- [Narrator] Every Who down in Whoville
liked Christmas a lot, but the Grinch,
who lived just north of Whoville, did not.
- He's a mean one, Mr. Grinch.
- Let us find out why.
(upbeat techno music)
- [Woman] Let's take a close look at Grinch's file.
Subject is a green, fur-clad biped, possibly a primate.
He has red eyes known to change in highly-charged
positive emotional states to the color blue,
and he also has a heart two sizes too small.
- [Man] Whoville Wikipedia states that the Grinch is known
to be of a different species than the Who's,
possibly a what.
Moreover, according to Chad Orzel in his article
on SciencebBlogs, How Strong Was the Grinch?,
the green one is as strong as 10 grinches plus two,
implying a grinch is its own species.
- [Woman] The subject's disposition is known to be
as foul as a sauerkraut sandwich with arsenic sauce.
In fact, he could be described as anti-social,
neurotic, aggressive, depressive, vindictive,
and possibly fulfilling a need for power
by exploiting the compliant personality of his dog, Max.
- [Man] The Grinch's remote location and social isolation
may be a factor in his deep-seated anger and desire
for vengeance against the Who's down in Whoville.
- [Woman] Consider the research of University of Chicago's
John Cacioppo, who had volunteers, some of whom
were identified as socially isolated,
undergo FMRI as they looked at photographs.
He found that when both groups, the lonely and non-lonely,
looked at photos of happy people doing happy things,
their brains increased in blood flow to the reward area.
- [Man] Except that the lonely people's response
was lackluster in comparison to the non-lonely people.
- [Woman] But here's the kicker, when it came
to unpleasant photos, the visual cortex of lonely subjects
responded much more strongly to unpleasant images
of people than to unpleasant images of objects.
This was not the case for non-lonely participants.
- [Man] According to David DiSalva, writing
for Psychology Today, people with an acute sense
of social isolation appear to have a reduced response
to things that make most people happy,
and a heightened response to human conflict,
not unlike our Grinch.
- [Woman] As for the noise, noise, noise of the Who's
that haunts our subject so, it's possible that their sounds
of Christmas merriment fall within the 2000
to 5000 hertz range, which is known
to become amplified in the human ear canal
and cause anxiety in some people.
- [Man] In any case, in a stroke of poetic justice,
it was the Who noise that may have triggered the subject
to undergo a life-changing epiphany.
After the Grinch dressed up as Santa,
with his antler-bedecked dog in two,
and stole all the roast beast and presents from the house,
the Who's banded together in song rather than sobbing.
- [Woman] When the Grinch discovers their dulcet tones
rejoicing that it's Christmas,
he's met with cognitive dissonance,
a sort of schism felt when a person's expectations
are violated and he struggles
to hold two different beliefs in the mind.
- [Man] The Grinch could have doubled down
on his original belief, or he could have
accepted the situation unfolding before him
in a new light with a new understanding,
which is exactly what he did.
- [Woman] Christmas, he realizes, is about something more.
- [Man] As for the Who's, they're not mere innocents
targeted by a diabolic plot, they are rampant materialists.
- [Woman] Chad Orzel's article on ScienceBlogs,
How Strong Was the Grinch, estimates that each
of the 33 Who's in Whoville were hauling at
about 6,000 pounds, that's 3,030 kilograms of presents.
- [Man] But why? Perhaps they were trying
to stuff the empty husks of themselves with things
before the Grinch came along and showed them
how insignificant these things really were
and how they paled in comparison
to a true connection with another person.
- [Woman] As for the Grinch's heart growing three sizes
that fateful day, there's no good explanation.
Maybe the genetic switches were flipped
on his whoness rather than his whatness,
or perhaps it was just Who sorcery.
- [Man] Hey, if you enjoyed this video, be sure to check out
these three videos as well.
- [Woman] And don't forget to visit us at
stufftoblowyourmind.com.
- Is a Christmas carol actually a psychedelic journey
into the great beyond, did Ebenezer Scrooge take DMAT?
- Hello, human, did you that snowflakes are tiny kingdoms
of ice crystals and they could be a clue
to galaxy formation?
- [Man] Let's take a close look at Ebenezer Scrooge's file.
Subject is a miserly titan of the money lending industry
who is visited by multiple ghosts on the eve of Christmas.