Mind Theory is Quietly Changing the World
How did three grandmas and a bong shift our culture? … Bigly.
During my interviews with some of the higher-ups at Cut.com (a viral media company) last week, one of their executives — we’ll call him Tom Sway — introduced a term to me. Mind Theory (or Theory of Mind) is the name of the term. I had never heard of it. I was, however, familiar with the idea, or at least I could understand the underlying concept. Mind Theory, according to Sway, has to do with holding two contradictory ideas in one’s head simultaneously. It has to do with understanding that other people’s perspectives and beliefs might be different than one’s own. Apparently sociopaths can’t do this.
The reason he was explaining it to me was to explain the approach that Cut.com uses when creating content. They introduce ideas to people via videos — often funny, sometimes serious, always thought provoking videos. The videos that Sway and company produce have a tendency to make you laugh and consider the ridiculousness — and occasionally tortuous — nature of the human experience, all in a matter of a few minutes.
Sway was explaining to me that by putting ideas on the screen that fundamentally contradict some people’s assumed realities, it’s possible (by forcing them to reconcile these two realities) to create a shift in their perception of the world. If enough people see these videos and are forced to reconcile their realities with the one on the screen, then big shifts in perception can happen. Cultural shifts. Societal shifts. Policy shifts even.
This struck me as profound. Leading up to my interview with Sway, I had watched the majority of their videos. This was in preparation for the job I interviewed for, which focuses on optimizing their content for online performance. The important part however, is that I watched hours and hours of their videos. I laughed, a lot. I didn’t cry, but my throat knotted up a couple times. By the time I completed the little “data project” for my interview, I thought I had a strong understanding of what their content is about. It’s about situations in life that people try desperately to avoid. It’s about taking the most awkward and socially sensitive moments in life, slapping them on people’s proverbial dinner plates, and saying, “Eat up!” It became glaringly obvious that intensely awkward moments on video are intensely entertaining.
Their videos touch on many subjects, but they almost all touch on subjects that are hard to look away from. The kinds of subjects that make you turn down your volume if you’re in a public place. Things like strangers undressing each other down to their underwear as punishment for not drinking a beer. Things like one hundred different people screaming their favorite insult into the camera. Things like Grandmas smoking weed for the first time.
It was this last one — Grandmas smoking weed for the first time — that became an example of the power of Mind Theory. Obviously, seeing three cute Grandmas on camera trying to figure out how to use a bong and then watching as they experience “getting high” for the first time is a reality that most people have probably never seen. At least not quite like how it was presented on camera. Sure, some of us may have wondered if granny has ever puffed the magic dragon. Some of us may have even asked her. Maybe you’ve smoked pot with family members. But the idea of Grandmas sitting around a table, smoking weed for the first time, discussing it, and then playing cards against humanity while munching on snacks is something that very few people have envisioned in their mind’s eye. You can imagine why this would be entertaining. It’s downright hilarious in fact. But it’s much more than a simple comedy sketch. At least according to Tom Sway.
Grandmas smoking weed for the first time is a reality that contradicts most people’s assumed realities. By putting it on screen, Sway forced people who are rooted in a belief system that features no grandmas smoking weed to reconcile their reality with what they see. The end result is a shift in the cultural conscious. A shift large enough — Sway believes — to have influenced the recreational legalization of pot.
Sitting across the table from Sway, trying to look contemplative rather than nervous, I was suddenly struck by the circular nature of our conversation. Here I was sitting in a chair, in a building, in a city, in a state, where anyone over the age of 21 can drive to their local weed store and buy weed to enjoy recreationally. Across the table, was one of the minds behind a video that five minutes ago, I thought was merely some good old-fashioned fun. But no. It was way more than just fun. It was a mallet whacking the arc of time toward justice. I realized then, that this Mind Theory stuff was serious business.
I don’t think the nerves of that two-hour interview process wore off completely until the next day. Maybe the day after that even. The concept of Mind Theory stayed fresh in my mind and I began to notice examples of it all over.
Maybe Mind Theory is broad enough to be seen everywhere. I suppose it is a basic part of learning really. We think A, then we see B, they compete for the same real estate in our minds, so we have to work through how they can both exist as ideas and how one, or the other, or a combination of the two, is what reality actually is. Babies actually think you disappear when you play peekaboo. At some point though, they have to reconcile that belief with the nature of 3-D space. Eventually they realize that because something is simply out of sight does not mean it no longer exists. It’s when deep cultural realities are thrown into question however, that this concept is its most powerful.
I saw it in an episode of Black Mirror this past week. In the episode, two gay women fall in love in a simulated reality. The episode is intriguing. It keeps you wondering what exactly is going on until the very end — true to Black Mirror form. How Mind Theory crept in (at least in one way) was the casual portrayal of lesbian main characters. Gay main characters aren’t new. But they aren’t common. And they still run against the grain of the modern mainstream media. What made this instance of Mind Theory stand out was, ironically, it’s subtlety. The show wasn’t about gay rights. It was about some strange simulated world that people plugged into on weekends. It was about life, death and heaven, and like all Black Mirror episodes, it was about figuring out what the fuck is going on. It wasn’t about normalizing homosexuality. But that’s what it did.
Louis CK wrapped taboo ideas about suicide and homosexual urges into his latest gut-busting special. Trump shone a light on how politics can look when etiquette and professionalism are thrown out the window. Bill Maher smoked pot on TV. Kevin Durant decided to work for the best company in his industry, highlighting the transient nature of the modern talent economy, but most people just saw a lazy traitor.
The often-uncomfortable exercise of revising our worldview is a constant process. One that more and more people seem to be desperately avoiding. Sometimes it’s obvious that it’s happening and other times it’s not. But, in the siloed and polarized era of identity-everything, Mind Theory in action is one of the few effective ways of sparking critical thought — and ultimately change. And the people putting it into action are the cultural puppeteers of the society we’re building.
