Why can an entire nation tear someone to pieces online in April, only to sob with national pride and wave flags for them in May?

In this episode of The Colin Rooney Podcast, Colin breaks down the historic and chaotic Eurovision 2026 victory of Bulgarian singer DARA with her track "Bangaranga." But this isn't a music review. It's a deep-dive look into a psychological horror show—and a masterclass on how to survive it.

We pull back the curtain on the hidden social machinery that governs our daily decisions, including:

• Social Proof (Robert Cialdini): Why crowds don't actually judge you—they just watch each other.

• Conformity (Solomon Asch): The terrifying 1950s experiment proving why 1/3 of us will deny our own eyes just to fit in.

• Preference Falsification (Timur Kuran): How a whole country can fake their public opinions overnight.

• The Bandwagon Trap in Business: Why copying your competitors sands off the only asset that makes your brand uncopyable: you.

The crowd will always try to write your ending. This episode is about how you take the pen back.

Pull up a chair. Let's talk.

Twenty years ago I read a book called Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway. I can't remember a single word that was in it — just the title. And it turns out the title was the whole book.

This episode is about fear. Not lions and heights — the quiet stuff that actually runs our lives. The fear of failing. The fear of what people think. And the fear of a future that hasn't happened and, it turns out, almost never does.

Recently something shifted for me, and it came in two parts. Part one: I finally got a hold on not caring what people think, and it felt brilliant. Part two — the honest bit nobody admits — I realised I do still care. Just differently. If 5 of 10 people in a room think I'm full of shit, fine, half don't. But if all 10 do? Then maybe I am. So it's not that I don't care what people think — I care what everyone thinks. And that's not weakness. The trouble is my anxious brain takes the one person who frowned and convinces me it's the whole room.

Gary Vee's right — most of the time nobody's even thinking about you. This is the layer underneath that.

No fluff. Just the research, an honest look at my own head, and a promise to report back.

Pull up a chair.

— What we get into — Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway — why the goal was never to be fearless The disaster films we direct in our own heads — and why 91% of them never get released Why we're terrible at predicting how bad the future will actually feel (the impact bias) Gary Vee was right: nobody's thinking about you nearly as much as you fear The liking gap: people actually like us more than we think The honest twist — I'm not a narcissist, I do care, and here's why that's healthy Why one frown beats nine smiles (negativity bias) — and how your brain turns one critic into the whole room What to actually do: name the trailer, count the room, remember the liking gap

— The research, the people, the receipts —

Susan Jeffers, Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway https://www.amazon.com/Feel-Fear-Do-Anyway/dp/0345487427

Daniel Gilbert & Timothy Wilson — affective forecasting and the impact bias (we overestimate how bad the future will feel) https://dtg.sites.fas.harvard.edu/Wilson & Gilbert (Advances).pdf

"91.4% of worries never come true" — study on worry outcomes https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7233480/

Gary Vaynerchuk — "nobody gives a sh*t about you, they've got their own problems" https://www.facebook.com/gary/videos/once-you-realize-that-nobody-gives-a-sht-about-you-they-got-their-own-fcking-pro/828848769911349/

Erica Boothby, Gus Cooney, Gillian Sandstrom & Margaret Clark — the liking gap (people like us more than we think) https://clarkrelationshiplab.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/BoothbyCooneySandstromClark2018.pdf

Roy Baumeister et al., "Bad Is Stronger Than Good" — the negativity bias https://assets.csom.umn.edu/assets/71516.pdf

Solomon Asch — the conformity experiments (going along with the wrong consensus) https://www.simplypsychology.org/asch-conformity.html

Why we're wired to care what others think — social rejection and survival (APA) https://www.apa.org/monitor/2012/04/rejection