Clogged toilets, odious jokes, difficult condolences… awkward moments are everywhere you look. In episode 113 of Overthink, Ellie and David invite philosopher Alexandra Plakias to talk through her research on awkwardness. They discuss everything from hasty clean-ups to snap decisions, from oversharing online to uncomfortable silences, as they explore the ways that awkwardness is bound up with power, morality, and the core scripts of our social expectations. Where does cringe end and awkwardness begin? Are we living through especially awkward times? Who gets to decide what is awkward? And, what if awkward people… don’t exist at all? Plus, in the bonus, they discuss The Office, weddings, weird eye contact, and more.

Check out the episode's extended cut here!

Works Discussed
Sara Ahmed, The Promise of Happiness
Adam Kotsko, Awkwardness
Alexandra Plakias, Awkwardness: A Theory & “Awkward? We’d Better Own it”
Thomas J. Spiegel, “Cringe”
YouGov poll, "Awkwardness"

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Why is there a Parthenon… in Nashville? Jean Baudrillard might have the answer. In Episode 112 of Overthink, Ellie and David pick apart hyperreality: the provocative suggestion that our reality today is so inundated by signs that the gap between reality and simulation has all but broken down. Your hosts talk through the history and experience of hyperreality, from its presence in Superman and Bridgerton to its uncanny role in legitimizing presidential power. And they wonder: does the idea of hyperreality motivate political action, or does it slide into complacent provincialism?

Check out the episode's extended cut here!

Works Discussed
Jean Baudrillard, America
Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation
Daniel Boorstin, The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America
Don DeLillo, White Noise
Umberto Eco, Travels in Hyperreality
Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others
Sadie Plant, The Most Radical Gesture
Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle

An American Family (1973)
Superman (1978)
Love Island (2023)
Bridgerton (2005)

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Website | overthinkpodcast.com
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Email | dearoverthink@gmail.com
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Why are you so obsessed with me!? In episode 111 of Overthink, Ellie and David untangle envy, jealousy, and admiration, in everything from Sigmund Freud to Regina George. They think through the role of envy in social media and status regulation alongside Sara Protasi's The Philosophy of Envy, and investigate the philosophical lineage of this maligned emotion. Does the barrage of others’ achievements on social media lead to ill-will or competitive self-improvement? Why do we seek to deny our own envies? And how might Freud's questionable theory of 'penis envy' betray the politics of how we assign and deflect desire?

Check out the episode's extended cut here!

Works Discussed
Aristotle, Rhetoric
Basil of Caesarea, On Envy
Christine de Pizan, City of Ladies
Justin D'arms, Envy in the Philosophical Tradition
Sigmund Freud, Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, “Analysis Terminable and Interminable”
Luce Irigaray, This Sex Which is Not One
Plato, Philebus
Plutarch, Moralia, “Of Envy and Hatred”
Sara Protasi, The Philosophy of Envy
Max Scheler, Ressentiment
Genesis 4, Exodus 20

Snow White (1937)
Mean Girls (2004)

Overthink epiosdes
60. Influencers
82. Regret
98. Reputation

Support the show

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Website | overthinkpodcast.com
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Email | dearoverthink@gmail.com
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