Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to mom, and we are out loud.
Speaker 1: It's what women are actually talking about on Wednesday August.
Speaker 1: I'm Holly Wayne right, I'm Amelia Last, and I'm ever
Speaker 1: And here's what's on our agenda for today. There's one
Speaker 1: oussie man who has been everywhere we look this week,
Speaker 1: and people have plenty of thoughts about him. We are
Speaker 1: unpacking the Luke Bateman of it all.
Speaker 2: Plus the case for not answering every email.
Speaker 3: And young people have rebranded weddings and non young people
Speaker 3: are very confused.
Speaker 1: But First and Vernon, in case you missed it.
Speaker 3: Jest have made some big changes to their baggage policy.
Speaker 3: So starting next year, customers will need to pay upwards
Speaker 3: of twenty five dollars to put their bags in the
Speaker 3: overhead locker space that has been traditionally been free. So
Speaker 3: this isn't a first like this has been happening all
Speaker 3: over Europe for some time with smaller airlines like Ryan
Speaker 3: Air an EasyJet. My question is, is this late stage capitalism?
Speaker 3: Why am I paying money for taking my bag on
Speaker 3: a plane?
Speaker 4: Please?
Speaker 1: So Jet Star say and this and the other airlines
Speaker 1: say that part of this is our fault. They like
Speaker 1: to blame us for this, and it is true when
Speaker 1: you look at the behavior in the line and to
Speaker 1: get on a plane, that's true. No one wants to
Speaker 1: check anything in anymore, like it didn't used to be
Speaker 1: like that, Like we used to check things in, but
Speaker 1: now if you think about it, you know influencers are like,
Speaker 1: I can travel around Europe for three months with this
Speaker 1: tiny carry on bag and you know packing cubes will
Speaker 1: save you from check in. No one wants to check
Speaker 1: in at all, and so everybody's trying to carry their
Speaker 1: three months worth of clothes in something that they can
Speaker 1: squish into the overhead locker.
Speaker 2: I also think that Australians don't know how to use
Speaker 2: the overhead lockers or tell me I'm dropping a truth
Speaker 2: bomb here. This is like when Claire said Australians don't
Speaker 2: like sport. They don't understand how to put their suitcases in.
Speaker 2: You mean how so they're putting them in both horizontally
Speaker 2: and vertically. The suitcase needs to be stacked on its.
Speaker 1: Side so that you can put it on the side
Speaker 1: with the wheels to the.
Speaker 2: Wa correct And I'm just not seeing this happen. I've
Speaker 2: never seen that happen. No it's not routine here. It
Speaker 2: needs to become routine. And the other thing that I'm
Speaker 2: seeing that Australians need to stop doing is they put
Speaker 2: stuff up up in the overhead that is not a suitcase.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, Like, it's great for you that you packed
Speaker 2: a backpack. Backpack goes under your seat.
Speaker 1: That's exactly what the airline say.
Speaker 2: Agree.
Speaker 3: So what has been happening with a lot of airlines
Speaker 3: recently has been people bringing in their carry on luggage
Speaker 3: the airline going, oh my god, there's not going to
Speaker 3: be enough space on this plane for the carry on luggage.
Speaker 3: Let's start weighing the luggage and then if your luggage
Speaker 3: is over a settin limit, you have to pay naughty naughty.
Speaker 1: So, and I fly a bit for work, like quick flights,
Speaker 1: so I love a carry on, And I was thinking,
Speaker 1: why do I love a carry on? Why am I
Speaker 1: so afraid of checking in? And for me, it's not
Speaker 1: the other end. It's when I get to the airport,
Speaker 1: like I have anxiety about like being like not having
Speaker 1: enough time. So I love just being able to walk
Speaker 1: straight through security, right, So that's my thing. But once
Speaker 1: I get inside, I get really tense about whether or
Speaker 1: not there's going to be room for my carry on. Yes,
Speaker 1: so you have to get to the gate really early,
Speaker 1: be one of those idiots who's standing in line really early.
Speaker 1: All those things anyway, So I think the idea is
Speaker 1: is they want to do away with all the idiots
Speaker 1: like me and be like, check your freaking bag in
Speaker 1: or pay some money.
Speaker 2: I actually kind of love it, to be honest, I
Speaker 2: think this She'll be right. Attitude has been extended to
Speaker 2: overhead luggage compartments for too long. We have to get
Speaker 2: serious about it in this country. It's a problem that
Speaker 2: we need to tackle, much like the housing crisis that
Speaker 2: we tackle the overhead compartment the.
Speaker 1: Overhead housing crisis.
Speaker 3: What does worry me about the future is I'm very similar.
Speaker 3: I get quite anxious when it comes to taking my bag,
Speaker 3: mainly because I'm scared I won't be able to lift
Speaker 3: my bag and I'll fall over by putting it in.
Speaker 3: So I always always put my bag under my seat.
Speaker 3: It's always more not to put on a seat. I'm
Speaker 3: scared that people are going to start going that bag
Speaker 3: looks too big to be under your seat. You need
Speaker 3: to pay twenty five dollars to overhead.
Speaker 1: Because imagine, think about what we try and cram into
Speaker 1: the overhead lockers. Now we're going to be trying to
Speaker 1: cram that under the seat. I like they're going to
Speaker 1: be like sticking out across people like man spreading all
Speaker 1: the way across the three seat.
Speaker 2: I also think it's funny that they're just seeing how
Speaker 2: far they'll push this on stuff like did you see
Speaker 2: this was not a funny story. It was. It was
Speaker 2: a disturbing story, but the way the airline dealt with
Speaker 2: it was funny. There was a couple who flew Ryan
Speaker 2: Air to Greece, a European couple this summer, a husband
Speaker 2: and wife, and on their way back home from Greece,
Speaker 2: they were on this Ryan Air flight and the window
Speaker 2: opened and this man got half sucked the flight. He's
Speaker 2: fine now, But do you know what the airline did
Speaker 2: to say sorry? What they offered him a flight voucher
Speaker 2: to rebook that leg as a flight that's not really
Speaker 2: going to do it right now is this.
Speaker 4: Leg from the inside of the plane.
Speaker 2: I've already gotten home now, and thankfully I'm fine. I
Speaker 2: don't want to fly with you again on this particular leg.
Speaker 1: He probably got home on a boat are you getting
Speaker 1: on a plane after that happens. One man has been
Speaker 1: all over the Australian media this week. Some of us
Speaker 1: have been aware of him for a while. In fact,
Speaker 1: we did talk about him on out Loud before, and
Speaker 1: we're going to get to why we talked about him
Speaker 1: on out Loud before. But plenty of people have plenty
Speaker 1: of opinions about him, and I wanted to unpack some
Speaker 1: of the Luke Bateman nos. I don't think you're very familiar.
Speaker 2: With him, why people have opinions. He seems like a
Speaker 2: really great guy to me, so I'm excited to hear
Speaker 2: the n wance.
Speaker 1: No, he is a really well I think so too.
Speaker 1: I think he is also a really great guy. I
Speaker 1: think in a world where we need more positive male
Speaker 1: role models, I'm very much on the Luke Bateman train.
Speaker 1: Em has her own reasons, which we'll get you.
Speaker 4: To that later.
Speaker 1: The reason you've seen him around this week is that
Speaker 1: he he has been telling the story of his own
Speaker 1: gambling addiction, which also led to drugs and alcohol addiction,
Speaker 1: either on ABC's Australian Story him talking about that, or
Speaker 1: at the Senate Inquiry into gambling ads in Canberra. Now
Speaker 1: his testimony there was really moving and important. The Quickie
Speaker 1: today is all about that, so I'm not going to
Speaker 1: talk about that too much, but suffice to say that
Speaker 1: when he was a footballer, because he played NRL for
Speaker 1: the Camber Raiders for a long time, he said gambling
Speaker 1: was like breathing. It was just like everybody did it
Speaker 1: all the time. On his eighteenth birthday, because he was
Speaker 1: playing football at quite a high level from his young teens,
Speaker 1: he was taken to a casino to celebrate his eighteenth
Speaker 1: birthday by his teammates and then from there his addiction
Speaker 1: took off. But I want to give a bit of
Speaker 1: background into him because I think he is so interesting
Speaker 1: in terms of why I think he's so compelling to everybody. Right,
Speaker 1: he grew up in a small town in western Queensland,
Speaker 1: mad footballer from a very young age, but also a
Speaker 1: mad reader, and those two things are not something that
Speaker 1: we see paired up a lot in that hyper masculine culture,
Speaker 1: as he calls it.
Speaker 2: Here.
Speaker 1: He is about loving books from a young age and
Speaker 1: how he had to kind of turn away from them
Speaker 1: when he was playing footy.
Speaker 5: Whenever I tell him in my bookcase, people all they said,
Speaker 5: books but for me, this is a journey through my
Speaker 5: entire life. When I was younger, I didn't feel comfortable
Speaker 5: talking about my love of reading. I was always very
Speaker 5: secretive and felt quite a lot of shame around my
Speaker 5: love of reading because it was not something that men did,
Speaker 5: especially not fantasy.
Speaker 6: It wouldn't surprise me if Luke felt that he had died.
Speaker 6: But from the footy scene or the footy culture, there
Speaker 6: are a lot of unspoken rules about how you're supposed.
Speaker 4: To portray yourself.
Speaker 6: And I guess reading books was kind of marked as
Speaker 6: like feminine.
Speaker 5: Because I was around boys all the time. I would
Speaker 5: never ever pull my books out I wanted to read,
Speaker 5: I would lock myself in a toilet.
Speaker 1: Isn't that interesting?
Speaker 2: Yes? And who's that woman who's to do?
Speaker 1: That's one of his friends who's interviewed on Australian Story.
Speaker 1: But I find that so fascinating because if you're parenting boys,
Speaker 1: which obviously I have been I am I have been
Speaker 1: doing for some time now, for fourteen years, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of angst around about boys and reading. Right, We've
Speaker 1: talked about it a little bit, and I think you've
Speaker 1: talked about it on parenting. How that there's a lot
Speaker 1: of angs around about boys and reading, and it's really
Speaker 1: interesting to hear it spelled out so plainly, like he's
Speaker 1: a little boy who says he loved reading from an
Speaker 1: early age, loved reading fantasy, but he quickly realized it
Speaker 1: was like something he had to hide and do in secret.
Speaker 2: It is really interesting. It reminds me that my dad
Speaker 2: loves reading, like it's probably his greatest passion in life,
Speaker 2: apart from his children, obviously, and he always wanted to
Speaker 2: start a book club. And we're talking in retirement, and
Speaker 2: just men don't want to be in a book club.
Speaker 2: They don't want to sort of vocal out loud that
Speaker 2: they like reading and that they want to talk about books.
Speaker 2: And it's sad that even a sort of immaturity because
Speaker 2: their luke is talking about being a child and ashamed
Speaker 2: of it. But I think that that stigma around men
Speaker 2: and reading sadly continues through life.
Speaker 3: And so many of them genuinely enjoy it. I have
Speaker 3: a friend who's in his late twenties who's just taken
Speaker 3: up reading for the first time, and when he was
Speaker 3: explaining how he had just not read until like unless
Speaker 3: he was in school, like back in the day, he said,
Speaker 3: it's because like boys weren't actually taught how to read.
Speaker 4: And I don't mean.
Speaker 3: Physically how to read, but the culture of reading, Like
Speaker 3: they don't talk about books. I don't know when to
Speaker 3: grab a book, they don't know how to find books
Speaker 3: or how to find what they enjoy reading. And he's like,
Speaker 3: there's this whole part of reading that we just never
Speaker 3: enjoyed because we never taught how to enjoy it.
Speaker 2: That's so true. If you go into any bookshop, you
Speaker 2: know how bookshops these days a sort of half bookshop
Speaker 2: half gift shop. Yeah, and all of those gifts related
Speaker 2: to reading, the jigsaw puzz the novelty mugs, the calendars,
Speaker 2: you got, the Jane Austen ones, you got the romanticy ones.
Speaker 2: But there's not a lot of like book related stuff
Speaker 2: that's masculine coded.
Speaker 3: So when I found Luke Bateman, it was about I
Speaker 3: think it was a few years ago now. He was
Speaker 3: on TikTok And this was when I started getting into romanticy,
Speaker 3: Like I was reading the Akatar series, I was reading
Speaker 3: the Fourth Wing series and had big romanty novels and
Speaker 3: I've become so so famous, And it was this guy
Speaker 3: sitting in his tractor, This very attractive, muscly guy, rugged
Speaker 3: up sitting in his tractor holding an Akatar book and saying,
Speaker 3: I'm so excited to read this.
Speaker 1: So what led him to that? To the point where
Speaker 1: Emily discovers him. Right, So he has this football career,
Speaker 1: as he describes it, in a hyper masculine environment from
Speaker 1: a very young age. One of the he talks now,
Speaker 1: obviously about where that led him in terms of our
Speaker 1: coll abuse drug also how he sought and was treating
Speaker 1: women during that time. He's very honest about it, which
Speaker 1: I also really respect. So rather than pretending that he's
Speaker 1: always been this really enlightened guy who sort of understood
Speaker 1: all the codes that a man in twenty twenty six shoot,
Speaker 1: he doesn't say that. He says that he cheated on
Speaker 1: a lot of girlfriends. He thinks he has a lot
Speaker 1: of internalized misogyny from those years when his life fell apart.
Speaker 1: So the addiction issues and the gambling got to the
Speaker 1: point that he was actually thinking of taking his own life.
Speaker 1: In an Australian story, he talks about this night that
Speaker 1: his mother had to spend on the phone with him
Speaker 1: all night, talking him literally off a ledge. He went,
Speaker 1: he pulled out of all of that world, went to rehab,
Speaker 1: went to therapy, and moved back to the country. So
Speaker 1: his mum and his stepdad were like, we'll pay off
Speaker 1: your debts and help you out of this, but you
Speaker 1: have to come and work for your stepdad in this
Speaker 1: timber business way out in the middle of nowhere, in
Speaker 1: outback queens right farm. So he's living in a little
Speaker 1: shed there and he's back in his love of reading. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he has no Internet connection because of the gambling addiction,
Speaker 1: but when he gets one, the man makes a TikTok.
Speaker 1: This is where you see him started. His fame comes
Speaker 1: really quickly. Now somewhere in between this he does also
Speaker 1: appear on The Bachelor, so there. So he obviously has
Speaker 1: an interest in like probably his charisma is kind of undeniable.
Speaker 3: Yeah, especially in his TikTok's. When I first saw his
Speaker 3: first TikTok, I think it only had like around three
Speaker 3: thousand views, which in TikTok language is not a lot
Speaker 3: of views. And then I saw a second TikTok and
Speaker 3: it was in the millions.
Speaker 1: He says he got on there, started talking about books
Speaker 1: he couldn't believe it.
Speaker 4: It just went.
Speaker 1: And this talks to the fact that women love men
Speaker 1: who read. We talked about that before. All his followers
Speaker 1: are all women. All of his comments are all women,
Speaker 1: and it's women who are like thirsting over him, who
Speaker 1: are obsessed, as well as women who are just genuinely intrigued.
Speaker 1: And he has to say about their favorite books. And
Speaker 1: he just got the like it feels like two separate
Speaker 1: audiences that he's just got together. Does he have a
Speaker 1: partner at the moment, Not that he's publicly disclosing.
Speaker 2: So he did go on.
Speaker 4: I did see him on Bumble a year ago.
Speaker 1: He did not match with me, and that's why you
Speaker 1: have tension with him.
Speaker 4: And we both like romanticy just saying just putting out there, look.
Speaker 1: Okays like when Travis put out there on the New
Speaker 1: Heights podcast about Taylor, all right.
Speaker 2: She's.
Speaker 1: Luke, Well you did anyway. So he becomes, as we say,
Speaker 1: like a bit of a thirst trap, but also very
Speaker 1: sort of embraced by the BookTalk community. Then he gets
Speaker 1: a book deal. Here's a little grap about what happened
Speaker 1: then book Talk.
Speaker 5: I just wanted to share some incredible news with you all.
Speaker 5: I've just signed a two book deal with Atriar. So
Speaker 5: when I first announced my book deal, it receives a
Speaker 5: heap of criticism and backlash.
Speaker 3: You stepped on a lot of people's next to get
Speaker 3: a two book deal, and some people just get the
Speaker 3: silver spoon.
Speaker 2: Man was just handed a publishing deal basically because his weight,
Speaker 2: he's hot, and he has a strong book type platform. Boom,
Speaker 2: here's a publishing deal.
Speaker 6: It's quite rare in my experience to receive that kind
Speaker 6: of attention for a fantasy novel of four things.
Speaker 5: This is a childhood dream come true for me. What
Speaker 5: really upset me about it was that I'd spent thirty
Speaker 5: years in my life loving books, loving reading, loving writings,
Speaker 5: and then I'd finally join this community where I felt like, oh,
Speaker 5: I'm home, just where I belong, and then all of
Speaker 5: a sudden, that community turned on me.
Speaker 1: So the voices you heard in that clip were from
Speaker 1: two book talkers, authors of color, questioning whether Luke Bateman
Speaker 1: would have got this deal if he hadn't been a
Speaker 1: white man. You also heard from his publisher sort of
Speaker 1: defending why he got his deal and the reaction to it.
Speaker 1: Part of what you've got to understand about this and
Speaker 1: obviously I'm in this industry. Is book deals are incredibly
Speaker 1: hard to get. I don't know if that's something you
Speaker 1: have to spell out, but like a lot of people
Speaker 1: spend their entire life dreaming of getting a book deal,
Speaker 1: submitting manuscripts, approaching agents, like trying try and trying to
Speaker 1: break into this very difficult world. There is a model
Speaker 1: of scarcity in publishing, no question. And I also have
Speaker 1: to say that it is not unusual for people with
Speaker 1: big social media followings of all kinds to get a
Speaker 1: leg up and an open and a door open into
Speaker 1: that world before anyone else.
Speaker 3: I think it felt for the book talk community who
Speaker 3: are avid readers.
Speaker 4: I think it felt a bit of like a betrayal.
Speaker 3: Like this beautiful man says that he loves Roman to
Speaker 3: See and he's getting the word out there. Maybe he's
Speaker 3: going to convince his friends to also read Roman to See.
Speaker 3: Because for a long time Roman to See a lot
Speaker 3: of people coined it as like very smart, and it
Speaker 3: was seen as something you should be embarrassed about, something
Speaker 3: that you should like turn away from, that you should
Speaker 3: don't want to be reading out in public. And then
Speaker 3: we have this guy who's like the epitome of what
Speaker 3: looks like privilege reading these books, like from so many
Speaker 3: women who felt like they should have been embarrassed to
Speaker 3: read these books, going these books are very cool. He
Speaker 3: comes out with a book deal, and then where all
Speaker 3: like was this his plan all along was to just
Speaker 3: pretend to like these books, get this massive audience because
Speaker 3: he knows he's very good looking and he's a beautiful voice.
Speaker 3: And then he's just making money off of this book deal.
Speaker 1: So if you take him at face value from his
Speaker 1: content and his Australian story, and from what he's doing
Speaker 1: now in terms of his advocacy work, I would be
Speaker 1: inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt as
Speaker 1: obviously a lot of the industry is doing, which is
Speaker 1: that his love of books is reading. It's not he
Speaker 1: didn't wake up one day. I mean, maybe we may
Speaker 1: well be proved wrong on that, but he didn't just
Speaker 1: wake up one day in his cabin in the woods
Speaker 1: and go I'm going to become a massive you know,
Speaker 1: you know, a quick way to get famous would be
Speaker 1: to be a BookTok influencer. However, there is no question
Speaker 1: that that world like a very maskie you know, footballer
Speaker 1: guy with the gruff voice and all those things. Stepping
Speaker 1: into that world has a lot of it's very different,
Speaker 1: it's very different from what else is out there, and
Speaker 1: so it was very clever marketing for him to do that.
Speaker 1: Whether where however it came about. I haven't heard about
Speaker 1: what the book is like, but as he says, and
Speaker 1: what is published to say, it's real people don't publish.
Speaker 1: I'm sure there'll be people shouting at my phone and
Speaker 1: saying that's not true. Publishers aren't going to publish Trash
Speaker 1: because it's got Luke Bateman's name on it, because they
Speaker 1: also know that the scrutiny on this is going to
Speaker 1: be huge, So would be really interesting to see where
Speaker 1: it goes. He now is often at literary events. But
Speaker 1: one of the things I think about Bateman is that,
Speaker 1: aside almost I'm really impressed with how he walks his
Speaker 1: talk in terms of speaking out about domestic violence around sport,
Speaker 1: because so few do, like really really so few football
Speaker 1: as men from within that culture do. Lots of the
Speaker 1: rest of us do talk about it all the time,
Speaker 1: talk about you know, domestic violence spiking during state of origin,
Speaker 1: talking about the culture needing to shift, talking about the
Speaker 1: different standards for footballers than other professionals when it comes
Speaker 1: to being on different kinds of violence charges. But he does,
Speaker 1: and I find that really encouraging.
Speaker 2: I agree. And also gambling. There are a lot of
Speaker 2: people who in this country who make a lot of
Speaker 2: money off gambling, and I think it's brave of him
Speaker 2: to speak up to that industry when I'm sure probably
Speaker 2: it means him turning down money from that industry.
Speaker 1: And getting a lot of criticism I think from in
Speaker 1: his old world. Notably on the Australian story, the Canberra Raiders,
Speaker 1: his former team, didn't want to talk. I'm sure that
Speaker 1: he has lost some friends in that world. Let's say,
Speaker 1: did they interview any of his former teammates. They interviewed
Speaker 1: his former like flatmate kind of, but no, the footballing
Speaker 1: world were noticeably absent. So I think I think he's
Speaker 1: a really interesting character. I really want to celebrate different
Speaker 1: versions of masculinity and also versions of masculinity that kind
Speaker 1: of overlap. That's saying you can be a little boy
Speaker 1: and love football and fantasy books like of course you can,
Speaker 1: you know, like of course you can do.
Speaker 4: We think that's his real voice.
Speaker 2: Oh, I have my hopes, Wait, what do you mean?
Speaker 1: You mean like he's Nara Smith, like he puts on
Speaker 1: the voice from again. He would have that voice wowing.
Speaker 2: The big issues.
Speaker 1: As I say, the QUICKI today is all about that
Speaker 1: gambling ad reform Senate inquiry. It's really interesting, really harrowing
Speaker 1: listening actually in part, but Luke Bateman's testimony is in
Speaker 1: there in.
Speaker 2: A moment a check in on email? Is it time
Speaker 2: to get rid of the inbox zero dream? Look, I'm
Speaker 2: sure it's just a coincidence. But Donald Trump has just
Speaker 2: won his fortieth golf tournaments.
Speaker 4: Congratulations, really really good.
Speaker 2: Really good at golf, as Usay Today put it. President
Speaker 2: Donald Trump celebrated another golf win over the weekend, the
Speaker 2: latest in a long line of nearly unbelievable championship so
Speaker 2: in a characteristically modest, humble, self deprecating social media message
Speaker 2: after his shock win, Trump wrote, Unlike the rest of
Speaker 2: the field, I'm given very little time to practice because
Speaker 2: I'm focused on many other things. It's called talent, and
Speaker 2: I have it, and they don't. Well, said Donald there
Speaker 2: is it turns out an entire book about how Donald
Speaker 2: Trump cheats at golf. It's called Commander In Cheat, which
Speaker 2: I actually love as a title.
Speaker 4: Written by Luke Bateman.
Speaker 2: The author says that whenever Trump opens a new golf clause,
Speaker 2: because he has them all over the world, he plays
Speaker 2: the first club championship by himself, and then he declares
Speaker 2: himself to be the champion and he puts his name
Speaker 2: on the wall.
Speaker 3: This is exactly what I would do if I was president.
Speaker 3: That is my first move is declare myself champion of
Speaker 3: something and then forever be that champion.
Speaker 2: Funnily enough, when he's president, they've they've done the maths
Speaker 2: on this. Twenty two percent of days he's been president
Speaker 2: in the second term, he's been playing golf, which is
Speaker 2: like a pretty good figure. Like if I have if
Speaker 2: I spent twenty two percent of my days going to polarates,
Speaker 2: I think I'd think I was pretty fit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And the bit of pallarateis he is.
Speaker 2: Just really good at golf. What do you think am.
Speaker 3: I think, yeah, he's definitely really good at golf. I
Speaker 3: also know that because he's been playing by himself, I
Speaker 3: think he just has like Milania there to keep them company.
Speaker 3: So I think if there are other people who join
Speaker 3: him to play, what I think happens is that she
Speaker 3: slips them like a note and just goes it's in
Speaker 3: your best interest to lose, don't care.
Speaker 1: Don't you think that people let him win one?
Speaker 2: Oh? Absolutely? I mean apparently he also just like there's
Speaker 2: all these stories. Like one of the stories is he
Speaker 2: didn't play the first day of a particular golf championship.
Speaker 2: Editor's note, I don't not understand how golf works. It
Speaker 2: seems to be a multi day situation. So then he
Speaker 2: just simply made up a perfect score for the first
Speaker 2: day when he arrived on the second day. Just little
Speaker 2: things like that. Nice. It's called talent.
Speaker 4: Yes, I agreed.
Speaker 2: Did email change or did we? Email has turned forty
Speaker 2: and it's in the throes of an identity crisis.
Speaker 4: Happy birthday email, Happy birthday email.
Speaker 2: In the mid aughts, everyone I know aspired to inbox zero.
Speaker 2: I'm sure you remember that. But there's now this sense that,
Speaker 2: now that he is getting a little bit, a little
Speaker 2: bit older, a little bit wiser, there's a sense that
Speaker 2: that inbox zero idea was too prescriptive two one size
Speaker 2: fits all, And with the amount of email everyone's getting
Speaker 2: these days, it also just feels like trying to stop
Speaker 2: the rain from falling?
Speaker 1: Do you think that?
Speaker 2: So? Do you think that?
Speaker 1: In that inbox zero peak period, it was seen as
Speaker 1: being like, you've got your shit together, you're professional, you're organized,
Speaker 1: you get shit done.
Speaker 2: It's one of those like sort of habits that people
Speaker 2: think makes you inherently a better person. So it's like,
Speaker 2: you know, doing the cross word every Sunday, waking up
Speaker 2: with the dawn, things like that. But experts actually, interviewed
Speaker 2: for an article in the Canadian magazine The Walrus, they
Speaker 2: say that inbox zero there's no proof that it actually
Speaker 2: does make you more productive, or that it makes you
Speaker 2: a sort of more efficient worker. It's just one way
Speaker 2: of managing your inbox, and actually an increasingly unsustainable way
Speaker 2: of managing your inbox. Are you an inbox zero? I
Speaker 2: sort of before have we met? What is your number?
Speaker 2: What's your red bubble? No?
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I should have checked that before I
Speaker 1: came in here. How money is it?
Speaker 3: My work email is thirty seven thousand stop unread emails,
Speaker 3: and I think my personal.
Speaker 4: Is like one hundred and two thousand.
Speaker 2: Well, Luke Bateman's email could be in there and you
Speaker 2: wouldn't even know.
Speaker 1: See, here's the problem. With email is that it's slipped
Speaker 1: down in certainly in my world, it has slipped down
Speaker 1: the list of priority communication. So email is the least
Speaker 1: urgent form of communication to me. In a world where
Speaker 1: I've got slack, I've got WhatsApp, I've got text, I've
Speaker 1: got DMS in my Instagram and stuff. Email comes way
Speaker 1: below all of those for urgency. And one of the
Speaker 1: reasons for it is that word that we like to use,
Speaker 1: that the inidification of everything and the inertification of email
Speaker 1: has mostly been about marketing, because at least ninety nine
Speaker 1: percent of the emails in my inbox are not important
Speaker 1: even a little bit. They are press releases, no offense prs,
Speaker 1: but they are press releases. They are marketing emails. They
Speaker 1: are newsletters that I may have subscribed to, and I
Speaker 1: like it. Of course. It's a great way to get
Speaker 1: writing straight to your inbox.
Speaker 2: The Royalist alone, one of our favorite newsletters, I think,
Speaker 2: has been sending me like two emails a day view
Speaker 2: last week.
Speaker 1: It goes hard and you know, we have an email
Speaker 1: mom mirror out loud and it's full of goodness. But
Speaker 1: like if you subscribe to quite a few of those,
Speaker 1: so they're already in there. They're great, but they're not urgent,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So it is a it's
Speaker 1: a job I'll get to email, whereas a text is
Speaker 1: I need to know.
Speaker 2: Now, Okay, Devil's advocate for email, though email advocate if
Speaker 2: you will. Don't you think email? I hear all that,
Speaker 2: and I agree with that, and I do think email
Speaker 2: has become and shit of fied. But don't you think
Speaker 2: that the upside to email is greater than any of
Speaker 2: those other channels? Tell me how emails can change your life?
Speaker 2: Text messages not so much. Tell me how some examples,
Speaker 2: Like I remember one time when I was single, I
Speaker 2: got an email from someone who I'd always liked from
Speaker 2: Afar and he said, do you want to come to
Speaker 2: a dance performance this Friday?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 2: Now it turns out that he was a horrible person,
Speaker 2: but that was an exciting email ticket. He was just like,
Speaker 2: hey heard your single too, want to come to this
Speaker 2: dance before?
Speaker 1: And was that email because he didn't have your phone
Speaker 1: on exactly?
Speaker 2: Because we didn't know each other that well. Or here's
Speaker 2: another example. One time I got an email from someone
Speaker 2: who said, want to come to Taylor Swift nineteen eighty
Speaker 2: nine tour in Philadelphia because I'm a fan of your work.
Speaker 1: Wow, Okay, yeah, it's just like you never know with
Speaker 1: email because it's easier to get somebody's email, and obviously
Speaker 1: you can get someone's on Instagram handle, but if you're
Speaker 1: not on social then like it's much easier to get
Speaker 1: an email than a phone number. But Hi, so you're
Speaker 1: inbox zero? Correct I am? And have you always been?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: Is it a point of pride.
Speaker 2: No, it's not a point of pride. It's just simply
Speaker 2: the way that I work. And you know this is
Speaker 2: sort of the hackneyeded vice. It's an in box zero.
Speaker 2: But basically, I don't open an email unless I know
Speaker 2: I have time to respond to the email or to
Speaker 2: act on the email. And if I still want to
Speaker 2: see what it says but don't know I don't have
Speaker 2: time to respond, then I'll simply market is unread. Yes,
Speaker 2: once I've read.
Speaker 1: It, So I need to know. Then your magic ability
Speaker 1: to not give your email address out to because my
Speaker 1: problem is every time I buy something, whether it's online
Speaker 1: or no no ondress, So what do you say, no company?
Speaker 2: Sorry?
Speaker 1: When you're the counter at cocknot or whatever and you've
Speaker 1: bought a thing and they say, oh yeah, because.
Speaker 2: It also I act like I'm like the Bourne identicell me,
Speaker 2: what can we just get your email? And then I
Speaker 2: just say no, and I just let it hang in
Speaker 2: the air.
Speaker 1: What happens when you do that?
Speaker 2: Can I'm slightly awkward for about five seconds and then
Speaker 2: they're like, Okay, here's your receipt because you know, they
Speaker 2: also offer to email the receipt, which is witchcraft. Never
Speaker 2: let them email the receipt.
Speaker 1: This is what I need. It's that, it's the willingness
Speaker 1: to be like, have that on and do that because
Speaker 1: you don't like confront I'm terrible, it's.
Speaker 4: Right styles like you gave emy like it's pathetic.
Speaker 1: Amelia, You're correct, it's not a conference should not be
Speaker 1: a confrontation.
Speaker 2: I just don't want them to have my email. And also,
Speaker 2: you know when you get like those things where it's
Speaker 2: like twenty percent off, if you give me your email,
Speaker 2: I'll sign up and then immediately unsubscribe. That is part
Speaker 2: of the whole thing. Because I'm happy for people to
Speaker 2: have my email. I don't want companies to.
Speaker 3: Have unsubscribe that I need to get better at unrelated
Speaker 3: A really good use of email is if you're dating
Speaker 3: someone and you want to know if they really like you,
Speaker 3: you block them on everything and then they'll email you.
Speaker 3: And if they email you, that means they really like you,
Speaker 3: but they don't.
Speaker 1: They think she's blocked met specifics like a very hard
Speaker 1: they would go above and be on for the right
Speaker 1: person who to jump through. That's the same good because
Speaker 1: the thing is is back to when certification. The whole
Speaker 1: giving everyone your email thing has also made shopping worse
Speaker 1: because when you go and shop in real life, it
Speaker 1: takes five minutes to buy every thing because you've got
Speaker 1: to do phone number, email, date.
Speaker 4: Of birth and.
Speaker 2: You don't need to just make like Jason Bourne and
Speaker 2: run out a start from this article, that really made
Speaker 2: me understand why email has gotten so out of control
Speaker 2: is that the average worker gets an email or a ping,
Speaker 2: it could be any kind of notification every two minutes,
Speaker 2: but it takes twenty three minutes after that interruption to
Speaker 2: revert to the level of focus you were at beforehand.
Speaker 2: So the maths is not mathsing.
Speaker 1: I have one more question for you, email guru. Do
Speaker 1: you group your email time like as in over a
Speaker 1: course of a workday, You've got lots of tag Yes,
Speaker 1: do you do that?
Speaker 2: So?
Speaker 1: Do you? Literally, because it used to be in peak
Speaker 1: email time. I remember if you would email someone and
Speaker 1: they'd respond straight away, everyone'd be like, Wow, she's so
Speaker 1: good at a job. She responds straight away. But actually
Speaker 1: that means you're constantly being pulled away from what you're doing.
Speaker 1: So what's your tactic for that.
Speaker 2: I'm just constantly getting pulled away from what I'm doing.
Speaker 4: I wonder is because you don't.
Speaker 3: Have Instagram, so our Instagram time is your email time.
Speaker 2: I'm maybe someone will in brote me into a concert
Speaker 2: that's sold out. Look. One tip from this from this
Speaker 2: article for you non inbox zero people. It says take
Speaker 2: an email vacation, write and order. That says, I am
Speaker 2: taking the morning away from email to focus on deep
Speaker 2: work for the day.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: There's someone a productivity expert I know, and her email
Speaker 1: at the end says I, she'll know this. I'm talking
Speaker 1: about her high mount It says, I am a lark
Speaker 1: who likes to do my best work in the morning
Speaker 1: or whatever, So I will likely respond to your email
Speaker 1: at some hellish hour. Do not feel the pressure to respond.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I didn't feel any pressure to pressure. I forgot,
Speaker 1: but I really appreciate the information.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I can't continue this episode until I know
Speaker 2: how many emails you actually have languishing unread in your inbox.
Speaker 1: Holly, I don't know, Darling. Sorry, I know I have
Speaker 1: four hundred and ninety two unread text messages.
Speaker 2: Jesus Christ wait, text messages.
Speaker 1: And I just said that that were those with the messages.
Speaker 1: I answer, I have four hundred and ninety two unread
Speaker 1: text messages for sure.
Speaker 4: And you'll get to them later.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not important.
Speaker 2: If it was important, they text.
Speaker 3: Me after the break. The weddings that are getting a rebrand,
Speaker 3: so L published an article called is the Death of
Speaker 3: the Millennial Wedding Culture upon Us? In the article, the
Speaker 3: author talks about her parents' wedding that took place in
Speaker 3: the seventies, and she said the entire sabang, like all
Speaker 3: of the like the dresses, the cake, the venue, everything
Speaker 3: came to less than five thousand dollars, so compared to
Speaker 3: millennial weddings, which maybe the wedding dress alone could be
Speaker 3: five thousand dollars. She now has a theory that jen
Speaker 3: Z are going back to that place where people under
Speaker 3: thirty who are getting married are completely removing themselves from
Speaker 3: the big, glamorous wedding celebration and are instead opting for
Speaker 3: more private and cheaper ceremony options. Do we think this
Speaker 3: signifies the death of the millennial wedding? Because I am
Speaker 3: going to a wedding in a few months, and this
Speaker 3: is my first very small wedding where I'm in very
Speaker 3: close relations to this person, but I'm not going to
Speaker 3: the ceremony, and no one I know is going to
Speaker 3: the ceremony. We're just going to like a big dinner afterwards.
Speaker 3: So she and I'm very into it.
Speaker 4: I love this.
Speaker 3: I think a lot of my older relatives are also
Speaker 3: into it, but a bit confused on why it's happening.
Speaker 1: How big the dinner.
Speaker 3: The dinner I think is like I want to say,
Speaker 3: maximum seventy people.
Speaker 1: So they're having no one at the ceremony except presumably
Speaker 1: immediate family, and then seventy people at a dinner at
Speaker 1: a restaurant. And that's the wedding.
Speaker 4: Yes, And it's also in like.
Speaker 3: Midweek wedding, oh midweek yeah, wow, Okay, there's only one
Speaker 3: millennial at this table who.
Speaker 2: Had a wedding. Tell us look, I want to pour
Speaker 2: one out to the many facets of the millennial wedding.
Speaker 2: So I've made something called millennial wedding bingo. Yes, you
Speaker 2: can play along at home. Okay some of these look
Speaker 2: some of these are taken from my millennial wedding. So
Speaker 2: understand that I am not I am not looking down
Speaker 2: on these. These exactly. These are just like what made
Speaker 2: a millennial wedding. Mason jars with like fairy lights and
Speaker 2: them flowers. What do you do with like sprigs of lavender? Yeah,
Speaker 2: Edison lights like the ones that like look like you're
Speaker 2: in a factory.
Speaker 1: I did all this for a birthday party recently. Lavender
Speaker 1: in little jazz.
Speaker 2: And Edison lights.
Speaker 1: Photo Millennial pride photo photo.
Speaker 2: Boots with props like a big mustache or like a
Speaker 2: top pat, a social hashtag signature cocktails for each partner
Speaker 2: in the couple, very big alf written vows. A cake
Speaker 2: alternative like doughnuts or cupcakes. Tea first looks you know
Speaker 2: where the where the bride. A key part of a
Speaker 2: millennial wedding culture is. Your costume is not my culture,
Speaker 2: by the way, but this is what it is. The
Speaker 2: groom is like standing in a field away from the
Speaker 2: Edison lights and the Mason jars. The bride approaches him,
Speaker 2: she taps him on the shoulder. He looks around, he
Speaker 2: looks at her dress. He says, you look incredible, and
Speaker 2: they embrace. And that's a photo. That's the first look photo.
Speaker 1: I thought that happened in the wedding. Yeah, okay, I
Speaker 1: don't understand.
Speaker 2: And then finally I feel like a tricked Actually, look
Speaker 2: at her. It's sage green. You gotta have something sage
Speaker 2: green and a millennial wedding.
Speaker 1: Okay, I need to know, Amelia, because in this article
Speaker 1: they wrote that what has killed the millennial wedding, which
Speaker 1: has killed all of that which we know is definitely
Speaker 1: part of it, is one Taylor Swift Travis.
Speaker 2: Kelcey absolutely look Taylor Swift and Travis Curlsey's wedding. If
Speaker 2: millennial wedding culture kicked off with Zoe Foster and Hamish
Speaker 2: Blake's twenty eleven wedding, that they then sold the photos
Speaker 2: to New Idea because so many of these, so many
Speaker 2: of these tropes began with that wedding. It culminated in
Speaker 2: Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey's wedding, where the wedding vows
Speaker 2: were at least thirty minutes each. Reportedly, Tom Hanks fell asleep.
Speaker 2: You've seen that reporting, right, he fell asleep during the
Speaker 2: vows they were so long. And then the just Ampersante
Speaker 2: married bill boardouse Madison Square Garden. That was it. That
Speaker 2: was when the millennial wedding died.
Speaker 1: The writer of this lpiece agrees with you, Amelia, and
Speaker 1: I love that theory that there's an arc between our
Speaker 1: great our Australian Royalty Zoe and Hamish and the American
Speaker 1: royalty of them, like the excesses of Marie Antoinette and
Speaker 1: Louis the sixteenth before them. Swift and Kelsey's notual festivities
Speaker 1: feel to me like the swan song of a decadent era.
Speaker 1: I believe we are on the verge of a wedding revolution, like.
Speaker 3: That's what they're you know, when they got married and
Speaker 3: then the big screens outside Madison Square Garden said we're married,
Speaker 3: like just married, and so everyone knew. I think they
Speaker 3: should have put a disclaimer saying and no one else will.
Speaker 1: Ever be So we knew that that was the last
Speaker 1: wedding because Tom and the day signal that was the.
Speaker 2: Beginning of a new era of wedding.
Speaker 1: Wow, which is, don't even tell anyone it happened exactly.
Speaker 1: Maybe we're married, maybe we're not exactly, and like you'll
Speaker 1: never know because we're never going to show you the pictures.
Speaker 3: I feel really sad I missed this boat because, like,
Speaker 3: if I do eventually get married, I mean, it's like
Speaker 3: unschek to post my photos on Instagram?
Speaker 4: Do I have to be really slight?
Speaker 3: Do I have to come into the podcast studio with
Speaker 3: just my ring on and we all go, oh, nice ring.
Speaker 2: As long as you don't do Sage Green and Mason Jars,
Speaker 2: I think you're okay. I think, looking at why this
Speaker 2: happened the long millennial wedding era, I think it's a
Speaker 2: couple of things. Say Yes to the Dress was a
Speaker 2: seminal reality TV show for millennials. Crucially, millennial weddings coincided
Speaker 2: with the rise of Instagram and to a lesser extent, Pinterest,
Speaker 2: so you can basically track millennials getting married. It's a
Speaker 2: graph and like the rise of Instagram tracks directly onto
Speaker 2: the rise of millennials getting coming of age and getting married.
Speaker 2: And then there was also the twenty eleven movie Bridesmaids,
Speaker 2: which in my theory kind of like is Heralds the
Speaker 2: beginning of the millennial wedding age, like satirizing its excesses
Speaker 2: and saying like this is what it needs to make
Speaker 2: for a millennial wedding.
Speaker 1: Is this just about money, because the thing is is
Speaker 1: that obviously those weddings are incredibly expensive, and we live
Speaker 1: in a different financial era, and certainly gen Z is
Speaker 1: living in a different financial era, and they're probably less
Speaker 1: willing to go into debt for the pictures. Because what
Speaker 1: I noticed is we talked about the coolest people on
Speaker 1: the coolest wedding in the world, which is Gabrielle and
Speaker 1: Maddy Healy, which happened the weekend after or something Taylor
Speaker 1: and Travis's. Now Gabriette is posting the pictures of her
Speaker 1: wedding every week, just like any ordinary bride, Like she's
Speaker 1: getting her bites of her Instagram fame.
Speaker 4: They're very.
Speaker 1: Cool and avant garde wedding pictures. There's no first look
Speaker 1: there is, but it looks like somebody wants to bite somebody,
Speaker 1: and there's lots of like, you know, very gothic imagery.
Speaker 1: But she is definitely posting she wants everybody to see
Speaker 1: that because money isn't an issue for them. I wonder
Speaker 1: if do you think it's to do with money or
Speaker 1: do you think it's to do with privacy being the
Speaker 1: most We've talked about this a little bit on the
Speaker 1: show Privacy and being above the algorithm, being the most cool,
Speaker 1: prestigious thing you can be.
Speaker 3: Privacy has become cool, but I do think it's mostly
Speaker 3: about money. I've been to so many weddings, Like the
Speaker 3: minute I think I turned like twenty five, my whole
Speaker 3: life has just been weddings for the past five years.
Speaker 3: And there have been a few occasions where not really
Speaker 3: the wedding itself, but like the pre and post parties
Speaker 3: that everyone's done, and like they are much smaller, And
Speaker 3: I've noticed that I love my digitcam, like I take
Speaker 3: my digital camera everywhere, and I've noticed that I've just
Speaker 3: become like the photographer for those events because I think,
Speaker 3: like people really want photos and they really want to
Speaker 3: celebrate the day, but they can't always afford to do that,
Speaker 3: and I find that quite sad, like sometimes if you
Speaker 3: just want a wedding, you can't have it. I will
Speaker 3: say though, that it can also be a cultural thing.
Speaker 3: So if anyone wants a really big wedding marry into
Speaker 3: an Indian family, you will get it.
Speaker 4: I promise you.
Speaker 1: It will go for day to day out day. It
Speaker 1: will be amazing.
Speaker 2: I don't know if it's just I think the money
Speaker 2: thing is part of it, because I do think Millennial's
Speaker 2: got carried away doing it for the ground. But if
Speaker 2: you consider that twenty eleven was only two years after
Speaker 2: a giant financial crisis, I'm not sure it's so much
Speaker 2: money as just how our particular generation, what a particular
Speaker 2: generation regards it is aspirational because think about how I
Speaker 2: don't know, I think everyone has this experience. You're growing up,
Speaker 2: you look at pictures of your parents' wedding or people
Speaker 2: in your family's wedding in a past time, and it
Speaker 2: looks totally alien to you. But that's just because everyone's
Speaker 2: such a reflection of the times they live in. No
Speaker 2: matter how timeless or elegant you think your wedding is,
Speaker 2: it's going to reflect the times you're in. There's one
Speaker 2: exception to that rule. One wedding will never date, and
Speaker 2: that's Caroline Bassett and JFK. Junior's wedding because those dress,
Speaker 2: that dress, that photo. It looks as fresh now as
Speaker 2: it did then. True.
Speaker 1: You know the people who are sad about the idea
Speaker 1: of big weddings going because there's no question that it's so.
Speaker 1: People often say it's lovely to be together for a
Speaker 1: good read like for a positive, happy reason. But I wonder,
Speaker 1: and I know I'm an infamous anti marriage advocate, but
Speaker 1: I wonder if we confuse the dopamine energy from that
Speaker 1: with just the dopamine energy of any big party. Because
Speaker 1: we just had that big party for Brent's Brent's birthday.
Speaker 1: As said, we did do the Edison Paul Springs. I
Speaker 1: did do the Spring. It was so joyful and so
Speaker 1: great because it is lovely to have all the people
Speaker 1: that you like in a room and dance around and
Speaker 1: have the g Yeah and so, but maybe they don't
Speaker 1: have to be weddings. Maybe they could just be a rain.
Speaker 2: There's something special about weddings.
Speaker 1: Out louders. Whether you had a big, fat millennial wedding
Speaker 1: or not, you might be one of the people who
Speaker 1: gets a gift this week. Hey, you like my were done,
Speaker 1: because we are about to announce the winner of our
Speaker 1: book giveaway. We've been telling you about it. We all
Speaker 1: chose two books. You've probably got them committed to memory
Speaker 1: now we've talked about it so much. We all chose
Speaker 1: two books, and one lucky subscriber wins them all. It
Speaker 1: ends tonight, and that means that if you want to
Speaker 1: be in with a chance of winning twelve amazing books,
Speaker 1: you need to subscribe to Mama Mere today. If you
Speaker 1: are subscribed to Mamma Mia, you're already in. You don't
Speaker 1: need to worry.
Speaker 4: Good luck everyone.
Speaker 1: It's a low key wed You could win them and
Speaker 1: give them to your friend as a wedding. Hey, there's
Speaker 1: a question. Do you have to bring a gift to
Speaker 1: a low key gen z we're just having dinner on
Speaker 1: a Wednesday night wedding?
Speaker 4: Ah yeah, dab it.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, we've got you sorted with this. We'll put
Speaker 1: a link in the show notes to tell you how
Speaker 1: to subscribe and be one of the winners of the
Speaker 1: Amazing Book Stack. Otherwise, goodbye, friends, We'll see you on Friday.
Speaker 2: Bye bye.
Speaker 1: Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of the land on
Speaker 1: which we've recorded this podcast