television audiences, et cetera, et cetera.
And I'm always acutely aware of how I'm experiencing things, not just as myself, but as part of an audience.
Yeah, well, and think about how when you watch, say, something funny, when you watch it alone, you almost never laugh. But when you watch it with a group of people...
it's funny or when you watch a football game on tv by yourself you probably don't jump up and scream and yell but if you have other people in your living room with you there's there's something that happens and and i don't know what that is do you know what that is well you you gather uh significance from the people around you have you ever been like in a show or a movie they'll say a funny line and the whole audience will laugh
And you didn't laugh because like, I don't get it. But then like one second later, you get it. And it's the audience that told you that that thing was funny. And so you gather that kind of energy. I mean, look at these people who pay hundreds and hundreds of dollars to see Taylor Swift. Look at Taylor Swift.
could stay home they could they could watch her videos they could listen to her albums but they feel that there is some kind of special electricity that they get from being around other taylor swift fans being in the presence of taylor swift being having that experience as as a group stephen king wrote a really interesting book uh called dance macabre about
About why people go to see horror movies, something that they, you know, the things that are horror and horror movies you would never want to happen in your own life or to even be present when that happens. But people consider it entertainment. Why?
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Chapter 7: How does the environment influence audience reactions?
This was King's theory that people go to measure themselves against what they see. They say, well, this is going to be a really scary Stephen King movie. Right. I wonder if I could take it. I wonder if I'm strong enough to take it. And they go and they see the movie and like it'll be a horrible murder scene. And you go, oh, that was awful. That was awful. But I but I could live through it.
I could I could survive it.
Do we have a sense of the history of audiences like when somebody said, hey, why don't we put on a little show here and get some people to come and sit down and watch us? Because it kind of sounds weird when you say it that way, but somebody must have done something like that to say, let's make people watch us do something and see what they think.
Well, you know, audiences had to be trained. Audiences had to learn how to be audiences. Back in the days of the Greeks, they loved poetry and they would have poets who would speak poetry and they would, most of their poetry was about their gods and about their religion. And they became so popular, they would have one or two or sometimes three or sometimes a whole group of people.
They would call it, they called it a chorus and they would all say, the poetry at the same time. And audiences loved this. And they would say, well, the god Zeus did this and Zeus did that. And then one day there was one of these people in the chorus. It was a guy named Thespis. And that name sounds familiar. This is where we get the word thespian from. Thespis did something incredibly radical.
He walked in front of the chorus. And instead of saying Zeus did this, Zeus did that, he said, I am Zeus. And here is what I did. And people consider him the first actor. And I have to tell you, audiences were shocked. They were like, he's not Zeus. He doesn't look like Zeus. He just looks like it looks like Vespas from down the block. But after a while, it was like, well, you know.
i don't know what what zeus sounds like but i bet he sounds just like that i think i think thespis is doing a good job and so audiences began to accept that actors that performers could
embody another character and it's and it's interesting for a long time there was only one actor supported by the chorus then they uh playwrights came along and said i have an idea we'll have two actors and they can argue with each other and that whole idea of a chorus all speaking at the same time.
Can you imagine going into a movie where all the actors were saying the same lines at the same time? It would sound weird. Ah, but if you're at a musical, they have literally have a chorus and they do exactly what the Greek choruses did, except they sing it. And audiences accept that perfectly. Well, audiences have been trained now to accept that, uh,
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Chapter 8: What are the psychological impacts of being part of an audience?
It wasn't, you know, actors wearing a train costume. It was a train and it was coming straight at them. And people screamed in terror. They thought a train was coming at them. But now but after that, people laughed at themselves and they said, well, you know, we we accept now that we could see a picture of a train and we know it's not going to hurt us.
And gradually over the years, many, many other things that have been added to the way they create images, the way they create plays, etc., audiences have gradually learned to respond in certain ways that they think now has always been there, but it hasn't.
Is there any sense of when people started applauding?
Yes. Well, the earliest reference that I could find to it is back in the days of the Roman Empire when a Roman general would be out on a campaign and it was a successful campaign, which many of them were. When they would come back into Rome, they would have a parade and they called it a triumph. That's where we get the word triumphant from. They called it a triumph and the
The general would march at the front. Sometimes if they had defeated an enemy, the enemy would be dragged along in chains. And people were required to express their approval and excitement by banging their hands together. Now, if you think about it, It's an odd way to show that you like something, just banging your hands together.
But people started to do it and it came to be applied to other things. And gradually it became the way that people expressed their approval of things. Similar with booing. Things happened early on and there were different ways of booing. People have now kind of come to accept that yelling boo is the way to express disapproval. But if you think about it,
I mean, it seems so natural, but if you think about it, it's actually kind of a weird way to express disapproval. Yeah, but what would be better? Because it seems to work now. Well, I'll tell you, for a long time, and you've probably seen this in old movies and things, people would express their displeasure by throwing things at the actors, literally throwing things at the actors.
Even in the days of Shakespeare, when he had what they called the groundlings, the people who would stand right in front of the stage, and they would sell them hazelnuts and cockle shells. That was the snacks that they would eat. And if they didn't like...
what they saw on the stage they would throw the shells throw the shells at the actors now that is that is one area where they were provided with that by the theater obviously not the throw at the stage but when i see old movies of of people throwing eggs at the stage or throwing rotten fruit at the stage
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