Don't Know About 'The Salah Effect'

Don't Know About 'The Salah Effect'

Can a footballer make people less racist? It sounds like the setup to a terrible LinkedIn post, but it's also a real question that researchers from Stanford and other institutions decided to investigate. And somehow, the answer may be yes. In this episode, we explore the bizarre and fascinating story of The Salah Effect, a term inspired by a 2019 study that examined whether Liverpool superstar Mohamed Salah may have reduced Islamophobic attitudes and behaviours among football fans simply by being exceptionally good at football. The real story is about identity, prejudice, tribalism, and a weird little psychological concept called the parasocial contact hypothesis. We also dive into the famous study itself, which looked at hate crime statistics in Liverpool, analysed millions of tweets, and found some compelling evidence. As always, this episode mixes comedy commentary, offbeat learning, and quirky insights into something that initially sounds ridiculous but ends up revealing something surprisingly profound about human nature. It's lighthearted education wrapped around one of those wonderfully random topics that somehow touches on psychology, sociology, politics, media, religion, and why football fans will happily structure their entire emotional wellbeing around a man they've never met. Because maybe prejudice isn't always challenged through arguments. Maybe sometimes it gets nutmegged by an Egyptian winger. Important links: 1. Can Exposure to Celebrities Reduce Prejudice? The Effect of Mohamed Salah on Islamophobic Behaviors and Attitudes - https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/can-exposure-to-celebrities-reduce-prejudice-the-effect-of-mohamed-salah-on-islamophobic-behaviors-and-attitudes/A1DA34F9F5BCE905850AC8FBAC78BE58 [https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/can-exposure-to-celebrities-reduce-prejudice-the-effect-of-mohamed-salah-on-islamophobic-behaviors-and-attitudes/A1DA34F9F5BCE905850AC8FBAC78BE58] 2. How Mo Salah may have reduced Islamophobia in Liverpool - https://www.weforum.org/stories/2019/06/how-mo-salah-might-have-reduced-islamophobia-in-liverpool/ [https://www.weforum.org/stories/2019/06/how-mo-salah-might-have-reduced-islamophobia-in-liverpool/] 3. The Salah effect - https://africasacountry.com/2020/01/the-salah-effect [https://africasacountry.com/2020/01/the-salah-effect] 4. The 'Mohamed Salah Effect' is real – my research shows how he inspires Egyptian youth - https://theconversation.com/the-mohamed-salah-effect-is-real-my-research-shows-how-he-inspires-egyptian-youth-97220 [https://theconversation.com/the-mohamed-salah-effect-is-real-my-research-shows-how-he-inspires-egyptian-youth-97220] Don't Know, Do Care is the brainchild of Ashmita, Sandy, and Prakhar, three friends from different backgrounds and interests. Ashmita works in sustainability, Sandy's an entrepreneur (puke) who'd rather not be, and Prakhar works with Sandy and is just trying to make sense of it all. Three mildly confused friends, one weirdly specific topic each week. We don't know much, but we care just enough to talk about it for up to an hour each week. Don't Know, Do Care is produced by "Ghar Pe Productions", edited by Prakhar and Sandy, critiqued (thoroughly) by Ashmita, and enjoyed mostly by our friends. Thanks for giving us a listen!

Don't Know Why This Cult Is Orgasmic

This week, we dive into a story that starts with wellness, empowerment, mindfulness, and healing and somehow ends with forced labour, coercive sex, cult-like control, and prison sentences. We're talking about OneTaste, the organisation that convinced thousands of people that repeatedly stroking someone's clitoris for exactly fifteen minutes was a revolutionary spiritual practice called Orgasmic Meditation. What began in early-2000s San Francisco as a supposedly progressive movement centred on female pleasure eventually became one of the most bizarre and disturbing cult stories of the modern era. In this episode, we trace the rise and fall of OneTaste, from its founding by Nicole Daedone and Robert Kandell to its transformation into a multimillion-dollar business built around workshops, communal living, and increasingly invasive control over its members' lives. We look at how trauma survivors were recruited with promises of healing, why the media spent years treating the organisation as a quirky sexual wellness experiment, and how celebrity endorsements and TEDx talks helped legitimise something that, in hindsight, had more red flags than a Soviet military parade. This episode blends comedy commentary, offbeat learning, and deeply uncomfortable reporting into a story about manipulation, charisma, pseudoscience, media failure, and the surprisingly lucrative business of selling enlightenment. Packed with quirky insights, weird historical detours, and the kind of random topics that somehow become darker the more you investigate them, it's lighthearted education only in the sense that we occasionally laugh to stop ourselves from screaming. Important links: 1. OneTaste's website - https://onetaste.us/the-world/om [https://onetaste.us/the-world/om] 2. Touchy-feely "researchers" want to build community through the practice of orgasmic meditation — one stroke at a time - https://web.archive.org/web/20090421093822/http://www.sfweekly.com/2007-04-04/news/sex-and-sensuality/ [https://web.archive.org/web/20090421093822/http://www.sfweekly.com/2007-04-04/news/sex-and-sensuality/] 3. The Pleasure Principle - https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/fashion/15commune.html [https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/fashion/15commune.html] 4. TEDxSF - Nicole Daedone - Orgasm The Cure for Hunger - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZjRH1FmxfM [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZjRH1FmxfM] 5. Inside Gwyneth Paltrow's Exclusive Goop Health Summit with Cameron Diaz, Miranda Kerr and Nicole Richie - https://www.wmagazine.com/story/gwyneth-paltrow-goop-health-summit [https://www.wmagazine.com/story/gwyneth-paltrow-goop-health-summit] 6. Onetaste Founder Nicole Daedone Sentenced to Nine Years in Prison for Forced Labor Conspiracy - https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/onetaste-founder-nicole-daedone-sentenced-nine-years-prison-forced-labor-conspiracy [https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/onetaste-founder-nicole-daedone-sentenced-nine-years-prison-forced-labor-conspiracy] 7. My Encounter with the Orgasm Messiah - https://donlattin.substack.com/p/my-encounter-with-the-orgasm-messiah [https://donlattin.substack.com/p/my-encounter-with-the-orgasm-messiah] 8. Great Orgasms – Psychic Energy vs. Physical Technique with Ray Vetterlein, Master Practitioner of Extended Orgasm - https://podcasts.personallifemedia.com/podcasts/230-expanded-lovemaking/episodes/3031-great-orgasms-psychic-energy-vs-physical/ [https://podcasts.personallifemedia.com/podcasts/230-expanded-lovemaking/episodes/3031-great-orgasms-psychic-energy-vs-physical/] 9. Anjuli Ayer: Navigating a Life of Spirituality, Business, and Controversy - https://www.awesomeindia.in/anjuli-ayer/ [https://www.awesomeindia.in/anjuli-ayer/] 10. In 'Orgasmic Meditation' case, did a zealous media strategy backfire? - https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/06/nyregion/onetaste-orgasmic-meditation-publicity.html [https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/06/nyregion/onetaste-orgasmic-meditation-publicity.html] 11. Recommendation of the week - The Orgasm Cult - https://www.bbc.com/audio/brand/p08xzk5h [https://www.bbc.com/audio/brand/p08xzk5h] Don't Know, Do Care is the brainchild of Ashmita, Sandy, and Prakhar, three friends from different backgrounds and interests. Ashmita works in sustainability, Sandy's an entrepreneur (puke) who'd rather not be, and Prakhar works with Sandy and is just trying to make sense of it all. Three mildly confused friends, one weirdly specific topic each week. We don't know much, but we care just enough to talk about it for up to an hour each week. Don't Know, Do Care is produced by "Ghar Pe Productions", edited by Prakhar and Sandy, critiqued (thoroughly) by Ashmita, and enjoyed mostly by our friends. Thanks for giving us a listen!

Don't Know Why HYROX is (not) a Big Deal

At some point over the last year, fitness quietly stopped being about six-packs and started becoming a personality. Suddenly everyone's in a run club, waking up at unreasonable hours, posting Strava screenshots like stock market updates, and voluntarily paying money to suffer in public. Which brings us to this episode's main character: HYROX . We break down what HYROX actually is, where it came from, and why it has exploded globally in such a short span of time. In reality, it's basically a very organised way to discover new forms of exhaustion. But this episode isn't just about the race itself. It's about why people are suddenly obsessed with things like HYROX, run clubs, and endurance challenges in the first place. Because underneath all the fitness branding and motivational captions, there's something much more interesting happening socially. Gyms are no longer enough. People don't just want workouts anymore, they want experiences, goals, communities, identity, and maybe just a slightly more socially acceptable form of collective suffering. We also get into the rise of "Instagrammable fitness," the strange status attached to events like HYROX, and whether these experiences are genuinely fulfilling or just the latest evolution of social validation culture. This episode is classic comedy commentary mixed with offbeat learning, packed with quirky insights about fitness culture, social behaviour, and why humans apparently need organised hardship to feel alive. Because honestly, HYROX may look like a fitness event, but it might actually be a very expensive way for adults to rediscover recess. Don't Know, Do Care is the brainchild of Ashmita, Sandy, and Prakhar, three friends from different backgrounds and interests. Ashmita works in sustainability, Sandy's an entrepreneur (puke) who'd rather not be, and Prakhar works with Sandy and is just trying to make sense of it all. Three mildly confused friends, one weirdly specific topic each week. We don't know much, but we care just enough to talk about it for up to an hour each week. Don't Know, Do Care is produced by "Ghar Pe Productions", edited by Prakhar and Sandy, critiqued (thoroughly) by Ashmita, and enjoyed mostly by our friends. Thanks for giving us a listen!

Don't Know If the Shroud of Turin is Indian

This week, we dive headfirst into one of the strangest objects in human history: the Shroud of Turin, a 14-foot piece of linen that is either the burial cloth of Jesus Christ… or the world's most successful medieval scam. For centuries, this faintly creepy cloth has sat at the exact intersection of faith, science, history, and people confidently yelling at each other online. Because printed onto it is the image of a tortured man bearing injuries eerily similar to the Biblical description of the crucifixion. So we trace the bizarre history of the Shroud, from its sudden appearance in 14th-century France and accusations of forgery by medieval bishops, to fires, papal PR gymnastics, carbon dating tests, and increasingly complicated scientific studies that somehow keep making the mystery worse instead of better. And because apparently this story wasn't chaotic enough already, we also get into the recent DNA study that found genetic traces linked to India, sparking exactly the kind of internet discourse you would expect. This episode is classic offbeat learning territory: a weird historical rabbit hole full of contradictory evidence, scientific detective work, Vatican ambiguity, and the kind of mystery that refuses to sit still, all wrapped in comedy commentary and packed with quirky insights. Because at the end of the day, the Shroud of Turin is less a solved mystery and more a centuries-long argument that nobody has managed to conclusively win. Important links: 1. Shroud of Turin - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shroud_of_Turin [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shroud_of_Turin] 2. Shroud of Turin - https://www.britannica.com/topic/Shroud-of-Turin [https://www.britannica.com/topic/Shroud-of-Turin] 3. The Shroud of Turin: An Overview of the Archaeological Scientific Studies - https://www.mdpi.com/2673-7248/5/1/8 [https://www.mdpi.com/2673-7248/5/1/8] 4. Shroud of Turin, linked by believers to Jesus Christ, has an Indian DNA trace: Study - https://indianexpress.com/article/technology/science/shroud-of-turin-linked-by-believers-to-jesus-christ-has-an-indian-dna-signal-study-10614146/ [https://indianexpress.com/article/technology/science/shroud-of-turin-linked-by-believers-to-jesus-christ-has-an-indian-dna-signal-study-10614146/] Don't Know, Do Care is the brainchild of Ashmita, Sandy, and Prakhar, three friends from different backgrounds and interests. Ashmita works in sustainability, Sandy's an entrepreneur (puke) who'd rather not be, and Prakhar works with Sandy and is just trying to make sense of it all. Three mildly confused friends, one weirdly specific topic each week. We don't know much, but we care just enough to talk about it for up to an hour each week. Don't Know, Do Care is produced by "Ghar Pe Productions", edited by Prakhar and Sandy, critiqued (thoroughly) by Ashmita, and enjoyed mostly by our friends. Thanks for giving us a listen!

We're going on a (very) short break!

Hey there carers, Thank you for sticking with us thus far and we hope you continue to do so in the foreseeable future as well. We will be taking a very short break till the first week of May and will go back to our regular schedule of a new episode every Monday thereon. In the meantime, we hope you get a chance to listen to some of our older episodes. Just like in life, we have grown and improved from Episode 1 last year. We hope you get to see that too. See you back in May!