This is hidden brain.
I'm Shankar Vedantam.
In one of the most famous episodes of the tv show Seinfeld the character Elaine, played by Julia Louis Dreyfus takes to the dance floor.
All right, who's dancing?
Come on, who's dancing?
What follows is hard to describe.
Elaine's dancing resembles a giraffe navigating an ice skating rink on roller skates.
Elaine's coworkers watch with mouths agape as her hands and feet fly off in different directions.
Here's the thing, though.
No one tells her she is a bad dancer.
Later, behind her back, her friends George and Jerry discuss Elaine's dancing.
Have you ever seen Elaine dance?
It's more like a full body, dry heave set.
The music.
Did she do the little kicks and the thumbs?
What?
You mean you know about this?
It was one of those problems I hope would just go away.
There's only one friend who is willing to tell Elaine the truth.
Kramer, the character in the show who often says and does things that are socially inappropriate.