"Here are things that can make it better / When we have to live together"
— Opening Theme Song
Were You Raised by Wolves? is an etiquette and manners podcast hosted by Nick Leighton and Leah Bonnema, a respected journalist and comedian respectively. They discuss "etiquette crimes" and how to reconcile after a listener has committed or been the victim of such a crime. There are three primary segments to every episode. "Amuse-Bouche" is often the first segment and consists of Nick teaching Leah — and the listeners — something rare, weird, or otherwise interesting in the world of etiquette. "Questions from the Wilderness" consists of questions from listeners and the advice Nick and Leah give. "Vent or Repent" is composed of manners-based rants (the venting) or admissions of guilt (the repenting), and this segment may either be from the hosts or listeners. There's also "Cordials of Kindness," which is primarily showing appreciation for acts of kindness.
The podcast can be found here.
This podcast provides examples of:
- Blunt "No": One writer for a Questions from the Wilderness segment describes this long scenario where her daughter-in-law visits without a bra on and, though she says she doesn't mind at first, she explains her husband is made very uncomfortable by this. She asks whether there's a polite way to ask someone to put on a bra. Nick and Leah give a Beat and then bluntly respond "No." And that's their entire answer. Compared to the other segments from the other 100+ episodes, where they at least give some explanation for their answers, this is both jarring and telling.
- Call-Back:
- After Leah recounts the story of finding a severed foot in someone's basement, a "severed foot in the basement" becomes the resident term for "something you found that you need to tell someone to avoid further etiquette crimes."
- In a previous Vent or Repent segment, a writer vented about people stuffing rice under a table, much like teens stuff gum on the underside of their desks. Then in episode 79, a different listener wrote in to repent for thinking this "rice dunked in soy sauce" trick was cute and funny when her date did this years ago.
- In a previous episode, Nick teaches Leah that it's proper to blacken the wicks of one's candles, warning that once you know this is what you're supposed to do you'll notice it every time. Then in episode 87, Leah mentions that she's been noticing this in TV shows where they leave the candlewicks white.
- Catchphrase: Leah often says "In what world?!" whenever a person commits an egregiously ridiculous etiquette crime, such as in episode 113 when some parents left two diapers behind at a restaurant after changing the diapers at their table.
- Digging Yourself Deeper: A lot of their advice focuses on how to avoid this after the fact or how to get out of whatever hole listeners have dug for themselves.
- Does Not Know How to Say "Thanks":
- Discussed whenever a question concerns how to show gratitude to someone. Nick's go-to response to "how to say thanks" is to say thanks with a hand-written note.
- Some Vent or Repent segments concern times when the other person didn't know how to show gratitude and so rudely did so or didn't at all.
- The Dreaded "Thank You" Letter:
- Inverted with Nick, who always insists on personally writing thank you notes.
- Many stories that involve thank you notes are about how someone didn't want to write one of these notes. One venting segment — in "Wearing Name Tags, Shopping Yard Sales, Fat-Shaming Pets, and More" — recounted a time when the party hosts printed their thank you notes and left them near the exit for guests to take with them. The venting listener says at the end of her rant "Do you think this is what I want to be doing on a Saturday afternoon?"
- Ear Worm: Viewers have written in to Nick and Leah about how memorable and catchy the theme song is, and they mention these compliments as a way of showing appreciation for the person who wrote the music, Rob Paravonian.
- Extreme Doormat: One of the themes running throughout the show is that you can be polite without being this, making the trope discussed.
- Fee Fi Faux Pas: Most of the stories and questions have to do with major social blunders and how they played out, followed by advice on how to handle them. In many episodes, a listener recounts one of these and asks "was this rude" to seek validation.
- Fictional Holiday: Invoked with "NLAD," also known as "Nick Leighton Appreciation Day," which Nick brings up from time to time. To celebrate it, all anyone has to do is think "Nick Leighton" on the first of October.
- Good Samaritan: The Cordials of Kindness segment is about appreciating good or kind acts of strangers, making this trope often discussed.
- Japanese Politeness: The Amuse-Bouche segment often teaches listeners about different elements of Real Life Japanese politeness, making this Conversational Troping.
- Minnesota Nice: Nick and Leah talk about how people in New York and Los Angeles, where they are respectively based, are much more rude than those in the Midwest, as evidenced by their separate experiences while traveling through the country.
- No Social Skills: Many of the stories in the Vent or Repent segment concern strangers who have no clue about regular social conventions or who unwittingly disrupt social norms.
- Politeness Judo: Often invoked. Direct communication in a polite manner is often the solution that the co-hosts offer.
- Pun-Based Title: The name of the Cordials of Kindness segment is a pun on the adjective meaning "showing warm and hearty friendliness" and the noun meaning "a stimulating drink," like a cocktail.
- Questioning Title?: The theme song reveals that the question of the title is ironic."We can all use a little help / So people don't ask themselves / Were you raised by wolves?"
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: While both co-hosts are passionate about etiquette, Leah often suggests breaking certain rules of etiquette to resolve conflicts and she often expresses what she would like to do even if it would be rude. Nick, on the other hand, finds it difficult to suggest breaking these rules and often — though not always — agrees with what Miss Manners or Emily Post would do.
- Shout-Out:
- Nick and Leah will reference My Fair Lady whenever the opportunity arises.
- In episode 10, Nick references Little Shop of Horrors, saying that if you feed the plant then you cannot not feed it later, so if you don't correct someone who's misspelled your name early in your relationship then you just have to live with it if you want to follow etiquette rules. He and Leah come to an agreement later in the segment about how to handle this with a correction, though.
- In the episode "Slipping Out of Parties, Preventing Excess RSVPs, Stopping Coworker Texts, and More," Nick references Minority Report, saying that by writing in "two seats are reserved" in a wedding invitation feels like "anticipating an etiquette crime before it's actually happened," which is rude.
- In episode 112, one of the listeners asks whether it's rude to tell her sister that her boyfriend reminds her of the serial killer in the movie Psycho played by Christian Bale. The answer is surprisingly that if her sister would get the joke then yes it's not rude to say this, unless she's in actual danger of being murdered, but then this isn't an etiquette question at that point.
- Signing Off Catchphrase: At the end of an episode, before a stinger or Patreon ad, Nick and Leah will thank each other and then say bye to the audience, signifying the official end of a given episode.
- The Stinger: The Cordials of Kindness segment often follows the Signing Off Catchphrase and can easily be missed if the listener tries to skip the Patreon ad at the very end of the episode. This emphasizes Nick's point that Leah insists they do this segment, which goes into the theme that it's additional to a given episode and not a normal segment.
