Speaker 1: You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Speaker 2: Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
Speaker 2: that this podcast is recorded on.
Speaker 1: Hello and welcome.
Speaker 2: To MoMA Mia out loud. It's what women are actually
Speaker 2: talking about on Wednesday, the thirty first of July, third
Speaker 2: first of I'm not going to do that. It's boring.
Speaker 3: I'm Holly way right, I'm mea Friedman, and I'm Jesse Stevens.
Speaker 3: Can you please leave in the bit where Holly just
Speaker 3: realized her thought was boring, I think that's a bit
Speaker 3: of bts. Is every time we see the date, we
Speaker 3: should go, oh.
Speaker 4: I'm already stop it, Holly, Like every time you see
Speaker 4: a child, it's grown so much. When I saw you
Speaker 4: this hard, gosh, the year's flying.
Speaker 2: It's blown anyway, Okay, moving off on the show today,
Speaker 2: Hey Boomer. Olympic vibes today are settling on the bottoms
Speaker 2: of beach volleyballers and how much of them we can see,
Speaker 2: and on the question of whether we've really stopped valuing
Speaker 2: soldiering on Also, we're unpacking the unexpected tale of a
Speaker 2: woman who wants to charge another woman for hosting her
Speaker 2: kid for a playdate. And is hiring a professional bridesmaid
Speaker 2: sad as Hell or a feminist act, but first Mia Friedman.
Speaker 1: In case you missed it.
Speaker 4: In news from Paris, the Americans have their own version
Speaker 4: of girl math for tallying Olympic medals and it's working
Speaker 4: very well for them, but the Internet in other countries.
Speaker 1: Is not happy.
Speaker 4: The current Paris Olympic Game medal tally stands with Japan
Speaker 4: leading the gold, which is unexpected.
Speaker 1: Did Japan usually win?
Speaker 5: Like?
Speaker 4: Yeah, they usually everything changes in week two because then
Speaker 4: it's track and field, right, So Australia often goes well
Speaker 4: in week one because it's swimming and we're like, look
Speaker 4: at us punching so far above our way. So at
Speaker 4: the moment, it's Japan, followed by China, and guess who's
Speaker 4: third Australia. Australia, which is pretty impressive, and the United
Speaker 4: States is down at number six.
Speaker 1: Must be after France and South Korea had for them.
Speaker 1: But if you look at the way that the.
Speaker 4: New York Times is keeping track, America is on top,
Speaker 4: coming fast because the US Italian total.
Speaker 1: Medals as opposed to gold gold, gold, Okay, because they
Speaker 1: which feel convenient for them.
Speaker 3: The same thing at a recent swimming championship and the
Speaker 3: Australians got very annoyed. I respect and appreciate what they
Speaker 3: are doing working the numbers. They're working the numbers and
Speaker 3: what the US does, which I love, and they did
Speaker 3: this during the Tokyo Olympics, is that they actually switch
Speaker 3: how they count the medals based on where America will
Speaker 3: sit on the tally. So last time they counted it
Speaker 3: like that because they were on top, but then they
Speaker 3: won the other way and they went back to that
Speaker 3: at the end. So they're just like, we'll just fiddle
Speaker 3: with the numbers so that we're always on top.
Speaker 2: Because like it, like it total metal, because I'm a
Speaker 2: snowflake and I believe that all medals are like you've
Speaker 2: tried really hard.
Speaker 1: Well, so sweet.
Speaker 4: The total medals is United States on the top, France, China, Japan, Britain,
Speaker 4: Australia then is number I can't count, but like seven.
Speaker 1: The thing is, I like it better when we're higher.
Speaker 3: Every country in the world as well as like you know,
Speaker 3: the Olympic, they don't have an official way of doing it,
Speaker 3: so the US have founded a loophole, but every single
Speaker 3: country in the world counts it. One way is by
Speaker 3: basically how many.
Speaker 4: Gold you know how Holly would like to count by
Speaker 4: how hard people try.
Speaker 2: I would. That's exactly how I rate my kids' school reports.
Speaker 2: They get all the credit for the effort score. That's
Speaker 2: who I am.
Speaker 1: Good way they go for possibly.
Speaker 2: Why I'm not an Olympian one of the many, many
Speaker 2: reasons why I'm not an Olympian. Just a disclaimer out
Speaker 2: louders with our Olympic vibes segments that I'm sure we're
Speaker 2: going to do a few times over the next couple
Speaker 2: of weeks.
Speaker 1: We're not sports reporters.
Speaker 2: And this is not the place to come if you
Speaker 2: want a rundown of the metal tally or even you know,
Speaker 2: lots of results about all our brilliant Australian athletes. That's
Speaker 2: not what we're here for.
Speaker 1: We're here for vibes and feelings.
Speaker 2: We're here for vibes and feelings, and I hope it
Speaker 2: goes without saying that we don't know anything so we'll
Speaker 2: probably get the terminology wrong and like you on the
Speaker 2: couch at home, we're just going with our vibes. We
Speaker 2: obviously support all the Olympians with one things, and the
Speaker 2: ones who haven't they're your favorites the way they're my favorites.
Speaker 2: I like the tryers.
Speaker 1: I like the ones with the metals.
Speaker 2: I'm here for the tryers. Oh good vibes, great vibe,
Speaker 2: what a great time.
Speaker 3: We have more Olympic vibes to bring. We had so
Speaker 3: many things we're desperate to talk about today.
Speaker 1: Still can't work out how to watch it, but we
Speaker 1: can discuss that later.
Speaker 3: I have and I'm going to show.
Speaker 2: We got massively called boomers for that. Today we were
Speaker 2: in our meeting. We brought back that we're finding it
Speaker 2: hard to watch it. I'm like, I don't know. I
Speaker 2: haven't seen the single gymnastic event. I can't find it anywhere.
Speaker 2: Our ahead of content Lisa just looked at us and said,
Speaker 2: you know, the whole editorial team is laughing at you.
Speaker 1: Do you know what it feels like to me?
Speaker 4: It feels like news eve where you're sure that there's
Speaker 4: a better party going on somewhere, you just don't know where,
Speaker 4: and you're always at the wrong party.
Speaker 1: I just feel like I'm always watching the wrong No,
Speaker 1: I understand. Anyway, back to vibes.
Speaker 3: Look, I want to talk about this headline I saw
Speaker 3: this morning is competing with a raptured ligament an active bravery?
Speaker 3: Is it something we should celebrate or something we should critique.
Speaker 3: So the headline I saw this morning was on news
Speaker 3: dot com and it read Mexican gymnast Natalia Escalera's incredible
Speaker 3: active bravery at Paras Olympics, and it went on to
Speaker 3: report how she had a raptured ligament in her foot
Speaker 3: but still competed in the uneven bars. Afterwards, she broke
Speaker 3: down in tears of pain and her coach needed to
Speaker 3: carry her to a nearby chair. The Mexican Olympic Committee
Speaker 3: praised her on their social media pages. They posted applause
Speaker 3: for Natalia Escalera despite having a tear, the Mexican makes
Speaker 3: her presentation on the uneven bars of the all around.
Speaker 3: The reason I find this interesting is that I watched
Speaker 3: the Simone Bios documentary over the weekend which looked back
Speaker 3: on gymnasts who had competed with sprained ankles or torn ligaments.
Speaker 3: Their pain was visible on their faces, and a lot
Speaker 3: of commons in that documentary said, gymnastics is changing. This
Speaker 3: takes a toll. We're putting the humanity of our athletes. First.
Speaker 3: Biles famously pulled out of the Tokyo Olympics, but then
Speaker 3: even Biles in this Olympics, she has a torn calf
Speaker 3: ligament and she secured a gold medal overnight. What do
Speaker 3: we think? Is this bravery or is there something more
Speaker 3: sinister at play?
Speaker 4: This is how we all become experts while we're watching TV,
Speaker 4: right every four years. When you said that and you
Speaker 4: said the torn ligament in her foot, I was like ow.
Speaker 4: But then when you said on even bars, I'm like, well,
Speaker 4: hang on a second, you don't that's not a weight
Speaker 4: beun How does she land exercise except for the land
Speaker 4: that part, which is awkward. You're right, but like most
Speaker 4: of it, it's not like a floor routine or a
Speaker 4: beam or even a vault where you've got to like run.
Speaker 3: So her medical team said she couldn't compete in the
Speaker 3: others and they did clear her for this, but there
Speaker 3: was still controversy because she has to land.
Speaker 4: And you know that when she does land, hopefully on
Speaker 4: two feet, it's not going to be good for whatever
Speaker 4: the injury is.
Speaker 2: It wasn't good looking at her face.
Speaker 1: By then, her routine's pretty finished. So I would.
Speaker 4: Say these are athletes with free will, right, so are
Speaker 4: they well hopefully, I.
Speaker 1: Know they feel a lot of pressure.
Speaker 4: But imagine training something all your life and would you
Speaker 4: be like I could sit it out or I could
Speaker 4: just try. Well, but it's the way that sounds like
Speaker 4: I'm criticizing Simone Bars and I'm not, because Simone Bars
Speaker 4: knew that she could die, like in that vole, if
Speaker 4: you've got the twisties and you lose where you are, Like,
Speaker 4: vaulting is incredibly dangerous. I mean all gymnastics is, but
Speaker 4: vaulting particularly, and she knew that she.
Speaker 1: Could risk her life if she were to do that.
Speaker 2: This is typical of all sport. Right. You will see
Speaker 2: players playing their rugby league grum final with a broken jaw.
Speaker 2: You will see them being sent off because they've got
Speaker 2: a gash in their head and begging to be sent
Speaker 2: back on. And it is seen as weak to let
Speaker 2: your team down and inverted because you've had a bit
Speaker 2: of a k nook. Right, So this is very common
Speaker 2: in all sports. These gymnasts are representing themselves but also
Speaker 2: their countries. As you've said, they have trained so hard
Speaker 2: for years and years and years, so everything is about
Speaker 2: this moment and if you injure yourself in that moment
Speaker 2: and then you're like, the pressure to go on is enormous.
Speaker 1: I think the pressure do you mean external and internal pressure?
Speaker 2: So I think one of the reasons why what Siman
Speaker 2: Biles did was so extraordinary is it was seen in
Speaker 2: some quarters as letting the country down, Like I don't
Speaker 2: think that, but you know, it was seen as we
Speaker 2: know now that the US aren't going to do as
Speaker 2: well or will they do as well without her? She
Speaker 2: was letting the country down, and that pressure can't be underestimated.
Speaker 2: But resilience is something that athletes know a lot about.
Speaker 2: We bandy around the world resilience all the time as
Speaker 2: a good thing. Right, We're trying to make our children
Speaker 2: more resilient. We're trying to make ourselves more resilient. We've
Speaker 2: got it very high up our value medal table. It's
Speaker 2: winning gold, right, it's top of the leader. Yeah, And
Speaker 2: so athletes know about resilience in a way that lots
Speaker 2: of us don't because nearly everything they do, Like if
Speaker 2: you've trained for a fun run, which I have, you'll
Speaker 2: do your knee and then you have to decide am
Speaker 2: I going to sit out now because I've done my
Speaker 2: knee when I've been training for three months, or am
Speaker 2: I going to strap it up and pump the neurofen?
Speaker 2: You know, run that thing? What did you do? I ran,
Speaker 2: I pumped the neurofen. Run that thing? Hurt my knee.
Speaker 2: Me and Simone Biles have a great deal in common.
Speaker 2: I think that we have to give them the credit
Speaker 2: and the autonomy to know whether or not they want
Speaker 2: to do it.
Speaker 3: I agree, I reckon that the added layer, of course,
Speaker 3: is pressure from coaches, pressure from.
Speaker 2: Sponsors, not necessarily in this context, but generally.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because it's also I've heard people talk about the
Speaker 3: money thing. It's like a nation has invested an enormous
Speaker 3: amount in an athlete, and if they choose the question
Speaker 3: of choice is interesting because agency we have to take
Speaker 3: into account the amount of pressure that they feel.
Speaker 4: I get why you have medical team, Like you mentioned
Speaker 4: the Mexican gym Maston. Her medical team cleared her for
Speaker 4: this but said she couldn't. So it almost needs to
Speaker 4: be taken out of your hands, right, Yeah, to an extent,
Speaker 4: because you're not necessarily the best judge of what you're
Speaker 4: capable of.
Speaker 3: Yes, but most athletes, and this is why I find
Speaker 3: watching sports so interesting are in a lot of pain
Speaker 3: doing what they're doing for us, So I always think of.
Speaker 1: Ratha doing it for us, though, good question.
Speaker 3: Grafe on Theadal, for example, plays in chronic pain and
Speaker 3: has for most of his career. He's got tendinitis, he's
Speaker 3: got like these foot conditions with ligaments and everything.
Speaker 1: And so you're saying that's altruism.
Speaker 3: No, no, no, no, no, I'm not. I'm just saying that
Speaker 3: how much pain you are willing to grit your teeth
Speaker 3: and bear is obviously a choice for you to make.
Speaker 3: But I struggle with our framing of it as bravery.
Speaker 3: I thought it was an interesting choice for news and
Speaker 3: for the Mexican Olympic Committee and for other people watching
Speaker 3: to rain this person is brave because I think it
Speaker 3: says a lot about what we value and a lot
Speaker 3: about us culturally, which.
Speaker 1: Is that so bravery is suffering.
Speaker 3: Bravery is suffering. And that is why when Simone Biles
Speaker 3: pulled out, there was this pushback, because it was this
Speaker 3: sense of like, even in an Australian Olympian in the
Speaker 3: last twenty four hours is pulled out because she has
Speaker 3: COVID and she can't do the fifteen hundred meters and
Speaker 3: I thought, I wonder how it feels if you're an
Speaker 3: athlete who is injured, who is sick, and has gone
Speaker 3: I can't do this, and then you see that framed
Speaker 3: as bravery, if that compounds your own sense of letting
Speaker 3: the team down.
Speaker 2: It's also interesting because just bringing this back to the
Speaker 2: Dallas cowboy cheery, as everything does as relate the jump splits,
Speaker 2: meant that they all went on to have hit well,
Speaker 2: not all, but many of them went on to have
Speaker 2: serious health implications and hip operations. We know that American
Speaker 2: footballers have a very high rate of brain injury. It's
Speaker 2: something that is being looked into, and it's put a
Speaker 2: sort of cloud over the sport. Boxing's a same. Various
Speaker 2: forms of football are the same. Is that being your
Speaker 2: all for your team and country, which as Jesse is
Speaker 2: possibly framing as altruism, will come at a significant personal
Speaker 2: cost to you health wise, possibly ongoing? And again, who
Speaker 2: are you paying that for? Is that like the mark
Speaker 2: of a hero, like a wounded warrior, or is that
Speaker 2: like a lacks duty of care on the side of
Speaker 2: the organization that you're playing for.
Speaker 4: Well, I want to change gears and talk about some
Speaker 4: other vibes, and that is volleyball, and also some bottoms
Speaker 4: and some crotches.
Speaker 3: Is that all you can find to watch? Because you
Speaker 3: don't know what you're meant to be watching, so you
Speaker 3: just my TV isn't going anywhere else.
Speaker 4: Gymnastic last night. But I only like to watch the
Speaker 4: women's gymnastics. I don't really like to watch the men's gymnastics.
Speaker 4: Although the guy on the pummel horse, who looks like
Speaker 4: Clark Kenton, has a little snooze and then just whips
Speaker 4: his glasses off, gets up, does the pummel.
Speaker 1: He's a bit of an Internet here right now. Anyway.
Speaker 4: Olympic camera operators have been issued of formal warning over
Speaker 4: the way they film female athletes this week, as the
Speaker 4: Olympic Broadcasting Service boss admits stereotypes and sexism remain now.
Speaker 4: The head of the Olympic Broadcasting Services has actually called
Speaker 4: for an update in its guidelines for camera operators who
Speaker 4: are mostly men, to combat these stereotypes, and he's told
Speaker 4: reporters in Paris, unfortunately, in some events, the women are
Speaker 4: still being filmed in a way that you can identify
Speaker 4: that stereotypes and sexism remain even from the way in
Speaker 4: which some camera operators are framing differently men and women athletes.
Speaker 4: Women athletes are not there because they are more attractive
Speaker 4: or sexy or whatever. They are there because they are
Speaker 4: elite athletes. Now, I happen to be watching the volleyball
Speaker 4: beach volleyball last night, as I said, and I was
Speaker 4: really struck by a couple of things, two of which
Speaker 4: I want to unpack with you all. The first is
Speaker 4: the camera angles, because there's a lot of you know,
Speaker 4: when you're preparing to take a shot whatever it's called, receiver,
Speaker 4: someone serving to you, you do a bit of a squat,
Speaker 4: like you sort of squat, you lean over on your horn.
Speaker 4: And because some of the beach volleyball uniforms I was
Speaker 4: watching last night, the Italians versus the Egyptians, and I'll
Speaker 4: get to the uniforms in a second, but there are
Speaker 4: some very close up shots of the bums of Do.
Speaker 2: You think they're breaking these regulations?
Speaker 4: Yes, I think they might be, although I suppose they
Speaker 4: could pull back, like they don't have to go on
Speaker 4: a close up. So what they're talking about is close
Speaker 4: ups of female athletes body parts, so you could do
Speaker 4: a more respectful I don't think you have to go
Speaker 4: like right up the bum to capture what's going on.
Speaker 1: I think it is. It did feel fairly gratuitous.
Speaker 4: But what I wanted to actually talk about was the
Speaker 4: uniforms because in this match it was so interesting, and
Speaker 4: of course the Olympics, and we're talking about what women
Speaker 4: are wearing. We're not talking about what any men are wearing.
Speaker 4: But such is life.
Speaker 1: The Egyptian beach.
Speaker 4: Volleyball players wearing black leggings, they were covered ankle to wrist,
Speaker 4: and they also had huebs on, and then they had
Speaker 4: loose t shirts on over their leggings and long sleeve tops.
Speaker 4: And then the Italian players had teeny little low cut,
Speaker 4: low rise bikini bottoms and little.
Speaker 1: Tops with very sort of cutout in the back. And
Speaker 1: I just thought, isn't that interesting.
Speaker 4: There's a whole lot of conversations and a whole lot
Speaker 4: of subtext here about women's choices, women's bodies, sport, what
Speaker 4: it all means.
Speaker 1: I wanted to unpack it.
Speaker 2: Well, beach volleyball. It's interesting because playing beach volleyball in
Speaker 2: a bikini is true to the origins of the sport,
Speaker 2: right it was invented that game on the beaches of Hawaii,
Speaker 2: southern California, Rio like, it's a game you play on
Speaker 2: a beach in your swimmers and then you get in
Speaker 2: the ocean. Men typically play it topless. Right that the Olympics.
Speaker 2: Men aren't allowed to be topless. That's why they're wearing
Speaker 2: board shorts and a vest right, and women traditionally have
Speaker 2: still basically been wearing bikinis two pieces. In twenty twelve,
Speaker 2: they changed that rule because obviously the bikini issue was
Speaker 2: a to a lot of people playing that sport religious reasons,
Speaker 2: social reasons, or I just don't want to be in
Speaker 2: my bikini there. And so now there's a choice. And
Speaker 2: you will see if you watch a lot of beach
Speaker 2: volleyball that some nations are wearing leggings. You're allowed to
Speaker 2: wear leggings, and so they'll wear little crop tops and leggings.
Speaker 2: And there has been pushback from a lot of gross
Speaker 2: sexist men who are like, oh, I came to the
Speaker 2: beach volleyball to see.
Speaker 4: Us on that isn't enough ass quite a lot of
Speaker 4: us on my TV.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness. But then on the other hand, now
Speaker 2: that it's a choice, there's a bit of pressure on
Speaker 2: the athletes who want to still wear their bikinis, and
Speaker 2: you'll see an enormous amount of variety in the cut
Speaker 2: of the briefs and all those things from nation to nation.
Speaker 2: But there is a choice, right. I did a bit
Speaker 2: of a deep dive into why they have to be
Speaker 2: like that. A lot of the athletes say, if you're
Speaker 2: wearing a two piece, you get a lot of sand. Right,
Speaker 2: so you're diving, as you know, he meats volleyball, You're
Speaker 2: diving into the sand all the time, it gets down
Speaker 2: your top. It's deeply uncomfortable, all of that stuff. So
Speaker 2: you basically want as little they would say, as little
Speaker 2: as possible between you. And so that's what.
Speaker 4: Because you would say, why do they need to wear
Speaker 4: a bikini? Why wouldn't they wear a one piece like
Speaker 4: the swimmers do, And that's the reason I hadn't thought
Speaker 4: of that, And so from getting distrapped in so if
Speaker 4: you were in a one piece, you do a dive,
Speaker 4: suddenly you've got half a beach down there. Imagine trying
Speaker 4: to get that out.
Speaker 3: But I was reading that up until very recently, even
Speaker 3: the bikini bottoms that you wore could not be more
Speaker 3: than seven centimeters on the sides. You look at that
Speaker 3: role and you go and it isn't about sand because
Speaker 3: even gymnastics, and this is all around the world, you
Speaker 3: get up to one point deduction if you've got a
Speaker 3: brass strap or you've got your undie showing underneath. And
Speaker 3: you'll remember that in the Tokyo Olympics, the German gymnasts
Speaker 3: wore full long leer tides that went down to their
Speaker 3: ankles and they were making a statement which was we
Speaker 3: feel really objectified. We see a lot of women drop
Speaker 3: out of the sport because they don't want to wear
Speaker 3: these outfits, and we can perform just as well with
Speaker 3: this on. But I must say there's been a lot
Speaker 3: of discussion about the discussion about bodies, right yes, from
Speaker 3: swimming to beach volleyball to gymnastics. Whether or not it's
Speaker 3: ever okay to remark on a woman's body.
Speaker 4: Well I did, and my daughter was so poored she
Speaker 4: left the room. Yeah, because I slay you over in
Speaker 4: bex But I wasn't being mean. I was just like
Speaker 4: marveling at these extraordinary bodies and I was wondering out loud,
Speaker 4: as I do because I don't have a lot of
Speaker 4: inside thoughts. Inside my head thoughts. The hair removal is
Speaker 4: quite something to behold. I mean that whoever's the hair
Speaker 4: removal is like, that's amazing. And my daughter is just like,
Speaker 4: she wasn't happy, No, she wasn't.
Speaker 3: What's amazing, Like the hair removal.
Speaker 1: It was just such a great point.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 3: Is also that there's not an ingrown hair. That's what
Speaker 3: I'm amazed at is I want.
Speaker 1: To go I think laser.
Speaker 2: I just make the point that these athletes are the
Speaker 2: most prepared people in the world. Do you think they're
Speaker 2: going to have an ingrown hair distracting from them?
Speaker 4: To me remarking on their bodies, like their bodies are
Speaker 4: strawdinary when you see them in the air, and like
Speaker 4: the muscles and the I find that in itself really interesting.
Speaker 2: But that's not what a lot of people are commenting on, right. So,
Speaker 2: I think one of the things that's interesting when we
Speaker 2: talk about sexualizing athletes is who we choose to talk
Speaker 2: about being sexualized Because athletes their instrument is their body.
Speaker 2: And when track and field starts happening next week, there
Speaker 2: are always like a glamour portion of track and field, right,
Speaker 2: I was seeing it today. You know, there's a very
Speaker 2: very glamorous sprinter from Poland or somewhere right, who's a
Speaker 2: model and all these things, and the world will go
Speaker 2: mad for her for five days. They don't necessarily about swimmers,
Speaker 2: for example, swimmers bodies because in our very narrow cultural
Speaker 2: ideas when I say our, I guess I mean dominant
Speaker 2: culture ideas of what a sexy body is, that's not
Speaker 2: necessarily a female swimmer's body, right, That is a weapon
Speaker 2: in a different way, Simone Biles. There isn't a lot
Speaker 2: of talk about her being sexualized because she is an
Speaker 2: absolute weapon too, But that doesn't fit some kind of
Speaker 2: narrow view of like is she tall with long legs
Speaker 2: and does she have boob in a waiste? As soon
Speaker 2: as an athlete looks like what we consider to be
Speaker 2: a ideal, like a feminine ideal, we start bitching about
Speaker 2: them being sexualized.
Speaker 4: So wait, my commentary on bodies is not about sexualization
Speaker 4: at all. It's pure aesthetics and the and the wondery
Speaker 4: of the human form.
Speaker 2: And you're not going to put some clothes. I was
Speaker 2: getting that vibe.
Speaker 1: I found that.
Speaker 4: Interesting, and I'm so glad you've explained a lot of
Speaker 4: those things to me today. I was more thinking, isn't
Speaker 4: it interesting how comfortable they are in their bodies that
Speaker 4: they're fine with that. I think now with the sand,
Speaker 4: it makes more sense that you want your costume to be.
Speaker 1: As tight and as small as possible.
Speaker 4: Well, definitely as tight, because also you wouldn't get sandstuck
Speaker 4: if you're wearing like a neck to knee situation, you
Speaker 4: wouldn't get so.
Speaker 3: If you've it's professional beach volleyballs.
Speaker 1: And the men are getting sand stuck in their shorts,
Speaker 1: they're fine.
Speaker 2: It is interesting why the men aren't allowed to be topless.
Speaker 3: I reckon that that's a I need to see what
Speaker 3: country you're from thing, like, Yeah, but it's interesting if
Speaker 3: I'm a beach volleyballer and I've watched everyone above me
Speaker 3: wear a certain uniform. Uniform is so critical to psychology
Speaker 3: in terms of performance, like we feel something different depending
Speaker 3: on what we've put on. So I just reckon that,
Speaker 3: whoever you are, whatever sport you're doing, you've just got
Speaker 3: to wear something that makes you perform as well as
Speaker 3: you can. I agree that watching gymnastics, in particular, marveling
Speaker 3: at the strength and what that level of training does
Speaker 3: to the human body is amazing for any athlete, like
Speaker 3: looking at men's swimmers, female swimmers, whatever. I love the
Speaker 3: visual element of that. But it's worth noting that the
Speaker 3: Matildas dress exactly like the male soccer players, and in
Speaker 3: terms of broadcasting, because the argument will be will people
Speaker 3: watch the beach volleyball because they lack what they see,
Speaker 3: which is kind of what I've say talking about, Yeah,
Speaker 3: the Matildas. We loved watching the Matildas.
Speaker 2: This is really interesting too, because one of the reasons
Speaker 2: why female soccer players where what the men do is
Speaker 2: because they were never given uniforms. There's a whole world
Speaker 2: there about how female football players have to wear male
Speaker 2: football shorts. Until very recently, they weren't making football shorts
Speaker 2: that worked for women's bodies, right, So that is true
Speaker 2: to the origins of that sport. As it develops and
Speaker 2: escalates and becomes more professional, hopefully we'll see not I
Speaker 2: don't mean more tight flash, but what I mean is
Speaker 2: uniforms that better support female athletes. So I think that
Speaker 2: we bring our very particular lens to whether we think
Speaker 2: that's all too sexy or not. We're not thinking about
Speaker 2: the athlete, We're thinking about ourselves, you know.
Speaker 4: I really liked actually when I was watching the volleyball
Speaker 4: because I was like, if you're a believer in choice feminism,
Speaker 4: there are options now. And the Australians actually wear bikini
Speaker 4: briefs but with long sleeve rashes. I saw some of
Speaker 4: them with long sleeves chezzies. Yeah, because that's the other thing.
Speaker 4: Surely it's not very sun safe if you're not slip
Speaker 4: slopping and slapping, or if you're not slapping. I thought
Speaker 4: it was really interesting and we will always have views
Speaker 4: on what women should and shouldn't wear. And I don't
Speaker 4: mean we, but like as a culture, it will always
Speaker 4: be discussed in a way that men's outfits and men's
Speaker 4: bodies aren't discussed.
Speaker 2: True. But final point on that, where you started with
Speaker 2: the camera guidelines, they've also been given camera guidelines about
Speaker 2: the men because particularly in track and field, you see
Speaker 2: other jiggle shots, a lot of jiggle shots, and a
Speaker 2: lot of sprinters, male sprinters who wear those types and
Speaker 2: they hate that. They hate the jiggle shots. So that
Speaker 2: it's all of it. It's like, obviously it's there and
Speaker 2: you make a choice whether you're looking at it or not.
Speaker 2: But the camera angles are a whole different world, and
Speaker 2: they're just being told don't stop follow.
Speaker 1: You know, stop it.
Speaker 3: I wonder what sport me as television will get stuck
Speaker 3: on next and we'll have a discussion about that next episode.
Speaker 3: She'll get very into the synchronized.
Speaker 4: I had a lot to say about the synchronized diving.
Speaker 4: I found that amazing, amazing, and how they went into
Speaker 4: the water. But the men's like, the speedos didn't fall down,
Speaker 4: So I'm like, they must be so small and so
Speaker 4: tight because imagine hitting the water at that velocity.
Speaker 1: Great.
Speaker 2: Yeah, may Or, I haven't even found the diving yet.
Speaker 1: About the diving, the diving, damn it, it's finished. Damnit.
Speaker 2: Hell out, friends, there's a woman on the internet charging
Speaker 2: another woman for a playdate. You might have heard about it.
Speaker 2: Here is what happened.
Speaker 5: Can we normalize sending the other family money for playdates?
Speaker 5: So recently, my daughter had a friend of her and
Speaker 5: I asked her mom for money. So after the playdate,
Speaker 5: I text her mom and I said, thanks for letting
Speaker 5: Jamie play today, Please help out with your share of
Speaker 5: the expenses for the playdate, totaling fifteen dollars via vemo.
Speaker 5: Let's do it again. Sometime because I can't keep doing
Speaker 5: these playdates if it's so expensive. And she said expenses,
Speaker 5: and I said, yeah, she used supplies and food while
Speaker 5: she was here. In this way, we can do this
Speaker 5: more often without a monetary obligation on just one party. Right,
Speaker 5: makes sense. No, she didn't say much, but she did
Speaker 5: say what supplies, and of course I wrote them down.
Speaker 5: There was chalk, apple, sauce, fruit, she sat on the couch,
Speaker 5: that's where, and tear. She actually broke a toy. She
Speaker 5: had three juice boxes, she went to the bathroom, she
Speaker 5: had yogurt. Then she actually sent the money and I
Speaker 5: sent her a message thanking her for it. Of course
Speaker 5: she didn't say anything else, but I said, you know,
Speaker 5: this will make it easier for us to do more
Speaker 5: playdates in the future. So what do you guys think now?
Speaker 2: That woman on TikTok is called Shane Nanigan's eighty seven
Speaker 2: and that video got four point one million views and
Speaker 2: a storm of comments and shares, which is not that
Speaker 2: surprising really, because playdate politics are wild, But who knew
Speaker 2: they were that wild? Maya Have you ever heard of
Speaker 2: someone charging for a playdate?
Speaker 4: I haven't, but I've noticed that playdates. My kids are
Speaker 4: too old for them now, but I noticed that between
Speaker 4: my oldest and my youngest having playdates, it seemed to
Speaker 4: change in that suddenly some of the kids their moms
Speaker 4: would send over snacks the play date, like muffins or
Speaker 4: you know, chocolates or whatever, occasionally like a hostess.
Speaker 1: Gift, which I really look I liked.
Speaker 4: Eating this stuff and I appreciated it because I never
Speaker 4: had any food to my house, but I was very
Speaker 4: alarmed at the potential escalation of what was required, because
Speaker 4: to me, a playdate should be about offloading your child
Speaker 4: for a period of time, and then there are things
Speaker 4: that are understood, like you offload them, but then you
Speaker 4: have to have that child back to your place.
Speaker 1: There are politics involved.
Speaker 3: I think recently I've made a rule for myself in
Speaker 3: line with my Kindness word of the year. And when
Speaker 3: I say recently, I mean in the last week that
Speaker 3: I must if I go to someone's house, I have
Speaker 3: to bring something, which sounds really basic, but it's just
Speaker 3: something I haven't really been doing. You know, I'd just
Speaker 3: like a nice dessert or like some food or wine
Speaker 3: or something like that.
Speaker 4: Well, then also, if you're taking someone else's child, somewhere,
Speaker 4: like to a trampoline part or to a movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that can be expensive.
Speaker 2: What I would do?
Speaker 3: So why your kidd have money on them?
Speaker 2: Right? Well, it depends how old they are, right. So
Speaker 2: the thing about playdates is when your kids are really little,
Speaker 2: and it sounds like these ones are with the apple
Speaker 2: sauce and the chalk and stuff, it's hard work hosting
Speaker 2: other kids at your house. So it's very much a
Speaker 2: reciprocal agreement. When they get older and the kids can
Speaker 2: entertain themselves more, it actually makes parenting easier to have
Speaker 2: two kids over and they can all play together whatever.
Speaker 2: But in those hard playdate years, I think it's a
Speaker 2: nice gesture to send things and all the rest of it,
Speaker 2: But I can't say I've ever come across it anyway.
Speaker 2: What happened next was our friend Shane Nan as I'm
Speaker 2: going to call her, posted another video, this time explaining
Speaker 2: that the playdate video was a perfect example of rage bait. Now,
Speaker 2: rage bait is when you create content that purposefully in
Speaker 2: rages or shocks people so that they will interact with
Speaker 2: it. It causes people to think something is real when it's not.
Speaker 2: So she made up this story to gain followers, even
Speaker 2: ones who thought she was crazy or annoying. And then
Speaker 2: she actually also did it to make a bit of
Speaker 2: money because she created a payment account for that imaginary
Speaker 2: mom who supposedly gave her money. And some people were
Speaker 2: so incensed by the idea of Shane Nan charging her
Speaker 2: that they sent the imaginary mom money to compensate.
Speaker 1: Isn't that fraudulent?
Speaker 2: Here's Shane Nan explaining how she uses it.
Speaker 5: He that I charged fifteen dollars for the playdate. So
Speaker 5: many people are sending her money. What if? And I'm
Speaker 5: just saying, what if that is a fake account that
Speaker 5: I set up in a different name that goes to.
Speaker 2: My Venmo account. I am dead.
Speaker 5: A lesson in rage bait, A lesson in freaking rage bait. Guys,
Speaker 5: you have to figure out how to make money off
Speaker 5: of it, and this worked Chef's kiss. First of all,
Speaker 5: rage bait is not a joke. A joke is meant
Speaker 5: to make you laugh. Rage bait is more filed under
Speaker 5: fake news, so it's there for engagement and you have
Speaker 5: to make money off of it. Or it's not even
Speaker 5: that she's just stupid and you're there for just the drama.
Speaker 5: I knew I was gonna make money off TikTok, but
Speaker 5: I didn't think that people would be sending money to
Speaker 5: the person Melissa that they think that I charged money
Speaker 5: for her daughter to come over.
Speaker 2: Rage baiting engagement can be as simple as misspelling a word,
Speaker 2: purposefully mispronouncing something which we do all the time, but
Speaker 2: not on purpose. But maybe she was doing it there
Speaker 2: when she kept saying niche and I was like, say niche,
Speaker 2: but maybe she was rage baiting or even doing your
Speaker 2: makeup wrong, all of these things and to get people
Speaker 2: to engage, correct you and then hang around. It's marketing
Speaker 2: and it's a very meta, very organic progression. I guess
Speaker 2: of influencer culture. Is rage baiting fair game? Miya?
Speaker 4: Well, it's clearly then you're click baiting, and it's about
Speaker 4: playing the algorithm, and an algorithm that rewards anger is
Speaker 4: absolutely designed for this. So this is people just being
Speaker 4: opportunistic and for them it's smart business.
Speaker 1: Is it ethical? Is it good for the world? No,
Speaker 1: but it's good for them.
Speaker 4: So you know, the term clickbait, which I think has
Speaker 4: become really misused. Sometimes people use the term clickbait where
Speaker 4: they just mean it was a good headline that made
Speaker 4: you want.
Speaker 1: To click on it.
Speaker 4: What clickbait actually means is deceptive headline that makes you click,
Speaker 4: and that click can be monetized, and actually when you
Speaker 4: get there, it's like, haha, that's not really the truth.
Speaker 4: And it's not just the Internet that does this. Women's magazines,
Speaker 4: gossip magazines used to do this all the time, where
Speaker 4: it would be like Fife boxes baby Joy and it
Speaker 4: would be a picture of her on the cover of
Speaker 4: Woman's Day, and then you'd open it and it would
Speaker 4: be a picture of her walk past a baby in
Speaker 4: the street and she waved at her co host has
Speaker 4: had a baby, yeah, or her sister's pregnant or something yeah.
Speaker 3: And the reason that rage baiting is new ish is
Speaker 3: because the algorithm has changed. So the algorithm used to
Speaker 3: reward likes, like that was how it originally started, but
Speaker 3: now on every platform, the thing that it rewards more
Speaker 3: than any thing is engagement through comments. So it almost
Speaker 3: doesn't matter how many likes you've got. And the thing
Speaker 3: that we'll get people commenting, because it's the strongest human
Speaker 3: emotion is anger. So you rile people up and then
Speaker 3: they all argue, but you one because it's engagement. That's
Speaker 3: one thing, and that woman can do whatever she likes.
Speaker 3: The other thing is the phenomenon of the media picking
Speaker 3: it up. And this is why everyone has lost trust
Speaker 3: in media because what they do is they pick this
Speaker 3: up and then they put it on a TV show.
Speaker 3: I think you should say, well, this is what we've
Speaker 3: done exactly right. We pick it up and we throw
Speaker 3: it in this show. Why do we throw it in
Speaker 3: this show? Because it's content and because it serves as
Speaker 3: the springboard for a conversation we want to have that
Speaker 3: would be totally irrelevant if we didn't have a hook,
Speaker 3: So you often go, oh, that needs a news hook
Speaker 3: or whatever.
Speaker 4: If we do it, well, let's take out loud as
Speaker 4: behind the scenes and say, what was our thought process
Speaker 4: in including this? Was it that we're completely cynical and
Speaker 4: we're just trying to trick people into liss If.
Speaker 2: We had just done that right the way that we thought,
Speaker 2: maybe we were going to do it this morning before
Speaker 2: it became very obviously that was fake. Although to me
Speaker 2: it looked fake immediately. Right is we'd use it as
Speaker 2: the hook for a discussion about playdate politics, and we'd
Speaker 2: be like, look, people are charging for playdates now?
Speaker 4: Yeah, with charging parts not relevant, but the politics is right.
Speaker 2: But what we did instead when it became clear that
Speaker 2: it was rage baiting is instead to bring people behind
Speaker 2: the scenes of that. So that, to me is a
Speaker 2: useful and valid conversation because particularly if you're not hiper literate,
Speaker 2: most people are not hiper literal in social media, right
Speaker 2: and in TikTok very very online, most people are not.
Speaker 2: So this is explaining a phenomena to them that is helpful,
Speaker 2: and to me that is helpful to always be able
Speaker 2: to look at things online and go. Is that rage
Speaker 2: bait is really useful because the reason why rage bait
Speaker 2: is bad for the world, like it's bad for the
Speaker 2: world in big ways, we all know that in terms
Speaker 2: of what it's doing to our democratic systems, but it's
Speaker 2: also bad for the world in small ways because it
Speaker 2: makes you genuinely believe that the world is full of dickheads, right,
Speaker 2: and of course the world has its fair share of dickheads,
Speaker 2: But you watch videos like this and you walk around
Speaker 2: going like, for god's sake, now people are even charging
Speaker 2: for playdates, what's happened to everybody? Da da da da da,
Speaker 2: When an actual fact, the world is full of very
Speaker 2: ordinary people who are just sending their kids in and
Speaker 2: out of people's houses, maybe with an apple.
Speaker 3: It makes people think that everyone's lost their mind, and
Speaker 3: it plays with people emotions because rage is not a
Speaker 3: pleasant emotion and if you're constantly spiking it by being
Speaker 3: on social media, then no wonder we get into a
Speaker 3: car and someone with their shit.
Speaker 4: So I just want to also draw attention to the
Speaker 4: rage bait that some let's call them commentators online public figures.
Speaker 4: They do a different type of rage baiting, which is
Speaker 4: not necessarily making something up like this Shane Lanigan's did,
Speaker 4: but picking fights with other people or putting out deliberately
Speaker 4: in sindiary opinions because they know it will go viral
Speaker 4: and a lot of people will push back and be angry,
Speaker 4: but they'll get attention because we live in an attention
Speaker 4: economy and the best way to milk that attention economy
Speaker 4: is with rage and with anger.
Speaker 3: Well, the filter has changed. It used to be anything news.
Speaker 3: It was about informing people, and I think newsrooms have
Speaker 3: as much to answer for as individuals, which is will
Speaker 3: this get people talking? That's what it's all.
Speaker 4: But it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy because if you're
Speaker 4: an influencer and you say Jesse Stevens is a dumb.
Speaker 1: Blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 4: Then suddenly, oh, that's a story.
Speaker 3: You know, drag them in.
Speaker 4: Yeah, an engagement, a story for Daily Mail picks it up,
Speaker 4: and it's like this influencer and these two women are
Speaker 4: in the fight, and it's like I would like to
Speaker 4: be taken out of this narrative, like you are just
Speaker 4: trying to use me to build your own profile and
Speaker 4: your own following.
Speaker 3: I know this isn't a visual medium, but throughout the
Speaker 3: recording of this podcast, Maya's buttons have been coming undone,
Speaker 3: and now her at her brand, your left breast is out,
Speaker 3: and I think we do have cameras, so I would
Speaker 3: like that.
Speaker 2: I was just thinking, like me, it's very sexy today
Speaker 2: because I'm trying to get some attention.
Speaker 4: I'm becoming invisible, and I know that sexualizing myself during
Speaker 4: a podcast.
Speaker 1: Is the only way.
Speaker 5: Really.
Speaker 2: You know one thing about rage bait that I did
Speaker 2: not know until today, and so I'm this is the
Speaker 2: public service. Friends. Sometimes brands use it deliberately, where so
Speaker 2: say there was a famous lip gloss, for example, and
Speaker 2: a whole lot of influencers used it incorrectly and like
Speaker 2: broke the lid of it and like basically made a
Speaker 2: mess with this lip gloss. It was a deliberate strategy
Speaker 2: for engagement where a whole lot of people would then
Speaker 2: want to talk about that. It spreads the word about
Speaker 2: the lip gloss, and it was a deliberate strategy to
Speaker 2: raise the profile of a product. So that's interesting too,
Speaker 2: Right is to think that when you see people scrowing
Speaker 2: things up on the Internet that seem really obvious, it
Speaker 2: might not be.
Speaker 1: Right unless it's us, in which case.
Speaker 2: We always just screw things up. If you're worried about
Speaker 2: the way that Mia says premier, that is not ritebaiting.
Speaker 2: That's just the way she is.
Speaker 4: Every Tuesday and Thursday we drop new segments if Mama
Speaker 4: May are out Loud just for Mamma May As subscribers
Speaker 4: follow the link in the show notes to get your
Speaker 4: daily dose of out Loud and a big thank you
Speaker 4: to everyone who is already subscribed.
Speaker 6: Oftentimes, I will do everything that the real bridesmat will do.
Speaker 6: So we'll have our initial phone calls where we'll get
Speaker 6: to know each other. I'll go on the brill Shower,
Speaker 6: the bachelorette party. I'll help with the rehearsal dinner. I'll
Speaker 6: show up for that, I'll walk down the aisle at
Speaker 6: the wedding, I'll give this speech. So really, all of
Speaker 6: those main points that a friend would do, or a
Speaker 6: brides meeat would do, I do exactly that.
Speaker 4: This week on No Filter, I interviewed a professional bridesmaid.
Speaker 4: And by professional, I don't mean in the colloquial sense
Speaker 4: that she's done it a lot, or that she's really
Speaker 4: good at it, although she is and she has. I
Speaker 4: mean it's her business and she gets paid to be
Speaker 4: a bridesmaid. Her name is Jen Glance. She's the founder
Speaker 4: of a business called Bridesmaid for Hire, and she's been
Speaker 4: a bridesmaid over one hundred and twenty five times. It
Speaker 4: all began in her twenties. You know, your phase of
Speaker 4: your life. I don't know if it happened to you guys.
Speaker 4: I only got asked twice. Maybe because I'm a terrible bridesmaid.
Speaker 4: I didn't get asked any more times. But you go
Speaker 4: through a phase where a lot of your friends are
Speaker 4: getting married and you might be a bridesmaid a lot
Speaker 4: of times.
Speaker 1: And she started thinking.
Speaker 4: This is a lot of work. I am good at it,
Speaker 4: but it is a lot of work. And so she
Speaker 4: put an ad on Craigslist saying that she was for hire,
Speaker 4: and she got inundated.
Speaker 1: So have a listen. Here's a little bit of our interview.
Speaker 6: You know, some people reach out and they say, I
Speaker 6: want to hire you, but I want to make sure
Speaker 6: that nobody ever finds out. And I respect that. You know,
Speaker 6: they want this as a service that is completely undercover,
Speaker 6: and in most instances that's how it works. I'll have
Speaker 6: a fake name, a fake backstory for how I know
Speaker 6: the person, and I will just pretend to be part
Speaker 6: of their life from some area of their life, whether
Speaker 6: it's yoga class, or grade school or study abroad. I
Speaker 6: will just blend into their life. And sometimes they don't
Speaker 6: even tell the person that they're marrying that they hired me.
Speaker 1: Hollywood, did you.
Speaker 2: Think I loved this interview? I knew I wanted to
Speaker 2: listen to it immediately, But while I was listening to it,
Speaker 2: I had two very different opinions about it, which is
Speaker 2: why I really wanted to talk about it on the show.
Speaker 2: First of all, Jen says that one of the reasons
Speaker 2: why her service is needed and has done quite well.
Speaker 2: Is that a lot of women do not have the
Speaker 2: kind of friends or family that you could ask to
Speaker 2: be a bridesmaid. And I think when you hear the
Speaker 2: surface of that, it feels like something really sad, and
Speaker 2: it speaks to like perhaps loneliness and disconnection and social isolation.
Speaker 2: And I was like, yeah, that's sad. And then I
Speaker 2: thought about it a bit more and I thought, oh,
Speaker 2: is it that, like a lot of things, we've elevated
Speaker 2: the status of these kind of jobs, like bridesmaid has become.
Speaker 2: Rather than just being your mate turning up and wearing
Speaker 2: a dress and standing next to you, we now expect
Speaker 2: and you go into this a lot on the show
Speaker 2: Kitchen Tees, engagement parties, hens nights, Da da da da da,
Speaker 2: like basically dedicating your life to this person for six months.
Speaker 2: And I know that's a stereotype and not everybody does it,
Speaker 2: but we've made the job much harder than it used
Speaker 2: to be. Add on top of that, the fact that
Speaker 2: women's work in inverted commas, whether it's organizing the office
Speaker 2: birthday parties and leaving cupcakes or you know, all the
Speaker 2: volunteer things that women do at schools and all of
Speaker 2: those kind of things has always been women's work, and
Speaker 2: maybe once that was literally women's work, at least in
Speaker 2: some quarters. They weren't doing paid work, so that was
Speaker 2: literally the things that filled their day. And I don't
Speaker 2: think that world ever really existed, but certainly it doesn't anymore.
Speaker 2: So women are doing paid work and all the unpaid work,
Speaker 2: and you hear people all the time saying pay women
Speaker 2: for their labor, and so I was like, maybe this
Speaker 2: is just a very good example of paying women for
Speaker 2: their labor rather than expecting people to do it for free.
Speaker 3: Or is this a symptom of a capitalist structure where
Speaker 3: we have started to commodify any exchange of service, any
Speaker 3: exchange of service, it's like, oh, I'm going to charge
Speaker 3: you for that, which is what the playdate thing was
Speaker 3: all about as well.
Speaker 4: But this is real, to be clear, It is not pretend.
Speaker 4: It's not rage bait. This is an actual business. We
Speaker 4: established this.
Speaker 3: I had to go really deep on the website to
Speaker 3: understand what was being promised and what the service was
Speaker 3: because it's not just turning up in address. It is
Speaker 3: phone calls, you know, being someone to talk to, and
Speaker 3: like it's a lot of emotional support a lot of emotional.
Speaker 1: It's not a wedding planner. That's different. No, it's not
Speaker 1: actually about the wedding, it's about the bride.
Speaker 3: At first, I was like, wait, why aren't you just
Speaker 3: paying a wedding planner. If you can afford this, just
Speaker 3: pay a wedding planner to organize it. And also, if
Speaker 3: when you are someone to be your bride'smaid with that
Speaker 3: is coming a list of keeper form, it's indicators and expectations,
Speaker 3: then there's something very wrong with that arrangement and that's
Speaker 3: not fair. We shouldn't be doing that to each other.
Speaker 3: But looking at what she was promising, I was also like, well,
Speaker 3: these are also just features of friendship.
Speaker 4: Right, Like, well, I think Hole nailed it in that
Speaker 4: they used to be when being a bride'smaid was just
Speaker 4: kind of hold my handbag while I'm walking down the eye.
Speaker 3: Should a bridesmaid be any different to a groomsman? I
Speaker 3: understand that it has been because.
Speaker 4: Brides are very different to grooms and have a lot
Speaker 4: more needs. Have you ever met a bride?
Speaker 3: Well, I was a bride and I had bridesmaids, and
Speaker 3: they do well, this is the thing I didn't expect
Speaker 3: a single thing from them if I'm having a wedding,
Speaker 3: I don't think it's on them. They work full time.
Speaker 3: One of them has a baby like I didn't expect.
Speaker 4: See, I've been a bridesmaid, and I know that I
Speaker 4: let down the brides. I wasn't was I matro, I
Speaker 4: don't know what I was. And this was a long
Speaker 4: time ago before things got out of control with bridesmaids.
Speaker 4: But I think now it's that you're very much responsible
Speaker 4: for making it her day of days emotionally. I don't
Speaker 4: mean again like the flowers and the catering, it's not
Speaker 4: your job, but helping a bride navigate the emotions of
Speaker 4: a wedding day is a lot of work. I don't
Speaker 4: just mean the be there when she called, but if
Speaker 4: it's like come to all my fittings and do this
Speaker 4: and do that, and I need you to organize this,
Speaker 4: it is a huge amount of work. And if you'd
Speaker 4: have been a bride'smaid, and I know you have been
Speaker 4: a couple of times for brides who perhaps had demanded
Speaker 4: more of you than you were capable of giving. Isn't
Speaker 4: it just better for everybody to acknowledge their either their
Speaker 4: limitations as a bridesmaid or their needs as a bride
Speaker 4: and commodify it and it's just an expense, just like
Speaker 4: everything else in a wedding.
Speaker 2: I think you're absolutely right, Jesse, if you've got reasonable expectations,
Speaker 2: as you did. But because maybe I'm sure that Instagram
Speaker 2: and everything has a very large part to play in this.
Speaker 2: If you are expected to give up large portions of
Speaker 2: your life and time to basically become somebody's sort of
Speaker 2: de facto fixer for months and months and months, that
Speaker 2: is work.
Speaker 3: That's a paid position. Absolutely. I don't think it's one
Speaker 3: of bride'smaid and I think if you are, is it
Speaker 3: decepting people? Like if there's deception at your wedding, that's
Speaker 3: a bit unusual. Like if you're paying someone, you can
Speaker 3: also just have them as your assistant or whatever and
Speaker 3: they don't have to be in the bridal party pretending
Speaker 3: that you do. Yogashi get such.
Speaker 4: An interesting point because I was going to say that,
Speaker 4: as Whole pointed out, Instagram and everything has just changed.
Speaker 4: I mean, like boomers wouldn't have had wedding planners, right
Speaker 4: unless you are super super rich. That's a relatively new think.
Speaker 4: Gene's the first generation that have and not everyone has
Speaker 4: a wedding planner. You just used to organize it yourself.
Speaker 4: So the idea of paying someone to organize your wedding
Speaker 4: in the same way that paying someone to walk your dog, like,
Speaker 4: we have commodified a whole lot of shit.
Speaker 1: That we used to do. It's the outsource culture.
Speaker 4: But I think that you made a great point, Jesse
Speaker 4: in the part about the deception, and it goes back
Speaker 4: to what you say whole about it being lonely, because
Speaker 4: it's not just that you need the emotional support, but
Speaker 4: that you need the kind of friend that can just
Speaker 4: be completely selfless. So it's about your expectations of your
Speaker 4: friends as well as what you practically need from a bridesmaid.
Speaker 3: And I've seen this online even like money being exchanged
Speaker 3: and someone's offering to basically have a conversation with you
Speaker 3: or go for a walk with you, and that stuff
Speaker 3: makes me feel sad. I understand, I understand people's loneliness
Speaker 3: and they don't know where to start, but I just
Speaker 3: kept looking at it going you don't need a bridesmaid.
Speaker 3: You could have one less bridesmaid. In fact, you don't
Speaker 3: need a wedding.
Speaker 1: But you're right, But it's about.
Speaker 4: That artifice that I've got someone who loves me so
Speaker 4: much that they will do this for free. Yeah, it's
Speaker 4: the hiding part. It's the hiding part.
Speaker 3: And that's a flex that's right, right.
Speaker 2: But also, I mean, you're right, of course that it
Speaker 2: is sad to have to ask for that, but also
Speaker 2: you know, and we're probably guilty of this. I am
Speaker 2: amazed at the amount of negative And I'm not a
Speaker 2: wedding person, as you know, I'm not married and whatever,
Speaker 2: but I'm amazed at the amount of bitching everybody does
Speaker 2: about weddings constantly.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 2: There are whole Facebook groups on this. I didn't like
Speaker 2: the food, and they asked me to do too much
Speaker 2: and I had to travel and I had to pay,
Speaker 2: and like now, I would feel almost if I was
Speaker 2: in this position being a bride, like I don't want
Speaker 2: to ask my friend because she's going to think I'm
Speaker 2: going to turn her into a slave, and I'm not
Speaker 2: going to turn her into a slave. And you will.
Speaker 1: And that's the thing.
Speaker 4: Brides have a very particular view generally until they become brides,
Speaker 4: you change. So I think that brides still think that
Speaker 4: asking someone to be your bride'smaid is a huge honor,
Speaker 4: and I think.
Speaker 3: It's honored when I've been asked to be a bridesmade it.
Speaker 3: It was an honor, and I don't think that we
Speaker 3: should normalize. I was honored to normalize this thing. I
Speaker 3: understand people saying talking about the money, but I also
Speaker 3: think this is just about the erosion of friendship and
Speaker 3: again how everything kind of comes back to money. Like
Speaker 3: I do kind of get it. I get saying I've
Speaker 3: been asked to be a bridesmaid and I have to
Speaker 3: organize his hands and it's going to cost me this much,
Speaker 3: and da da da da da, Like if they're your mate,
Speaker 3: can you not talk about that?
Speaker 4: But I just think maybe that hiring a bridesmaid to
Speaker 4: do all the actual work that's involved is actually a
Speaker 4: really generous gift to your friends because then they can
Speaker 4: just enjoy being bridesmaids because they don't have to do
Speaker 4: any of the work, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't think that it's a job. I don't
Speaker 3: think it's a role. I think bridesmaids show up on
Speaker 3: the date. You need to get address and some shoes
Speaker 3: and walk down an aisle or not.
Speaker 4: I'll put a link in the show notes to that
Speaker 4: episode of No Filter.
Speaker 1: How A listen to Jen.
Speaker 4: She has some funny stories about times that she's been
Speaker 4: fired and times that she's had to.
Speaker 1: Fire brides Mia. Do you have any superstitions?
Speaker 3: You do have superstitions because you.
Speaker 2: Like touching me.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I had to actually wean myself off touch would I've
Speaker 4: got a little bit unhealthy about touching wood in that
Speaker 4: I had to travel with a stick for a while
Speaker 4: in my car, in my pocket. Everywhere I went, I
Speaker 4: had to have a stick. I had to sometimes if
Speaker 4: I was thinking something, I'd have to stop the car
Speaker 4: and find some wood if I didn't have a stick
Speaker 4: in the car.
Speaker 3: Okay, because we talked on yesterday's subscriber episode Holly and
Speaker 3: I and m Vernham about superstitions. We were talking about
Speaker 3: Olympic athletes and some of the more unusual superstitions they have.
Speaker 3: Sarna Williams famously has some the things.
Speaker 1: You see them do before they yeah compete.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, And we talked about kind of the definition
Speaker 3: of a superstition if we have any, if we think
Speaker 3: they actually do work. It was such an interesting episode.
Speaker 3: A link to that will be in the show notes.
Speaker 2: Massive Thank you to all of you out louders for
Speaker 2: being with us on this Wednesday, and of course to
Speaker 2: our fabulous team for putting it together. We're going to
Speaker 2: be back in your ears tomorrow.
Speaker 3: Bye, goodbye.
Speaker 2: Shout out to any Mama Maya subscribers listening. If you
Speaker 2: love the show and you want to support us, subscribing
Speaker 2: to Mamma Mia is the very best way to do it.
Speaker 2: There's a link in the episode description.