 Yesterday, I kept seeing this quote from George Clooney on my Twitter feed where he talks about giving 14 of his friends a million dollars, along with the retweets of the quote were jokes that became played out within an hour or two. Thousands of people retweeted the quote saying things like, I knew I should have hung out with George Clooney that one time. While yes, most of us are living paycheck to paycheck, a million bucks from a friend would be nice, but it's also quite possible that George Clooney's friends were highly insulted by the fact that he gave them money. To put it into perspective, we're coming up on the holidays, Thanksgiving is next week and after that, we have Christmas. For a moment, let's imagine that you go to your parents' house for dinner, or maybe you're like me when I was growing up and you go to a friend's house for Thanksgiving dinner. Now, imagine eating that delicious meal, having some great conversation and making memories. Then, you hand the person who made the meal $50. How do you think that would go? They'd probably be extremely insulted by your gesture. Like George Clooney, you're trying to show your gratitude and you don't think that words can do it. So, you do some math in your head and you figure that the meal was worth about $30. The service was great too, so why not a big tip? So you give the cook $50. This doesn't go over well because of societal norms and I thought this would be interesting to discuss because I recently had to have this conversation with my son. My son has been so good about saving money that he still has money from Christmas from last year and his New Year's Eve birthday. Since Christmas and his birthday are coming up again, he's been spending more of his money because he knows that more is coming in. With his money, he's bought a few new video games, but he's made some gestures that may come off as offensive. Recently, he's offered me money for doing my fatherly duties like going grocery shopping. He even offered my girlfriend money when his headphones broke and she gave him her extra pair. So, I had to sit him down and explain norms and how this kind gesture may come off as offensive. Again, while you and I would gladly take George Clooney's $1 million, I can't help but wonder if his friends were offended. I'm not sure which of his friends he gave money to, but money is relative to your net worth. If his friends are fellow millionaires or even billionaires, George Clooney giving a friend $1 million would be like me giving a friend $100 for hanging out with me. Personally, I've always questioned norms and I do think some of them are silly and completely irrational. That's why I absolutely love the book Scroogeonomics, Why You Shouldn't Buy Presents for the Holidays by Joel Waldvogel. I love the holidays, but more for the spirit and not the gift-giving. How often do we get gifts that we never use? How often do we give gifts that the person never uses? And how often do we get a little upset when we spend our hard-earned money on something that the person doesn't use? I have a friend who is a mother and each Christmas and birthday, she spoils her son with gifts. That kid has dozens of unopened gifts from the recent three to four years. And I can't help but think that money could have gone to some sort of charitable cause. In his book, Scroogeonomics, Waldvogel looks at gift-giving from the perspective of an economist. Sometimes economists can be cold and calculating like Mr. Spock from Star Track, but that's why I love him. Joel Waldvogel realized a long time ago that there's a strange stigma around giving money as gifts, and to his credit, that's why I first heard the thought experiment about paying a friend for making you dinner. As a professor, Waldvogel has done experiments where he sees what the perceived value of gifts are, and the results aren't surprising at all. On average, most people value gifts that they receive far less than what the person actually paid for the gift. This is most common when the person receives a gift they didn't want or need. This happens because for most of us, or at least us adults, we buy the things we want during the year. So there's a low chance someone is going to get us something we actually want or need unless we ask for it specifically. The other exception is if a person gets us something we wanted but didn't want to spend our money on. But how often does that happen during your typical gift exchanges? This is also why the invention of gift cards was a genius idea. Giving a gift is more about the thought. As a species that is constantly signaling to people, giving a gift shows, I was thinking about you, and I listened to your wants and needs. I know you, so I purchased you something that proves that I care about you. For us, the signal is more powerful than the actual gift, but most people would just want money because they can buy whatever they want. The gift card gives the signal that you know what they like, but they can spend the money on what they want. I remember one Christmas as a kid, I finally told my parents, just give me money. That's all I wanted. I was into video games and building computers, but I'd rather just handle the purchases myself. But when they did what I asked, it just didn't feel like Christmas. Now, my son is almost 12 years old and he's starting to ask just for money as well. And I wonder if it's going to feel less like Christmas for him, too, if I just give him the money that he asked for. At the end of the day, I agree with Joel Walfoggle's way of thinking and Scrooge of Nomics. We should realize when we're following norms that are irrational, but we should also show the people we care about that we love them. So while my son is getting money for Christmas, since he asked for it, my girlfriend is getting some things so she knows that I pay attention. So although some of George Clooney's friends may have been insulted by his cash gift, I'll join in on the played out joke by saying that I wish George Clooney would insult me, too. All right, everybody, I hope you enjoyed this quick little video essay. This is a topic that I've always found interesting, and I found the opportunity to discuss it with all of you beautiful people, all of my fellow critical thinkers out there. When I saw this George Clooney story popping up, I'm like, I wonder if his friends were insulted by that. You know what I mean? But anyways, on a more serious note, the holidays are coming up, and it's 2020. It is a very weird year, and I am extremely, extremely fortunate that I have a job that didn't have any issues this year due to the pandemic. I have a job where I can easily work from home, the industry that I'm in, you know, people still need our services and stuff like that, but I know a lot of people are struggling financially, and I know a lot of people are going to be depressed and things like that around the holidays. But remember, like I was saying, these holidays are more about the signal rather than the actual gift. And in some cases, like something I didn't mention in this video was sometimes the value of the gift shows the person how much we care, right? So when we get an expensive gift, oh my God, they care about me so much. But sometimes we get insulted if they get us a cheap gift, right? And I bring that up because this year, you know, we should be giving people like handmade gifts, right? Something just to show that signal that we care. But what if people get offended by it? Like if we enjoy a more expensive gift because it shows the person that they care more, and if a cheap gift says that they care less, isn't that kind of putting a monetary value on people, which is messed up in and of itself? You know what I mean? Like that's kind of weird, you know? So if you guys want me to do some videos around like societal norms, especially around the holidays, I know this holiday season is going to be rough for a lot of people because of the pandemic. Like I had to cancel plans for the holidays just because the COVID numbers are spiking and things like that. But if you want me to do some more mental health related type topics from a critical thinking aspect, just let me know down in the comments below. Let me know how you're handling this holiday season. If you have any tips or advice that you want to share with the community, go for it. All right. But if you're interested in this topic, like I highly recommend that book, Scrooge Anomics. It's linked down in the description below. It's a really interesting and lightning book and you're like, hmm, this makes sense. All right. But anyways, that's all I got for this video. If you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up. If you're new, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell and a huge, huge thank you to everybody who supports the channel over on Patreon, as well as everybody who supports the channel by getting the books that I link down in the description. Those are affiliate links. So a little bit comes back and supports the channel and my intense reading habit. All right. Thanks again for watching. I'll see you next time.