Anthem
There was this chick on Jay Leno tonight, who was singing the national anthem at an NBA playoff game, when she forgot the lyrics. The coach came over and helped her. Anyway, I’d heard about it, but not yet seen any clips, and they showed the entire clip. It was extremely embarrassing, and I wasn’t even the one screwing up! Janette commented that it had the same effect on her, so it’s not just me. Why is it that we actually feel embarassment when we see other people in an embarassing situation? I have a theory.
See, embarassment is all in our head. Since embarassment only involves our perception of what others will think of us, an embarassing situation causes one of the different results: Either we get embarassed, or we laugh it off. Similarly, seeing someone else in an embarassing situation has one of two effects: Either we feel embarassed for them, or we laugh at them, probably depending on how mean we are, and whether or not we’re with a group. The reason is that, because embarassment is all in our head, we easily get into the head of the person actually getting embarassed, and get embarassed ourselves. Okay, not as deep as it sounded in my head when I was composing this, but at least it’s not about video games or computers…
It’s so nice to see that I’m not the only one that has that reaction…..I get so damned flustered watching people being embarrising!!!!