113. Awkwardness with Alexandra Plakias

Episode 113. Awkwardness with Alexandra Plakias
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.
Overthink is a philosophy podcast hosted by your new favorite professors, Ellie Anderson (Pomona College) and David Peña-Guzmán (San Francisco State University). Check out our episodes for deep dives into concepts such as existential anxiety, empathy, and gaslighting.
Support Overthink on Patreon here: patreon.com/overthinkpodcast
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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[@NerdPromComics]

The Hyperreality Episode was 🔥 Excited for this one

[@bourdieufan7433]

the real cool kids philosophers

[@crowboggs]

Episode covers a lot of interesting ground (so to speak), though much of the discussion hinges on "social scripts," which (in my unsolicited opinion) is fine and works well enough. I am curious how meaningful that term is without exposure to Saussure, semiotics, and structuralism (and maybe even Bourdieu and his conception of semiotic fields). Maybe you have covered these topics in earlier episodes, but the discussion might serve to support an understanding of this pivotal term. At one point I was in the awkward situtation you mention of trying to pass someone on the street or in a corridor, where I was heading in the opposite direction of another person and, in trying to avoid one another's progress, we inadvertently kept stepping in each other's way, until we stopped, smiled (awkwardly) and gestured with our hands which way we intended to go before doing so. The funny thing was, in this one encounter, the person I had this experience with smiled and said, "It was a pleasure dancing with you." This brought a smile to my face, widened theirs, and they managed to turn the awkward situation into a chance and passing pleasantry. While this could be an example of improvisation that is discussed, my best speculation as to why it dispelled awkwardness beyond the person's "charisma" is because they were able to contextualize our activity into terms that roughly associated to our encounter... the fact that it went from a "me/them" situation into an "our" is likely also significant. Thanks for your fine work here

[@Olives.TwistedBranch]

How much more awkward has all that social media floating out there made things

[@BreezeTalk]

I’m back home.