Youtube Influencers Myka and James Stauffer adopted a boy in 2017 only to return him three
years later.
You'll discover the emotions they were trying to hide in their apology video, revealed through
their body language:
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learn body language secrets.
A quick background: the reasoning behind sending their adopted son to foster care is because
he had special needs that they couldn't meet.
It's well known that Myka was an oncology registered nurse until 2013 and they have
the means to hire professional help.
They published this video in response of all the inquiries of their audience because nobody
had seen the boy in months.
Turns out they had already put him on foster care, went on a vacation to Bali and ignored
or deleted questions about him.
That's when people began to ask the same questions in their brand partners' social media accounts,
so they couldn't hide it any more.
And that brings us to the first characteristic of this apology video: it should have been
spontaneous at least, in a single take.
Instead, you can see along the seven minutes that they switch positions, attitudes and
even hair.
Of course, anyone that is nervous or anxious can play with their hair; that is totally
natural.
But what is not natural is when you see a video like this,
where you have many pieces that seem disconnected.
She has many videos that are unedited ramblings.
That's her style.
If you have a heavily edited video it implies that you are picking the best parts to be
more convincing.
Timing and editing are a clue that they are not being sincere.
The best way to know if someone's emotions are real, is to look at the way their face
reacts when they are expressing those emotions with their words.
The main emotion here should be sadness.
She's sad because the decision they had to make was not an easy one.
But what does her face tell you about this emotion?
In real sadness, Brows not only raise but also get closer together.
It's a complex muscle movement that is not easy to fake.
In most of her displays of grief, Myka's brows rise but don't get closer together.
It's not a real emotion.
When it's real, you will see vertical wrinkles right above the nose.
By the way, there is ONE moment when Myka truly expresses sadness with her face.
But before we find out what she said at that moment, we should talk about the glasses.
Wearing glasses should be no big deal, right? she even had them in a couple videos before.
What is odd is that the last video that she appeared with glasses was more than a year
ago.
She has published more than fifty videos without glasses since then.
But what's so special about it?
Well, it's a well-known strategy when you're on trial and you want the jury to have a softer
attitude towards you.
It's called the nerd defense.
You just wear glasses to improve jury's perception about you.
You can find research online that confirms that it works.
But it's not only Myka's suspicious emotions that tell a story.
Her husband also shows conflicting facial expressions.
One tool that you can use to spot certain body language clues are speeding up or slowing
down the video.
Slowing down works best for facial expressions.
When the husband wants to express his grief, we notice two things:
There is absolutely no emotions in his brows, and the trick is watching that clip without
audio and trying not looking at his mouth.
The other clue that you can see is an emotion that is not usually combined with grief, that
is: contempt.
He speaks with a slight asymmetric mouth, that is a sign of this emotion.
And we know that it's not part of his regular expressions because he doesn't do it all the
time.
If he has mixed contempt, maybe he was really uncomfortable having to apologize.
Another clue about the histrionic and exaggerated nature of this video is the use of certain
gestures.
And here I want to emphasize that real feelings are going to show naturally, if you're being
truly spontaneous.
But what happens when you make a gesture like this?
Now I'm gonna ask you to do a very interesting exercise.
You just have to put your hands in the same gesture that she did and wait a few seconds.
Here's the question: what did you feel?
It's an important question because these kind of gestures should have an emotional feedback.
Like when you put on a sad face and you end up feeling sad.
That's an emotional feedback.
So, what did you feel in this case?
And most importantly, did it feel natural or made up?
That's a good discussion we can start in the comments.
Was Myka sincere with that gesture?
When you analyze videos that have more than one person, it is always a good idea to watch
it a couple times listening to one of them while watching the other.
In this case, Myka's husband has slight emotional reactions when she's talking about their how
viewers behaved with this situation.
Do you remember that we talked about contempt, right? and that it pulls one of the corners
of the mouth?
That's exactly what happens right at the start of the video when Myka says the words "how
amazing the viewers have been".
At the same time, he shows clear signs of contempt.
Now, reading faces and deciphering body language is about spotting reactions.
It's not only that you see a gesture or microexpression; is discovering what was the trigger.
In this case, the trigger for the contempt gesture was the viewers.
That's what Myka had just mentioned.
Another good example of an emotional reaction is when she says:
"I don't have to say this but I want to", regarding explaining about their decision.
He has a chin jut, that is a gesture commonly related to suppressed anger.
It's not the only time he does it, though.
When her voice begins to break again, he does a very clear chin jut.
Now, in some cases you can read that expression like he is feeling anger towards her, but
I don't think this is the case.
I think he's just really upset to see her wife having to apologize like that.
This reinforces the fact that they published this video not only because the questioning
from their audience but also pressure from their brand partners.
As in, "I don't wanna do this, I shouldn't be doing this," and precisely, she had just
said "I don't have to say this, but I want to".
Now, I mentioned there's one moment when Myka really expressed sadness and grief with her
face.
And that's right at Three Thirty Six, when she talks about "insidious, hurtful comments".
At that moment two vertical wrinkles appear right above her nose and that's how you know
it was real.
That's another way to know that someone is not using Botox.
You watch all the clip to the end to make sure she's able to push her brows like that.
So, when you confirm that her brows are free to move, you proceed to find out what did
she say at that moment.
So, no matter how many times she tried to show sadness and grief for her adopted child,
she was not being sincere.
But when she talks about the hurtful comments, that's what really triggers her sadness.
She cares more about the comments than having returned her child.
When you analyze a clip or video, keep in mind that no single gesture or facial expression
is going to tell you the whole story.
And it's always a good idea to take a look at the whole clip first so you can have a
better perspective of their body expression as a whole.
People can say all they want, even prepare a script beforehand, but true feelings are
always going to emerge through the body because that's the way we communicate on a deeper
level.
When you feel that something is off, it's because your intuition is trying to tell you
something.
now, there is an extra clue I'd like to share with you.
You can spot a small change in the husband's attitude when he is talking about the child
And it happens right after a video cut at one minute forty-eight
You see that his face changes in a split second from grief to a mixed emotion, and back to
grief again
Now, in analysis like this is useful not only to slow down but also pay attention to both
sides of the face
Then you ask the question: what is each side telling me?
In this case, one side of the face, HIS right side, remains neutral while his left, more
emotional side is almost grinning
This is a very unusual emotional dissonance that is very far from the emotions he wants
to convey
He wants to project grief but in that exact moment he is showing relief
Of course, you can also project relief if you're getting something out of your chest,
The problem in this case is that he is trying to hide that relief,
And any emotional cover-up always raises suspicions.
Did you spot any other clues in their apology video?
don't forget to share them in the comments.
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