Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the final episode of the Bali series.
Speaker 1: I'm now back in Australia and I've spent the last
Speaker 1: forty eight hours reflecting following the online discourse this content
Speaker 1: has created. And you know, this trip was initially just
Speaker 1: meant to be about exploring the ever changing, unrealistic beauty
Speaker 1: standards forced upon us and the impact that influencers actually
Speaker 1: have on those who follow them.
Speaker 2: Whole internet note is talking about this rib controuring.
Speaker 3: It's rib contouring, not removal, because revel would be stupid.
Speaker 1: But over the last week or so, it's become something
Speaker 1: much bigger than that.
Speaker 2: Where did you find out about this rib conturing surgery?
Speaker 2: Because it's not it's not currently available in Australia.
Speaker 1: And in a weird way, it's become about all of us,
Speaker 1: let me get my ribs done?
Speaker 4: How we view ourselves? Is it dangerous?
Speaker 5: Like it feels like a proper body modification that could
Speaker 5: be dangerous?
Speaker 4: How we view those around us?
Speaker 6: And I want to say, like, I reckon.
Speaker 2: Kylie Jennar for sure has gotten this done.
Speaker 1: And the hypocrisy, double standards and performative outrage that is rampant,
Speaker 1: not just across the influencer industry, but society, and.
Speaker 4: She's not advocating for the procedure.
Speaker 1: I will say now in advance that this podcast is
Speaker 1: going to anger a lot of people with.
Speaker 4: Blue ticks on Instagram.
Speaker 1: And in this episode, you're gonna hear me talk to
Speaker 1: someone from below Deck who has now had the rib
Speaker 1: surgery done in Bali.
Speaker 7: My friends were like, you're not actually gonna do that.
Speaker 6: That's insane.
Speaker 1: And you're gonna hear from people like Stella, who shares
Speaker 1: her own surgical regrets for the first time.
Speaker 2: But was it worth it? Was it really really worthy?
Speaker 2: I don't think so.
Speaker 1: I'm also gonna call out some people who may respond
Speaker 1: and bite back, and I'm gonna share a story from
Speaker 1: Bali that I haven't yet, which I'm not gonna lie
Speaker 1: breaks my heart a little bit.
Speaker 4: I'm very big on my body, my chol and.
Speaker 1: I'm also going to expose a side of the influencer world.
Speaker 1: It seems that no one is ever brave enough to
Speaker 1: yes my choice. But personally, I'm sick of biting my tongue.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 2: I think my body my choice, you know.
Speaker 1: I like, So, with this extra dramatic intro out of
Speaker 1: the way, I want to hear my body, my choice,
Speaker 1: my choice.
Speaker 4: Let's finally get to it. Yeah, the truth, I'm not.
Speaker 8: Saying it loud, and I want to hear my body,
Speaker 8: my choice.
Speaker 4: This is going to be a long episode. To bear
Speaker 4: with me, please.
Speaker 1: Firstly, some of you have asked why most of my
Speaker 1: content is just focused around Beck, who was so set
Speaker 1: on getting the rib contouring surgery. Then she backed out
Speaker 1: on the day of it to spend more time contemplating it.
Speaker 1: But as of right now, the point I'm recording this
Speaker 1: on Thursday, I believe that she will go through with it.
Speaker 1: And the reason I have focused mostly on Beck is
Speaker 1: because she's just someone I know the most, and there
Speaker 1: was a real story there, and there were so many
Speaker 1: wider points to make off her story, and for me
Speaker 1: to then bring in, like everybody else, to other influencers,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, it would just lose the impact of
Speaker 1: the points I've been raising, and you know, with all
Speaker 1: those other voices, I also thought it would start to
Speaker 1: just feel like I'm endorsing this surgery, which, as I've
Speaker 1: said from the very start, I'm not. But when Beck
Speaker 1: did back out and I later saw a girl named
Speaker 1: Ali Dare who some of you may know from below
Speaker 1: deck sat by the pool the day after her surgery,
Speaker 1: wearing the corset thing you must wear for ten weeks afterwards,
Speaker 1: which permanently shapes their ribs that they've just had fractured
Speaker 1: and turned inwards. I did ask her if we could
Speaker 1: have a little chat, and that was just well to
Speaker 1: get the perspective of someone post surgery, to just see, well,
Speaker 1: how was it? And just like I'd asked Beck and Athena,
Speaker 1: what made you come here and actually go through with this.
Speaker 9: Shot here away?
Speaker 6: And course it Yes, So I'm in the corset.
Speaker 7: So I'm going to be stuck in this for the
Speaker 7: next ten to.
Speaker 9: Twelve weeks, oh every day, like day and night.
Speaker 7: Yeah, twenty four to seven. But to be honest, it
Speaker 7: actually feels good. It feels when I take it off
Speaker 7: to shower, it feels, i don't know, like my body's too.
Speaker 6: Free post surgery. Two days post surgery.
Speaker 7: And when it's on it feels like just it's like
Speaker 7: hugging everything. It's like keeping everything nice and like.
Speaker 6: Tight and compact.
Speaker 5: So I will say that I'm surprised how energetic like,
Speaker 5: because there's this everyone nobody knows what the surgery is
Speaker 5: I didn't know what it was I'm hearing, but what
Speaker 5: did I still didn't know.
Speaker 1: And then just a heads up if you thinking, hey Josh,
Speaker 1: that audio shit, don't worry. I know this was because
Speaker 1: this chat was like just so quick and unplanned. And
Speaker 1: as I said, I saw Ali by the pool and
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, oh, can we just hop for
Speaker 1: a few minutes? And I thought it would just be
Speaker 1: a few minutes, but you'll hear it went a little
Speaker 1: bit longer.
Speaker 5: So they've made a tiny needle point thinging your side yep,
Speaker 5: and then through that and then it all just sound
Speaker 5: like kind of like reshape your bottom ribs. Yes, And
Speaker 5: then this is what now holds it in place permanently
Speaker 5: keep them there.
Speaker 7: So basically I have control now. So the first week
Speaker 7: you just kind of keep it compact, but now I
Speaker 7: have control. It's got these little toggles, so this tightens it, okay.
Speaker 7: And if I want to be teeny tiny waist, I
Speaker 7: can tighten it like crazy tight. If I want more natural,
Speaker 7: more like human like, ye, I can.
Speaker 6: Sort of just keep it.
Speaker 7: See, you have complete control over what sort of result
Speaker 7: you have at the end with the corset, which is
Speaker 7: wild to me.
Speaker 4: Well, I didn't know at that time.
Speaker 1: Was as Ali and I were chatting Stella from this
Speaker 1: year's season and married at first sight. She just posted
Speaker 1: a TikTok and after she saw all of my posts
Speaker 1: about the strip in Bali, she revealed in her post
Speaker 1: that she was almost here, sat amongst us and this
Speaker 1: is her explaining why she ended up declared the offer
Speaker 1: of this trip.
Speaker 2: I personally myself was also invited to go on that
Speaker 2: journey with Snatched Waste, and I have most respect for
Speaker 2: the people who are creating the business and the opportunity
Speaker 2: for the women and men to change their body structure.
Speaker 2: I took an utmost care to actually get to understand
Speaker 2: what the type of surgery it is, because that is
Speaker 2: a surgery. Okay, it's not teeth cleaning for fifteen minutes.
Speaker 2: It's a surgery you go under. That's the one. And
Speaker 2: I also had to consider does this actually align with
Speaker 2: me and who I am as a person. And I
Speaker 2: didn't say straight away no, because curiosity, you know, I
Speaker 2: got the better of me, and I have at the
Speaker 2: end of the day, was intrigued, you know, And after
Speaker 2: listening to the surgeon talking about it, if that procedure
Speaker 2: was ever on the top of my mind to do so,
Speaker 2: I would have, but since I never thought about it
Speaker 2: and it's the last thing that I probably would think
Speaker 2: about at the end of the day, I was like, nah,
Speaker 2: that would be just not something I would want to do, right,
Speaker 2: And just because someone and something is given for you
Speaker 2: for free doesn't mean you have to take.
Speaker 1: Interestingly though, where Estella sat with that offer for a
Speaker 1: little while, and you know, although the appeal of a
Speaker 1: smaller waste did briefly appeal to her, she ultimately said
Speaker 1: no because this is just not something she's ever considered doing,
Speaker 1: but with Ali. When I asked her reasons, she said
Speaker 1: that after she was also reached out and offered this
Speaker 1: procedure in exchange for some social media coverage, she raced
Speaker 1: to her decision.
Speaker 7: And my friends were like, you're not actually going to
Speaker 7: do that, that's insane. I was like, well, I never
Speaker 7: knew this was a thing, but now that it's on
Speaker 7: my radar, I kind of want it. That is going
Speaker 7: to be like a lot of people are probably going
Speaker 7: to hear that and be like, that's ridiculous. It's not
Speaker 7: like you've been sitting here thinking for years. This is
Speaker 7: something that's going to be life.
Speaker 6: Changing for me.
Speaker 9: It's very ridiculous, to be honest, I know.
Speaker 7: I am such an impulsive person. I know that's not
Speaker 7: like a positive trait. It's not the best trade at all.
Speaker 7: I'm such an impulsive person. But when I get an
Speaker 7: idea in my head, I'm very obsessive about it. And
Speaker 7: so once I had the idea in my head, I'm like,
Speaker 7: like I was saying to you before, I was watching
Speaker 7: the Sports Illustrated swim show that was on recently, and
Speaker 7: I was studying all their bodies and bodies that I've
Speaker 7: always thought are beautiful.
Speaker 6: With the same shape as what I was. And then
Speaker 6: I woul when you say, what presearch two days ago? Yeah, okay,
Speaker 6: ten years.
Speaker 7: Ago when I was involved old timy times.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 7: So now, so I'm watching it because I was trying
Speaker 7: to give myself a bit of perspective. I was trying
Speaker 7: to be realistic about this idea that I've started to
Speaker 7: obsess over. And then I was looking at some of
Speaker 7: the other body shapes and the curves and the hourglasses, like,
Speaker 7: but I love that shape too. And the way that
Speaker 7: they described the entire process was very minimally invasive. It's
Speaker 7: only a forty five minute procedure. You know, there's no
Speaker 7: roobs being removed, there's no nothing getting broken. It's just
Speaker 7: kind of a softening of the tissue and just the
Speaker 7: surface of the bone. And then the contrary with the corset.
Speaker 7: So I thought, oh, it sounds so chill.
Speaker 9: I know it's no.
Speaker 5: I mean, like I came here to document this and
Speaker 5: kind of find out the reasons why so many people
Speaker 5: are doing.
Speaker 9: The surgery, and the reason just seems to be cool.
Speaker 7: Why not I know, we're all doing the yolo thing
Speaker 7: because it's not being on any about radar because it's
Speaker 7: not in Australia.
Speaker 1: I'm going to be honest. Now, I liked Ali when
Speaker 1: I met her. I thought she was lovely. She had
Speaker 1: a great energy and just like a really friendly vibe
Speaker 1: to her. But I had to politely push back on
Speaker 1: that yolo response and just let her know, well, like
Speaker 1: just how dangerous that is because of her job title.
Speaker 9: But do you.
Speaker 5: Worry that that is gonna that is going to piss
Speaker 5: people off?
Speaker 9: Of course, and you have like quite a big following.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and like they're all, I mean, you're already documenting this, yeah,
Speaker 5: and they're going to see this, and it's essentially they're
Speaker 5: going to go, well, Ali's done it, so I want
Speaker 5: to do it because look how good she looks.
Speaker 7: But yeah, I mean, I definitely, yeah, I definitely don't
Speaker 7: like the idea of influencing people in that sense.
Speaker 5: But job title is influencer. So that's why I'm like,
Speaker 5: why we are doing this?
Speaker 6: I know, I know, and you're absolutely right, like I don't.
Speaker 7: It's just like I and the last person on this
Speaker 7: planet that people should be following, Like I'm the lemming
Speaker 7: jumping off a cliff, you know, I'm.
Speaker 9: Just I don't.
Speaker 7: I was on a TV show, and I have followers
Speaker 7: from a TV show, not because I'm a role model,
Speaker 7: just because people like me because I'm a kind person.
Speaker 7: It doesn't make mean that I make good life decisions.
Speaker 7: It doesn't mean that this is a bad life decision either.
Speaker 7: But it's just kind of like if my parents knew
Speaker 7: they would die.
Speaker 6: They're going to find out obviously they're going to die.
Speaker 9: No fantastic.
Speaker 1: Whereas Ali raced to this decision because well, in her
Speaker 1: own words, you only live once. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: there's Stella, who not only declined this trip because well
Speaker 1: she did really think about it, but she also then
Speaker 1: sat and thought about how she really feels about her
Speaker 1: new breasts, which she got done in November after her
Speaker 1: season of the show stopped filming, and she has made
Speaker 1: an effort not to publicly discuss or draw attention to
Speaker 1: at all until now when it came.
Speaker 2: To my rest of mutian surgery. I actually you don't
Speaker 2: see my moves anywhere flaunted. I wear the same clothes
Speaker 2: because I've done that for myself. I paid for that myself,
Speaker 2: and I actually had that booked three days before I
Speaker 2: got a call about Maths getting me my match, And
Speaker 2: even then I actually was thinking about the surgery for
Speaker 2: a Yeah. I did my first constitution with the surgeon
Speaker 2: in November twenty four. My surgery was booked June twenty fifth,
Speaker 2: twenty five, and I ended up doing it November twenty five.
Speaker 2: So before people make decisions, I think it's important to
Speaker 2: ask relevant questions why am I doing it and what
Speaker 2: are what are the pros and cons of it? Because
Speaker 2: I must say, after going through the surgery myself, just
Speaker 2: you know, quite recently, I guess the surgery won't solve
Speaker 2: the problems if you're trying to solve them. If someone
Speaker 2: is saying, I, actually, you know, don't find myself sexy
Speaker 2: because I don't have boobs. Okay, go for it. But
Speaker 2: if someone says, oh my god, boobs changed my life.
Speaker 2: Something magically flicked and happened, and now I am this confident,
Speaker 2: sexy matterfacer, it's not gonna happen. Okay. You will wake up,
Speaker 2: you will go through the healing, you will have the
Speaker 2: ups and downs, and at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: six months in the shine of something new is going
Speaker 2: to wear off and you're going to be lifed with
Speaker 2: the same thoughts about yourself. So if you are not changing,
Speaker 2: if I'm not changing my thoughts about myself internally at
Speaker 2: the first place, no surgery will change your confidence. Surgery
Speaker 2: will change the feeling of insecurity. Confidence and insecurity is
Speaker 2: the internal job. Whatever you put outside, it's going to
Speaker 2: be a temporary solution to relieve the pain. It's like
Speaker 2: having alcohol when you feel depressed, having drugs when you
Speaker 2: don't feel okay, and stuff like that. So I always
Speaker 2: encourage try to understand the reasons why something is being offered,
Speaker 2: while something is being promoted, and why something is being done.
Speaker 1: The more Stella has really sat and fought about her
Speaker 1: new breasts. Over the last couple of weeks after the
Speaker 1: offer of this Barllor trip has just had a reflecting
Speaker 1: on all of the choices she's maybe their body. She
Speaker 1: has realized that ultimately she does have regrets, and not
Speaker 1: just because of the reason she got them done, but
Speaker 1: the way they've impacted so many other parts of her
Speaker 1: life that she hadn't anticipated, like exercising.
Speaker 2: It took me probably six months to accept the fact that, Okay,
Speaker 2: well I'm not I'm not not happy with my boobs.
Speaker 2: But was it worth it? Was it really really worth it?
Speaker 2: I don't think so. I don't think so. It didn't
Speaker 2: make me happier nothing, I don't know if anything. I
Speaker 2: actually feel like it affected me in quite a negative way,
Speaker 2: and I'm still I've lost my routine. I was scared
Speaker 2: to train, I was scared to do push offts, I
Speaker 2: was scared to do intensive functional training. And it's only now,
Speaker 2: and it's been plus six months, that I feel like, Okay,
Speaker 2: it feels like somewhat my body and yeah, I didn't
Speaker 2: have the reason to do the boobs rather than the vanity.
Speaker 2: At the end of the day, I'm sorry. I know
Speaker 2: in my ruffle a lot of people in the different
Speaker 2: position in a how do I say in my rough
Speaker 2: people in wrong ways? But no, I was sexy before,
Speaker 2: I was feeling sexy before, I was confident before, and
Speaker 2: when I look back, I got I booked my boobs
Speaker 2: in when I was going through a breakup, a heartbreak,
Speaker 2: and I just wanted to feel better.
Speaker 1: Back to BALI now, and trust me, I do understand Ali.
Speaker 1: I think I'm quite similar in the way that I
Speaker 1: often act first and think later, and my life has
Speaker 1: been defined by impulsive choices and wild stories. But this
Speaker 1: is different, like especially given how whether she likes it
Speaker 1: or not, people do look to her as someone to
Speaker 1: follow and copy and and to really try and emphasize
Speaker 1: this point. I then flipped it a little by putting
Speaker 1: it into a very real scenario for Ali.
Speaker 9: You've got a son, right of a son. Yeah, so
Speaker 9: he probably wouldn't fovict him.
Speaker 5: But what if she did have a thirteen year old daughter,
Speaker 5: and then she's maybe feeling insecure as girls do with
Speaker 5: that age, you know, girls in school, maybe picking on
Speaker 5: her about how she looks, and then she's scrolling Instagram
Speaker 5: and go, oh but mommy, look what this girl's done.
Speaker 9: I want to do that.
Speaker 6: No, I know that's that like it hurts my heart.
Speaker 7: That really hurts my heart because you're really getting me
Speaker 7: in the soft spot.
Speaker 5: But that's essentially and then that young girl is going
Speaker 5: to see that, and maybe that's going to stick with
Speaker 5: her for years, and then she's not going to know
Speaker 5: the girl she's looking at. When Yolo we're going to
Speaker 5: go to BALI just change my shapely. I know.
Speaker 1: This thought of one day having a daughter is something
Speaker 1: that Stella has also spent a lot of time thinking
Speaker 1: about lately, and she says what she learned from her
Speaker 1: own mother about self love and acceptance is something that
Speaker 1: has never really left her.
Speaker 2: If I would raise a daughter, I always questioned myself
Speaker 2: and ask myself what kind of values, what values I
Speaker 2: would like my daughter to get from me? And one
Speaker 2: thing that I learned growing up my mum. She had
Speaker 2: me when she was extremely young, and even then her
Speaker 2: body got absolutely wrecked. She got sagga booths, she got
Speaker 2: stretch marks all over her body, but she was wearing
Speaker 2: that with confidence, with confidence, and honestly, if I could
Speaker 2: say one thing that I am taking with you know,
Speaker 2: my arms wide open, is the confidence my mum instilled
Speaker 2: in me by not being perfect and by not chasing
Speaker 2: the perfection, and by always just showing up as you are.
Speaker 2: And that's the time values. I would like to bring
Speaker 2: my kids in the world where yes, there are things
Speaker 2: that we can do to make ourselves feel confident and
Speaker 2: comfortable and and you know, less insecure and whatever. And
Speaker 2: I'm all for it. I straightened my teeth, I got
Speaker 2: rid of the glasses because I was wearing glasses since
Speaker 2: I was sixteen. I'm all for it. But when it
Speaker 2: comes to when it comes to trends, when it comes
Speaker 2: to something that can cause more stress than benefit, I
Speaker 2: advise not. I even advise all of my friends who
Speaker 2: are like, oh my god, you got your I want
Speaker 2: to get them done, And I'm like, think, why do
Speaker 2: you want to get your mobs done?
Speaker 1: As I saw Ali's carefree yolo for side break a
Speaker 1: little at that last question, I started to think, there's
Speaker 1: more to her story here, like there just must be.
Speaker 1: And as I started to question more about just her
Speaker 1: body image throughout her entire life, we started to unpack
Speaker 1: together like the real reason she was here having this done?
Speaker 1: And you know what, I related to a lot of
Speaker 1: what she was saying, which some of you who may
Speaker 1: have heard a recent episode of my other podcast, Occasionally Funny,
Speaker 1: may already know it's high.
Speaker 7: So I'm a millennial, and I feel like millennials we
Speaker 7: got cursed in the in the sense of like how
Speaker 7: we were, how we were programmed to look at our bodies. Yes,
Speaker 7: like we I was in the peak Mischa Barton, like.
Speaker 9: There's it's very funny.
Speaker 5: I did a part recently where I spoke about Nicole Richie,
Speaker 5: Paris Hilton. So I dropped out of school at fifteen
Speaker 5: to be paparazzi. The first person was Paris, and then
Speaker 5: I was suddenly around that world from being a gay
Speaker 5: in the closet teenager who never felt I fit in.
Speaker 5: And I developed an eating disorder for a while, and
Speaker 5: I only saw pictures recently, but I would go days
Speaker 5: about eating like I was skeletal, and I only saw
Speaker 5: those pictures like a week ago. And on my other
Speaker 5: podcast occasionally funny and then it's funny you say that,
Speaker 5: But like I was influenced back then because it was
Speaker 5: everywhere the magazines, the yeah, you couldn't escape that, and
Speaker 5: it was those it was that collar bone on all
Speaker 5: of them.
Speaker 9: Yeah, like that was the that was.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I used to look at that I want a collar
Speaker 5: bone protruding, and I was like, what the fuck was that?
Speaker 6: Yeah, it was. It's actually funny because I when.
Speaker 7: I was on Below Deck, I actually there was an
Speaker 7: episode where I was feeling is one of our first
Speaker 7: episodes on our Night Off where everyone was getting in
Speaker 7: the hot tub and I was feeling insecure of talking
Speaker 7: to my friend Daisy, and I was feeling insecure about
Speaker 7: my body because the other girls were all teeny tiny, petite,
Speaker 7: and I used to be really, really skinny, and I
Speaker 7: was normal. I was in normal size at that point.
Speaker 7: And a lot of people really like followed me from
Speaker 7: that episode, and that has crossed my mind because I
Speaker 7: did have this connection with those people in that moment.
Speaker 7: It was like a moment of realism, and you know
Speaker 7: a lot of people do feel that feeling of insecurity,
Speaker 7: and I was verbalizing it because, like I said, I
Speaker 7: went my heart on my sleep. I always say what
Speaker 7: I think and feel.
Speaker 6: I'm super open and.
Speaker 7: I have my own demons from which you've obviously experienced
Speaker 7: as well from the years before this. So years before this,
Speaker 7: I went through my own experiences and eating disorder.
Speaker 1: I'll be honest here again with you now. That response
Speaker 1: from Ali there, that just made me sad because in
Speaker 1: the excitement of her being offered this new surgery and
Speaker 1: the Yolo mentality, it felt like like until us sat
Speaker 1: there in that moment by the pool, she hadn't really
Speaker 1: made disconnection herself. And then what Ali said next made
Speaker 1: me even sadder.
Speaker 7: And then recently, I've lost a lot of weight in
Speaker 7: the last after having a child in the last like
Speaker 7: two three years. I'm getting a lot of comments on
Speaker 7: my body.
Speaker 6: This is going to inflame all of that.
Speaker 7: I'm getting a lot of people announcing I'm unfollowing you
Speaker 7: because you've lost so much weight.
Speaker 6: I'm like, okay, you can never win, like you could
Speaker 6: just never win.
Speaker 7: And I don't know, you know, I don't know what
Speaker 7: is It's hard to say what is right and what
Speaker 7: is wrong and what is healthy and what is not
Speaker 7: when you're being praised when you're at your leanist. Yes,
Speaker 7: and that's what I'm getting at the moment. I'm at
Speaker 7: my Leanist and I'm getting so much attention for it,
Speaker 7: and I'm you know, getting more collabs, more brand deals,
Speaker 7: more attention, more clothing stuff, more like all this stuff
Speaker 7: that I wasn't getting before, and I'm like, that's weird
Speaker 7: and feeding the monster, you.
Speaker 6: Know what I mean.
Speaker 5: So earlier in this chat and you said you did
Speaker 5: this because Yolo now speaking, it feels like it somewhere
Speaker 5: deep down is maybe, yeah, probably things you haven't fully.
Speaker 9: I think, yeah, overcome.
Speaker 7: I think there's definitely things that haven't overcome. I feel
Speaker 7: like that type of stuff like follows you full life.
Speaker 1: Sadly, for people like Ali and for Beck, who are
Speaker 1: public figures and whose income is determined by social media engagement,
Speaker 1: and their self esteem is often determined by how many
Speaker 1: likes the posts may get. When they do then get
Speaker 1: extra likes when they're maybe looking a little leaner or skinnier,
Speaker 1: that does then lead to extra paid work. And it's
Speaker 1: a fucking vicious cycle then, because not only is like
Speaker 1: body image, you know, this horrible thing we all deal
Speaker 1: with still there at the front of their minds, but
Speaker 1: suddenly it's now intertwined with their careers, their income and
Speaker 1: just overall sense of self worth. Now, the morning after
Speaker 1: my interview with Ali, the saddest moment of this entire
Speaker 1: Bali trip happened, and that was when I was sat
Speaker 1: by the pool with Beck. We were chatting about everything
Speaker 1: so far. And although you have heard a mypod of
Speaker 1: her explaining why she pulled out of the procedure and
Speaker 1: her indecision, which is all true, I would say that
Speaker 1: now her having thought about it, she is again at
Speaker 1: the time of me recording this, probably ninety nine percent
Speaker 1: set on getting it done. And she came to this realization,
Speaker 1: she said, after a phone call with her mum. And
Speaker 1: on that call, her mum asked her, like, how do
Speaker 1: you feel it's been twenty four hours since you didn't
Speaker 1: have the surgery, And Beck said to her mom the
Speaker 1: main thing she was feeling was like almost upset that
Speaker 1: she'd pulled out, and like sure, she was proud of
Speaker 1: herself for taking more time. But ultimately Beck said, her
Speaker 1: main emotion as she really thought about it, was like
Speaker 1: a sadness and a regret. But that is not the
Speaker 1: sad part I'm getting to here. As we were having
Speaker 1: this conversation, Beck then removed her shirt and climbed into
Speaker 1: swimming pool like it was a boiling I think thirty.
Speaker 4: Five degrees, no breeze, blues legg It was a.
Speaker 1: Beautiful day, but it was so hot, and Beck climbed
Speaker 1: into the pool in a two piece spaghini in front
Speaker 1: of me, and as she did that, she said, like Josh,
Speaker 1: this time last year, I never in a million years
Speaker 1: would have ever done this.
Speaker 4: Like shown off my body like this.
Speaker 1: And as I was then saying like, well, going off
Speaker 1: that logic, Beck, imagine where you'll be in another twelve
Speaker 1: months and how much more confident you might be. So so,
Speaker 1: therefore why not wait another year to see then if
Speaker 1: you want the rip thing done. But and this is
Speaker 1: the sad part now, as we were having this chat,
Speaker 1: a girl interrupted us. Excuse me, you're Beck from Maths, right,
Speaker 1: the girl asked. And this girl she was lovely. She
Speaker 1: was Australian and she was twenty two years old, and
Speaker 1: as she came over to us, she explained that she
Speaker 1: loves maths. She already follows Beck and quite a few
Speaker 1: of the other influencers on this trip. And she said
Speaker 1: to Beck, after having just watched the video of was Early,
Speaker 1: that they talking about pulling out of the procedure. She
Speaker 1: said like back, you don't need to get that done.
Speaker 1: Like your ribs are tiny, mine a much bigger. And
Speaker 1: as she said that, I thought to myself, like, what
Speaker 1: the fuck have we done? Like what have I done here?
Speaker 1: And I said to the girl like, hey, if you
Speaker 1: don't mind me asking, like, have you ever looked at
Speaker 1: your ribs before this, like or ever compared your ribs
Speaker 1: to other people prior to this week? And she was like, Nah,
Speaker 1: never have never done that, And that, honestly just broke
Speaker 1: my heart because this is the reality of this situation
Speaker 1: and the world we're now living. And when it comes
Speaker 1: to social media and influencers, often like the number of
Speaker 1: followers someone has, the number of likes their posts get,
Speaker 1: or you something has like that often just becomes a
Speaker 1: number that means nothing. But this situation, like for me,
Speaker 1: that moment was a reminder that nah, those numbers, they
Speaker 1: account for real people, and this is the actual impact
Speaker 1: that influencers and content creators have on those real people.
Speaker 4: In the first episode of this pod.
Speaker 1: Series, I acknowledged my own hypocrisy of coming on this
Speaker 1: trip to investigate something which would ultimately push it out
Speaker 1: to more people, and I justified this in my head
Speaker 1: as well, If I don't go, millions of people are
Speaker 1: gonna see the glamorized before and afters of this trending
Speaker 1: new procedure, you know, as all those influencers share their
Speaker 1: results with like no further context or critical thinking. Then again,
Speaker 1: in my head, at least I thought that by me
Speaker 1: coming and me doing my thing, I could steer that
Speaker 1: narrative from the very start and present this new thing
Speaker 1: as something we should question rather than rush into copying.
Speaker 1: And for me, like I thought doing that would be
Speaker 1: a good thing. But that girl, like what she said,
Speaker 1: that just made me question everything. And even as Beck
Speaker 1: to like, you're stunning and you don't need anything. They
Speaker 1: both then kind of spoke amongst themselves and they agreed
Speaker 1: that you know, it always comes down to someone's personal choice.
Speaker 1: But I still felt I still felt guilty. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be honest. I felt awful. I felt I felt horrible.
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm getting upset say this like I've
Speaker 1: never had that before. Like I you know, you see
Speaker 1: the comments, the messages, But somebody there in front of you,
Speaker 1: this girl on her holiday with her mum, just swimming
Speaker 1: in the swimming pool. She'd been following the content from me,
Speaker 1: from back, from all the other girls, and suddenly she's
Speaker 1: looking at herself in the mirror in a way she
Speaker 1: never before. Yeah again, I just felt I felt guilty,
Speaker 1: like I did. I did not think I would start
Speaker 1: crying at this. And then the even sider part of
Speaker 1: this whole thing was as this young girl and I
Speaker 1: suppose many others out there are now looking in the mirror,
Speaker 1: questioning a body part they'd never fought twice about until
Speaker 1: this week. The influencers who you know, they're they're pushing
Speaker 1: this new insecurity onto them and the press highlighting it further.
Speaker 1: And I suppose me to an extent, we they'd already
Speaker 1: moved on and because suddenly so crime, Because suddenly the
Speaker 1: headlines back in Australia, as some of you may have seen,
Speaker 1: that it had already moved away from Be's in decision
Speaker 1: and you know this message I've been passionate about promoting,
Speaker 1: of taking your time and really asking why you want
Speaker 1: to make any permanent changes, And a new story had
Speaker 1: spawned from this ballet content, and that was Bec's feud with.
Speaker 4: Former bride Dominica.
Speaker 1: Now, over the last week, there's been endless comments from
Speaker 1: many of the former reality television cast members on the
Speaker 1: ballet content and many other influencers, and they've mostly all
Speaker 1: been sharing concern that to me often feels disingenuous because,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, I see those comments as their way
Speaker 1: of using an opportunity just to insert themselves into a
Speaker 1: trending topic, rather than their apparent concern coming from a
Speaker 1: point of actual care. Because for the best part, the
Speaker 1: majority of content creators out there who do call themselves
Speaker 1: social commentators, they mostly just post comments that will only
Speaker 1: ever fuel their own agendas and self promotion. And I'm
Speaker 1: not excluded from this either, as I've just highlighted my
Speaker 1: own hypocrisy. There's also many other things in my past
Speaker 1: as a tableau journalist that I do regret, which anyone
Speaker 1: who's read my book will be aware of, as nothing
Speaker 1: was off limits in that and I'll live with those
Speaker 1: things for the rest of my life and carry those regrets.
Speaker 1: But for now, on the topic of Dom, In one
Speaker 1: pretty unnecessary comment in my opinion, Dom claimed that Beck
Speaker 1: coming to Balley for this procedure, only to back out
Speaker 1: on the day while now taking more time to decide
Speaker 1: if it is for her.
Speaker 10: Yeah, I walked in and I thought, I'm not ready yet.
Speaker 9: I don't know if I will be ready.
Speaker 10: I don't know if I'm going to go ahead and
Speaker 10: get it done.
Speaker 1: Like I said, I've got giving myself an extra week
Speaker 1: here in Bali to decide. Was and I'm quoting Dom
Speaker 1: just another Pierre ploy to fix her reputation. And now
Speaker 1: here's the thing where Dom is, of course entitled to
Speaker 1: her own opinion. Everybody is, and since becoming like an
Speaker 1: influencer after married at first sight, Dom essentially supports her
Speaker 1: family by sharing her opinions on social media. But just
Speaker 1: to circle back to what's now our word of the day, hypocrisy.
Speaker 1: In my opinion, Dom wasn't sharing an actual opinion on
Speaker 1: the wider discussion of body image and the broader topic
Speaker 1: I was trying to present through beck story which could
Speaker 1: start a conversation to helpfully help others. Dom just shared
Speaker 1: what I perceive as a personal attack, which is ironic,
Speaker 1: as many people pointed out, because this phrase that Beck
Speaker 1: has been using consistently as the justification for potentially getting
Speaker 1: this surgery.
Speaker 2: I think my body my choice, you know, like.
Speaker 1: Is one that some of you may be called Dom
Speaker 1: has built her entire brand on.
Speaker 10: If they are slut shaming, I'll wear it like a
Speaker 10: badge of honor, because my body, my choice.
Speaker 1: Bitch, which first started on her season and married at
Speaker 1: First Sight, during the storyline about her OnlyFans content being
Speaker 1: leaked amongst the.
Speaker 10: Group, Oh my god, just like come and ask me
Speaker 10: knock on my door. Don't like sit here at the
Speaker 10: like circulating an image and like the story because you've
Speaker 10: obviously made up your mind's already, and then come here
Speaker 10: and just drop that on.
Speaker 4: Me, like huge dump.
Speaker 1: As dom season then came to an end, some of
Speaker 1: you may also remember Dom having her own merch made
Speaker 1: with this phrase, which she made everyone at her finale
Speaker 1: viewing party wear with endless content like this, filmed in
Speaker 1: her own home, getting millions of views.
Speaker 8: I want to hear my body my choice? Can I
Speaker 8: get Can I get my body my choice? I'm not
Speaker 8: saying it loud, and I want to hear my.
Speaker 4: Body my choice now.
Speaker 1: At the time, that phrase and those T shirts and
Speaker 1: the chance at the viewing party was all positioned by
Speaker 1: Dom and her best friend at the time, Ella and
Speaker 1: everyone who wore them as like taking show drama and
Speaker 1: turning it into a moment of empowerment for everybody out there.
Speaker 1: But now when it's Bex's body and Bex's choice and
Speaker 1: Dom making the choice to use her platform to brand
Speaker 1: Bex in decision over this big choice she's making about
Speaker 1: her own body as nothing but a desperate PR plot.
Speaker 1: It makes me question, was this phrase to Dom my
Speaker 1: body my choice only ever something performative?
Speaker 9: Like?
Speaker 1: Was it just a catchy slogan for her to profit
Speaker 1: from and a cleverly strategized way to subtly turn more
Speaker 1: people against her co star than Olivia again, or while
Speaker 1: being pushed as a moment of empowerment for all the
Speaker 1: girls out there, because well, like if you ask me,
Speaker 1: that is how it now looks right now. Like to
Speaker 1: Dom and the other influencers out there, do the messages
Speaker 1: they push and stand for only matter when they're the
Speaker 1: ones benefiting from them and still sticking with them. For
Speaker 1: a second here on the topic of like PR tactics
Speaker 1: to salvage a reputation, could we not also accuse her
Speaker 1: of doing the same thing after she appeared on I'm
Speaker 1: a Celebrity when one fight in the Jungle led to
Speaker 1: a press day of her just doing damage control interview
Speaker 1: after interview.
Speaker 5: As a viewer, it was quite uncomfortable to watch, But
Speaker 5: talk us through it.
Speaker 6: Do you regret at all what you think?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 10: Look, my choice of language wasn't great, and I do
Speaker 10: sincerely regret my way of articulating during that coma, but
Speaker 10: I don't take back.
Speaker 6: How I felt.
Speaker 1: And then, still on the subject of Dom, when Everything
Speaker 1: employded on her podcast with Ella Sit with Us, and
Speaker 1: she had so many people, like other influencers, calling for
Speaker 1: her to be canceled, which I'm going to say I
Speaker 1: never agreed with back then and I still don't. But
Speaker 1: at the time when that was happening, Dom then took
Speaker 1: a break from social media. She checked into a mental
Speaker 1: health facility for a few weeks, which I think was
Speaker 1: an incredibly brief thing to do.
Speaker 10: It's days like this, you know, when I really feel
Speaker 10: sad and like depressed and whatever. It's these moments that
Speaker 10: I know, feeling like this low, these are the moments
Speaker 10: that actually are what build my resilience.
Speaker 1: And that's definitely something that I.
Speaker 10: Learnt being in hospital and with all the reading and
Speaker 10: all of the learning that I'm doing.
Speaker 1: But then when Dom came out with that facility, and
Speaker 1: she did so much content talking about it, and she
Speaker 1: sat on the Today's show Sofa talking about it, saying,
Speaker 1: you know, how she's being open about this to hopefully
Speaker 1: help others. She was applauded for that openness and suddenly,
Speaker 1: like all conversation of the controversy a month earlier, when
Speaker 1: people wanted her to be canceled, was like replaced with
Speaker 1: this this moment, and it was a moment which I'll
Speaker 1: say was powerful and welcome. So imagine then, like at
Speaker 1: that time, Dom, if you're listening, you then had other
Speaker 1: people with large platforms in the comments using it as
Speaker 1: an opportunity just to insert themselves into the narrative and say,
Speaker 1: to quote yourself, Dom's just done this as a pr
Speaker 1: ploy to fix he a reputation. Like you imagine Dom,
Speaker 1: how you would have felt at that time. I assume
Speaker 1: you would have been sad that like a person had
Speaker 1: gone out of their way to derail what was an
Speaker 1: important conversation you'd started, and they derailed it with like
Speaker 1: a personal attack. Because to me, that's how Dom, you're
Speaker 1: comment read this week, you know, despite you having been
Speaker 1: in Bech's position so many times before, and you guys
Speaker 1: see what I mean now when I keep circling back
Speaker 1: to this word hypocrisy and Dom again, I don't want
Speaker 1: you to feel targeted here at all. This isn't about you,
Speaker 1: but your comments have become like a focal part of
Speaker 1: the Bailey coverage in the press this week. And that
Speaker 1: was the perfect example. And actually Jia has also jumped
Speaker 1: on this bandwagon, and she gave quotes to website chatter
Speaker 1: about how Beck's again indecision was apparently just an embarrassing
Speaker 1: pr ploy or whatever she said. Yet this is Jia who,
Speaker 1: on TikTok just a few days ago openly was openly
Speaker 1: discussing her own choices regarding her body and the procedures
Speaker 1: she's had done.
Speaker 3: I grew up plaining Jane brown hair, no biddy's, no
Speaker 3: big lips, uglier nose, and do you know what, I
Speaker 3: fucking hated it. So if I want to change something,
Speaker 3: I will, and I have and I haven't done anything
Speaker 3: any like surgical things in years, girl, Okay, And you
Speaker 3: know what when I was in high school and got
Speaker 3: made fun of every day for being a surfboard with
Speaker 3: no boobs and plaine Jane and boring and the boys
Speaker 3: didn't really like me, do you know what I used
Speaker 3: to think? I used to think about Pamela Anderson, I
Speaker 3: think about Carmena Letter, and I used to go do
Speaker 3: you know what, when I'm old enough, I'm gonna get blonde,
Speaker 3: and I'm gonna.
Speaker 6: Get big tits, I'm gonna get big lips.
Speaker 3: And I'm gonna be exactly who the fuck i want
Speaker 3: to be. And do you know what, I'm happy with
Speaker 3: that If I look plastic and fake, that's what I
Speaker 3: want to look like. I don't tell you how to look, girl,
Speaker 3: fucking worry about yourself.
Speaker 1: But to make this even broader now, because Dom and
Speaker 1: Gea aren't the only influencers whose actions we could describe
Speaker 1: as hypocritical, like I could name so many fitness influencers
Speaker 1: who make their living selling healthy lifestyles and programs for
Speaker 1: their followers you or to copy what they do to
Speaker 1: get their perfect bodies too, like like I know for
Speaker 1: a fact so many of them then offline to their
Speaker 1: friends laugh while actually attributing their weight loss to cigarettes
Speaker 1: and cocaine. And there's actually so many other fitness influencers
Speaker 1: again that I know for a fact, spent like Saturday
Speaker 1: nights swapping their you know, post about matches and is
Speaker 1: how you say matcha whatever that drink is, and their
Speaker 1: Kale smoothies to chase keet them in around nightclubs and
Speaker 1: staying up all night. But you know on the internet,
Speaker 1: they would never share such a thing. Again, it's just
Speaker 1: hypocrisy everywhere. And these and these other influencers out there,
Speaker 1: and they build entire brands standing for women's rights and
Speaker 1: against violence, and they back actual worthy causes that do
Speaker 1: deserve so much attention, like as much attention as they
Speaker 1: can get. But these influencers, they so often then just
Speaker 1: distract from that message by skewing their content into some
Speaker 1: anti men, anti all men, and you know, pushing a
Speaker 1: new narrative to their audiences where the quick takeaway from
Speaker 1: anyone having like a five second scrollers essentially every man
Speaker 1: equals bad and you should all just remain single because
Speaker 1: you know this new popular trend of being like fuck
Speaker 1: all straight men, Fuck, we don't need men. And yet
Speaker 1: I know so many of their female influencers who are
Speaker 1: posting this content constantly. They're sat at home at night,
Speaker 1: still swiping the dating apps, endlessly dating and just endlessly
Speaker 1: searching for a man, despite doing multiple posts a week
Speaker 1: mocking our men, saying you don't need one.
Speaker 4: Again.
Speaker 1: You see my point here on what these influencers post
Speaker 1: versus how they actually live their lives and just their hypocrisy.
Speaker 1: And please don't misinterpret that last point there or take
Speaker 1: it as some like Josh is a man defending all
Speaker 1: bad men, because that could not be further from the
Speaker 1: truth at all. Like there are bad men in this world. Yes,
Speaker 1: there are so many very bad men out there who
Speaker 1: commit horrendous crimes against women. And this is a problem
Speaker 1: that isn't going away in Australia, to the point that
Speaker 1: it is classed as an epidemic, and continued awareness is
Speaker 1: needed to slowly bring any change. And you know that
Speaker 1: continued awareness does help victims find the courage to eventually
Speaker 1: speak up and leave those dangerous, horrendous situations. But there's
Speaker 1: also wonderful men out there in this world, like kind men,
Speaker 1: caring men, loving men. And when I see creators who
Speaker 1: are passionate about helping those women in those situations and
Speaker 1: highlighting so many worthy causes, then so often skew their
Speaker 1: content away from that messaging into just something sensationalized that
Speaker 1: will play into the algorithm and give them a viral moment.
Speaker 1: It starts to feel not just self indulgent, but also dangerous,
Speaker 1: and like a couple of days ago, I even saw
Speaker 1: one influencer pushing this message we should and I quote
Speaker 1: cull all men instead of sharks, which when I saw that,
Speaker 1: I thought, how the fuck is that gonna help any
Speaker 1: victims out there of domestic violence? And how is that
Speaker 1: message going to help anything? And again and again, please
Speaker 1: no one out there take this point out of context,
Speaker 1: because I feel like me even saying this in a
Speaker 1: day and age of cancel culture is like I'm walking
Speaker 1: on a tight rope. But if you have followed me
Speaker 1: or my podcast since the start, you'll know where I
Speaker 1: stand on all kinds of violence and sexual violence and
Speaker 1: how it's something even I, as a man, have been
Speaker 1: victim of sadly by other men. And this point, again
Speaker 1: of highlighting hypocrisy, I suppose I also am now highlighting
Speaker 1: just how easily it is when your income comes from
Speaker 1: monetizing your audience, that sensationalism can silently merged with whatever
Speaker 1: you stand for, as that will ultimately bring you bigger numbers,
Speaker 1: and therefore bigger numbers equal a bigger income. And hey,
Speaker 1: I could also listen names of both men and women,
Speaker 1: because you know, this hypocrisy is not gender specific. Who
Speaker 1: promote themselves as entrepreneurs while boasting of designer clothes and
Speaker 1: luxury holidays, you know, force forcing a feeling of inadequacy
Speaker 1: onto their unsuspecting followers, who first look to them with
Speaker 1: envy and eventually just with distaste. That how shameless it becomes.
Speaker 1: And you know, some of those people, I can tell
Speaker 1: you for a fact, they glamorize that lifestyle and they
Speaker 1: say like, look at me, I've made it, I'm self made.
Speaker 1: But again I can tell you for a fact, they
Speaker 1: fund that, not through the fitness programs or e commerce
Speaker 1: shops random courses they push, but through I don't work
Speaker 1: and escorting, especially in the Middle East where they can
Speaker 1: do it anonymously and in some cases by selling drugs.
Speaker 1: And this isn't me saying I don't work or escorting
Speaker 1: is bad. Like again, don't take any of this our context.
Speaker 1: But what I'm trying to say is transparency is the
Speaker 1: key to everything, in my opinion, and presenting something in
Speaker 1: a way that isn't truthful is dangerous and again hypocrisy.
Speaker 1: And then there's the male fitness influencers, the ones who
Speaker 1: the years have made me personally feel inadequate because you know,
Speaker 1: my muscles aren't as big on my abs and as
Speaker 1: defined who all push these programs. They say, if people
Speaker 1: like me by you know, we'll have bodies like them.
Speaker 4: But I know.
Speaker 1: Again for a fact, they look like that because of
Speaker 1: illegal steroids and illegal peptides. But will they ever post
Speaker 1: about that? No, they won't, And you're probably not thinking, like, hey, Josh,
Speaker 1: where are you going with this podcast? It's getting a
Speaker 1: bit randy, which it is. Apologies for that, but yeah.
Speaker 1: I went to Bali thinking I was going to investigate
Speaker 1: this new procedure and start discussion on unrealistic beauty standards
Speaker 1: set by influencers. But as I sat with below Deck
Speaker 1: star Ali for that final interview before leaving Bali, she
Speaker 1: helped me realize that this is actually all about just
Speaker 1: influencers in general, and how most of the time that
Speaker 1: they're actually the worst people we could ever be influenced by.
Speaker 5: For anything I could have but I'm I think sitting
Speaker 5: here with you, I've just realized something and I'm going
Speaker 5: to say this in the nicest way. Yeah, I came
Speaker 5: here to document almost this about beauty standards and like
Speaker 5: having people when they see people like yourself, you have
Speaker 5: done this, stop on question like is this something I
Speaker 5: want to do rather than just seeing a hot pitch
Speaker 5: and go I'm going to do that, like actually ask
Speaker 5: themselves why yeah? And now when I speak to you
Speaker 5: and the other girls were saying, I just did it
Speaker 5: because yore, why not?
Speaker 9: I think the broader.
Speaker 5: Thing here is let's stop being influenced by any influencer
Speaker 5: for anything.
Speaker 6: I know, I know, I agree with you.
Speaker 5: My career comes off reality TV. Talking about it. You're
Speaker 5: on reality television. People watch those shows for escapism, right
Speaker 5: to be entertained. You know, no one's watching mass to
Speaker 5: say that's how my relationship is going to be. Similar
Speaker 5: to below deck. I'm not that familiar, but it's quite chaotic. Yeah,
Speaker 5: people aren't saying I'm going to copy that when I
Speaker 5: go out or go on a holiday.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So I also think maybe we need to change this
Speaker 5: how we look at influences and it's almost like, let's
Speaker 5: look at them for escapism and almost to have that
Speaker 5: little laugh or whatever, and let's it's almost like the
Speaker 5: word influencer.
Speaker 9: I want to get rid of it now.
Speaker 5: File because like, I don't think people should be influenced
Speaker 5: by people going I've just tweaked my ribs because of
Speaker 5: LA and I'm saying this in the most polite way
Speaker 5: because you seem lively. Yeah, yeah, I'm just trying to
Speaker 5: do like a.
Speaker 6: I'm I'm not offended at all. Don't worry. I'm not
Speaker 6: offended because I'm like, I'm on the people's side. I
Speaker 6: get it. I get it.
Speaker 7: But what I when it comes to myself, I'm I
Speaker 7: make decisions that I wouldn't like if I had a daughter,
Speaker 7: I would be like, what are you thinking?
Speaker 1: Again, I found Ali lovely, But to her final point there,
Speaker 1: yes she may not have a daughter, but millions of
Speaker 1: people out there do. And those millions of daughters are
Speaker 1: seeing what she does and the other influences do, and
Speaker 1: they're following them and copying what they do. And you
Speaker 1: know also these millions of sons out there who are
Speaker 1: doing what the male influencers. They follow you And I
Speaker 1: saw this in real life, not just online, when that girl,
Speaker 1: when that twenty two year old girl approached Beck and
Speaker 1: I in the pool. And again, please don't think I'm
Speaker 1: exempt from this criticism. What we're removing myself from this narrative,
Speaker 1: I'm getting to again to highlight my own hypocrisy in
Speaker 1: another way, like when my book came out For example,
Speaker 1: in that book, I explore the correlation between gay hookup
Speaker 1: culture and mental health, and I explore why so many
Speaker 1: of us are chasing anonymous sexual encounters. But then I
Speaker 1: promoted that through viral content like my grinder Wrapt, which
Speaker 1: for those who didn't watch until the very end and
Speaker 1: understand like how I was highlighting the emotions during those hookups,
Speaker 1: they would just see that as content essentially promoting casual sex,
Speaker 1: which was the thing I was discouraging people from in
Speaker 1: the book. You see what I mean, Like, it's such
Speaker 1: a weird cycle. And it all keeps going back to
Speaker 1: this word hypocrisy. Even when I was a journalist, you know,
Speaker 1: there were there's so many reasons why I left that
Speaker 1: career and why it just didn't align with me morally anymore.
Speaker 1: But one example is I remember there was a time
Speaker 1: when a Australian celebrity was pictured snorting a suspicious, suspicious
Speaker 1: white substance, and we, the media, we went wild with
Speaker 1: that story, and that celebrity was brutally shamed, and you know,
Speaker 1: newspaper editors contacted all of their sponsors saying, how could
Speaker 1: you endorse this person? So they then lost all of
Speaker 1: their deals and income which they used to support their family,
Speaker 1: and like journalists like me then had to write up
Speaker 1: that outrage. But the thing is, like those editors pushing
Speaker 1: that narrative, I know they it's not cocaine themselves most
Speaker 1: weekend Like why do they hold what a female influencer
Speaker 1: to a higher regard than they hold themselves? And yet
Speaker 1: there they were using their mainstream platforms to essentially destroy
Speaker 1: one person for doing their own little hobby, and even
Speaker 1: me having to write all that up at the time
Speaker 1: and pedal out that to what apparently let the public
Speaker 1: know how bad the celebrity is. I've previously done cocaine
Speaker 1: in my life. I regret that I've spoken about their
Speaker 1: briefly on here, but again, you see what I mean,
Speaker 1: Hypocrisy is everywhere that we look. So if you're now wondering,
Speaker 1: like Josh, what is your big takeaway from this little series,
Speaker 1: and you know the lesson I've learned, it's that essentially
Speaker 1: we should just ban the word influencer, and we should
Speaker 1: look at content creators for entertainment, for escapism and light relief,
Speaker 1: but never actually be influenced by a single thing that
Speaker 1: they do. Because from my experience and this isn't aimed
Speaker 1: at the girls on that trip, but influence everywhere all.
Speaker 4: Over the world.
Speaker 1: So many of them are just well the worst possible
Speaker 1: role models and examples to follow or be influenced by
Speaker 1: for anything. And you know what I think the truth is,
Speaker 1: And I must now hold a mirror up to you,
Speaker 1: my lovely listeners. But I think to some extent, we're
Speaker 1: all hypocrites, you know, like we you call people out
Speaker 1: for the very things we're guilty of ourselves, and we
Speaker 1: say we hate violence, shit, we'll still binge watch hours
Speaker 1: of true crime documentaries and podcasts fueling that drama, making
Speaker 1: it even bigger, pushing horrific things that have happened to
Speaker 1: people in real life, not fiction, into the algorithms of
Speaker 1: people who may be unhinged and unstable, and then repeat
Speaker 1: those things. And you know, we criticize influencers for creating
Speaker 1: impossible beauty standards, yet we ourselves will then spend twenty
Speaker 1: minute editing a selfie before we post it and face
Speaker 1: tuning it, adding as many filters. And you know, every
Speaker 1: year we even call out maths for platform horrific men
Speaker 1: and women, Yet we keep watching, meaning Channel nine keep
Speaker 1: making millions and they keep making the show, and our
Speaker 1: outrage only makes the show bigger, because no matter how
Speaker 1: much we criticize it and say we dislike it, we
Speaker 1: keep watching and we will keep watching.
Speaker 4: And even those.
Speaker 1: Who have slammed me this past week for my involvement
Speaker 1: in this Bali series saying Josh, you're part of the problem,
Speaker 1: like how many of those people tuned into Netflix earlier
Speaker 1: this year and watched the Louis Farau documentary on the Manusphere,
Speaker 1: which yes, highlighted something incredibly dangerous, but at the same time,
Speaker 1: as it spent weeks at number one on Netflix globally,
Speaker 1: it essentially pushed this extreme red pill misogynistic movement even
Speaker 1: more into the mainstream and onto more impressionable young minds.
Speaker 1: And everyone who watched that documentary and commented on post
Speaker 1: of it, like their engagement, their ratings, they've now contributed
Speaker 1: to the fact that there'll be ten times more documentaries
Speaker 1: and shows on that topic being made right now. And
Speaker 1: this now does all feel quite uncomfortable to be admitting,
Speaker 1: As I suppose, we all want to believe that our
Speaker 1: actions perfectly match our values, but often they just don't.
Speaker 1: And maybe being real and transparent and human isn't about
Speaker 1: what eliminating hypocrisy altogether. Maybe it's about recognizing it and
Speaker 1: being honest enough to admit our contradictions to ourselves and
Speaker 1: questioning our own motives and trying to do a little
Speaker 1: better each time. Because the moment we believe we're completely
Speaker 1: free of hypocrisy, that is probably when we're our most hypocritical.
Speaker 4: Say it