Why do people often stand by and do nothing during emergencies? Discover the unsettling truth behind the bystander effect, starting with the tragic and infamous Kitty Genovese case. We'll recount the chilling details of her 1964 murder and the media portrayal that claimed 38 witnesses did nothing to help. While later investigations revealed attempts at intervention, the case forever changed how we understand public behavior. Fast forward to April 2024, and a similar incident involving Shakia Allen proves that the bystander effect is as relevant today as it was six decades ago.
We’ll take you through the haunting realities of silent witnesses with two jarring examples: the 2020 sexual assault on a London train by Rian Johnson and the 2011 murder of Jaina Murray in a Bethesda Lululemon store. These stories showcase how fears and societal norms can paralyze people from taking action. A personal anecdote about a hair-sniffing incident on the Paris Metro further highlights this disturbing trend of public apathy. Through these narratives, we unpack the toxicity of the bystander effect that leaves victims without the help they need.
Finally, we delve into the psychology behind intervention decisions. Beginning with the Kitty Genovese case, we explore significant studies that reveal why people often fail to act in emergencies. By breaking down the psychological steps from noticing an event to feeling responsible to intervene, we provide practical advice to empower you to act when it matters most—like directly instructing someone to call 911. Join us for this eye-opening episode as we unpack the complexities of bystander behavior and discuss how to foster a more responsive society.
Why do people often stand by and do nothing during emergencies? Discover the unsettling truth behind the bystander effect, starting with the tragic and infamous Kitty Genovese case. We'll recount the chilling details of her 1964 murder and the media portrayal that claimed 38 witnesses did nothing to help. While later investigations revealed attempts at intervention, the case forever changed how we understand public behavior. Fast forward to April 2024, and a similar incident involving Shakia Allen proves that the bystander effect is as relevant today as it was six decades ago.
We’ll take you through the haunting realities of silent witnesses with two jarring examples: the 2020 sexual assault on a London train by Rian Johnson and the 2011 murder of Jaina Murray in a Bethesda Lululemon store. These stories showcase how fears and societal norms can paralyze people from taking action. A personal anecdote about a hair-sniffing incident on the Paris Metro further highlights this disturbing trend of public apathy. Through these narratives, we unpack the toxicity of the bystander effect that leaves victims without the help they need.
Finally, we delve into the psychology behind intervention decisions. Beginning with the Kitty Genovese case, we explore significant studies that reveal why people often fail to act in emergencies. By breaking down the psychological steps from noticing an event to feeling responsible to intervene, we provide practical advice to empower you to act when it matters most—like directly instructing someone to call 911. Join us for this eye-opening episode as we unpack the complexities of bystander behavior and discuss how to foster a more responsive society.
Speaker 1:
Hi, welcome to the Toxic Cooking Show, where we break down toxic people into their simplest ingredients. I'm your host for this week, lindsay McLean, and with me is my fantastic co-host.
Speaker 2:
Christopher Patchett, LCSW.
Speaker 1:
So a quick warning before we get into this if you don't like murder, this is not the episode for you. There's a lot of murder and there's a lot of pretty gruesome assaults, sexual assaults, otherwise so just be aware of that. But maybe, if you're not feeling that today, don't listen.
Speaker 2:
I'm not getting murdered, am I?
Speaker 1:
No, you're not getting murdered, not yet. But I know you're a true crime girly in your heart of hearts, so you might know some of these We'll see. So today we're going to be talking about the bystander effect a little bit in general, but also specifically how toxic it is, which, of course, this is the Toxic Cooking Show. So the answer is, at the very least, somewhat toxic, and we can't talk about that without talking about the case that actually made it famous and gave us that word, which is the Kitty Genovese case. You've heard of this, right.
Speaker 2:
Is this the New York one?
Speaker 1:
Yep. So March 13th 1964, 28-year-old Kitty Genovese was raped and stabbed to death outside her apartment building in Queens, New York. So on the night of the attack she was coming home from work. She worked at a bar, I believe she was a manager, so it was around 3 am. She was driving home and Winston Mosley was also in his car, saw her and followed her there as she had gotten out and was walking towards her apartment building. Mosley followed her and stabbed her twice in the back with a hunting knife.
Speaker 1:
At this point several of the neighbors did hear, and one of them apparently reacted and shouted for Mosley to go away, which he did, but at which point Genevieve had crawled around, was trying to get into the building, but apparently the door she was going for was locked.
Speaker 1:
He then returned about 10 minutes later, according to witnesses, searched for and found Genovese, at which point he stabbed her several more times, raped her, stole her money and then disappeared.
Speaker 1:
He was caught about a week later for a different crime and while he was being questioned for that, they realized that the description of his car matched the description of the car that had been seen in connection with her murder and he admitted to the case or admitted to murdering her. So obviously that's a pretty horrific case and it was made all the more horrific by the reporting at the time. And this is why people know it, because the reporting said that there were 38 witnesses who either saw or heard the attack and none of them did anything. So whenever you hear about this it's always about the 37 or 38. At one point the number magically went up by one. Witnesses who heard her, you know, one supposedly turned up his radio so he didn't have to hear anything. Other people you know saw stuff and didn't react, didn't want to do anything. There was an article at the time that quoted an unidentified neighbor who saw part of the attack yet did nothing, claiming, and I quote, I didn't want to get involved.
Speaker 2:
Oh God yeah yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:
So we do actually know, though, that there were some neighbors who made moves to help, and many others. They weren't totally unaware of what was happening. They just weren't aware of how bad it was. You know, when she got stabbed the first two times, it did puncture her lungs, so she probably wasn't screaming with any force when he came back. She had moved by the time he came back, and so people may not have seen or have heard what was there, and it looks like people the people who saw or heard the first part of the attack were not the same ones who saw or heard the second part of the attack, and there were two people who called the police.
Speaker 1:
So this was not a case of like nobody did anything, but this shocked a lot of people, Like when this case like hit the news and again with the whole 38 witnesses who saw and heard and did nothing. It was this whole big thing of people being like oh my God, what's wrong with people? And is this maybe just a a big city thing where you don't know anybody and so you don't feel attached to them? You know not. At the time it was still being studied and still being like what happened here, so you may be thinking to yourself like, wow, that's really horrible. I'm glad we don't have to deal with that today, though, Right.
Speaker 1:
Wrong, wrong. I have a lot more fun stories to share with you, but you had heard of that one, right.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, Thanks to the reporting, everything is made into it. It's like 101, every. It's like 101 book.
Speaker 1:
Really.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah, I mean, this is definitely one of those cases where it goes up there with prison experiments and things like that.
Speaker 1:
Okay. Are they still quoting the fact that there were 38 witnesses who didn't do anything?
Speaker 2:
they do still report it as 38 people who did absolutely nothing, and so, yeah, I did read up that there was.
Speaker 1:
That's not entirely true yeah, and I'm not entirely sure when all of that came to light. It seems like part of that may have been around the time that Mosley died in 2016. I don't know why that would have been the triggering thing to be like. Oh yeah, that wasn't the case, but we do now know that it was not as horrific as the media made it sound like, but it did still produce this research into in the idea behind the bystander effect. So some other great examples for you just to kind of drive this point home, you know, because that's what we like to do here April of 2024. So real, real, recent. Two months ago, yeah, real, recent.
Speaker 2:
Two months ago.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, shakia Allen was a 27-year-old woman from Baltimore who was shot and killed in broad daylight by her ex, amir Johnson. She had apparently tried to get a restraining order and it hadn't gone through or it had been denied because she wasn't there in court that day Something strange like that. We do have bystander video that shows Johnson chasing her around a parking lot while she's shouting at him to get away. She does actually shout at him about the restraining order, which you would hope would kind of goad people into being like oh gee, maybe this is not just like a little lover's quarrel. The guy who was shooting the video was on the balcony. He did make an attempt to kind of try and warn Johnson to back off, but yeah, johnson just straight up shot her in broad daylight and then left. Oh.
Speaker 1:
Yep, nobody stepped in, Nobody intervened, and you know, okay, that that's a gun. Right, I don't want to. Somebody's waving a gun around. I'm not sure if I'm quite ready to like step in and be like, hey, don't you do that, okay, okay, fair, exactly, that would make them listen. Fair In that voice too. Exactly, that'll make them listen. Hey, you stop that right now. That will definitely work. So you know, if you want to blame it on the gun, okay. November of 2023, jose Rafael Solano Landayada used a samurai sword to basically decapitate his ex-girlfriend, karina Castro, in front of their children and other witnesses in San Carlos, california. There were people on the street, apparently, she was like getting. They had two small children, she was getting them out of the car or something with the car, and he had been saying some kind of like crazy things in the days leading up to this. In the time leading up to this Two of them, things had not ended well and, yeah, he apparently just took the samurai sword and basically hacked her head off. Damn.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, okay, maybe for that one. People didn't have time to react right, they didn't. Maybe they didn't realize what was happening. They saw the sword. They're like that's a fake sword. Oh, oh, no, maybe, maybe, oh don't worry, don't worry I'm just gonna say I, I.
Speaker 2:
I know that this is not going to get any better here.
Speaker 1:
Nope, no, it's not. Because February 2020, on the other side of the pond, rian Johnson sexually assaulted and raped a 20-year-old woman who was asleep on the Piccadilly Line train in London in front of other passengers. He had already earlier that day. He had apparently like he was masturbating to two women and then he started like chasing them and they ran to their house and got inside and he was like trying to get inside the house, couldn't manage that, so he wandered off, got on the train line and, yeah, sexually assaulted and raped a woman in front of other passengers and nobody did anything to stop him. One of them reported it to the police afterwards. It's you know, again, with the others, you can kind of come up with an excuse and be like oh, maybe it was, maybe it was this, maybe it was that. Nope, nope, that's a that's a hard one to try and excuse and be like I didn't know what was happening.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah, that's oh God.
Speaker 1:
And I have one more for you because just in case. No, no, this is an Equal Opportunity podcast. In Bethesda, maryland 2011, brittany Norwood murdered Jaina Murray in a Lululemon store and then tried to concoct a story about how she also had been attacked. Apparently, the manager came in in the morning and noticed that the storeroom was just all in chaos. He hears moaning from the back. He sees Jaina Murray lying there dead and Brittany Norwood is bleeding and has her hands like zip tied together and, you know, looks really awful.
Speaker 1:
And she testified. First, she testified that somebody had come in and attacked the two of them and it's awful, terrible. But pretty quickly became clear that the story did not match up at all and she later admitted to the murder of this other woman. I couldn't find a reason for why she murdered her, but she did, and employees and a manager at the Apple store next door heard the altercation and apparently you can actually see them on the video footage, I guess from, like, the store security camera, like listening at the wall and then walking away. They testified that. You know they thought it was just drama, although when you look at what the employee testified that she heard, it's more than just drama. Do you want me to read this to you, or shall I not?
Speaker 2:
Let's hear it.
Speaker 1:
All right. So the employee stated that she heard a female voice saying quote talk to me, don't do this, talk to me. What's going on? Then there were screams, the sounds of somebody or something like being hit or dragged, and a weak voice that said god, help me, please help me so yeah, yeah just drama yeah, we're beyond drama yeah, that's, that's gross.
Speaker 1:
I don't know how you would live with yourself if you heard that and you were like I don't want to get involved okay, so before I kind of go on, where are you seeing things with that, with these things?
Speaker 1:
so looking at them in terms of the idea of the bystander effect where people who are bystanders to something maybe don't feel like they have to act or they should act uh, and that's why you know these horrible things happen is because nobody stepped in and said, hey, what are you doing? Stop that right now. Nobody did anything more than at the best. You know, you have some people who are like taking videos, some people who you know kind of shout some stuff like, hey, don't you do that, but nobody has been in all of these cases willing to put themselves in harm's way. And you and I, at least, have kind of personally talked about this idea that I've said I want to see men behave themselves better around women and because women are afraid that if they say no, like if I'm sitting on the metro and a dude comes up to talk to me, I know that if things go bad, which they have before. I think I've talked about hair sniffing guy on the show, Yep.
Speaker 2:
Not on the show, but you have told me.
Speaker 1:
Ah, okay, then I'll tell the story of hair sniffing man in just a moment. But you know that nobody is going to act to help you, even though you were clearly in a situation of distress or something's like a little bit weird. People are going to watch but they're not going to do anything. So the story of hair sniffing guy is thankfully it's laughable at this point. But this was when I was a young baby au pair in France and I was coming home on the Metro and this man sits down next to me and he's kind of jostling me and I was like all right, it's not that, it's not that busy, you can scoot over a little. And what got me was he said something to me in German and I wasn't expecting that, and so I reacted.
Speaker 1:
And then we're in a conversation and he's talking. He's talking, he's getting closer, he's asking for my number and I was like I don't have a phone, that's a lie. I did actually give him my phone number, just change like the last digit. He calls the number, nothing happens. He had to have known that I had given him a fake number, yet he was still there and at one point he literally picks up like a piece of my hair, brings it over to his nose and goes at it. I was like other people on the train clearly have to see a middle-aged dude sitting next to I. Would have been what 21, 22 at the time woman acting bizarre and that's, you know. That's at the top of the range of, like horrible things that can happen to you. But nobody was going to step in, nobody was going to tell him to back off, nobody was going to, you know, offer to walk me out of the station, like no one wanted to get involved with that, and that's an example of the bystander effect.
Speaker 2:
Me being the type of person I am, and this is kind of one way of looking at things. There have been maybe three times that I can think of off the top of my head that I've gotten involved. I remember being 17. A guy was hitting up on a girl that I knew in high school and she kept on saying leave me alone, leave me alone. And so, you know, I finally kind of stepped in. I said I wasn't friends with this girl, but I knew her. She was in a couple of my classes and I kind of stepped in. I was like, yeah, man, I think she said for you to leave her alone.
Speaker 2:
At the time I had long-ass hair and he's like man, what the fuck is this? Is this supposed to be a guy or a girl? I was like I don't know, what the fuck are you supposed to be? That's beautiful. So you know, I'm sitting there, I'm sitting on the ground because you know she's sitting up on the stoop and I'm sitting on the ground. The guy all of a sudden, you know I see four guys circling me, yeah, and I'm like, oh fuck. And so the one guy he hits down, he hits my nose and at the same time I'm getting hit in the back of the head A couple weeks later.
Speaker 2:
I remember this so well because a couple weeks later in one of the classes that I had with her, I remember there was a bully in one of my classes and he got on my case about things and I was like yo man, fucking, leave me alone, leave me alone, leave me alone. And I was hoping for her to step in and be like kind of return the favor. Like you know, I came close to breaking my nose to be supportive to you. At least be like yo man. You know, fucking, leave him alone. He's cool and fucking. You know, like this guy is going to in my face. I pushed him away and she's like why are you hitting Jack like that? I'm like are you fucking serious?
Speaker 1:
Ma'am, see if I stand up for you next time.
Speaker 2:
I'm like okay, whatever, whatever. I remember another time I was a bouncer at a bar Girl comes up to me and she's like dude, just play along with me. And she just like grabs my arm and she brings me over and it's like you know, like this is my boyfriend, joe, you know. And I was like okay. You look like a Joe joe, you know, and I was like, okay, you look like a joe, so I'm listening, and this guy, he's being like really fucking creepy and I was like dude, you gotta get out of the bar.
Speaker 2:
Nothing happened after that. He got out of the bar. I told the the people at the door, like don't let him back in, okay, cool. Third time I remember I, I will cook, I'll clean, clean, but my own laundry. You know, I'll bring my laundry to the laundry place and I'll give it to them. I'll spend that extra $5 to have them clean my clothes.
Speaker 1:
You know, we all have those things that we're just like. Not that I ain't doing it.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I'll do everything. I can be an adult in every other which way? But laundry, no. So I'm picking up my laundry and the woman she's there, she grabs my ticket and she turns around. Guy behind me is like yo man, you know what the fuck? Like you know, hurry up and I turn around. I didn't say anything and you know he goes up to the door and he's like you know, like, hurry the fuck up, I'll get him my fucking stuff. I'm like yo man, you know, can't? You see? She's helping me out right now. Like you know, give her, give her a chance. And so I'm not a fighting person, I'm six, which is.
Speaker 1:
Which is hilarious because you look like a fighting person If people don't know you.
Speaker 2:
I'm six foot two, like a legit six foot two, and you'll vouch for that. I can't. But I don't like fighting, I don't like violence. Okay and so, all of a sudden, this guy, he turns around on me and, you know, being six foot two, like I haven't had to fight a lot because of the fact that I'm just, you know, just as you said, I look like the person that that's, you know, ready to mumble any moment now you guys have to understand.
Speaker 1:
You've never seen patches before. He's got a shaved head, a full sleeve of tattoos. Depending on what you were wearing, like the leg tattoos, may have been visible as well. You look like you beat up people for fun.
Speaker 2:
So, so this guy, you know, he, he picks up a laundry like cart thing and he chucks it at me and I'm just standing there.
Speaker 2:
I'm like you know, okay, you know, just hold my ground and he's just kind of me and I'm just standing there, I'm like you know, okay, you know, just hold my ground and and he's just kind of like you know, like you know, uh, fucking like back down. You know, because I've gone through situations like that doesn't back down and I fucking cowered and he called me on my bluff. But the thing is is is like, okay, I would like to think that if a situation like that were to happen again, that I would still be the same person I've been. But there's also a part of me that saying like what, if you know, if that were to happen again, would I go through my past experience of how this hasn't been helpful in my life, that it has almost got my ass kicked, or it actually did almost break my nose and almost got my ass kicked, and second guess at, or you know, would I actually follow through if this were to happen again?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and that's completely valid. There are actually names to all of these things. Fun fact, we'll get into that. So after the Kitty Genovese case happened, all of a sudden people started looking into this like what is this bystander effect that we have just come up with a name for? And there were a lot of studies that were being done in the 60s and 70s to kind of try and understand that. So, for instance, one of the studies that was done in 1969, there was a woman in distress and they had the subject who was alone with a friend or with a stranger? And the woman who was the actress she had fallen and hurt herself, it looked like and they found that people who were alone, 70% of the time they made an effort to help the woman, but if they were with a stranger, only 40% of them made that effort.
Speaker 1:
I can see the math wheels turning. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:
So 70% of people who were alone helped the woman in distress. 40% of the people who were with a stranger helped the woman in distress. So it's this noticeable drop of like. If I'm with somebody who I don't know, I'm not going to help a person for whatever reason that it blocks you.
Speaker 1:
Similarly, there was a study where a woman and a man were fighting in the street and in one instance the woman yelled get away from me, I don't know you. In the other instance she would yell get away from me, I don't know why I ever married you. In the instance when she said get away from me, I don't know you, bystanders intervene 65% of the time. But in the instance where she said get away from me, I don't know you. Bystanders intervene 65% of the time. But in the instance where she said get away from me, I don't know why I ever married you they only intervened are you ready for this? 19% of the time. Wow, yeah, just this. Complete. Oh well, it's a lover's quarrel. That's none of my business, the two of you. And if he suddenly pulls out a gun and shoots her, or if she pulls out a gun and shoots him, he can go both ways. Nope, not gonna, not gonna get involved.
Speaker 1:
And this partially makes sense to me, because when I learned CPR, one of the things that they teach you is that you know you've got the person there. You're like, okay, you know, do you consent to give you know or for me to give you CPR, all that. And if they don't say no, that does automatically mean yes. You can assume this, but you need to look at somebody, look them dead in the eyes, point at them and say you and ideally you say an identifying feature so you with the beard, you with the red shirt, so you with the beard, you with the red shirt, call 911. Because if you just say somebody call 911, everyone will think somebody else is going to do it, not me. They can do that, you know, but like they just said somebody and I'm not somebody. So like you always have to like point and say like you call 911.
Speaker 2:
That was drilled into our heads. I had to take cpr as well, as I remember that yep, that little bit.
Speaker 1:
It's useful because you can use it for all sorts of other situations where, again, if there's ever an emergency, they're right. Because of this bystander effect, people be like oh, not me, no, you. You right here the one who I'm making eye contact with and pointing at in the green dress right now, this is what I want. So researchers have also kind of broken the process that braille standards go through into five different steps when there's an emergency happening. So first off, you have to like kind of establish you know if there is an emergency, but you need to notice what is happening, like, are you actually seeing everything that's going on? Are you actually hearing everything that's going on?
Speaker 1:
Like in the Kitty Genovese case, these people may not have actually heard what was happening or they may have heard just a little bit. I mean, you know, you and I both live in big cities. How often do you hear somebody just like screaming bloody murder in the street and you're like, all right, I'm pretty sure that's a 16 year old being stupid with their friends, but it can be hard to tell. Sometimes it's really unnerving when you hear it, I think.
Speaker 2:
Anyway, you know, the first thing that comes to my mind is at Temple University. Uh-huh. And I remember walking home and there was a woman she was probably in her 50s or 60s and it was like 30 degrees outside and she's standing there and it's fucking hot outside and she's taking off her shirt and everything like that and I'm just like, yeah, okay, walked on the other side of the street, continue walking home.
Speaker 1:
Didn't think about it, you know, I'm not gonna yep, I am not in the position to help you with what you're going through. Yep, so you did notice what was happening. You then interpreted is this an emergency? Because that's the second step is. You have to interpret like do I think is what I'm seeing requiring my assistance or not? You have to go from there. Then we have step three, which is degree of responsibility. That is where you decide. This is like an internal process. You decide how much responsibility you have towards dealing with this, and that is determined by three things Whether or not you think that person is deserving of help, the competence that you have and your relationship with the victim.
Speaker 1:
So in the case of you and the crazy guy in the laundromat, you know you felt that the lady was deserving of help. Your competencies, you thought were up to standard and then maybe realized that they were not. It's all these little things that kind of go into deciding like should I act? Do I need to act? I think this is probably where a lot of people get stuck. Is that it's? Does this person deserve my help? What is our relationship? I don't know, I don't know them. Like, what's in it for me? Is it worth risking my skin for this person, who I don't know. Then we have step four, which is decide what form of assistance to give, and finally we hit step five, which is implementing your action plan. So it's a it's a multi-step process that I think. A lot of it obviously is happening internally and happens pretty quickly, so you don't pass from step to step. Aha, yes, I have noticed there's a problem. Now let me interpret what is happening. Is this an emergency, yes or no?
Speaker 2:
Just real quick, just to give people an idea of how quickly the brain works. I I always kind of go to this, you know, like, uh, with baseball, from the time that that ball leaves the pitcher's hand to the time that it hits the the catcher's glove is 0.6 of a second. Wow. So in that 0.6 seconds, one tenth of that second is, you know, the brain processing it and trying to make that determination of where to swing the bat and everything like that. And so another tenth of a second is actually going through the motion of your brain, telling your arms where to, you know, direct the bat and everything like that. So in all reality, you have 0.4 seconds to really, you know, do anything about it.
Speaker 1:
So these times that you see, like, you know, like baseball players, like that's how quickly your brain is working yeah so those five steps that you're talking about, like it's happening within that, like you know, uh, that quick of a time it is because you we hear all the time about people who you know the child runs out in front of the street and there is somebody whose brain works and you know, they see it all, they realize, and they're out there like grabbing the kid back or something like that. There's, there are all sorts of degrees to it, but it can happen incredibly quickly. For some of these, like the case of the guy who raped the girl in london, you had plenty of time to to notice, to interpret and then to say I don't want to get involved. And that's where it's like oh you know when, when stuff's happening really quickly and you don't quite make the right choice, be like I'm gonna, you know, dash in front of this guy who's like raising his gun or something, I have a lot more sympathy for that. But when you have, when it's like a slow-mo type thing, where you're like I, I can sit here and be like is he? Oh, oh god, then it's, it's a lot more inexcusable, I think. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:
So the last thing that will also potentially affect your degree of responsibility is the presence of children. So the London rape case, the man who reported that he actually had an, do that. When there is a child. It's significant when there is a child present. There is a huge bump in people who are like, oh shit, maybe I should do something which makes sense. I don't know about in New York, but in Paris people just walk across the road that you know traffic light no, traffic light, red, green, whatever I'm going, oh yeah, yeah, who needs the lights? It's clear enough. The road that you know traffic light no traffic light, red, green whatever I'm going oh yeah, uh, yeah.
Speaker 1:
Who needs the lights?
Speaker 1:
it's clear enough, I'm fine, I'll just get her a little bit. You know the person's like meh on their horn that you, whatever. But I'm very aware that of course when you have kids, you typically have to teach them like oh, we stop here, and so it's really interesting to watch. If you see somebody like with kids standing there waiting at the traffic light, people are far more likely to stop as well and they're like all right, maybe I shouldn't cross in front of the child and do bad things. So is this something that you guys ever talk about in therapy, psychology, whatever it is that you studied? I should know.
Speaker 2:
I'm so sorry you mean social work? Yeah, I should definitely know that I was gonna say that, and also concerning the fact that all my screen has lcsw I know, look, I'm tired, I'm jet lagged, tired You're playing me the song of the world's tiniest violin. As far as like, personal responsibility, like do we talk about that?
Speaker 1:
More so just the bystander effect. I'm curious if you have anything that you can add to that, to this.
Speaker 2:
I mean, I definitely think so. There was. There was, uh, there's a video that I love and it's like how to tell if you're a new york native and the guy will like scream and maybe out of a group of like 20 people, three people will turn around to see what the hell's going on, yeah, and the rest of them are just kind of like you know going forward and and so, like you know, it's kind of that whole thing of you know just kind of mind your own business. A lot of people don't want to get involved just because of the fact that you know same thing that I was kind of saying about before with with the, the guy at the laundromat, where they don't want to now become the focus of their rage.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, you have decided you're protecting yourself Again because you don't know the person Right and what's in it for you to step in and potentially get hurt. Yeah.
Speaker 1:
So I'm going to leave us here on a semi-cliffhanger, because we have recently had an episode that you and I both got very into and we went for way too long and then we had to go back and cut it into pieces. So I was the smart one and I planned this into my episode. So next week, what I propose that we do is that we come back and we talk about a responsibility in general towards this type of thing and, of course, our new segment like where do we go from here, as well as how toxic all of this is. So we have all that in a nice neat bundle and we don't have to squish that in, and we also don't have to give you, our beloved listeners, a 16-hour episode even though my sister would love that.
Speaker 1:
Is that acceptable?
Speaker 2:
I can dig that All right.
Speaker 1:
So in the meantime, if you guys have any questions, any other murder mysteries you want to share with us? I want to give a special shout-out to one of my friends who loves true crime, and when I mentioned that I wanted to do this us. I want to give a special shout out to one of my friends who loves true crime and when I mentioned that I wanted to do this episode, she was like I got you and she literally sent me this like list of cases, most of which I mentioned here. There were others that were on there as well that she had either heard about in other true crime podcasts or had just read about or was interested in. So props to her for helping me do all of the research.
Speaker 1:
So if you have any that you'd like us to talk about, or if you have anything else that you think we should know, you can write to us at toxic, at awesome life skillscom, or you can find us on pretty much every social media except Snapchat. We do more or less check them. We're going to get better about posting stuff again, I promise Maybe and until next week. This has been the Toxic Cooking Show. Bye.