Endless Thread - Snacktime: Spiders Are Bros

Episode Date: September 24, 2020

Spiders... even the word is unsettling for some of us. But the r/spiderbro community on Reddit is a place where you just might gain a new appreciation for arachnids -- from the petite and unassuming, to the big and hairy.

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Ah, I'm already laughing, because I know something the listener doesn't know. I guess we're doing it. We're doing it. It's Spider-Bro week on Endless. thread. I mean, I just, I want to be a bro. But it's hard because I'm terrified of spiders. I've always not liked spiders. You know, the spider bro community on Reddit, it's not actually about you being a bro. It's about the spiders being bros, non-gender specific bros. And that's why, you know, it's important for us to do this episode, to try to get you.

you around to the idea that spiders are actually bros? No, I, listen, here's the thing is I know that. But if a spider is on me or near me, I'm not operating with my intellectual mind. I'm operating with my freaking lizard brain. And I just want to throw, I want to, I will throw a chair at a spider. That's how much I don't like spiders. And the worst part about it is I'm in a relationship where I'm the bug guy. Like, I take care of the bugs.

So that's hard for you. But you're not alone. This is what we've learned by exploring the spider content on Reddit. And that's why we are doing this as a snack time, not a full meal-sized episode, just a little exploration of spiders on Reddit. There are two different genres of spider content that I interact with on Reddit, right? Yeah. And one is basically camel spiders, as they are unofficially called.

Do you know what those are? No. So this is not technically a spider, but it is from the Arakid family, I think. And there's a whole genre of posts involving these eight-legged crud. and they look very much like spiders. And they are kind of terrible looking. They have these, like, huge mandibles. And they can grow to about the size of your hand.

And they can go just so, you know, they can travel at the speed of 16 kilometers per hour. Wow. Now, this often gets exaggerated, but 10 miles, I think that's 10 miles an hour technically. And that is quite fast for a spider. Yeah. But these are creatures that get, they get talked about a lot in, strangely enough, in the Army subreddit.

Okay. Because, I don't know if you're aware of this, but we're in a never-ending war in Iraq. A lot of people who get deployed there from the U.S. come into contact with these creatures. And so there's a post in R-slash Army from about three years ago that says, Give me your best camel spider story. And I'll just give the top comment. Okay. It says I woke up one morning with one inside my mosquito net in Iraq.

It was just hanging out right next to my head, did a double take, and freaked the fuck out, destroyed the tent trying to find it, and never did. Re-deployed months later, got back to my apartment, and dumped my duffel bag to do some laundry. and one went running across the carpet. I stomped it with my boots at 11 p.m. was up all night looking for more of those f***ers. How it got through customs is beyond me. And believe it or not, there are like tons of stories like this, of people who are deployed, soldiers who are deployed

who inadvertently bring camel spiders back with them to the U.S. That's one genre, another genre is Spider-Bro content. And I want to say that I'm, you know, I'm trying to be a convert. So this is a recent post that I really enjoyed. And it's from the Spider-Brow subreddit. And it has this, like, one of those close-up, like, macro shots of a spider, like, with, like, a super zoom or macro lens or whatever the heck it's called. Mm-hmm.

And this spider is, like, one of the cute. looking things that you've seen in a long time. It's furry. It's got these big, dopey eyes, and it has this big smile on its face. Or at least that's what it looks like when you look at it, right? And the caption is, what if the spider you killed in your home had spent his entire life thinking that you were his roommate? Ever think about that?

No. You only think about yourself. The title of the post is so self. centered. And that's what I'm trying to avoid, right? Like, I'm not only trying to recognize that spiders are our bros, but I'm also trying to be a bro to the spiders. Yeah. And I'm working on it, you know? The other thing I'll say is that you very kindly sent me a camouflaged, I'm not sure why, camouflageed grabber tool, right? I thought it would make you feel like more badass about doing the right thing, you know, like it's cool to do the right thing. But it's used for grabbing some.

spiders with so that you can grab them and then take them outside. Yeah. And the other night, I had a spider that sort of like it went past my office rule. It was too big and mean looking. I was like, you can't share this space with me. That's not going to work. And I pulled it out and I used it. And it worked beautifully.

Yay. I took the spider out of the spider's little corner. Mm-hmm. And I dropped he-shee right out onto my back patio, and he-shee scurried off. Success. So thanks to you, I'm killing fewer spiders. And thanks to spider bros, I'm also killing fewer spiders. I am so thrilled to hear that.

Can I share another, like, pro tip with you for changing your relationship to spiders? Anytime. I have in my house a lot of the, oh, I should really know what these are called by now, but they're kind of a yellowish spider. They're probably full size, like the size of a quarter, maybe. Okay. And I had this thing growing up. My family had this thing where every bunny that we saw in the yard, every bunny was named Shirley, even though they're all different rabbits.

And so we do that now in my house with these yellow spiders. They're all named Doris. And so when we see one, it's not like, oh, spider. It's like, oh, hey Doris. How you doing? And then whenever we get around to it, we just take Doris outside because we're pretty sure she'll be happier out there. So I recommend the naming technique. It kind of, well, humanizes obviously the wrong word in this context.

But, you know, it reminds you of that roommate philosophy that, you know, these spiders are not thinking of that they're not intentionally invading your space. They're just existing in the same space that you are. Right. It's just Ted. It's just Ted. Right. So now next time you can be like, damn it, Ted. Can you just get addle over there, Ted? I'm trying to sit at my desk right now and get some work done without having a panic attack. Exactly. And then when Ted creeps too close, then you get out the grabber and you take them outside. If you could only do that with real roommates too. Yeah. You need a larger grabber. All right, Ted, you're moving out.

All right. Well, I have another story of a spider eviction. Okay. When we come back. At Radio Lab, we love nothing more than nerding out about science, neuroscience, chemistry. But we do also like to get into other kinds of stories. Stories about policing or politics. Country music.

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I have two small stories, I would say here. One, I'm really picturing this being you, but this is a TIL post at Today I learned. A person is just walking around their neighborhood in Western Australia, and they hear something in a house that is very concerning to them. They hear an adult man in a house screaming, why don't you die? And there's a toddler inside who is like screaming and crying at the same time. And this concerned neighbor is like, oh my God, I'm, I am overhearing some serious, serious. business go down. And they call the police and the police show up and it's just a guy trying to kill a spider in his house. And there were like multiple officers at what they thought was the scene

of a horrible crime. But it's just a guy trying to kill a spider. So of course they do go inside and they investigate and make sure that no harm has come to anyone. But they did find, I believe. a very squished spider. So that's just karma coming to get you if you try to, if you do try to kill a spider. But my other story has to do with someone who is probably like you. You know, they're not, they're not really into spiders. This was on the subreddit, let's not meet. And this is a redditor who goes by Brit Gen 1988.

So they say that they're working the second shift at their company, which is like 5 p.m. to 1 a.m. And there are two ways home from there. One way just kind of gets them straight to the highway. The other way is more back roads, but they go past a burger place and a Mexican fast food place. So if they're hungry when they get off of work, they're usually taken that other back road route. And that back road route also has some train tracks that they have to. cross. So every once in a while, if you know, if you don't time it right, the train, the barrier is going to go down so the train can go by and you just have to hang out for a few minutes and let

the train go by. So this happened, I think about a year ago, and they get out of work a little bit early. They're very hungry, this person is. So they go the backroads route to go get a burger. And they say usually I have my window rolled down listening to music on my phone. But on this particular night, as they close the car door, they see a spider that has spun a web in between their window and their side mirror. Okay. So they decide, you know, I'm just going to, the spider's on the outside. I still am not thrilled that it's there. But instead of riding home with the windows rolled down,

I will just roll my window up and prevent the spider from coming inside. So problem presumably solved. Then as they approach those train tracks that they have to cross, the barrier comes down right as they're pulling up. And out of nowhere, some man approaches this person's car. And this man starts like banging on her car door and on her window. and trying to get her, I'm saying her, I don't actually know if it's a her, trying to get them to open the window or open the door. And then they're going around to the other side of the car and banging on the window and trying to get into the car.

This person calls 911. They're screaming at the person to back off. When the police finally get there, this man is sufficiently scared off. And the police officer says it was a really. good thing that you didn't have your windows rolled down because who knows what this person would have done sneaking up on your car. And so the subject of this post is pretty sure a spider saved my life. So I don't think this has like converted this person from being a not into spiders to, you know, joining the spider bro community and consuming all of its content. No.

But it is just like a nice spider appreciation. posts where unintentionally this spider helped out. Yeah. And I think that's kind of the thing about spiders, right? Is that like...

Right, like they're not really trying to help you out necessarily. They're just doing their thing. Yeah. Right. They're doing their thing. We're doing our thing. It's a symbiotic relationship

with the spider. Spiders are bros. So be bros to spiders.