Show Notes

Posts tagged Why are we afraid of spiders
E16 - Get Your Spidey Senses Tingling

Well, it's finally here. The episode on spiders. We kick things off by thanking our listeners and reminding folks to submit a name for the demonic bear on our website. You can submit your entry at We will reveal the results sometime in 2023. 

We move to the discussion of what stressed us out this week. David tries to tell his story and Kevin starts to tease him about his frequent references to Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. Ugh. When David is finally able to get a word in, he talks about the anxiety associated with being sick. Sore throat, must be cancer. Achy back, it's definitely Lupus. 

Kevin shares his anxiety associated with doing someone unconsciously such as washing his face with shampoo instead of face wash, or not recalling if he did something like 3 seconds earlier. Then the discussion turns to the carcinogenic qualities of beauty products. Ugh, something else to worry about. 

Then we talk about spiders, which are not insects by the way. They are arachnids along with ticks and scorpions. David is terrified of nearly every spider. Daddy long legs, no problem. But those ones with hair and joints, no F'ing way. David tells the story of when he and his partner bought a house in CT and the front lawn was covered in field spiders. They weigh like 5 pounds and have little daggers that they use to rip flesh from your body. And recluse or wolf spiders. NOOOOOOO. 

Kevin tries to offer some deprive by sharing some data on the beneficial qualities of spiders, like they eat insects and keep your house free of pests. This from a man who is scared of bees and doesn't care that they pollinate like 80% of our food. We then discuss the scientific reasons for why people are scared of spiders. Turns out we don't like angular things, things with jagged edges. And given that spiders are jagged, they fall into this category.  Another theory is that like a million years ago, spiders were bigger and more venomous so we have been conditioned to fear them.