Top 5: Throw Yourself into Fandom

To celebrate five years of The Happiness Lab, Dr Laurie has picked out the five episodes she loves the most. And this is a special one - Nerd Out! The Happiness of Being a Fan. Really love a TV show; a boyband; a sci fi movie; or a celebrity? We're often too embarrassed to admit adoring some things for fear that we'll be seen as frivolous or childish - but we may be missing out on the happiness benefits that geeking out can bring. Dr Laurie explores the joy of fandom with Benedict Cumberbatch obsessive Tabitha Carvan, YA author Jennifer Lynn Barnes and Star Trek actor (and geek-vangelist) Wil Wheaton. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:55Laurie Santos?

  Pushkin.

• 2:03Laurie Santos?

  This fall marks the fifth birthday of The Happiness Lab. Since 2019, we've put out hundreds of episodes. But for our anniversary season, I've asked my producer, Ryan Dilly, to pull my five favorite episodes from the archive to release again. So you can check them out. Ryan, what's our number four episode?

• 2:18Speaker 03

  This one's called "Nerd Out: The Happiness of Being a Fan."

• 2:22Laurie Santos?

  Oh, right. I love this one. This is an entire episode about the happiness benefits of being a fan, something, Ryan, that, as my friend, you know, I spend a lot of time doing.

• 2:30Speaker 03

  That's true. So tell the audience, other than psychology, what do you nerd out over?

• 2:34Laurie Santos?

  Well, one thing, as you know, is that I nerd out a lot about Star Wars. In fact, at the most recent Comic Con in my city, I got to meet Billy Dee Williams, the Lando Calrissian, from the Star Wars series with my mom, which is a wonderful memory. The show is about a lot more than just being like a Star Wars or Star Trek, as we talk about in this episode, fan. It's really more about the psychological benefits that you can get from certain kinds of relationships that we have with celebrities and fictional characters and so on. It also talks a lot about the kinds of ways that we can be kinder to ourselves by being open to some of the goofiness that comes from fandom. And it also includes one of my favorite celebrity guests. So here it is. Nerd Out: The Happiness of Being a Fan.

• 3:18Speaker 04

  I blush when I think about this because it's like, oh, it's like remembering this love at first sight.

• 3:26Laurie Santos?

  This is author Tabitha Carvin. She's telling me how she felt for the man of her dreams.

• 3:31Speaker 04

  I was getting a takeaway coffee in a cafe, which was a novel experience to me because I had been breastfeeding and pregnant for so long. Like, I just felt like I hadn't drunk coffee in a thousand years.

• 3:43Laurie Santos?

  Before motherhood, Tabitha enjoyed an active career and lots of interests and hobbies. But after motherhood, Tabitha's two kids became the focus of her entire world. She had no time for herself or her own emotional needs.

• 3:55Speaker 04

  I wasn't depressed. I wasn't unwell. I was just preoccupied. I just, I realized I just didn't know who I was anymore. I couldn't hold on to any of the pieces that used to be there. They were completely gone.

• 4:10Laurie Santos?

  It was in this moment of personal crisis that he finally appeared.

• 4:14Speaker 04

  I was waiting for my coffee and the newspaper was open on a table and I saw an ad.

• 4:19Laurie Santos?

  The ad, innocuous enough, was for a new season of the television series Sherlock Holmes, starring the actor Benedict Cumberbatch.

• 4:27Speaker 04

  I had seen Benedict Cumberbatch many times before. I had thought not much of him, other than he was an unusual-looking man who appeared in many, many shows that I seem to watch.

• 4:40Laurie Santos?

  But Tabitha's reaction to this Benedict photo at this particular moment in her life felt very, very different.

• 4:47Speaker 04

  Just the sight of this man pulling on a leather glove and I just, I had this surprising feeling, which I could only describe as yearning. Like, I was like, I want to watch that show.

• 4:59Speaker 05

  Something's coming. Maybe it's Moriarty.

• 5:03Speaker 04

  I sat down to watch the latest episode of Sherlock and I just, I found myself, at this point, completely captivated by this man who I had seen 100 times before. This time, he looked completely different to me. I was mesmerized by his physical appearance. Everything about him, just, it felt like he shook my bones. I just felt more alive and awake in the moment, watching this TV show, than I had in the years previous, raising my children. And that's a shocking thing to say, because, you know, raising your children is supposed to be, you know, it is an objectively meaningful thing. But the reality is, this,

• 5:46Speaker 04

  sitting down to watch this completely silly, trivial TV show, somehow affected me more emotionally than all those, all those years of mothering.

• 6:00Laurie Santos?

  Tabitha watched and re-watched all the seasons of Sherlock. She became engrossed with the actor's many movies. She read and reread Benedict's online interviews. And she scrolled and smiled endlessly at his countless online photos. Nearly all of her free time was soon taken up with that distinctive face of his. Tabitha had become smitten with Benedict Cumberbatch.

• 6:24Speaker 04

  So the thing about Benedict Cumberbatch is that it starts with the voice, like a Jaguar trapped in a cello is how his voice has been described. The next thing is the cheekbones, because he has very distinctive cheekbones. And then the eyes actually make him look weird because they are just too far apart on his head. And then I think it's the lips, very full lips, excellent cupid bow, excellent hair. Should I keep going?

• 6:49Laurie Santos?

  But despite the joyful thrill that her new obsession brought, becoming so obsessed with a person she'd never met also made Tabitha feel kinda embarrassed.

• 6:58Speaker 04

  I felt ashamed, is actually, it sounds like an extreme emotion, but it seemed like something you should not be proud of. It felt inappropriate, it felt juvenile. It felt like a mental and emotional regression to a time that you're supposed to be completely done with by the time you're almost 40. And it made me feel profoundly embarrassed to the point that I didn't tell anyone about it for a long time.

• 7:26Laurie Santos?

  Now, it's entirely possible that you've never fallen as hard as Tabitha did for some random celebrity. You may not yet have felt the thrill and embarrassment that comes with being, it's called being cumbo-batched?

• 7:38Speaker 04

  Cumberbatch.

• 7:39Laurie Santos?

  Cumberbatch.

• 7:41Speaker 04

  Cumberbotch, that's when it goes wrong. That sounds bad.

• 7:46Laurie Santos?

  You may not personally know the thrill and embarrassment that comes with being cumber-batched. But I'm guessing that at some point in your life, you had something that you really geeked out about. That band, or book, or game, or movie that you knew way too much about, that you spent far too much money and time on. The kind of thing you adored so much that it went from being a regular, everyday sort of appreciation to a full-blown geeky, guilty pleasure. But could embracing a deep love of a seemingly trivial thing and doing so openly and without guilt be the key to feeling more connected and more present? Would each of us become a lot happier if we two could at least metaphorically get cumber-batched? Our minds are constantly telling us what to do to be happy.

• 8:30Laurie Santos?

  But what if our minds are wrong? What if our minds are lying to us, leading us away from what will really make us happy? The good news is that understanding the science of the mind can point us all back in the right direction. You're listening to the Happiness Lab with me, Dr. Laurie Santos.

• 8:52Laurie Santos?

  As Tabitha's excitement over all things Benedict grew, she slowly began revealing her obsession to the people closest to her. Most of her friends admitted to being pretty confused.

• 9:02Speaker 04

  They find it just inexplicable and it required an entire book for me to explain.

• 9:08Laurie Santos?

  That book is entitled, This Is Not a Book About Benedict Cumberbatch: The Joy of Loving Something, Anything, Like Your Life Depends on It.

• 9:15Speaker 04

  And initially, what I thought I was writing about was, why did this crazy thing happen to me, this perfectly normal person? It seemed beneath me. Sounds really snobby, but I mean, that is how I, that is how I felt about something like a celebrity crush, that it was not the kind of thing that someone like me should fall into.

• 9:36Laurie Santos?

  Tabitha experienced a complicated set of emotions, both about Benedict and about her obsession with Benedict. She'd never felt more joyful or alive as she did watching Sherlock. But spending so much time being a fangirl came with a lot of guilt.

• 9:50Speaker 04

  I was using my precious free time and precious free brain space to think about this guy, when you, I felt like I should be using that time to either think about my husband, or my children, the housework.

• 10:04Laurie Santos?

  Wasting her time on something so trivial also made her feel selfish.

• 10:08Speaker 04

  It's not about serving the needs of other people. It's not about tending to the needs of your children, or your family, or your domestic environment. It is something that is just for you.

• 10:22Laurie Santos?

  She'd also seen how the actors' hardcore fans, who lovingly refer to themselves as "cumberbitches", were portrayed in the news. The media called the cumberbitches hysterical, crazed, cult-like, and even terrifying.

• 10:35Speaker 04

  You know, I didn't look at that and think, "Oh yeah, these are my people. Like, I want to join that community. Sign me up." That was a huge stumbling block. I was like, "Hell no. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna put my hand up to be the subject of these kind of insults."

• 10:50Laurie Santos?

  But Tabitha wasn't just afraid of jeers and mockery. Her infatuation with her new crush was so powerful that it scared her. Tabitha hadn't experienced anything that extreme since she was a teenager.

• 11:02Speaker 04

  All I was doing was simply pursuing a feeling which made me feel good. It's amazing the extent to which that felt scary.

• 11:11Laurie Santos?

  But intense feelings like this are kind of what fandom is all about. I mean, the term "fan" comes from the Latin fanaticus, meaning frenzied by the gods. These days, we of course use the term for less divinely-inspired circumstances.

• 11:25Speaker 04

  It's just that some things seem normal for us to fan over, and some things don't.

• 11:32Laurie Santos?

  Take sports. No one bats an eye if you spend hundreds of dollars on T-shirts and posters and bumper stickers to show your devotion to a football team. No one calls you hysterical if you scream at the television when your favorite basketball player hits the perfect shot, or if you sulk when the home team loses.

• 11:48Speaker 04

  I mean, sports fandom is so normalized. You know, it's on the news every single night. That's wonderful. Like, it's a wonderful thing that we have nourished and supported as a society, because sports fans get a huge return on investment from that kind of dedication. And then, actually, that is all I was feeling towards Bad at Cumberbatch was exactly the same thing.

• 12:11Laurie Santos?

  So how can we overcome the stigma that has been historically attached to nerding out, and happily embrace our passions, no matter what they are? To find out, I tagged in an expert who understands the joys and downsides of unashamed fandom.

• 12:25Speaker 06

  Good morning.

• 12:26Laurie Santos?

  Good morning. Can you hear us?

• 12:28Speaker 06

  I can. Can you see me?

• 12:30Laurie Santos?

  Someone who's had a unique glimpse into both sides of the fandom relationship. Now we can see you.

• 12:38Laurie Santos?

  And with this seeing you comes the like, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, geeking out, but I'm gonna try to hold it together.

• 12:46Speaker 06

  You're doing great.

• 12:47Laurie Santos?

  It's also a celebrity who turns me into a bit of a fangirl myself.

• 12:51Speaker 06

  It's weird to introduce myself. Hi, my name is Wil Wheaton.

• 12:56Laurie Santos?

  If you're a nerd like me, Will needs no introduction. Will is an author, a blogger, the host of the YouTube board game show Tabletop, and most famously, he played Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation. But these days, Will is happy to be known as a geek. In fact, "Just a Geek" was the title of his first memoir, which chronicled his first steps towards fandom.

• 13:18Speaker 06

  It was third grade when we went to the library and I got my first sci-fi book. Like, I just devoured it. Like, I think I finished it that day. And that really started me on the path that I walked for the rest of my life.

• 13:33Laurie Santos?

  Young Will was especially drawn to one particular sci-fi franchise. He fell completely in love with the 1960s TV show Star Trek.

• 13:41Speaker 06

  Watching it in syndication over and over and over again, like, every time it was on, just everything stopped and I would watch that. That's what I really, really loved. So when I was 14 and found out I was auditioning for a new Star Trek series, I was beside myself.

• 14:02Laurie Santos?

  It's pretty rare that a fan gets to become part of the thing they love so much. Will remembers what it felt like to put on his first Starfleet uniform and to walk onto the set of the Enterprise for the first time.

• 14:13Speaker 06

  When you get there, you cannot see anything else except the reality of the starship that you are on. I loved walking there. I loved being alone there. I loved sitting in that set and pretending it was all real. It was a really safe, really happy place for me.

• 14:32Laurie Santos?

  But nerding out to Star Trek stuff wasn't Will's only happy place. You see, ever since he was a kid, Will has allowed himself to love lots and lots of nerdy things, all as deeply as any Cumberbitch worships Benedict.

• 14:45Speaker 06

  I am familiar with Cumberbitches.

• 14:47Laurie Santos?

  Will geeks out to Dungeons and Dragons, and old school arcade machines, and tabletop board games, and action figures, and comic books, and fantasy novels, and Harry Styles.

• 14:58Speaker 06

  Who I absolutely adore. And I never would have like, why would I have listened to a boy band guy ever in my life? That guy is amazing. What a remarkable human being, and so talented.

• 15:11Laurie Santos?

  As he explains in his new annotated memoir, Still Just a Geek, Will loves having the very intense, band-based passion that scared Tabitha so much.

• 15:20Speaker 06

  Being a nerd is not about the thing you love. It's about the way you love that thing. I really love the part of me that wakes up and sings when I'm around people who love the things with that kind of unselfconscious, nonjudgmental enthusiasm.

• 15:42Laurie Santos?

  Will is evangelical about the benefits of just absolutely loving stuff. He's gone from being just a professional geek to becoming a geek-vangelist, as it were.

• 15:52Speaker 06

  It's totally cool to be a nerd and love stuff. Like, I've always said, as long as the thing you love doesn't hurt another person, love it as hard as you can and get as much out of it as you possibly can.

• 16:04Laurie Santos?

  And it turns out that the science agrees with Will on this point. Being a geek, loving dorky things like your life depends on it, has far more powerful psychological benefits than you might expect. We'll explore why when the Happiness Lab returns after the break.

• 16:21Laurie Santos?

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• 17:06Laurie Santos?

  and organic cotton. And if a cashmere hoodie isn't quite right for someone on your list, Quince has so much more. From leather bags and jewelry to cozy scarves, down outerwear, and even hotel-quality bedding. Give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns, now available in Canada and the UK, too. And when Quince asks you where you heard about them, let them know it was the Happiness Lab. It's the best way to support the show. The holidays have a way of putting time into perspective. Another year around the table, another chance to hear a favorite story, another memory with the people who matter most.

• 17:47Laurie Santos?

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• 18:34Speaker 07

  So when I was in high school, I was really into Party of Five. I was really into Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the original Roswell. I have a very long list of all of these shows that I sort of went through one by one.

• 18:48Laurie Santos?

  This is my former Yale student, the psychologist and New York Times bestselling YA fiction author, Jennifer Lynn Barnes.

• 18:54Speaker 07

  And it would always be, I like watching this show. And then it goes into the imaginative, but what if, where you start running out all the scenarios and coming up with theories and thinking about it before the next episode comes, because that was back when I was watching week to week. And that's sort of my default mode of media consumption and has been my entire life.

• 19:18Laurie Santos?

  Jen is an expert on this kind of fandom. As a young adult fiction author, she's created a few of her own big fan franchises. You should definitely check out her hugely popular inheritance game book series. Like actor Wil Wheaton, Jen is also a self-proclaimed nerd. She's seen many of the benefits of geeking out firsthand.

• 19:37Speaker 07

  I did a lot of daydreaming about fictional characters. I did a lot of that emotional investment and it did, I think, make me less lonely.

• 19:47Laurie Santos?

  But perhaps most importantly, Jen is also an academic psychologist who publishes on the cognitive and emotional benefits of fandom. Jen has found that if you look at the list of evidence-based, happiness-boosting strategies that I share with my students, geeking out about your favorite TV show, film, or comic book seems to check a lot of those boxes. Let's start with one of the best-known stress reducers around: play. Particularly the kind that emerges when fans become so creatively engaged with the characters they care about, that they begin to invent new adventures for them to embark on.

• 20:18Speaker 07

  I have argued very specifically in specific publications that fanfiction is a form of imaginary play, that it is parallel to either daydreaming in adulthood or actual pretend play in childhood.

• 20:33Laurie Santos?

  Jen and others have argued that when fans get together, especially at big fan gatherings like conventions, or cons as they're called, they tend to experience what's known as a shared pretensive reality. It's kind of the adult version of the happiness-boosting flow that kids experience when they play together with toys. That fun, cooperative, imagined reality where you get to joke around, be social, make believe, and create together. This shared playful reality is something that geek-vangelist Wil Wheaton really savors.

• 21:01Speaker 06

  At a con, that energy is everywhere. One of my favorite things at a con is to walk through the artist's area and the vendor's hall and see the small indie artists who make unbelievably gorgeous works of art and jewelry and paintings and stickers and figurines. They just make stuff to celebrate the fandom that brings so much joy into our lives.

• 21:28Laurie Santos?

  But this creative playful side of geeking out is just the tip of the fandom happiness iceberg. A lot of the wellbeing boost that comes from being a hardcore fan stems from social connection, especially the kind you get from loving the object of your geeky affection through what's known as a parasocial relationship.

• 21:45Speaker 07

  So parasocial relationships are what media psychologists call the one-sided relationships that you form with people you don't actually know through consuming media about them. And those relationships can be formed with real people like singers, politicians, actors, anyone you don't know.

• 22:02Laurie Santos?

  Parasocial relationships can also be formed with people who don't exist, like Sherlock Holmes or Lieutenant Wesley Crusher.

• 22:09Speaker 07

  And psychologically, based on the literature, it doesn't seem to matter that much whether the person you're forming a relationship with is a real person in your favorite boy band or a fictional character that you've consumed a show about. Either way, these relationships seem to have a lot of the real world benefits of actual relationships.

• 22:31Laurie Santos?

  A lot of the recent work on the benefits of parasocial relationships comes from the University of Buffalo psychologist Shira Gabriel, who proposed what's called the social surrogacy hypothesis.

• 22:41Speaker 07

  And this hypothesis basically says that we are very social creatures with a lot of social needs, but that our brains can be very sneaky about how we are fulfilling those needs.

• 22:53Laurie Santos?

  Let's say you have a spouse that supports you and friends to hang out with, but you're a busy mom who lacks a sense of adventure in her life. Your brain will probably be on the lookout for someone, anyone, who can fill that excitement hole. And if a surrogate happens to come along, say a fictional character like Sherlock, who's smart and dashing and hangs out with you every night on television, then your brain quickly latches on. But we don't just use specific characters or celebrities to fill our social needs. Let's say you're a geeky kid like the young Will, who doesn't feel like he belongs. You might gravitate towards an entire fictional world where nerds like you feel more seen. And the evidence suggests that doing so literally expands your horizons.

• 23:34Speaker 06

  Star Trek looks through the screen and it says, "There is a place specifically for you in the future." I loved that. I loved feeling like I wanted to belong somewhere. I wanted to be special. And these people who are not recognizing how special you are, are going to be forced to recognize it in the future because it will be undeniable.

• 23:57Laurie Santos?

  And the science bears out the importance of the kind of belonging that young Will and other fans get from Star Trek. There's evidence that thinking about a beloved fictional character or world can make you feel less lonely. And studies show that writing about the target of your parasocial relationship can boost your self-esteem.

• 24:13Speaker 07

  So all of these sort of social benefits that you can receive from real world relationships, it seems like there's a version of those benefits that you can receive from these fictional relationships as well.

• 24:24Laurie Santos?

  When we geek out about our favorite celebrity, we don't only get a social connection boost from parasocial bonds. Fandom can also promote in-real-life social connection.

• 24:33Speaker 07

  So it's often very common for a friendship to start in fandom. You have a mutual interest. You're hanging out at the same spots online. You're reading each other's stories or talking about it. You talk when the show is on. But then it goes past that. And these people become your friends, lifelong friends, often.

• 24:52Laurie Santos?

  The social connection that comes from communities like these can lead to the kind of well-being bump that young Will experienced firsthand.

• 24:59Speaker 06

  My childhood was very much defined by loneliness and isolation. I just couldn't find people who I felt safe with. I had been raised to believe that all these things that were really important to me were weird and kind of stupid. And when I found other people who loved the things that I loved, I actually found people who loved me and accepted me and didn't judge me and welcomed me into the community. But like, all of that was a revelation to me.

• 25:34Speaker 07

  And I think that's what fandom does for many people. It gives them not just a community and not just friends, but that sort of deep and very compelling feeling of, "This is where I belong."

• 25:47Laurie Santos?

  Being a fan can also bring a sense of identity. You become a Trekkie or a Cumber bitch. You wind up being part of an in-group. Researchers like Jen have argued that identifying as a member of a fan franchise works a lot like being part of any group. You identify with a bigger collective that can give you a sense of pride and boost your self-esteem. Studies show that fandoms also work like other in-groups, and that they tend to promote pro-social behavior within the group, doing exactly the sorts of kind and generous things for other people that we know can boost our mood.

• 26:21Laurie Santos?

  But the in-group identity that comes from being a fan can also lead to the same darker psychological processes that are observed in real-world groups, especially when in-group identities get threatened. I mean, think of all the awful atrocities committed by political, religious, or ethnic groups throughout history. In the fan world, that dark side of in-group identity can lead to what's called toxic fandom.

• 26:43Speaker 07

  It's important to point out that the vast majority of fans never turned toxic. But when you have a very large fandom, the 1% who has that level of investment and who also maybe has some personality traits or tendencies that would be problematic even outside of fandom, then you can see those problematic things happening.

• 27:03Laurie Santos?

  Actor Will Ween saw just how bad toxic fandom can be. His next-generation character Wesley Crusher provoked the ire of many Star Trek fans as a smug teenager who seemed to save the day a few times too often. It wasn't Will's fault that Wesley's character wasn't beloved by the viewers, but the fans aimed their hate directly at the then-18-year-old actor.

• 27:22Speaker 06

  And it was really rough.

• 27:24Laurie Santos?

  Those years of being harassed so badly contributed to Will's decision to step away from the part.

• 27:30Speaker 06

  I will throw my body down in front of every single person who is being attacked by toxic fandom right now, because I know what it feels like, and I know that you don't deserve it.

• 27:41Laurie Santos?

  But despite the toxic behavior he experienced, Will still believes that the benefits of geeking out far outweigh the negatives. Will has also seen that being a fan can literally be life-changing. There were adult fans that hated Wesley Crusher, but Will says that many younger fans were inspired to see a teenager on the bridge of the Enterprise.

• 27:59Speaker 06

  Kids loved that, and I know because I have met hundreds of thousands of them who became adults, who are scientists, who are researchers, who are engineers, who are parents, who are politicians, who grew up inspired by Star Trek.

• 28:17Laurie Santos?

  So geeking out, provided you play nice, can be hugely beneficial to your connection and your well-being. But throwing ourselves fully into a geeky pursuit is still a thing that many of us are kind of embarrassed about. It can still sometimes feel a bit cringe-worthy. So how can we overcome all the guilt and let our proverbial geek flag fly? After the break, Cumberbatch Tabitha Carvin will share how she was able to throw herself into her obsession wholeheartedly and how the benefits that came from that were far more powerful than she expected.

• 28:50Speaker 04

  If you find something, anything, that sparks this sense in you of fulfilling a want that is just for you, not for anyone else, and if you were able to embrace it, then it can lead you places that you couldn't anticipate when you took that first step.

• 29:08Laurie Santos?

  The Happiness Lab will be back in a moment.

• 29:16Laurie Santos?

  There's nothing quite like having pieces in your closet you love and know you can count on for any occasion, except maybe giving someone else that same feeling. And I have to tell you, when it comes to my go-to gift this season, I think this might be the year of the hoodie, specifically Quince's Mongolian Cashmere Full Zip Hoodie, which I bought for myself and absolutely love. You know when you get something that's so comfortable, so soft, and so easy to throw on that you suddenly want to wear it every day? That's where I am with this hoodie. And I started to think that instead of agonizing over what to get everyone on my holiday list, I might just buy them all one of these. I mean, who on my list wouldn't love a gift of perfect coziness? But it's not just hoodies. Quince makes elevated everyday essentials using premium materials like Mongolian cashmere

• 30:01Laurie Santos?

  and organic cotton. And if a cashmere hoodie isn't quite right for someone on your list, Quince has so much more, from leather bags and jewelry to cozy scarves, down outerwear, and even hotel-quality bedding. Give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns, now available in Canada and the UK, too. And when Quince asks you where you heard about them, let them know it was the Happiness Lab. It's the best way to support the show. The holidays have a way of putting time into perspective. Another year around the table, another chance to hear a favorite story, another memory with the people who matter most.

• 30:42Laurie Santos?

  It's about making the most of the years ahead, surrounded by the people, traditions, and experiences that truly count. That's why MassMutual takes a broader view of planning ahead, one that includes physical, mental, and financial wellness. MassMutual's Living Well Rider is now included with eligible MassMutual Whole Life Insurance as part of their commitment to policy owners. It offers wellness benefits at no additional cost to support a more holistic approach that can help people prioritize their total well-being. And when people have more ways to live well, it could lead to a fuller, richer, more meaningful future. Learn more at massmutual.com/wellness. That's massmutual.com/wellness.

• 31:30Speaker 04

  This feeling that I had towards him was not something that I was looking for in my life.

• 31:36Laurie Santos?

  Author Tabitha Carvin was initially scared by her level of obsession with the actor Benedict Cumberbatch. She eventually came to accept her extreme crush and all the joys that came with it.

• 31:45Speaker 04

  You know, the thing that is scary about it is that I haven't experienced that sense of wanting something so much and pursuing it so wholeheartedly in a long time. And that's actually not something to be afraid of.

• 32:00Laurie Santos?

  Tabitha's love of the Sherlock Star was something she initially enjoyed in isolation from other fans. That is, until she was grabbing a book about the actor off a shelf at her local library.

• 32:11Speaker 04

  It fell open onto this page that had a post-it note and an invitation to visit this website to discuss Sherlock and to look at photos of Benedict Cumberbatch.

• 32:22Laurie Santos?

  Despite having previous misgivings about joining the ranks of the Cumberbitches, Tabitha's curiosity took over.

• 32:28Speaker 04

  I went to the forum and connected with the person who left the note. And she was someone just like me.

• 32:37Laurie Santos?

  Suddenly, Tabitha wasn't alone. She found a gateway to her community.

• 32:41Speaker 04

  I really believed that when it first happened to me, that I was the first person this could possibly have ever happened to, to fall in such a way. Turns out, no, in fact, there are like millions of women my age and much older, in many cases, who have just followed the exact same experience. And when I connected with them online, it just generated the most incredible energy.

• 33:03Laurie Santos?

  That energy is exactly what the psychologist Jennifer Lynn Barnes saw time and again in her scientific work on fandom: the comfort and joy of belonging to a like-minded crew.

• 33:13Speaker 04

  In those online spaces, no one was ashamed or embarrassed or guilty. And it just, you know, we're just letting it all hang out. It was a wonderful shared community experience.

• 33:25Laurie Santos?

  The boost Tabitha got from connecting with the Cumberbatch community empowered her to go fully public. She stopped hiding her love for Benedict. She didn't realize that being so vulnerable would lead to even more opportunities to connect with the people around her.

• 33:39Speaker 04

  The thing that struck me the most is when I actually just went for it and like stuck up the Benedict Cumberbatch pictures at my desk at work and started wearing the Benedict Cumberbatch memorabilia. People just like it. People are grateful to have something to talk to you about.

• 33:59Laurie Santos?

  And far from being a trivial obsession, Tabitha learned that finding Benedict had changed the lives of his other fans in surprising and profound ways.

• 34:07Speaker 04

  I was hearing about divorces, new relationships, redirections of sexuality and gender, you know, career changes, every single possible change that you can possibly imagine. And they wanted to talk about this change in the context of Benedict Cumberbatch, because in their mind, those things were connected.

• 34:26Laurie Santos?

  Of course, Benedict wasn't swooping in and personally convincing people to make these happiness-boosting life changes. But the powerful one-sided parasocial relationship that these fans formed with the actor sometimes allowed them to identify important, unfulfilled needs that they previously hadn't been able to notice.

• 34:42Speaker 04

  They were at a point in their life where they felt stuck, just as I felt. You know, they felt in some way that they were not living a life that was representative of who they wanted to be.

• 34:53Laurie Santos?

  Fan after fan explained to Tabitha that allowing themselves to love something as trivial as a television actor and to do so so enthusiastically and so non-judgmentally opened a doorway they hadn't anticipated.

• 35:05Speaker 04

  If you kind of step through that doorway saying, you know, this is, I like this. You know, this is something that is making me happy. You know, it starts you down a path where you can remember that capacity you have of doing what you want and knowing what you want. You know, you start to maybe remember those feelings that you had when you were younger, when you knew who you were or you knew the kind of joy you were capable of. And once you start to exercise that capability, it seems you start to demand it more. You start to be able to see in your life the ways in which you can change your path to achieve it.

• 35:46Laurie Santos?

  But did Tabitha also experience the happiness-boosting doorway effect from geeking out over Benedict?

• 35:51Speaker 04

  God, it made me happier than I was at the time. The doorway effect for me was real. He completely got me out of a very bad place.

• 36:02Laurie Santos?

  Tabitha has clear advice for those who may be into a celebrity, TV series, or film franchise, but are still reluctant to give their passion free rein for fear of being belittled or made to feel self-indulgent.

• 36:14Speaker 04

  You're entitled to it. You're completely entitled to it. To just put up that kind of block in reaching your own happiness, to me now seems crazy.

• 36:24Laurie Santos?

  She also has advice for those of us yet to be cumberbatch, people who still haven't found that thing to geek out over.

• 36:30Speaker 04

  I don't like the idea that people will hear this and think, but I don't love anything. You know, I don't have a passion. I understand that reaction entirely because that is how I felt before. But I don't think you need anything else to feel bad about. I think that you just need to be conscious of your interests and facilitate them in your life a little more. And also even just to carve out a little bit of mental space for yourself.

• 36:57Laurie Santos?

  And once you give yourself that mental space to notice your interests, you also need to make sure that you're mindfully paying attention.

• 37:03Speaker 04

  Stay alert to that feeling, that little spark of, ooh, you know, intriguing. And instead of shutting it down, instead of talking yourself out of it, instead of feeling ashamed or embarrassed, or redirecting your energy onto something that seems more important, just fan the flame of that spark a little and see what happens next.

• 37:30Laurie Santos?

  And as Tabitha herself has seen, what often happens next is more on bridal joy and play and connection and even happiness than we initially expected.

• 37:39Speaker 04

  It seems so trivial. It seems so meaningless. It seems so pointless. You know, that I think that's one of the reasons that so many people cut themselves off at the pass when they have these feelings. I'm not going to waste my time on this silly thing. But ultimately, it can lead you to extremely meaningful places just by exercising that capability for joy.

• 38:03Laurie Santos?

  When that motivation strikes to dive deeper than you initially feel is appropriate into some movie, or sci-fi series, or celebrity crush, you might feel embarrassed, or like there have to be healthier, more happiness-promoting uses of your time. But the science shows that geeking out about something, no matter how trivial it is, can boost your sense of connection and presence. When you become a hardcore fan, you end up harnessing an important psychological trick that can make you kinder, more playful, and more joyous. So unleash your inner geek. Commit to getting cumberbatched with your own unique target of joy. You could do a deep dive into a traditional geeky interest, like Star Wars, or video games, or that hot new TV star. Or you could geek out about a topic all your own.

• 38:45Laurie Santos?

  You could become a sourdough bread geek, or a croquet geek, or a history geek. The key, as Tabitha put it in the title of her book, is to give yourself permission to love something, anything, like your life depends on it. The happiness benefits that follow might be more profound than you expect.

• 39:04Laurie Santos?

  The Happiness Lab is proudly sponsored by Amica Insurance. You know what they say, "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." So go with Amica and get coverage from a mutual insurer that's built for their customers, one that looks after what's important to you, together. Auto, home, life, and more. Amica helps you protect what matters most. Visit amica.com and get a quote today. Did you know that stress actually shows up on your skin? Tatcha formulates their skincare around this insight, starting with HADISAY3, their proprietary complex. HADISAY3 helps to synchronize skin's renewal cycles and boosts your skin's resilience

• 39:46Laurie Santos?

  to daily stressors for visibly firmer, smoother, breathtaking skin. It's science-backed skincare that works with your skin, not against it. Visit tatcha.com and use code HAPPINESS for 15% off your first purchase. That's T-A-T-C-H-A dot com and use code HAPPINESS for 15% off.

• 40:05Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.