Is fandom good for your mental health—or quietly wrecking it? We are joined by researcher Derek Laffan to discuss his research on K-pop, the positives and negatives of fandom communities. Join us and dive into Cyberpsychology of stans, ships, and parasocial love: K‑pop, influencers and parasocial relationships, parasocial grief, and shipping conspiracies.

Resources

Positive Psychosocial Outcomes and Fanship in K-Pop Fans: A Social Identity Theory Perspective - Laffan et al. (2021).

Effects of Online Fan Community Interactions on Well-Being and Sense of Virtual Community - Kim et al. (2023).

The role of cyberbullying victimization in the relationship between psychological sense of community and well‑being among BTS fans. - Laffan et al. (2023)

This week we're focusing on cyberstalking, something far more serious than secretly checking someone's Instagram. We're joined by an incredible guest, Dr Cassidy Weekes, whose research focuses on exactly this issue. We're talking criminal harassment that ruins lives, and we'll look at some high profile cases and stories from the media that highlight just how disturbing this behavior gets.

We talk about who the perpetrators are, and what drives them, how they use everything from constant messaging to spyware, GPS tracking, and hacking accounts. We also look at the effects on victims, who can end up with anxiety, depression, PTSD, and serious impacts on their lives and loved ones.

This episide definitely needs a content warning and pleae find resources below if you have, or are, experiencing anything like this.

Dr Cassidy Weekes on LinkedIn

We have a fun episode to start the new year, where we explores the psychology, history, and science behind the internet's (and Nicola’s) obsession with feline content. We were lucky to have a guest in studio with us for this episode, Dr Grace Carroll, an expert in animal behaviour, with a particular interest in cats!

We trace the evolution of cat memes from the 2007 launch of "I Can Has Cheezburger?" through to today's weird and viral AI cat Chubby.

We unpack how baby features in animals activate our caregiving instincts, why cats might be like cuckoos, how domestication works, what the "cute aggression" phenomenon is (that urge to squeeze adorable things), and how cat videos genuinely improve mood, reduce anxiety, and combat loneliness!

Cats conquered the internet because they're perfectly engineered for it—cute, funny, and capable of triggering real emotional connections across all cultures.

And for once we need no content warning! And check our instagram for pictures of the cats we talked about in the episode!

Special thanks to Joel Veitch of the band Rathergood.com who kindly allowed us to use the viral song The internet is made of cats in this episode: https://open.spotify.com/track/1VoLR7BNTIODmwvVWLnobX

Links to stories/media

The history of I Can Has Cheezburger https://www.cnet.com/culture/the-history-of-i-can-has-cheezburger/ https://icanhas.cheezburger.com/

BBC - How cats won the internet - Maria Bustillos 2015 https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20150918-how-did-cats-win-the-internet

Maru's Youtube https://www.youtube.com/mugumogu

The unstoppable rise of Chubby: Why TikTok's AI-generated cat could be the future of the internet https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240819-why-these-ai-cat-videos-may-be-the-internets-future

Studies

Shiri Lieber-Milo (2025). Cuteness and Its Emotional Responses https://www.mdpi.com/2673-8392/5/3/146

Stavropoulos & Alba. (2018). “It’s so Cute I Could Crush It!”: Understanding Neural Mechanisms of Cute Aggression https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/behavioral-neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnbeh.2018.00300/full

Zhang et al. (2025). Animal Video Lovers Always Have Company: The Role of Cyber-Mediated Animal Attachment in Loneliness, https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/15/17/2593

Li et al. (2025). Psychological Benefits of Companion Animals: Exploring the Distinction Between Ownership and Online Animal Watching https://brill.com/view/journals/soan/aop/article-10.1163-15685306-bja10244/article-10.1163-15685306-bja10244.xml

Kogan et al (2018). Use of Short Animal-Themed Videos to Enhance Veterinary Students’ Mood, Attention, and Understanding of Pharmacology Lectures https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28960127/

Jessica Gall Myrick. (2015). Emotion regulation, procrastination, and watching cat videos online: Who watches Internet cats, why, and to what effect? https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2015.06.001