The Mechanics and Magic of Ritual
Proxy with Yowei Shaw
Yowei Shaw
4.8 • 589 Ratings
🗓️ 21 August 2024
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
An Emotions Beat episode about why rituals work — and what they have to do with Proxy.
When Yowei first started pitching Proxy, ritual was part of the concept. Proxy conversations, proxy rituals, “proxuals” — it was a whole thing. She eventually ditched the ritual component because no one understood what she was talking about.
But after making a layoff music video in a Kleenex box costume, Yowei still had a hunch: maybe rituals and proxy conversations are doing something similar.
In this episode, Yowei talks with Mike Norton, author of The Ritual Effect, about why humans invent rituals when ordinary life doesn’t give us one, how rituals help move us from one emotional state to another, and whether a conversation with the right stranger can work like a ritual too.
From the episode:
— Michael Norton — author of The Ritual Effect: From Habit to Ritual, Harnessing the Surprising Power of Everyday Actions— more about his work:www.michaelnorton.com
— Yowei's unhinged grieving ritual for her layoff
New to Proxy? Try Bisexual Wife Guy for a classic case, or Yowei Can't Speak Bro for a funny investigation into male friendship, bro-speak, and emotional translation.
For episode liner notes, show gossip, and dispatches from the emotions beat, get our free newsletter File Under Feelings at proxyhq.org.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Ever wondered why some trends are just suddenly everywhere? |
| 0:05.1 | Newsflash, nothing gets popular by accident. |
| 0:09.0 | I'm Brittany Luce, and on the It's Been a Minute podcast, I take the things you and I are both obsessing over |
| 0:14.3 | and show you the invisible forces behind the scenes that make us love it or hate it. |
| 0:19.8 | Be smarter about what you're consuming. Listen to the |
| 0:22.8 | It's Been a Minute podcast today. When I first started pitching proxy, the show was even |
| 0:31.3 | harder to explain. From a pitch deck in January 2024, quote, proxy tackles the strange, intimate problems we can't get |
| 0:39.6 | good advice about. Each episode, host Yo-A. Shaw, tackles a listener's problem indirectly through |
| 0:45.5 | proxy conversations and proxy rituals. A proxy ritual, or proxual, is an absurd bit that scrambles |
| 0:53.0 | the emotional dynamics around your problem." |
| 0:55.5 | End quote. |
| 0:57.0 | Whew! |
| 0:58.1 | Does anybody understand what I'm saying there? |
| 1:00.5 | I don't. |
| 1:03.2 | In the beginning, ritual was a big part of the show. |
| 1:07.8 | And it was the part of my pitch people always got stuck on. How did ritual fit in? |
| 1:13.4 | What was a proxy ritual? Why was I making up words in an elevator pitch? All very good questions. |
| 1:20.7 | At the time, all I could say was it just felt like proxy conversations were in the same category as rituals. |
| 1:28.4 | My main experience with ritual being the layoff song and music video I made of myself |
| 1:32.9 | pole dancing in a clean Xbox costume. |
| 1:36.4 | After the layoff, I found myself searching for a way to process my grief, some ritual |
| 1:41.4 | or practice. |
... |
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