Speaker 1: You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to Mom and Mia out Loud. It's
Speaker 2: what women are actually talking about on Monday, the eighth
Speaker 2: of December.
Speaker 3: I'm Holly wayIn Wright, I'm Amelia Laster and.
Speaker 4: I'm Jesse Stephens.
Speaker 2: And here's what's on our agenda for today. Why Australian
Speaker 2: women are still obsessed with Oprah Winfrey at least if
Speaker 2: my social media feed from the weekend is anything to
Speaker 2: be believed.
Speaker 5: Plus, this is the week, this is the week that
Speaker 5: the social media band takes effect. Why do I suddenly
Speaker 5: have complicated feelings about it?
Speaker 4: And apparently Travis Kelcey confessed to a giant red flag
Speaker 4: in his relationship with Taylor Swift And I'm not so convinced.
Speaker 4: But first, Jesse Stevens, in case you missed it, it's
Speaker 4: the time of the year. Wherefore about eleven seconds, a
Speaker 4: dictionary and a design service become surprisingly relevant. They have
Speaker 4: their moment in the sun, we all make a fuss
Speaker 4: and forget about them for twelve months. The Oxford Dictionary
Speaker 4: has declared that their word of the year for twenty
Speaker 4: twenty five is rage bait.
Speaker 3: Which is interesting because I thought that was two words.
Speaker 4: Yes, well last year was brain rot.
Speaker 3: It's true also two words.
Speaker 4: There are allegations that this is a classic example of
Speaker 4: rage bait, given they've broken their own rules.
Speaker 1: That's so true.
Speaker 4: You can't upset the dictionary people like know your audience.
Speaker 4: The dictionary people are really annoyed. But use of the term,
Speaker 4: let's call it a term has tripled in the last
Speaker 4: twelve months, and the president of Oxford Languages says that
Speaker 4: the term brain rot from last year and rage bait
Speaker 4: from this year, they sort of reveal how the digital
Speaker 4: world are reshaping how we think and more generally, our behavior.
Speaker 4: The Internet used to work on curiosity gaps, used to
Speaker 4: work on what we call clickbait, right, and now it's
Speaker 4: all about baiting people with the strongest emotion that they
Speaker 4: can possibly generate, which is rage. Do you think this
Speaker 4: was the year of rage bait?
Speaker 5: I don't think the human race is okay. Brain rot
Speaker 5: last year, rage bait this year. I do think it
Speaker 5: shows that we're getting more sophisticated in our understanding of
Speaker 5: what the internet is doing to us.
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, And I like that it's not meme terms.
Speaker 4: Like for a while it was kind of these ridiculous,
Speaker 4: not like skibbety toilet like that kind of stuff that
Speaker 4: you go.
Speaker 1: Through boat face.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so for five seconds, maybe that's a meme. But
Speaker 4: I think that these terms, as you say, describe a
Speaker 4: real phenomenon, so I have more respect for them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think they speak to our increasing literacy. Right
Speaker 2: to your point about us becoming more sophisticated, is that
Speaker 2: hopefully by elevating and amplifying the term rage bait, we're
Speaker 2: better at spotting it and that would be a good thing.
Speaker 4: Yes, And we saw it like used in advertising this year.
Speaker 4: Remember we talked about the Elf ad that awful matt Rice,
Speaker 4: who they knew their audience didn't like because he'd made
Speaker 4: a really off color domestic violence joke and they threw
Speaker 4: him in the ad blew up. The other one was
Speaker 4: the American Eagle, and there.
Speaker 2: Was just maybe you could argue the pubic hair, mercant.
Speaker 4: Skin rage bait.
Speaker 2: There are some very good rage bait marketing techniques now.
Speaker 5: But I've noticed in my group chats that the rage
Speaker 5: bait cycle has abated a little bit. So for instance,
Speaker 5: I used to have one group chat where we would
Speaker 5: just send each other links that we knew would get
Speaker 5: each other worked up about politics. It was called rage
Speaker 5: bit and now that's thread. We've decided that we're not
Speaker 5: going to do that anymore. And I think there is
Speaker 5: a power in naming it and then recognizing, oh, all
Speaker 5: I'm doing is rage baiting.
Speaker 4: I'm being played. And that actually brings us to the
Speaker 4: color of the year, right, which is kill me. Pantone,
Speaker 4: which is a printing business, they declare every year their color.
Speaker 4: Who can remember the color of twenty twenty five?
Speaker 1: No, I'm obsessed with the colors.
Speaker 4: It was brown, it's round, and I reckon, spot on,
Speaker 4: I reckon, they nailed it. I saw a lot of
Speaker 4: macka moose this year. The color of twenty twenty six
Speaker 4: is white, specifically Cloud Dancer, which is described as a
Speaker 4: lofty white that serves as a symbol of calming influence
Speaker 4: in a society rediscovering the value of quiet reflection. So
Speaker 4: what does the color of the year mean. It means
Speaker 4: that we're going to be wearing it. It means it's
Speaker 4: going to be the brand palette of a lot of
Speaker 4: different places. It means celebrities and red carpets. It means
Speaker 4: the color of your interiors. We're going to be seeing
Speaker 4: it everywhere. I want to know if you are rage
Speaker 4: baited that white is technically a shade, not a color.
Speaker 2: I'm raged baited just by the whole idea because A
Speaker 2: I can't wear white, so I feel like excluded. I
Speaker 2: feel excluded in every way, like I can't wear white
Speaker 2: because of my coloring, but I also just can't wear white.
Speaker 5: I can't.
Speaker 4: Yes, Yes, if.
Speaker 2: I was wearing what Amelia was wearing now, I would
Speaker 2: have spilt something down it, even if there was nothing
Speaker 2: near me. Yesterday, you know, I was influenced by you, Jesse,
Speaker 2: And over the weekend I bought one of those stripe
Speaker 2: tea yeah, you know, the viral strapergy shirts, and mine
Speaker 2: is navy with like a yellow stripe. Was literally wearing
Speaker 2: it for five minutes coffee down at all the yellow
Speaker 2: stripes covered in coffee.
Speaker 3: That shirt is dead to me.
Speaker 2: Now and I'm a properly grown woman and I still
Speaker 2: can't wear white now.
Speaker 5: All this means is that bibbs are back, bibs are
Speaker 5: gonna be bibs.
Speaker 4: I love that. Or like a really enriching cultural conversation
Speaker 4: about stain removal, like how to get things out of
Speaker 4: your clothes. Apparently. I did read an article that said,
Speaker 4: on Christmas Day, we're all wearing white.
Speaker 3: I'm not Amelia.
Speaker 1: There's been a lot of controversy over this.
Speaker 5: I love pantone color of the year, obsessed with it,
Speaker 5: generally by a pair of slippers in whatever color it
Speaker 5: is to set a tone for the year ahead. There
Speaker 5: hasn't been this much controversy with the color of the
Speaker 5: year since twenty twenty one, when they named two colors.
Speaker 5: Do you remember that they named gray and yellow and
Speaker 5: everyone said, hang on, it's meant to.
Speaker 1: Be color of the year.
Speaker 5: But people are saying that they're quite tone deaf, or
Speaker 5: they're calling them pantone deaf. I'm sorry, I didn't make
Speaker 5: up and it did take me in an alarmingly long
Speaker 5: time to get that joke, so I'll repeat it again,
Speaker 5: pan tone death. Some people are saying that the color
Speaker 5: evokes white supremacy at a time when right wing parties
Speaker 5: are on the rise around the world. Others are saying
Speaker 5: it's a recession indicator because we can't afford color anymore.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, No, because wearing white is a rich
Speaker 2: person's game. Everybody knows that it means that you can
Speaker 2: afford to have your clothes professionally cleaned and your sheets
Speaker 2: professionally cleaned. Rich people wear white a lot. Jerry halliwell
Speaker 2: only wears white and she's married to one of those richefwondu. Yeah,
Speaker 2: can you remind me what the name of it is again?
Speaker 3: Please?
Speaker 1: It is cooler.
Speaker 3: Did not have to refer to notes.
Speaker 4: I believe it is a cool white rather than a
Speaker 4: warm white.
Speaker 2: It is one of my favorite things to do is
Speaker 2: in Bunnings, is to go and look at the paint
Speaker 2: wall and look at all the shades of white and
Speaker 2: try and boggle my brain about their minuscule differences.
Speaker 5: And if you've ever shot for a wedding dress, you
Speaker 5: do know that there are actually which you haven't hold
Speaker 5: is sorry, but there are multiple.
Speaker 1: Get married because you knew that.
Speaker 4: Why it wasn't Mum says, why it's not a color?
Speaker 4: She wore gold?
Speaker 3: No very nice? Of course she did go on steep.
Speaker 5: The world is watching Australia this week because on Wednesday,
Speaker 5: the social media ban finally comes into effect. Now, if
Speaker 5: you're anything like me, I feel like this has been
Speaker 5: coming for such a long time, and this Wednesday here, this.
Speaker 3: Wednesday, like Christmas for some of us friends.
Speaker 5: Now the Quikie has your covered on the nuts and
Speaker 5: bolts of what is happening, and there are a lot
Speaker 5: of nuts and bolts in terms of how this is
Speaker 5: going to be implemented. They also have an interview with
Speaker 5: the teenagers who are challenging this ban in the High Court.
Speaker 1: You can hear that on the QUICKI tomorrow. But I
Speaker 1: wanted to check in on how we're all feeling.
Speaker 5: About it, because I've been on a bit of a
Speaker 5: roller coaster of emotions about this ban. At first, I
Speaker 5: felt real unbridled joy and pride in the fact that
Speaker 5: Australia is really leading the world in this, and other
Speaker 5: countries Malaysia, Indonesia, France, Denmark, they're all considering doing exactly
Speaker 5: the same thing. Chris Pratt, he has a movie he's
Speaker 5: been talking about how great he thinks the social media
Speaker 5: ban is. You know, the world is looking at us
Speaker 5: and is cheering us on in large parts of it.
Speaker 5: But in the last i'd say the last couple of weeks,
Speaker 5: I've started to hear some arguments that have given me
Speaker 5: pause about this ban. One of them came from the
Speaker 5: Sidney Monty Herald newspaper which.
Speaker 1: Reported today that a full two thirds.
Speaker 5: Of parents are going to find ways to get around
Speaker 5: this ban. And I hadn't even considered that there were
Speaker 5: ways to get around the band, But of course Holly's
Speaker 5: been implying to me that there are many loopholes and
Speaker 5: many ways in which parents are just going to say,
Speaker 5: I can't fight this fight with my teenager, I can't
Speaker 5: pull an addict away from something, and.
Speaker 1: Look, I should say that.
Speaker 5: Albow, in response to this kind of criticism, says, it
Speaker 5: was never meant to be perfectly enforced. It was meant
Speaker 5: to start conversations, and it was meant to change a
Speaker 5: social norm over time. But it does kind of make
Speaker 5: me think that it's being undermined little bit by parents. Holly,
Speaker 5: what do you think? You know?
Speaker 2: I've been dying to talk about this every episode. I'm like,
Speaker 2: can we talk about it yet?
Speaker 3: Like stop it?
Speaker 2: Just full disclosure, because if you are a regular out louder,
Speaker 2: you would have heard my voice last week reading some
Speaker 2: ads from the federal government about the social media delay
Speaker 2: as they calling it, and I agreed to do those
Speaker 2: because I am a supporter. Like full disclosure, I think
Speaker 2: it's great, but I think it's complicated, and I think
Speaker 2: we have to be really mindful in the next few weeks, months,
Speaker 2: whatever of where the criticisms about this are coming from, right,
Speaker 2: Because one thing you've got to remember, and we're not
Speaker 2: getting into the nuts and bots, as you say, But
Speaker 2: the pressure in this case is on the tech companies
Speaker 2: to stop kids getting on their apps, rather than it's
Speaker 2: not supposed to be to stop parents from letting their
Speaker 2: kids get on the apps.
Speaker 3: Do you understand that distinction, right?
Speaker 2: So it's not like if you have a fifteen year
Speaker 2: old and your fifteen year old is still on snap
Speaker 2: Chat next week, you're going to go to prison. That's
Speaker 2: not what's going to happen. And Nora are they and
Speaker 2: you're not going to get fined, and nor are they.
Speaker 2: The idea is to pressure the tech companies to make
Speaker 2: it much harder, if not impossible, for kids under sixteen
Speaker 2: to get online. Now that's not something the tech companies
Speaker 2: are fans of.
Speaker 3: Right. Ninety nine percent of.
Speaker 2: Australian teenagers use some form of social media ninety nine percent,
Speaker 2: So that is a lot of customers who are being
Speaker 2: served ads all the time. So there are lots of
Speaker 2: sort of vested interests without wanting to sound too conspiratorial
Speaker 2: about this, who are not mad keen on this working,
Speaker 2: And so I think we have to be mindful of that.
Speaker 2: But back to the point, Amelia, of whether parents are
Speaker 2: going to help their kids get around this man, they
Speaker 2: definitely are going to because so my kids are exactly
Speaker 2: in the bull's eye for this right thirteen and fifteen,
Speaker 2: and me and my friends and most of my friends
Speaker 2: I guess who you know I see regularly, their kids
Speaker 2: are somewhere in that ballpark two, probably aged between like
Speaker 2: nine and sixteen, And say, all the time, what did
Speaker 2: we fight about before there were phones? What did parents
Speaker 2: and kids.
Speaker 3: Argue about before there were phones?
Speaker 2: Because it is the biggest source of contention in every
Speaker 2: house I know, including my own screen time, phone usage, addiction,
Speaker 2: social media, all of those things are the things that
Speaker 2: we have most conflict about. And so in a way,
Speaker 2: you'd think, oh, well, how great, because now you don't
Speaker 2: have to row about it because it's just illegal for
Speaker 2: them to be on YouTube.
Speaker 1: But that's exactly what I thought.
Speaker 2: But that's not the case, because what it means is
Speaker 2: you are now going to be fighting about them getting
Speaker 2: off those things. The thing is Although I'm a big
Speaker 2: supporter of the ban, I've never been a really big
Speaker 2: supporter of the Jonathan Height kind of argument that really
Speaker 2: parents just all need to get together and agree. Me
Speaker 2: and all my friends are not going to buy our kids'
Speaker 2: phones because I think it's a really simplistic idea, given
Speaker 2: all the forces that are coming at us, that if
Speaker 2: parents were just just grew a pair and told their
Speaker 2: kids to get off phones, we wouldn't have a problem.
Speaker 2: I think this is a really complicated relationship that teens
Speaker 2: have with these platforms. We've just been handed a really
Speaker 2: good tool to be able to help us get the
Speaker 2: kids off them. But I think that the great benefit
Speaker 2: of this ban is actually not going to be fifteen
Speaker 2: year olds. It's going to be for the twelve year
Speaker 2: olds who are never going to get on these platforms
Speaker 2: in the first place, or the nine year old who
Speaker 2: are not going to be handed a phone at eleven
Speaker 2: and given Snapchat anymore. I think that actually the biggest
Speaker 2: benefit is going to come from those kids rather than
Speaker 2: for the kids who are already in the eye of
Speaker 2: the storm.
Speaker 4: That's an interesting idea because even smoking right, like, if
Speaker 4: you look at they were all different there were public
Speaker 4: health campaigns, and there was the cost and almost the
Speaker 4: social backlash towards people who smoked. And that didn't happen overnight.
Speaker 4: It didn't happen with one piece of legislation or one policy.
Speaker 4: It happened gradually, and so a lot of the arguments
Speaker 4: that I hear against it. I think about alcohol, you
Speaker 4: can say, oh, well, can technically go out and buy
Speaker 4: alcohol for a seventeen year old. What if the parent
Speaker 4: wants to have a glass of wine in their house
Speaker 4: with their seventeen year old, What if they're seventeen and eleven,
Speaker 4: Like that's been going on forever, and you negotiate it
Speaker 4: as a family. But the fact that it is sort
Speaker 4: of enshrined in law that that's not something that a
Speaker 4: seventeen year old is allowed to do is in the parents' arsenal,
Speaker 4: and it's in the teacher's arsenal as well. Like I'm
Speaker 4: thinking about all of the teachers who are dealing with
Speaker 4: social media conflicts every single day as part of their job,
Speaker 4: who can now probably go you shouldn't even be on there.
Speaker 4: Even that gives them something, And I think that it
Speaker 4: chose the Australian government has a backbone I think it's brave.
Speaker 4: I think it's bold. The rest of the world is
Speaker 4: following suit, not identically interestingly, so even Denmark. I think
Speaker 4: there's a lot of talk about that they're not allowed
Speaker 4: on without parental consent. I wonder if that is a
Speaker 4: change that will happen or curfew is the other they
Speaker 4: talking about.
Speaker 2: The problem with the parental consent model is in theory,
Speaker 2: this only really works if it's everybody. So that's always
Speaker 2: Jonathan Hight's argument that I referenced before, and if you're
Speaker 2: not awhere, he is the guy who wrote The Anxious Generation.
Speaker 2: He's an American, what is his psychologist? And he's very
Speaker 2: widely credited for It was actually the South Australian premier's
Speaker 2: wife who read that book here and started pushing her
Speaker 2: husband to do something about this. But that's kind of
Speaker 2: the theory that his stuff about the village, like parents
Speaker 2: should get together in a village almost and say we're
Speaker 2: all not going to do phones is really as I say,
Speaker 2: I don't think that works. I think it's a bit
Speaker 2: of a middle class fantasy that everybody's just going to
Speaker 2: do that. But I think that the thing that's really
Speaker 2: good about the social media benefit works is that your
Speaker 2: kid is going to say, I'm so isolated from my
Speaker 2: friends if you'd kick me off social media. It's like,
Speaker 2: but none of your friends are going to be on
Speaker 2: social media, so you're not going to be isolated from
Speaker 2: your friends, and you'll find somewhere else together on the Internet.
Speaker 4: And here there are some really good arguments, as there
Speaker 4: is with any change in legislation. So there was an
Speaker 4: article in The Guardian by Ezra Shohl, who is the
Speaker 4: son of Natasha Shol, who has spoken about on this
Speaker 4: podcast before. She's a brilliant writer. And he is fifteen
Speaker 4: and is quadriplegic. He is in a wheelchair. He has
Speaker 4: suffered the most horrific health crises over the last few years,
Speaker 4: and the thing that has connected him to the outside
Speaker 4: world when he has been stuck in a hospital bed
Speaker 4: during adolescence has been social media. And I don't doubt
Speaker 4: that that's his story. And in fact he made some
Speaker 4: really good points. He wrote, if tech companies have the
Speaker 4: capability to delete accounts for people under the age of sixteen,
Speaker 4: they also have the capability to delete accounts that bully,
Speaker 4: harass or cause harm. And he said that he's been bullied.
Speaker 4: He gets stuff all the time, and he reports these
Speaker 4: accounts and nothing happens. And as anyone with a profile knows,
Speaker 4: you can get horrifically abused and nothing. So I think
Speaker 4: this also proves the capabilities that tech companies have to
Speaker 4: do more than their doing. But I think that ultimately
Speaker 4: this is about utilitarianism. I think it's about the greater good.
Speaker 4: I think it's got to look at you know, what
Speaker 4: this has done to teen brains, and when I look
Speaker 4: at like I saw this interview with Miranda Kerr a
Speaker 4: few months ago. I think you talked about it on
Speaker 4: Parenting out Loud and the Miranda Curs of the world,
Speaker 4: who of course are married to the founder of Snapchat.
Speaker 4: Do you think their kids have access to social media? No,
Speaker 4: they don't because they know that screens are corrosive and
Speaker 4: damaging and blah blah blah. So what I've always hated
Speaker 4: is the divide between the tech billionaires who are very
Speaker 4: strict with their screen time and just allowing everyone else
Speaker 4: to kind of fall victim to it.
Speaker 5: And let's be clear, those tech companies right now are
Speaker 5: quaking in their very expensive boots and Holly, I couldn't
Speaker 5: underscore more what you said before about be conscious of
Speaker 5: where you're hearing criticism over the next few weeks and
Speaker 5: who is criticizing this legislation. Because these companies they're not
Speaker 5: worried about the fines from the Australian government. They've made
Speaker 5: the point that look, these companies could be fined fifty
Speaker 5: million dollars dollars if they're shown to not be making
Speaker 5: sure that the safeguards are in place to stop children
Speaker 5: from signing up. Yeah, fifty million dollars is nothing for Mata.
Speaker 5: Someone pointed out who used to work at Matter in
Speaker 5: a BBC article that that's the equivalent of a parking
Speaker 5: ticket for Matter. They make fifty million dollars in about
Speaker 5: two hours, so it's not really a problem for them.
Speaker 5: That's not why they're worried. They're not worried about the
Speaker 5: fifty million dollars. They're worried that the Australian government is
Speaker 5: leading the charge in changing a social norm that will
Speaker 5: make a child looking at TikTok or YouTube the same
Speaker 5: as seeing a child smoking a cigarette. You can see
Speaker 5: a child smoking a cigarette's pretty rare these days, but
Speaker 5: I'm sure that there are some kids who sneak a cigarette,
Speaker 5: but we look at it aghast because we have decided
Speaker 5: as a society that that is not okay. And that
Speaker 5: is what the social media said exactly.
Speaker 4: And the tech companies aren't worried that the poor teenagers
Speaker 4: won't be able to, you know, really galvanize and have
Speaker 4: their online communities. They're not worried about that. They're worried
Speaker 4: that they're not going to be able to serve them
Speaker 4: ads anymore. And that I think is surely we can
Speaker 4: hold hands and agree that that's a good thing.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and I do. The only thing I want to say, though,
Speaker 2: is that the articles that are coming out now about
Speaker 2: parents aren't going to enforce it, and there will inevitably
Speaker 2: be a conversation about like, oh, helicopter parents can't be
Speaker 2: strict with their kids.
Speaker 3: That will be.
Speaker 4: That's what will comment. Sec Yeah, I want to.
Speaker 2: Be really clear, because, as I say, I am in
Speaker 2: that sort of bull's eye. If your kid is say
Speaker 2: sixteen or out of this now, it's hard to hear
Speaker 2: everybody around you saying.
Speaker 3: Your kid's brain is damaged, your kid is addicted.
Speaker 2: You've been terrible parents who've just let your kids have
Speaker 2: unfettered access to this Our kids are all going to
Speaker 2: be pure and great and we're never going to give
Speaker 2: them screens, and they won't. You know, it's hard to
Speaker 2: hear that and not get your hackles up, because this
Speaker 2: is a truth. And I'll put my hand up and
Speaker 2: say it's the truth for me too. Technology and phones
Speaker 2: and all that come along with them, which we are
Speaker 2: broadly as a culture now sort of holding hands and
Speaker 2: going not great for kids, have kind of made parenting
Speaker 2: a lot easier in a million ways, right Like they
Speaker 2: really have for busy working families, for the kind of
Speaker 2: parents who which most parents are, who don't have all
Speaker 2: the time in the world to be policing what their
Speaker 2: kids are doing every minute, you know, who don't have
Speaker 2: the time to be ferrying them around to improving activities
Speaker 2: and all that stuff.
Speaker 3: There does feel to me to be.
Speaker 2: A little bit of a snobby divide opening about whether
Speaker 2: or not, you know, the kids who aren't addicted to
Speaker 2: social media are in one class and one who are aren't.
Speaker 2: And I think that that's part of all the arguments
Speaker 2: we're going to see opening up over the next few weeks.
Speaker 2: I think we need to be careful not to demonize
Speaker 2: this generation that have grown up with their phones. If
Speaker 2: this van is successful and followed around the world, and
Speaker 2: you know, as you say, Amelia, the social norm is
Speaker 2: successful shifted, and let's all hope it is.
Speaker 3: I genuinely hope that it is. That's great, But.
Speaker 2: We are going to then have in this generational line
Speaker 2: of like kind of like in the old days we
Speaker 2: grew up before they knew that it was bad for
Speaker 2: you to drink when you were pregnant, or not clip
Speaker 2: your kids in in the car. I heard you talking
Speaker 2: on parenting out loud about seat belts and drawing that comparison,
Speaker 2: like we shouldn't demonize that, just like I think we
Speaker 2: shouldn't demonize the parents who've got a fifteen year old
Speaker 2: right now and they're going if they're on Snapchat for
Speaker 2: another month, is that going to be the end.
Speaker 1: Of the world.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 5: And part of that is recognizing that the most powerful
Speaker 5: people and the richest people the world has ever seen
Speaker 5: have thrown everything at the wall to make children dependent
Speaker 5: on what their offerings are. And the more that we
Speaker 5: can shift that understanding from it's not about what parents
Speaker 5: have decided or not decided. It was the most sophisticated
Speaker 5: propaganda machine that had ever been thrown at anyone, and
Speaker 5: it was thrown at kids. And now the Albanzi government
Speaker 5: is trying to stop that tide.
Speaker 4: And Wednesday I think is the first day in what
Speaker 4: I think they want to be a cultural, social, worldwide shift.
Speaker 4: And I don't think if on Friday all of the
Speaker 4: kids aren't off social media, it's a failure.
Speaker 2: Agreed, But thoughts and prayers if you're arguing with your
Speaker 2: fourteen right now after the break, why Oprah Wisdom is
Speaker 2: still all over your feed in twenty twenty five. My
Speaker 2: social media feed, because I'm an adult and I'm allowed
Speaker 2: to have one.
Speaker 3: This weekend has been swamped by a.
Speaker 2: Lot of women who've been to see Oprah Winfrey on
Speaker 2: her tour around Australia. So if you're not on the
Speaker 2: same kind of algorithmic or bent as I am, the
Speaker 2: seventy one year old is in Australia right now. She's
Speaker 2: doing these big speaking events. She's also doing lots of
Speaker 2: social media. So every city she goes to, she's doing
Speaker 2: a hike there because she says she hikes every day
Speaker 2: now and she is eating local delicacies. And then she's
Speaker 2: having these huge, sort of arena sized shows women are going.
Speaker 2: The vibe seems to be very much with their mates,
Speaker 2: you know, getting dressed up, put your other Camilla or
Speaker 2: your imitation Camilla, caf done on. Go and see Oprah
Speaker 2: talk and then post her wisdom. The kind of things
Speaker 2: I'm seeing being posted are five things I learned at
Speaker 2: Oprah last.
Speaker 4: Oh, I'm seeing all of them, and I'm reading all
Speaker 4: of them because I would.
Speaker 3: Have loved to go.
Speaker 1: Are people loving it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'm seeing this kind of thing. This is interesting.
Speaker 2: You cannot be friends with anyone who is even a
Speaker 2: little bit jealous of you. This is one of the
Speaker 2: things I saw. This is unfortunate. I've declared in the past, Jesse,
Speaker 2: I have had times when I've been jealous of you, exactly.
Speaker 2: Jealousy is a crack in the foundation, says Oprah. The
Speaker 2: whole house will fall.
Speaker 1: Oh gosh, I'm prone to jealousy.
Speaker 3: You're in trouble.
Speaker 2: Life is whispering to you all of the time. You
Speaker 2: only go off track when you're not listening.
Speaker 1: This is interesting.
Speaker 3: I like that.
Speaker 4: I don't fully understand it, but I like the vibe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is the kind of stuff that I'm seeing post.
Speaker 2: Everyone's saying this is what Oprah taught me last night.
Speaker 2: The stereotype of the women who are going but I'm
Speaker 2: sure this isn't entirely true, of course, is that there
Speaker 2: are a certain age that they're white, that they're into
Speaker 2: self optimization. But this is largely an audience that's come
Speaker 2: of age with her, right, So Oprah is a guru
Speaker 2: to this generation.
Speaker 4: Say I will fight you on that.
Speaker 3: Good I don't.
Speaker 4: I don't think that it is a certain generation. The
Speaker 4: people I'm seeing are in their twenties. They are diverse,
Speaker 4: and when I looked into it, one of the hallmarks
Speaker 4: of her longevity has been the diversity of her audience.
Speaker 2: Yes, I mean, I think that's certainly true, because she's
Speaker 2: you know, she has so many stories to tell. But
Speaker 2: I think she is seen by her critics as being
Speaker 2: like a sort of Tamu guru in a way, when
Speaker 2: really I would argue she's the og.
Speaker 4: Yeah, me too.
Speaker 2: Anyway, Amelia always says that you're a bit baffled by
Speaker 2: the Oprah phenomena.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like full disclosure.
Speaker 5: I wanted to do this today because I did say
Speaker 5: she was in Australia, and I have to admit that
Speaker 5: that phenomenon past nearby, and I want to learn. I
Speaker 5: want to learn why Australian women in particular evidently still
Speaker 5: love Oprah After decades in the public eye, she is
Speaker 5: still attracting thousands of people to these shows. They're gathering
Speaker 5: a lot from it. I want you to explain her
Speaker 5: appeal to me.
Speaker 3: Do you want a little cheat sheet I do on
Speaker 3: Oprah Winfrey.
Speaker 2: Now, this could be the longest cheat sheet of all time,
Speaker 2: but it's not going to be.
Speaker 3: Because we will be here all day.
Speaker 2: Did you know the place that Oprah was born, which
Speaker 2: is in Mississippi in the States, is called Kosiosco.
Speaker 5: Nolasco Bridge in New York City.
Speaker 3: Yes, so famously.
Speaker 2: I guess the Oprah myth and it isn't a myth,
Speaker 2: it is her origin story is a large part of
Speaker 2: her appeal right very top line. She was born to
Speaker 2: teenage parents in Kosiosco, Mississippi, and she had a very
Speaker 2: tough upbringing. She was sexually abused as a teenager. She
Speaker 2: gave birth to a little boy at fourteen.
Speaker 3: He died.
Speaker 2: Despite this absolutely traumatic upbringing, I guess you'd say she
Speaker 2: started working in media when she was seventeen.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: And then she started working for a TV station locally
Speaker 2: to her, and then she was working in Baltimore, and
Speaker 2: then she most notably made a move to Chicago, which
Speaker 2: is where she built her empire. Right, So, from a
Speaker 2: very young age, she was incredibly driven. There are so
Speaker 2: many firsts when it comes to Oprah Winfrey.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: She was the first.
Speaker 2: Woman in history to own and produce her own talk show.
Speaker 2: She's the first Black American woman to be syndicated, the
Speaker 2: first Black American woman to be a billionaire, the first
Speaker 2: Black American woman to own a TV network. She decided
Speaker 2: that news reporting wasn't really her thing because.
Speaker 3: She struggled with the objectivity of it, which is a very.
Speaker 4: Self aware thing to say.
Speaker 2: I love her, Yeah, it's very self aware, but it
Speaker 2: also is like one of the foundations for what she
Speaker 2: then almost invented in a way, which was this like
Speaker 2: own your truth, Yes, own your truth. So rather than
Speaker 2: just reporting the news, she wanted to create the culture.
Speaker 2: I guess, right, So she wanted to be a journal
Speaker 2: and in nineteen eighty four, she relocated to Chicago to
Speaker 2: host a low rated morning talk show called Am Chicago.
Speaker 2: It was immediately a hit with her hosting it.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 2: They say that because she was authentic and empathetic and engaging.
Speaker 2: She quickly took the show from last place to the
Speaker 2: top of the ratings within a year, and they soon
Speaker 2: renamed the show after her within a year of her
Speaker 2: doing it by nineteen eighty eight, so only four years.
Speaker 2: That show was such a hit, and she acquired ownership
Speaker 2: and production responsibilities for it, making her the first woman
Speaker 2: in history to own and produce her own talk show.
Speaker 4: Wo wow, I invented it.
Speaker 3: She invented that shit.
Speaker 2: She founded Hyper Productions, groundbreaking move that secured her creative
Speaker 2: control and made her loads of money. It's another big
Speaker 2: thing about Oprah. She is very, very rich, as we know.
Speaker 2: And then as we know, right, the Oprah Winfrey Show
Speaker 2: started off in a kind of it was like, I
Speaker 2: don't know what we call it, like shock TV in
Speaker 2: those days, Like she'd have oring family members. I remember
Speaker 2: very clearly an episode she had the Clueklux Klan.
Speaker 5: On god Is how as a child of the nineties,
Speaker 5: I knew Oprah. She had this talk show that had
Speaker 5: the scandalous sort of soap operaary elements to it.
Speaker 3: See.
Speaker 4: I think that you can only understand Oprah in relationship
Speaker 4: to Jerry Springer like Jerry Springer was the scandalous, ethically dubious,
Speaker 4: there was no soul to it. It was maybe the
Speaker 4: original rage bait that was happening, and Oprah was almost
Speaker 4: the more like morally upright version of that.
Speaker 2: But it's the order of things, So Oprah was first,
Speaker 2: uh huh, And Oprah's TV show did have a fair
Speaker 2: bit of that, but she didn't like it. By the
Speaker 2: end of the eighties, she was over that kind of
Speaker 2: stuff and she wanted to move in the nineties, which
Speaker 2: she did into more like it's amazing to think that
Speaker 2: the infamous Wagon of Fat episode, which is one of
Speaker 2: the things that is most often used to criticize her for,
Speaker 2: which is the episode where very famously she lost lots
Speaker 2: of weight on a diet that she later admitted was
Speaker 2: incredibly dangerous and basically starvation, and then she walked onto
Speaker 2: her set with her Wagon and Fat.
Speaker 3: Was in nineteen eighty eight, and like, that is a
Speaker 3: very long time ago.
Speaker 2: So she was doing that kind of stuff and then
Speaker 2: Jerry Springer started doing it, Doctor Phil started doing it,
Speaker 2: these other people started doing it, and she was like, oh,
Speaker 2: I think I've given birth to a monster. And she
Speaker 2: shifted into self help stuff.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Do you think that part of the reason why that
Speaker 5: wagon of felt was such a milestone in TV history
Speaker 5: and for Oprah was because she basically kind of invented
Speaker 5: vulnerability on TV because before that, is it true that
Speaker 5: it was much more polished and people didn't sort of
Speaker 5: open up in that way about their struggles?
Speaker 4: Yeah? I think so. They weren't as candid about it.
Speaker 4: And when you go back and you look at all
Speaker 4: the times Oprah was asked or mocked or criticized openly
Speaker 4: to her face on other talk shows about her weight,
Speaker 4: you can complete understand how she got to that point.
Speaker 4: And I think that she was trying to use it
Speaker 4: as a way to help inspire other women, which ironically
Speaker 4: now her being in Australia. If you have a really
Speaker 4: good look at that poster of Oprah's touring poster, it's
Speaker 4: got a big face of her, and it's got all the
Speaker 4: dates you can see presented by and it has a
Speaker 4: brand name that I actually didn't recognize, and that brand
Speaker 4: is a pharmaceutical company that makes weight loss products, which
Speaker 4: is why she's here. They've paid for her to come
Speaker 4: out here, which is sort of a lens by which
Speaker 4: a lot of Maybe her social media content makes more
Speaker 4: sense that she's doing these hikes and that, you know,
Speaker 4: lots of commentary as they always has been about her body.
Speaker 5: The one I saw of her in Sydney after she'd
Speaker 5: been on a hike and then she went to eat
Speaker 5: hotcakes said something to the effect of, I've now earned
Speaker 5: myself the ability to have an indulgent meal. Yeah, it
Speaker 5: is diet adjacent culture that she is still pushing.
Speaker 4: No one has marinated in diet culture more than Oprah
Speaker 4: Whgfrey like she has been the subject of it. She
Speaker 4: has been in many ways victim of it. But then
Speaker 4: I suppose at the same time she's espoused it because
Speaker 4: that's the world in which she grew up.
Speaker 2: I think you've got to remember that, like her peak.
Speaker 2: So the peak of Oprah's powers in terms of influence
Speaker 2: were the eighties and nineties, right, and diet culture in
Speaker 2: inverted commas didn't exist, as in it did absolutely exist,
Speaker 2: but we didn't have a name for it.
Speaker 3: We couldn't point at it.
Speaker 1: Air that you breathe.
Speaker 4: Yes, it's just every single woman wanted to lose. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And so if you think that the power that Oprah
Speaker 2: harnessed and then, as you say, Jesse, that power kind
Speaker 2: of got hijacked by lots of other sort of other
Speaker 2: shows and things. Was Middle America ordinary in inverted commas,
Speaker 2: people watching television during the day, wrestling with the kind
Speaker 2: of things that ordinary people wrestle with, which is family
Speaker 2: dynamics and problems, money, weight relationships. She spoke to people
Speaker 2: about the shit they really cared about, rather than what
Speaker 2: she thought they should care about. That's the secret of
Speaker 2: her success in those days. And we can pretend, as
Speaker 2: much as we want, retrospectively or otherwise that women didn't
Speaker 2: care about losing weight. But women cared, and you could
Speaker 2: still argue now care enormously about weight.
Speaker 1: They just do.
Speaker 2: And I think that Oprah, if we think about the
Speaker 2: Wagon of Fat being nineteen eighty eight, which is a
Speaker 2: very long time ago, over that time, I think that
Speaker 2: Oprah's lens on it has shifted as well. She during
Speaker 2: that time has lost weight, put on weight, written a
Speaker 2: million different words about it, spoken words about it, decided
Speaker 2: not to speak about it at all, make a deal
Speaker 2: with weight watches, make a deal with medical weight loss company,
Speaker 2: don't do that. Over that time, she has ridden all
Speaker 2: kinds of waves with that and she's been blamed in
Speaker 2: a way for being a paragon of diet culture, when
Speaker 2: I think that actually she just kind of reflected.
Speaker 3: She gave to us shar and she reflects it to us.
Speaker 2: And so where she is now here having been brought
Speaker 2: here by a medical weight loss company, which whatever feelings
Speaker 2: you have about that, and there are many to have,
Speaker 2: I think she reflects where weight loss culture is in
Speaker 2: this moment, which is the GLP one revolution. You can
Speaker 2: go hiking and eat hotcakes and take like obesity is
Speaker 2: a disease. That's what she's talking about a lot. So
Speaker 2: I think it's hard to uncouple Oprah from that, But
Speaker 2: she's actually a lot more than.
Speaker 5: That, right, And what I'm hearing from the way that
Speaker 5: you describe her extraordinary rise is that she made people
Speaker 5: who didn't feel very seen feel seen and understood as well,
Speaker 5: not just seen, but understood at a time when their
Speaker 5: concerns were seen as quotidian or not important, or superficial
Speaker 5: or silly. And so, what do you think accounts for
Speaker 5: both the longevity of that career, because now everyone discloses everything.
Speaker 5: So back in the eighties and the early nineties, when
Speaker 5: she's doing the wagon of fat that's unusual and revolutionary.
Speaker 5: Now we all know much about each other, as the
Speaker 5: internet meme goes, So what do you think it counts
Speaker 5: for that continued fascination with Oprah when everyone's disclosing everything.
Speaker 5: And also for Australian women, she strikes me so quintessentially
Speaker 5: American in her rise and in the adversity that she's
Speaker 5: had to overcome. What is it about Oprah these days
Speaker 5: for Australian women that still clearly resonates.
Speaker 4: I think she doesn't talk about structural inequality. She doesn't
Speaker 4: talk about the structures. She doesn't talk about things like
Speaker 4: corporate power, or the gender divide, or environmental degradation or
Speaker 4: all the scary big things. She talks about you and
Speaker 4: your purpose, the.
Speaker 1: Scary small things.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, exactly right. That actually she talks so eloquently
Speaker 4: about grief and about friendship and about your goals and
Speaker 4: your purpose. Which does it applies to the poor person
Speaker 4: in Middle America? It applies to the rich celebrity in
Speaker 4: Hollywood equally, And so I think whether or not that's
Speaker 4: a good thing, and whether or not it's at all
Speaker 4: true or you can uncouple capitalist structures from how people's
Speaker 4: lives turn out whatever. But the reason that she can
Speaker 4: fill a room is because there's something like fundamentally empowering
Speaker 4: about that. And I've always had a relationship to Oprah.
Speaker 4: That's like your great auntie who always buys you a
Speaker 4: really good present and has great advice and gives you
Speaker 4: the right book at the right moment. Like that's as simple,
Speaker 4: and who doesn't want that? And everyone wants that. And
Speaker 4: she's even seen as having been responsible for the reinvigoration
Speaker 4: of reading in the US, like what she did with
Speaker 4: her book club and her magazine.
Speaker 5: Now is she now? Reese and all these other people
Speaker 5: have come in her footsteps, Quen, all these people wouldn't
Speaker 5: exist with.
Speaker 1: The business empires they do were it not for Oprah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's so true, Jesse.
Speaker 2: I think that her appeal is because her story, her
Speaker 2: origin story, and then all the things she's been through
Speaker 2: in the past four decades. People are very seduced by
Speaker 2: stories of transformation. That's true, whether they are, you know,
Speaker 2: privileged and wealthy but always wanting to be better, you know,
Speaker 2: like this self optimization culture which you could are You
Speaker 2: could string together quite a goog argument that Oprah has
Speaker 2: mainstreamed because therapy speaks self optimization, a certain amount of
Speaker 2: wu woo. She's the points of criticism that you can
Speaker 2: put on her.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 2: For example, she was a massive support of The Secret.
Speaker 2: The first time I ever saw The Secret, it was
Speaker 2: on Oprah. You know, those kind of things. But she
Speaker 2: mainstreamed all that stuff, and she is in herself. She
Speaker 2: embodies a story of transformation and she continues to and
Speaker 2: I think that's really seductive to everybody. The big points
Speaker 2: of criticism for Oprah are the weight stuff which we
Speaker 2: just talked about, toxic diet culture, the fact that she
Speaker 2: is a multi billionaire who apparently her property portfolio is
Speaker 2: worth like five billion dollars.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: She is also a massive flat flut. I always fail
Speaker 2: with this wordlaist.
Speaker 4: She did land in Australia on her private jet, she did.
Speaker 3: I mean she goes too.
Speaker 1: That's a long fly.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: She gives hundreds of millions to charities that she supports,
Speaker 2: and she has an academy in South Africa and all
Speaker 2: those things. But still you cannot be beyond approach when
Speaker 2: you've got that level of personal wealth.
Speaker 3: She owns large swedes.
Speaker 5: That it's the women billionaires who often get this criticism
Speaker 5: that in itself being a billionaire is not okay.
Speaker 2: Well, that's true, although I do have a few problems
Speaker 2: with some of the male billionaires too. She has had
Speaker 2: lots of criticism for the people she's chosen to platform
Speaker 2: over time. You know, we're talking about before racist like
Speaker 2: the KKK. She got a lot of trouble on her
Speaker 2: book club for James Fray, remember the guy with a
Speaker 2: Million Little Pieces. We talked the other week about Jenny McCarthy,
Speaker 2: the anti vaxxa, various kind of questionable health growers.
Speaker 3: But then if you're on Telly for forty.
Speaker 2: Years, making content in all kinds of different climates, you
Speaker 2: are going to get it wrong sometimes. So she gets
Speaker 2: a lot of criticism for all those things.
Speaker 5: And like you said, because she's done so many firsts,
Speaker 5: there's something by definition pushing the boundaries about what she does.
Speaker 1: It's inevitable.
Speaker 2: And also what's interesting about opes, as I like to
Speaker 2: call it because we're such good friends, is one of
Speaker 2: her pieces of magic, which I think some very famous
Speaker 2: successful people have, is that even though they are so
Speaker 2: unrelatable in every way, she sort of feels relatable too.
Speaker 2: And one of the things that's interesting about Oprah in
Speaker 2: terms of being one of the most iconic women of
Speaker 2: a generation, is that her private life is quite unconventional
Speaker 2: really so she's never married.
Speaker 3: She's been with the.
Speaker 2: Same and as Stedman. We could all recite this. They
Speaker 2: have been together for forty years. They once got engaged
Speaker 2: but quickly called it off, but never broke up.
Speaker 1: Okaya, why they're just.
Speaker 2: Not into it at that time in her life she
Speaker 2: was always I prioritize work. You know, her life has
Speaker 2: been work. She never had children after that tragic death
Speaker 2: of that little boy when she was a teenager. Her
Speaker 2: famous best friend Gail King, who is famous now too,
Speaker 2: goes everywhere with it. In fact, my favorite Oprah detail
Speaker 2: is that in all of her homes, which is the.
Speaker 3: Kind of thing you can only say about billionaires, Gail.
Speaker 2: Has her own room, like with her own deck or
Speaker 2: I'm always like, if I was a moult.
Speaker 3: That's what I'd do.
Speaker 2: Gayla is the lover of her Gayle is the lover
Speaker 2: of her life. You know, none of that is particularly
Speaker 2: relatable business, but everybody's like, yeah, Oprah my position on her,
Speaker 2: I would have liked to go and see her, even
Speaker 2: though I do have some issues with the blatant product.
Speaker 3: Placement of the aforementioned.
Speaker 2: Medical weight loss company in that I don't necessarily like
Speaker 2: her or not like her, but she's just there's no
Speaker 2: question she's one of the most iconic figures.
Speaker 3: I think it would have.
Speaker 4: Been a lovely night. I would have really enjoyed it.
Speaker 4: After the break, Travis Kelcey just shared an insight into
Speaker 4: his relationship with Taylor Swift and apparently it's a big
Speaker 4: red flag one unlimited out loud access. We drop episodes
Speaker 4: every Tuesday and Thursday exclusively for Mum and MEA subscribers.
Speaker 4: Follow the link in the show notes to get us
Speaker 4: in your ears five days a week, and a huge
Speaker 4: thank you to all our current subscribers. If you're not
Speaker 4: up to date with New Heights Travis Kelsey's podcast aka
Speaker 4: Taylor Swift's fiance and a famous NFL player, I want
Speaker 4: to tell you about an episode recently.
Speaker 1: Do we all regularly podcast?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Yeah, it's a weekly listen. I've never listened to
Speaker 4: one minute of this podcast.
Speaker 2: Oh, I listened to the inter Taylor Holy Smokey's that
Speaker 2: was great. That was two hours of my life.
Speaker 4: Did you ever listen to another one?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 3: But I know.
Speaker 2: But the reason I know what you're going to say
Speaker 2: in a minute is because I did see these social
Speaker 2: media clips where he was interviewing one George Clooney, who
Speaker 2: you know up there with Oprah for me.
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, So he had George Clooney on and they
Speaker 4: got onto the topic of relationships. Travis asked his friend
Speaker 4: George about something he'd said about a year or so ago,
Speaker 4: which actually came up on our podcast as well, which
Speaker 4: is that George Clooney said that him and Amle have not,
Speaker 4: in their ten years together, had a fight.
Speaker 3: Fun fact for you.
Speaker 4: They've got twins, they do, and they seem to be thriving.
Speaker 3: Well, you just have to be like George in a mile.
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh. Okay, that's really inspired.
Speaker 3: I asked them to send you some positivity.
Speaker 4: Made exactly right. They seem to like their twins. Okay,
Speaker 4: this is great. Then George replied, I'm not lying, Travis.
Speaker 4: Shall we ask you the same question? And Travis confessed
Speaker 4: that while him and Taylor only been together for two
Speaker 4: and a half years, they have never gotten into an argument.
Speaker 3: Not once.
Speaker 4: And then came the commentary. So there was a viral
Speaker 4: tweet that was sharing that headline and it said this
Speaker 4: is a bad sign. And Nowther said when couples say
Speaker 4: this shit, all I can think is you're either a
Speaker 4: psychopath or you view your partner the same way you
Speaker 4: do a pet a pet. And an article on Mama
Speaker 4: Mia called their lack of fighting a red flag, Amelia,
Speaker 4: is it a red flag?
Speaker 5: It's interesting that we kind of go back and fourth
Speaker 5: as a society about what we think the gold standard is,
Speaker 5: because in my life already, I feel like I've looked
Speaker 5: through a couple of incoundations of this. There was a
Speaker 5: time where the gold standard was no fighting, and then
Speaker 5: it very much moved. I think we all got parrel pilled.
Speaker 5: That's my phrase for the therapization of our culture by
Speaker 5: Esther Perel and Esther Pearrel's basic idea is that you
Speaker 5: can talk through anything, including an affair. She's basically like,
Speaker 5: you know, setting aside abuse, obviously, you can work through
Speaker 5: just about any relationship issue if you just.
Speaker 4: Hash it out, have a little chat, go for it.
Speaker 5: There's a Psychology Today headline that kind of summarizes where
Speaker 5: we were as a culture around this issue for a
Speaker 5: long time, which was if you never fight, someone is hiding.
Speaker 5: So the idea is that if you're not fighting, it's
Speaker 5: because you're repressing something, and that's a very unhealthy, even
Speaker 5: toxic dynamic.
Speaker 3: Is it that? Well?
Speaker 5: But now it feels like we've now swung back, and
Speaker 5: now we've got these two probably the two most kind
Speaker 5: of iconic couples in the world right now, George and Lamar,
Speaker 5: Taylor and Travis proudly declaring that they don't fight. I
Speaker 5: think we've seen the pendulum swing back again.
Speaker 4: Okay, unpopular opinion, all the money in the world, clean house,
Speaker 4: not fighting over directions.
Speaker 1: But they do have twins, as Holy says.
Speaker 4: I know, but I think they would have some support
Speaker 4: around them.
Speaker 5: I think Taylor Travis actually have kind of a complicated
Speaker 5: schedule to deal with.
Speaker 1: He is a professional football player. She just did the
Speaker 1: most successful tour of all time.
Speaker 4: Can you imagine the g Cow for the the g
Speaker 4: Cow would be intense. But I will also say, Google calendar, Oh.
Speaker 3: God, we've still got a calendar in the kitchen on
Speaker 3: the wall.
Speaker 4: Taylor Taylor.
Speaker 1: The blue is Travis's.
Speaker 4: But you look at all those things and you also
Speaker 4: go two and a half years, you don't have kids.
Speaker 4: Do they have a shared mortgage. Yet I don't think
Speaker 4: they'll have a mortgage, will they, Amelia? Maybe mortgage?
Speaker 3: Imagine Taylor Travis.
Speaker 4: At the back in there fight for alone. I don't
Speaker 4: think that they're going to be there. So are there
Speaker 4: less things to fight about when you're Travis.
Speaker 2: And oh yeah, I think that Clooney said, what would
Speaker 2: we fight about?
Speaker 3: Question back? That must be one of the most privileged
Speaker 3: statement questions we fight about.
Speaker 4: Can you w the bench? I'll just get out cleaner.
Speaker 4: Who's right here to do it?
Speaker 3: Great?
Speaker 5: George could be like, I hate human rights exactly.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, Ama, you're too beautiful. Stop it.
Speaker 2: I hate fighting, hate fighting, which is why my preferred
Speaker 2: method is the much more insidious, toxic, passive aggressive fighting.
Speaker 3: So instead of saying that you haven't cleaned the.
Speaker 2: Bench, you say something like, interesting, how you chose to
Speaker 2: just leave that little thing that like, you know, or whatever.
Speaker 4: It is, which is a discussion.
Speaker 3: It's a discussion, exactly.
Speaker 2: Interesting, How you still don't know where this goes in
Speaker 2: the cobo.
Speaker 4: That's an observation, exactly, that's not a fire.
Speaker 3: Interesting.
Speaker 2: How you didn't put the lid back on the toothpaste. Yes,
Speaker 2: that's just an invitation to explore your different techniques exactly
Speaker 2: paste management. I think pass agnes is good.
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I think it's interesting.
Speaker 2: Tara from Amamea wrote, as you said that this was
Speaker 2: a red flag and that she was worried about it
Speaker 2: because she said, a huge part of any relationship is
Speaker 2: conflict resolution and learning each other's fight styles. But what
Speaker 2: if your two people who hate fighting? Are you supposed
Speaker 2: to force yourself to fight? Because it's important to know,
Speaker 2: maybe your fight style is to your point before Amelia hiding,
Speaker 2: my fight style might be retreat, not attack.
Speaker 1: You know what I don't think Esther Perel is a
Speaker 1: huge fan of retreat. What's passive aggression with retreat? Well,
Speaker 1: she has this interesting question.
Speaker 5: She says, what most people don't realize is that you're
Speaker 5: not actually fighting about money or commitment or who does
Speaker 5: the housework. What you're actually fighting about is a lack.
Speaker 1: Of affection, respect, power.
Speaker 5: Or some combination of the three, just the two lit
Speaker 5: Another way of thinking about this is that there's this
Speaker 5: sort of like adage that every couple has the same
Speaker 5: three fights and it just manifests in different ways. I
Speaker 5: very much agree with that, and I guess those same
Speaker 5: three fights are affection, respect, and power, And now even
Speaker 5: Taylor and Travis and George and a mile are having
Speaker 5: to navigate relationship dynamics where those things are flowing back
Speaker 5: and forth.
Speaker 4: This is about our definition of fight, yeah, and it's
Speaker 4: about our definition of argument. I reckon that if you
Speaker 4: are the child of parents who fought really openly, you
Speaker 4: felt like you had to walk on eggshells. Sometimes I
Speaker 4: think it's just temperament. You don't like to escalate, then
Speaker 4: you might resist going to that. And I don't think
Speaker 4: any way is necessarily better or worse.
Speaker 1: Because don't you have a degree in psychology.
Speaker 2: Us has a degree in psychology, And because you're identical twins.
Speaker 2: If she's got a degree in psychology, do you psychology?
Speaker 1: I thought it was a psychologist.
Speaker 4: I have a master's in history.
Speaker 1: Gender study, gender studies. There you go.
Speaker 4: Both of them didn't give me a lot of clarity
Speaker 4: on fighting, but I will say it did make me
Speaker 4: good at arguing. And therefore, if you're I remember thinking
Speaker 4: this at the time, George Cloone is just a clever
Speaker 4: man not to fight with a human rights law. Yes,
Speaker 4: that's what you just need to know.
Speaker 5: You so true and son, who's the better fighter between
Speaker 5: Taylor and Travis.
Speaker 3: Taylor by about a thousand.
Speaker 4: He's a poet.
Speaker 3: Do remember that interview where.
Speaker 1: He probably had some kind of brain She.
Speaker 3: Used a couple of long words and he went wow.
Speaker 1: But I reckon that you.
Speaker 4: Can sort of disagree with things and there can be
Speaker 4: points of tension in the relationship, but you wouldn't define
Speaker 4: that as a fight, like there can be discussions. I
Speaker 4: would think that in my own relationship, like we don't
Speaker 4: like fighting, don't feel so, and even my I don't
Speaker 4: fight with my mum, that doesn't mean that we don't
Speaker 4: have moments of probably what would be considered conflict. And
Speaker 4: I think that conflict management evolves in in that way.
Speaker 4: But the idea that if you're I just think we
Speaker 4: use the term red flag too liberally. Now we just
Speaker 4: stick it on everything, and it's like, if your biggest
Speaker 4: problem is that you get along too well, I think.
Speaker 5: You're so you're not worried for them, You're not losing
Speaker 5: any not losing a second.
Speaker 1: I'm selfish of you.
Speaker 2: I know people who love fighting and it's their dynamic
Speaker 2: and their relationship. They shout that good and they're shouting
Speaker 2: at each other and it gets all the sexual juicies going,
Speaker 2: and they love it, and if you're around them, as
Speaker 2: someone who hates fighting, you're very uncomfortable. I get very
Speaker 2: uncomfortable if people are fighting. I get very uncomfortable with retreats.
Speaker 3: See that doesn't mean they're right and I'm wrong. It's
Speaker 3: just different strokes.
Speaker 5: But do you feel like that kind of relationship where
Speaker 5: you are even observing the fighting. It's that sort of
Speaker 5: prevalent that people in their lives are watching them fight.
Speaker 5: That cannot actually be good for the relationship.
Speaker 1: So then to be fighting that much.
Speaker 2: No, But I think people would say we're getting things
Speaker 2: out in the open. We'd say, what we mean, we
Speaker 2: clear the air. You know how, there are some people
Speaker 2: who cry easily, and if you're not a cryer, you
Speaker 2: see them crying, you're like, oh my god. Yeah, you
Speaker 2: take it really seriously. And then you get to know
Speaker 2: them and you realize that it's not a big deal
Speaker 2: that they're crying. I think for some people, shouting and
Speaker 2: arguing is like that too, So you're thinking, oh, these
Speaker 2: guys are going to get divorced. They're fighting, and for
Speaker 2: them it's just Tuesday. You know, It's like I think
Speaker 2: different dynamics. But I think if you, as to your point, Jesse,
Speaker 2: if various things in your life made you feel like
Speaker 2: fighting is unsafe, that someone might leave at any time,
Speaker 2: like you're not going to be fighting.
Speaker 4: I read this theory. It's called the Little Fox's theory
Speaker 4: of couple fights, and it's a bit some quote from
Speaker 4: the Bible, the Fox's reference, But basically what it means
Speaker 4: is that most couples, when you get down to it,
Speaker 4: if you said, Amelia, explained to me your last fight
Speaker 4: with your partner, it would be over nothing like I
Speaker 4: wouldn't understand.
Speaker 5: Oh, the opposite of that idea that you're actually fighting
Speaker 5: about affection respect.
Speaker 4: Which you know what you probably are. That's the underlying thing.
Speaker 4: But in terms of what you're of speaking to a
Speaker 4: friend recently who had a fight with his partner, it's
Speaker 4: like a misinterpretation of a thing. And then someone snapped.
Speaker 4: The biggest fight Luker and I've ever had was when
Speaker 4: Luna was really little. It was late at night and
Speaker 4: I said you're up. I meant you're up, as in
Speaker 4: you're awake, could you take the baby? And he heard
Speaker 4: it as you're up, like look at you. Finally around
Speaker 4: to look after the baby, and it was this complete
Speaker 4: miscommunication of time that was about absolutely nothing. But underlying
Speaker 4: it was just two people that were really tired or
Speaker 4: whatever it is. And I think that often those little
Speaker 4: fights are about nothing at all.
Speaker 2: There is another option we haven't considered that maybe George
Speaker 2: Clooney Travis Kelcey are perfect people who always put the
Speaker 2: lid back on the toothpaste, who never give their partners
Speaker 2: any reason and to be angry with them in any way.
Speaker 3: Is this a possibility?
Speaker 4: Yeah, and seem pretty agreeable and they married perfect people.
Speaker 3: That's it.
Speaker 4: Maybe that's the life hack that we all forgot.
Speaker 2: I wonder if Brent says this about me, because Clooney
Speaker 2: said neither of us are going to win. I've met
Speaker 2: this incredible woman. She's beautiful and smart, and she stands
Speaker 2: for all the most important things I believe in the world.
Speaker 3: And I can't believe how lucky I am. So what
Speaker 3: am I going to fight about?
Speaker 4: I reckon Breds, you stand for Hollywayen Right, is George cleaning?
Speaker 3: I'm here for George. Well, this has been fun.
Speaker 2: Friends out louders, thank you for having us in your
Speaker 2: ears on this Monday don't forget, of course, that you
Speaker 2: can watch us on YouTube.
Speaker 3: We'll talk to you tomorrow.
Speaker 4: Bye. Mum and mayor acknowledges the traditional owners of the
Speaker 4: land on which we have recorded this podcast.