- Hey, good morning everybody,
and welcome to the vlog.
You know, ever since I was a kid,
I've been fascinated with these beautiful,
majestic snakes, and of course all reptiles
for that matter.
But the truth is is that one of the biggest fears
in the world happens to be the fear of snakes.
It's actually called Ophidiophobia,
which comes from the Greek words ophi,
which is for snake, and of course phobia,
which is fear.
But the truth is is that we here at the reptarium
work on getting people over their fears
on every single day, and so today, I'm going
to go ahead and talk about that.
But before we get into how to get over your fear
of snakes, let's go ahead and look at
why people do fear snakes.
For some people, being as surrounded by thousands
of snakes like I am right now would be their
worst nightmare, and they would have a heart attack.
For me, it's absolutely something
that I'm amazed with, and I love every single day
at it.
But let's go ahead and break down why people fear
such beautiful animals like snakes.
Oftentimes, it can be a learned thing.
We've all heard the story about, "My brother chased me
"when I was a kid, and threw a snake on me,
"and now I'm traumatized."
It happens all the time.
I hear that more and more, and sometimes it's
just a matter of like, "Hey, I was out
"in the woods when I was a kid,
"and I got bit by a snake,
"and now I fear them all the time."
Oftentimes, it can literally be something
that kids learn from their parents.
You know, we have a birthday party
that's going to be happening here pretty soon,
and I'll take out animals like Sweetie, the Blood Python
here, and oftentimes the kids are so excited about it.
They come in, they're just excited.
Of course, they're coming to the reptarium,
'cause they love reptiles, for their birthday party,
right, but you'll hear some of the parents
saying stuff like, "Oh, be careful.
"That snake might hurt you."
Or they'll be like, "Oh, that's disgusting."
You know, hearing a parent say that,
and a kid that might be really excited about reptiles,
and snakes in particular, and then hearing their parent
kind of chastise them about it,
that can sometimes cause that kid that loves snakes
to think that they're kind of gross, and eventually
if enough of that reinforcement happens,
they may actually start fearing snakes.
Weirdly enough, we notice here at the reptarium,
that there are some certain snakes,
and colors of snakes, that kind of instill
more fear in people.
Take for instance, Night Fury here.
Sometimes people will actually be freaked out
by him, but that same person would literally
be excited to hold an animal like Perdita.
Perdita, not only is a larger snake,
but they're the same snake.
They're both Reticulated Pythons.
But, for some reason, the darker snake
like Night Fury freaks them out,
but them they see this beautiful white snake
with black freckles, and they just think it's
so cute and cuddly, they want to hold her.
But not all fear is actually learned.
Weirdly enough, anthropologists actually believe
that the development of the human brain
to the intelligence that we are now has directly correlated
potentially with snakes.
What they think is that early on in evolution,
the people that were smart enough
to avoid snakes, because there could be danger
with snakes, of course venomous snakes,
actually were more likely to survive,
and then ultimately breed and pass on
that kind of inherent fear of snakes.
On that same ilk, there was actually a study done
with kids as low as three-years-old,
all the way up to adults that actually would flash pictures
of multiple animals and colors, and believe it or not,
the results were pretty amazing.
The fact is that most people identified the snake picture,
even if it was in a collage of six or eight pictures
faster than any of the other pictures.
So what I'm going to do right now is I'm going
to flash a few pictures, let me know which one
you identify first down in the comments,
and let's see if this works.
That's pretty crazy, right?
I mean, it is weird, and it makes sense
because maybe that's kind of how primitive people
actually helped survive, and with snakes
that were potentially dangerous.
But let's go ahead and get into getting over your fears.
Now keeping in mind that fear is basically the lack
of knowledge.
The more you learn, the less you fear.
So if you fear something, you should learn
as much as you possibly can about it.
The more you learn, the less that fear actually happens.
Now, with me, I had to learn a lot about spiders
because I was terrified of spiders.
But then I started to learn a ton about them,
and I feared them a little less.
But I still didn't really want to hold them
to be totally honest with you.
So the next thing we did was exposure therapy, basically.
The more you kind of expose yourself to them,
sometimes first you want to just take a look at them,
look at them from afar, eventually getting a little closer,
a little bit closer a little longer.
Maybe then touching one, and then ultimately trying
to hold one.
It may be freaky at first, trust me,
but the more you do it, the less you fear it.
Now, I love spiders, I think they're absolutely amazing.
Just a few years ago, I couldn't even get this close
without passing out, and now I pick them up all the time,
I look at them, and I think they're absolutely amazing.
So exposing yourself to the things that you fear,
oftentimes, will get you over your fears.
You guys have all heard of,
"Keeping Up with the Joneses," right?
Well basically we have a birthday party
that's about to get started right now.
And, oftentimes, obviously the birthday boy or girl
is super excited about reptiles,
but not all their friends are.
There's always some friends that are like,
"Oh my god, it's so freaky."
But what happens is they start seeing their friends
holding these snakes, having a great time,
not getting hurt, and then they start
to get that Jones effect, right,
where they basically are like,
"Well now I can handle snakes."
And almost every single time, every kid starts
to handle all the snakes.
And then, the kids that were maybe a little fearful
realize, "Wow, these snakes are absolutely incredible."
(upbeat music)
(laughs)
How awesome is that?
Again, I love that I get to spend my life kind of
inspiring and getting people over their fears.
Kids are always the best, for sure.
Now, we actually have the reptarium open later tonight
so I want to talk about what we do then
because every single night that the reptarium's open
we have people that come in that are fearful
that want to get over that fear.
Oftentimes, we'll use certain animals to help
in that way.
And Helen, certainly is one of them.
For whatever reason, because she was born
without eyes and is blind, people feel a little bit
more comfortable, kind of like, "If they can't see me,
"they're not going to hurt me," type of thing.
But the one thing that we always press here
is to move at that person's pace.
And what I mean by that is that you don't want
to ever push anyone.
Remember the story I told in the beginning of the vlog
where, "My brother chased me around with a snake?"
That's the same effect, right?
If we push them or force them into it
that is actually a bad thing.
That's how you get over your fears.
And for whatever reason, Ben and Jerry freaks people
out a lot I mean I realize it's a pretty freaky animal,
but the fact that I think that it has two head
they think that it could maybe bite more.
I'm not 100% sure.
The fact is that whenever someone comes in,
I try to educate them as much as I can about the animals.
But then I always say, "When you're ready,
"you handle the snake."
"When you feel comfortable, you handle the snake."
We take it at their pace, and we never force them
into anything.
Oftentimes, we'll just start with petting a snake, right?
Petting a snake is gaining knowledge, right,
because most people think that snakes are slimy,
or they're wet, they feel really gross.
And then when people actually touch them,
they're like, "Oh my god, that didn't feel at all
"what I expected it to feel like."
And that is part of gaining knowledge.
And as that knowledge, that fear kind of goes away.
And those little pets at first that are kind of
like, maybe almost a touch, turn into a longer pet,
and sometimes even just holding part of the animal.
And that opens our door up to potentially
have them hold snakes.
But, again, if we are just to jump right into it,
they're going to get freaked out, right?
Sometimes it can take me the better part
of an hour to work on one person just
to get them to start to hold a snake.
But once they hold their first snake,
the next thing the floodgates are open.
So for us, it's about understanding the animals,
and the animals that actually trigger people
to get curious about animals
because, again, curiosity leads to people
wanting to learn, people wanting to learn leads
to knowledge which leads to the fact
that they get better at the fear part.
You know, Anacondas, the name itself kind of
freaks people out, but the fact is is that,
oftentimes, it also intrigues people, right,
because that's an Anaconda!
And the fact that we can bring Verdi out,
or even Ivy out, and they're very docile actually
causes people to think, "Wow, I got to hold and Anaconda."
So if you're trying to get someone else over their fears,
that's something that you have to think about:
what actually is causing that fear,
and how can you counteract that into wanting them
to be curious about it, and potentially learn
more about it?
So my advice to you, if you're trying
to get someone over their fear of snakes,
whether it be a significant other, a parent,
or whomever it might be, is try
to use the same things that we just talked about.
You know, you want to create curiosity,
get them knowledgeable, understand,
is it something that was learned, an experience
that they had, or is it a biological trigger
that it is, and somehow get them into the learning mode
because once you can get them into the learning mode,
their curiosity could peak, and potentially
they might actually be willing to learn more about it
and get over their fears.
And then maybe you guys can eventually
be reptile people together,
whatever the case is.
But we're actually getting ready to gear up
to open at the reptarium, which is really
what I love, because then I can really work
on people that not only really love reptiles,
but also people that do fear them,
and turn them into reptile lovers.
Time to open up for the reptarium.
You guys ready?
- Yes.
- Yeah.
- Okay let's do this.
Hey guys, hi how are you?
- Good.
- Come on in, I know it's cold out here.
Hi guys, how are you?
Hi, how are you?
How's it going, what's up, buddy?
Boom.
Hi, how are you?
It's good to meet you.
Hi, how are you?
Hey guys, welcome.
How you doing, man?
Good, good, come on in.
How you doing, hi how are you?
Having some fun today.
How you guys doing, everyone's all right?
Awesome guys, thank you guys.
Let us know whatever you want to check out, all right?
Okay, we got Elvis out over here.
Everything good, Bruce?
- Always, always.
- Cool, cool, cool.
As you guys can see, heavily popping off here
at the reptarium.
Going to be a really fun night.
What do you guys have to say?
- I don't know.
- The reptarium is awesome.
Awesome.
- [Brian] You guys having a good time?
- Yeah.
- [Brian] Cool, say hi to everyone.
- Hi.
- Hi, everyone.
- [Brian] Where are you from?
- Chicago.
- [Brian] Chicago?
Are you having a good time so far?
- Yeah.
- [Brian] All right, cool.
What's your favorite thing so far?
- Snakes.
- [Brian] Snakes?
All right, cool, you want to see Ben and Jerry?
- Yeah.
- [Brian] All right, let's do it.
- How does it have two heads?
- [Brian] Well one I had to sow on very slowly.
(laughing)
No, it's just like a twin.
You can hold, too, bud, give me one sec.
Tristan, what do you have to say?
- Amazing place, a lot of nice animals.
Love the snakes.
- So this is a new one for me.
Salt, I was putting her back, and she decided she
was going to grab my shirt, and not let go.
Salt, what are you thinking right now, girl?
What do you got going on?
Okay, well this is, I wouldn't have ever expected this.
What are you doing, silly monkey?
That's a jumping tarantula, huh?
- Uh-oh.
(laughing)
- No it's not, bud.
Having an absolutely amazing night here
at the reptarium.
I know I haven't shared this with you guys lately,
but we have a blast here.
And we're actually going to feed Lucy in a minute,
too, and, of course, Butterscotch.
Okay, so you guys are ready for a feeding?
- Yeah!
- All right, be truthful, how many people
want to see me get eaten?
(laughing)
That's what I thought.
Oh, look it, she's ready.
Lucy is ready.
Okay guys, you ready?
- Yeah!
- [Brian] So the deal is we're going to feed Lucy,
and then when we're done with that we're going
to go down there, and we're going to feed Butterscotch,
he's up in the top cage.
And she's hopefully going to grab a rabbit
out of the air.
And hopefully Lucy isn't going to get me.
Let's go.
Come on, come on.
(crowd awing)
So I didn't get bit, sorry guys.
All right, so you guys can watch her eat
if you want, then we're going to go down
about two cages and we'll feed Butterscotch, okay?
(upbeat music)
(crowd awing)
Come on, girl.
Come on, come on.
She can get me from here, that's the problem.
So obviously that didn't work out like I'd hoped.
You know, that's animals for you,
you know sometimes things work out and sometimes they don't.
Butterscotch took a really crazy lunge,
really close to biting me.
Then she got kind of nervous, and kind of went back in,
so just didn't work out.
We're going to go ahead and feed Lucy again,
just to keep everyone happy.
Oftentimes, when I feed Lucy the second rabbit,
I find someone that has some experience
that isn't afraid, and I'm going
to walk him through exactly what to do
so that there's no danger.
But he's going to get an opportunity to feed Lucy.
So, she's over here ready to go.
So what I'm going to do is have you step
over on this side, right here.
So you're going to be protected by this glass, right?
So, what you're going to do is you're just going
to stick your hand in there and kind of go towards her head,
and she's going to come up right towards you.
Just go right to her nose.
There she goes.
- Thank you, thank you.
- That was awesome.
Good job, guys.
It felt good to kind of share the night
at the reptarium with you guys, again,
because it's always absolutely amazing.
I'm on cloud nine, 'cause it's absolutely incredible.
If you enjoyed this video, here's a video
when we actually made the reptarium,
and over here's a playlist of all kinds
of reptarium stuff.
And, as you're at it, can you go over there
and hit the subscribe button?
And turn those post notifications on for me.
Remember to have an absolutely wonderful day.
You better be kind to someone.
And I promise, I'll see you guys tomorrow.