 This morning as I was uploading my first video, I was born and I was on Twitter and I started to have this wonderful debate with a lovely young woman over on Twitter. So I was like, you know what? That actually inspires me to make a video discussing the psychology of being a stan. What is up everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul where we talk about the problem, but focus on the solution. And if you're new to my channel, my channel is all about mental health and what I like to do is pull different topics from the YouTube community to try to teach you how to improve your mental and emotional well-being. So if you're into that, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. And for all of my lovely patrons out there, this is your last chance. I posted a Patreon Q&A, it's for everybody, $1 tier all the way up. So a lot of people ask me questions, I get them all the time. The one way to get your questions answered is by being a patron. So if you haven't asked your question yet, go over there, check the post, ask your question. I will be filming that this week. All right, so let's start this video. What is a stan? So let me break it down for you because I know not all of you out there are hip with the kids lingo these days. Like I am. This is actually something that when I got into YouTube, my friend had to explain to me. I'm like, what, what is this stan thing that everybody's talking about? And so yeah, basically Eminem wrote a song called Stan and it's about like this obsessive fan and I guess a little kooky, right? So anyways, that's kind of like the slang turned today. Like if you're a fan of somebody like to the next level, you are a stan. So basically, yeah, this morning, um, I, I usually, I usually don't have back and forth with people, like something I do to maintain my mental health. I usually do like one reply, maybe two, and I'm back out of there, right? But I saw a back and forth going on Twitter about my content. So I decided to jump on up in the mix because I was bored. My video about girl defined and anxiety was uploading. So I decided to have this back and forth. So this young woman was talking about my content and how it's wrong and all these other things. And I decided to ask a question. I looked at her Twitter feed and kind of saw, you know, what she was about. And I'm like, okay, let me ask you this question. And she basically explained, you know, the difference between myself and PewDiePie is that PewDiePie uses credible resources. I'm like, oh, oh, okay. Now I understand. Now I understand. And it made me start thinking about confirmation bias and the psychology behind it because it's very important to understand that because we make a lot of decisions and we see certain things or hear certain things based on stuff that's happening and we don't even realize that it's happening. So real quick, a lot of you asked me for book recommendations, which I absolutely love down in the description below. I always have a link to my full mental health reading list and I do little book plugs throughout different videos to just kind of show you where I learn all this great information. So real quick, let's talk about this book right here. It's called The Craving Mind by Dr. Judson Brewer, amazing, amazing dude. So I've actually talked with him and worked on some projects with him when I was working as a rehab to try to take some of his habit loop methods and mindfulness and teach it to my clients. And he wrote this book called The Craving Mind. It's an excellent book. I highly suggest you read it. It talks about just how we develop bad habits, you know, and get out of that and develop good habits. And there's a lot, a lot of neuroscience in it. So not only is he a psychologist, but he's also a neuroscientist as well. So he does a lot of brain scans to see how different forms of like meditation or mindfulness or psychology actually affect our brain. But anyways, there's a story that he talks about with confirmation bias in The Craving Mind. So Dr. Judson Brewer, he likes to do like mountain bike riding, right? And he absolutely loved Lance Armstrong. He loved Lance Armstrong. No, he stand Lance Armstrong. So he has a story in there about how he was in college and he would like skip class or whatever it was to watch the tour de France to watch his boy. Lance Armstrong do work, right? And he's watching, watching. Then the allegations start coming out that Lance Armstrong was using steroids. And he was like, no, absolutely not. They're just haters. They don't get it. Lance Armstrong is just the best writer out there. They don't understand. They don't get it. And then evidence started popping up and he's like, no, forget that, right? So he's neglecting to see the evidence because of how much he loves Lance Armstrong. But then he shares about how Lance Armstrong went on Oprah Winfrey's show and Lance Armstrong came out and he said, yes, I was using performance enhancing drugs in the tour de France. And because Dr. Judson Brewer was being mindful, he noticed this conflict in his head because even though he heard Lance Armstrong speaking these words out of his mouth, he still didn't want to believe it. Now think about that real quick. Think about what we do or what we think when we love somebody's content here on YouTube, we completely neglect the reality of the situation because of our fandom, because of our love for them, because we connect to them and relate to them so, so, so much. Now, why is that? Well, let's look at another book called The moral landscape by Sam Harris. For those of you who don't know Sam Harris, he's a little bit of a philosopher. He's also a neuroscientist, but he is one of the few people who has actually done neurological studies on the science of beliefs. So why is that? Why do we refuse to change our opinion about people even when we're presented with evidence? Well, what Sam Harris and other scientists found out was that our beliefs are tied into the part of the brain that is responsible for ownership, right? When we have something, when we own something, when I say, this is my cell phone, my brain connects with that, right? So it feels good to own things. It feels good to have things. But what they found out in these studies is when a belief is challenged, you actually start to get signals to your brain that are responsible for pain. It actually hurts when people try to change our beliefs, right? So think about that for a second. So when we are out here standing, different creators and things like that, think about the delusions that our mind starts making up and just it completely disconnects from reality. We are hearing truths about people or we're choosing to see what we want to see. We're choosing to hear what we want to hear all because of confirmation bias, right? So this is why we're always taught never judge a book by its cover. You know what I mean? So people say first impressions are the most important, right? When you think of first impression, you think it's when you shake hands, you greet somebody for the first time and you have that first conversation. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You are judging that person the second that you see them. Why do you think I let so much stuff roll off my shoulders? Some people might look at my thumbnail and be like, I don't like bearded fat guys. I just don't. You know what I mean? Without even clicking on my content or getting to know it. And that's totally cool. So one of the reasons why I learned so much about psychology and mental health in the brain is because it helps me cope with the world around me. So, so, so much. When I see people who are for or against my content, whatever it is, I try to take a step back and understand what different processes are going on in their brain that might make them think a certain way. So am I surprised that I get stands from other creators coming in and absolutely trashing my content? Of course not, because I know I am challenging their beliefs about someone who they watch, right? So going back to the PewDiePie analogy, I asked this person, I said, OK, so what do you see the difference between my content and Pew News on PewDiePie? And the answer was, was that PewDiePie actually sites sources. And that's what I'm like, oh, OK, right? So again, when we are sitting in our confirmation bias and not being mindful of where our brain's going, we choose to see what we want to see. We choose to hear what we want to hear, right? I have about 700 videos on this channel, right? This is why I also don't mind when people say this is a drama channel. I would I would challenge anybody out there to find me one drama channel who implements psychology and neuroscience when talking about YouTubers. Don't worry all the way. But I understand that when people are looking at my content, they completely neglect those things. For example, I've had plenty of people come to my channel and say that I diagnose people again, I would challenge people to find me one video where I've diagnosed somebody. Other people come to my channel and they say that I claim to be an expert. I would challenge people to find me one video where I claim to be an expert. One of the things that I often promote on my channel and those of you who are loyal, rewired soldiers out there, you know that I am just trying to get you to get to a moment where you're like, oh, crap, maybe I need to start working on this, oh, crap, maybe I need to go see a licensed professional. Oh, crap, Chris has never claimed to be a licensed professional and he doesn't even know me, so maybe I should go talk to somebody and say, yo, maybe I need some help with this situation. But the whole stand culture is something that worries me as well. Like I always try to teach you guys, keep people around who tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear. I don't want any of my viewers out there to blindly follow me. You guys, I'm human. I could screw up. What I often talk my clients in treatment is don't put all of your eggs in my basket because I am a recovering drug addict and alcoholic who lives in Las Vegas. I am one or two bad decisions away from completely destroying my life. Right. And imagine, let's just say, let's say hypothetically, what if that happened? Would you stand by my side? Would you justify my behavior? If I screw up, I want you to call me out. Like we wonder why different YouTubers and celebrities get so egotistical is because they're surrounded by these stands who play into everything that they say, right? I brought this up in a few other videos, but something that freaked me out to no end was when Logan Paul went to that forest in Japan, he made his apology. He told the Logang to not stick up for him. And they were basically like, screw you, Logan, Logang for life. We're going to stick up for you anyways. Like what? What? So if I screw up massively, I want you guys to call me out on it. Feel free to cancel me if you want. If I don't make a sincere apology, do your thing, baby, because I am, I am a human just like everybody else. And I don't want you to play in the confirmation bias with me. Now, something else that I get is that when people say, oh, you can't take criticism, now there's something that we need to discuss, which is that there's a huge difference between not taking criticism and disagreeing with somebody. All right. For example, somebody can tell me, Chris, your content sucks. And I can say, I disagree with that. If they say I can't take criticism, that's a little different, right? But that is an entirely different video because we all need to find this balance between taking criticism and just disagreeing with somebody. In fact, if you're not signed up for my mailing list, go ahead and sign up right now because I'm actually going to write an email about that. I just thought about that. Completely free to go sign up, sign up in the description, sign up for my email list. I'm going to talk about finding the balance between taking criticism and evaluating the criticism and having the ability to disagree with somebody. All right. But let me know down in the comments below, have you fallen into this confirmation bias? Like the story I told about Dr. Judson Brewer where you stand somebody so much that you refuse to see anything negative about them. Has that ever happened? Let me know down in the comments. I would love to have a conversation about it. All right. 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 because I make a ton of videos and a huge, huge thank you to everybody supporting the channel over on Patreon. You are all amazing. And don't forget, if you are a patron, go over there, ask your questions. I will be filming the Q and A this week. If you want to become a patron, click or tap right there. All right. Thanks again so much for watching. I'll see you next time.