WEBVTT - The Luke Bateman Fantasy & Millennial Wedding Bingo 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:05.240 Hello, and welcome to mom, and we are out loud. 0:00:05.280 --> 0:00:09.080 It's what women are actually talking about on Wednesday August. 0:00:09.320 --> 0:00:12.400 I'm Holly Wayne right, I'm Amelia Last, and I'm ever 0:00:12.960 --> 0:00:16.160 And here's what's on our agenda for today. There's one 0:00:16.280 --> 0:00:19.240 oussie man who has been everywhere we look this week, 0:00:19.360 --> 0:00:21.960 and people have plenty of thoughts about him. We are 0:00:22.040 --> 0:00:24.119 unpacking the Luke Bateman of it all. 0:00:24.280 --> 0:00:29.200 Plus the case for not answering every email. 0:00:29.520 --> 0:00:33.559 And young people have rebranded weddings and non young people 0:00:33.720 --> 0:00:34.800 are very confused. 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:38.640 But First and Vernon, in case you missed it. 0:00:38.680 --> 0:00:42.600 Jest have made some big changes to their baggage policy. 0:00:43.120 --> 0:00:45.879 So starting next year, customers will need to pay upwards 0:00:45.880 --> 0:00:48.239 of twenty five dollars to put their bags in the 0:00:48.280 --> 0:00:52.640 overhead locker space that has been traditionally been free. So 0:00:52.720 --> 0:00:54.920 this isn't a first like this has been happening all 0:00:54.960 --> 0:00:58.200 over Europe for some time with smaller airlines like Ryan 0:00:58.280 --> 0:01:04.400 Air an EasyJet. My question is, is this late stage capitalism? 0:01:04.520 --> 0:01:07.200 Why am I paying money for taking my bag on 0:01:07.240 --> 0:01:07.720 a plane? 0:01:07.840 --> 0:01:08.240 Please? 0:01:09.000 --> 0:01:12.760 So Jet Star say and this and the other airlines 0:01:12.800 --> 0:01:15.000 say that part of this is our fault. They like 0:01:15.040 --> 0:01:16.920 to blame us for this, and it is true when 0:01:16.920 --> 0:01:19.679 you look at the behavior in the line and to 0:01:19.720 --> 0:01:21.920 get on a plane, that's true. No one wants to 0:01:22.000 --> 0:01:24.160 check anything in anymore, like it didn't used to be 0:01:24.280 --> 0:01:26.480 like that, Like we used to check things in, but 0:01:26.600 --> 0:01:29.039 now if you think about it, you know influencers are like, 0:01:29.080 --> 0:01:31.440 I can travel around Europe for three months with this 0:01:31.560 --> 0:01:34.600 tiny carry on bag and you know packing cubes will 0:01:34.600 --> 0:01:37.080 save you from check in. No one wants to check 0:01:37.120 --> 0:01:40.160 in at all, and so everybody's trying to carry their 0:01:40.160 --> 0:01:43.360 three months worth of clothes in something that they can 0:01:43.400 --> 0:01:44.680 squish into the overhead locker. 0:01:45.040 --> 0:01:48.320 I also think that Australians don't know how to use 0:01:48.320 --> 0:01:51.200 the overhead lockers or tell me I'm dropping a truth 0:01:51.240 --> 0:01:54.480 bomb here. This is like when Claire said Australians don't 0:01:54.560 --> 0:01:58.320 like sport. They don't understand how to put their suitcases in. 0:01:59.040 --> 0:02:02.920 You mean how so they're putting them in both horizontally 0:02:03.120 --> 0:02:06.800 and vertically. The suitcase needs to be stacked on its. 0:02:06.640 --> 0:02:08.840 Side so that you can put it on the side 0:02:09.320 --> 0:02:10.200 with the wheels to the. 0:02:10.200 --> 0:02:12.920 Wa correct And I'm just not seeing this happen. I've 0:02:12.960 --> 0:02:16.320 never seen that happen. No it's not routine here. It 0:02:16.360 --> 0:02:18.919 needs to become routine. And the other thing that I'm 0:02:18.919 --> 0:02:22.200 seeing that Australians need to stop doing is they put 0:02:22.280 --> 0:02:25.800 stuff up up in the overhead that is not a suitcase. 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:28.120 I'm sorry, Like, it's great for you that you packed 0:02:28.120 --> 0:02:30.560 a backpack. Backpack goes under your seat. 0:02:30.760 --> 0:02:32.320 That's exactly what the airline say. 0:02:33.280 --> 0:02:33.640 Agree. 0:02:33.760 --> 0:02:36.080 So what has been happening with a lot of airlines 0:02:36.120 --> 0:02:41.000 recently has been people bringing in their carry on luggage 0:02:41.160 --> 0:02:42.799 the airline going, oh my god, there's not going to 0:02:42.800 --> 0:02:44.720 be enough space on this plane for the carry on luggage. 0:02:44.800 --> 0:02:47.160 Let's start weighing the luggage and then if your luggage 0:02:47.240 --> 0:02:49.600 is over a settin limit, you have to pay naughty naughty. 0:02:49.760 --> 0:02:53.880 So, and I fly a bit for work, like quick flights, 0:02:54.280 --> 0:02:57.600 so I love a carry on, And I was thinking, 0:02:57.639 --> 0:02:59.160 why do I love a carry on? Why am I 0:02:59.240 --> 0:03:01.920 so afraid of checking in? And for me, it's not 0:03:02.000 --> 0:03:04.000 the other end. It's when I get to the airport, 0:03:04.200 --> 0:03:08.480 like I have anxiety about like being like not having 0:03:08.560 --> 0:03:10.839 enough time. So I love just being able to walk 0:03:10.880 --> 0:03:14.760 straight through security, right, So that's my thing. But once 0:03:14.800 --> 0:03:17.720 I get inside, I get really tense about whether or 0:03:17.720 --> 0:03:19.560 not there's going to be room for my carry on. Yes, 0:03:19.639 --> 0:03:21.400 so you have to get to the gate really early, 0:03:21.800 --> 0:03:24.320 be one of those idiots who's standing in line really early. 0:03:24.520 --> 0:03:26.880 All those things anyway, So I think the idea is 0:03:26.880 --> 0:03:28.639 is they want to do away with all the idiots 0:03:28.840 --> 0:03:31.640 like me and be like, check your freaking bag in 0:03:32.080 --> 0:03:32.880 or pay some money. 0:03:32.919 --> 0:03:34.760 I actually kind of love it, to be honest, I 0:03:34.760 --> 0:03:37.040 think this She'll be right. Attitude has been extended to 0:03:37.080 --> 0:03:39.760 overhead luggage compartments for too long. We have to get 0:03:39.800 --> 0:03:42.040 serious about it in this country. It's a problem that 0:03:42.080 --> 0:03:46.200 we need to tackle, much like the housing crisis that 0:03:46.240 --> 0:03:48.000 we tackle the overhead compartment the. 0:03:48.080 --> 0:03:49.680 Overhead housing crisis. 0:03:49.760 --> 0:03:53.000 What does worry me about the future is I'm very similar. 0:03:53.040 --> 0:03:56.240 I get quite anxious when it comes to taking my bag, 0:03:56.480 --> 0:03:58.600 mainly because I'm scared I won't be able to lift 0:03:58.680 --> 0:04:00.800 my bag and I'll fall over by putting it in. 0:04:00.840 --> 0:04:03.119 So I always always put my bag under my seat. 0:04:03.160 --> 0:04:05.200 It's always more not to put on a seat. I'm 0:04:05.240 --> 0:04:08.040 scared that people are going to start going that bag 0:04:08.080 --> 0:04:10.200 looks too big to be under your seat. You need 0:04:10.240 --> 0:04:12.680 to pay twenty five dollars to overhead. 0:04:12.480 --> 0:04:15.400 Because imagine, think about what we try and cram into 0:04:15.400 --> 0:04:17.200 the overhead lockers. Now we're going to be trying to 0:04:17.240 --> 0:04:19.120 cram that under the seat. I like they're going to 0:04:19.160 --> 0:04:22.080 be like sticking out across people like man spreading all 0:04:22.120 --> 0:04:23.280 the way across the three seat. 0:04:23.400 --> 0:04:25.600 I also think it's funny that they're just seeing how 0:04:25.680 --> 0:04:28.159 far they'll push this on stuff like did you see 0:04:28.279 --> 0:04:30.359 this was not a funny story. It was. It was 0:04:30.400 --> 0:04:32.880 a disturbing story, but the way the airline dealt with 0:04:32.920 --> 0:04:37.080 it was funny. There was a couple who flew Ryan 0:04:37.240 --> 0:04:41.839 Air to Greece, a European couple this summer, a husband 0:04:41.839 --> 0:04:45.000 and wife, and on their way back home from Greece, 0:04:45.480 --> 0:04:47.960 they were on this Ryan Air flight and the window 0:04:48.120 --> 0:04:51.839 opened and this man got half sucked the flight. He's 0:04:51.920 --> 0:04:55.360 fine now, But do you know what the airline did 0:04:55.400 --> 0:05:00.479 to say sorry? What they offered him a flight voucher 0:05:00.560 --> 0:05:04.200 to rebook that leg as a flight that's not really 0:05:04.240 --> 0:05:05.680 going to do it right now is this. 0:05:05.720 --> 0:05:07.360 Leg from the inside of the plane. 0:05:07.360 --> 0:05:11.360 I've already gotten home now, and thankfully I'm fine. I 0:05:11.400 --> 0:05:13.839 don't want to fly with you again on this particular leg. 0:05:13.920 --> 0:05:17.720 He probably got home on a boat are you getting 0:05:17.720 --> 0:05:21.279 on a plane after that happens. One man has been 0:05:21.400 --> 0:05:24.520 all over the Australian media this week. Some of us 0:05:24.560 --> 0:05:26.120 have been aware of him for a while. In fact, 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:28.080 we did talk about him on out Loud before, and 0:05:28.080 --> 0:05:29.800 we're going to get to why we talked about him 0:05:29.800 --> 0:05:32.080 on out Loud before. But plenty of people have plenty 0:05:32.120 --> 0:05:34.279 of opinions about him, and I wanted to unpack some 0:05:34.360 --> 0:05:37.720 of the Luke Bateman nos. I don't think you're very familiar. 0:05:37.360 --> 0:05:40.320 With him, why people have opinions. He seems like a 0:05:40.320 --> 0:05:42.320 really great guy to me, so I'm excited to hear 0:05:42.400 --> 0:05:42.839 the n wance. 0:05:43.160 --> 0:05:45.279 No, he is a really well I think so too. 0:05:45.760 --> 0:05:47.840 I think he is also a really great guy. I 0:05:47.880 --> 0:05:50.760 think in a world where we need more positive male 0:05:50.839 --> 0:05:53.279 role models, I'm very much on the Luke Bateman train. 0:05:53.600 --> 0:05:55.320 Em has her own reasons, which we'll get you. 0:05:55.440 --> 0:05:55.920 To that later. 0:05:56.480 --> 0:05:59.720 The reason you've seen him around this week is that 0:05:59.800 --> 0:06:01.640 he he has been telling the story of his own 0:06:01.680 --> 0:06:05.200 gambling addiction, which also led to drugs and alcohol addiction, 0:06:06.240 --> 0:06:09.960 either on ABC's Australian Story him talking about that, or 0:06:09.960 --> 0:06:12.720 at the Senate Inquiry into gambling ads in Canberra. Now 0:06:12.760 --> 0:06:17.120 his testimony there was really moving and important. The Quickie 0:06:17.160 --> 0:06:20.000 today is all about that, so I'm not going to 0:06:20.080 --> 0:06:22.200 talk about that too much, but suffice to say that 0:06:22.279 --> 0:06:24.200 when he was a footballer, because he played NRL for 0:06:24.200 --> 0:06:26.760 the Camber Raiders for a long time, he said gambling 0:06:26.920 --> 0:06:29.599 was like breathing. It was just like everybody did it 0:06:29.680 --> 0:06:32.159 all the time. On his eighteenth birthday, because he was 0:06:32.720 --> 0:06:36.160 playing football at quite a high level from his young teens, 0:06:36.600 --> 0:06:38.880 he was taken to a casino to celebrate his eighteenth 0:06:38.960 --> 0:06:42.279 birthday by his teammates and then from there his addiction 0:06:42.600 --> 0:06:45.039 took off. But I want to give a bit of 0:06:45.080 --> 0:06:49.160 background into him because I think he is so interesting 0:06:49.279 --> 0:06:52.440 in terms of why I think he's so compelling to everybody. Right, 0:06:53.080 --> 0:06:55.800 he grew up in a small town in western Queensland, 0:06:56.000 --> 0:06:59.200 mad footballer from a very young age, but also a 0:06:59.240 --> 0:07:02.680 mad reader, and those two things are not something that 0:07:02.760 --> 0:07:06.120 we see paired up a lot in that hyper masculine culture, 0:07:06.120 --> 0:07:06.880 as he calls it. 0:07:07.279 --> 0:07:07.479 Here. 0:07:07.520 --> 0:07:09.680 He is about loving books from a young age and 0:07:09.800 --> 0:07:12.680 how he had to kind of turn away from them 0:07:12.880 --> 0:07:14.600 when he was playing footy. 0:07:14.920 --> 0:07:18.280 Whenever I tell him in my bookcase, people all they said, 0:07:18.320 --> 0:07:20.800 books but for me, this is a journey through my 0:07:21.040 --> 0:07:24.480 entire life. When I was younger, I didn't feel comfortable 0:07:24.520 --> 0:07:26.600 talking about my love of reading. I was always very 0:07:26.640 --> 0:07:29.760 secretive and felt quite a lot of shame around my 0:07:29.840 --> 0:07:33.040 love of reading because it was not something that men did, 0:07:33.440 --> 0:07:34.960 especially not fantasy. 0:07:35.280 --> 0:07:38.200 It wouldn't surprise me if Luke felt that he had died. 0:07:38.600 --> 0:07:42.480 But from the footy scene or the footy culture, there 0:07:42.560 --> 0:07:47.640 are a lot of unspoken rules about how you're supposed. 0:07:47.280 --> 0:07:48.200 To portray yourself. 0:07:48.240 --> 0:07:51.480 And I guess reading books was kind of marked as 0:07:51.480 --> 0:07:52.800 like feminine. 0:07:52.400 --> 0:07:56.600 Because I was around boys all the time. I would 0:07:56.640 --> 0:07:59.920 never ever pull my books out I wanted to read, 0:08:00.160 --> 0:08:01.760 I would lock myself in a toilet. 0:08:02.480 --> 0:08:03.400 Isn't that interesting? 0:08:03.480 --> 0:08:05.040 Yes? And who's that woman who's to do? 0:08:05.200 --> 0:08:07.800 That's one of his friends who's interviewed on Australian Story. 0:08:08.360 --> 0:08:12.720 But I find that so fascinating because if you're parenting boys, 0:08:12.720 --> 0:08:15.520 which obviously I have been I am I have been 0:08:16.480 --> 0:08:21.000 doing for some time now, for fourteen years, there's a 0:08:21.040 --> 0:08:24.040 lot of angst around about boys and reading. Right, We've 0:08:24.040 --> 0:08:26.240 talked about it a little bit, and I think you've 0:08:26.240 --> 0:08:28.760 talked about it on parenting. How that there's a lot 0:08:28.800 --> 0:08:31.239 of angs around about boys and reading, and it's really 0:08:31.280 --> 0:08:34.480 interesting to hear it spelled out so plainly, like he's 0:08:34.520 --> 0:08:36.400 a little boy who says he loved reading from an 0:08:36.400 --> 0:08:39.679 early age, loved reading fantasy, but he quickly realized it 0:08:39.720 --> 0:08:42.400 was like something he had to hide and do in secret. 0:08:42.559 --> 0:08:45.080 It is really interesting. It reminds me that my dad 0:08:45.120 --> 0:08:48.240 loves reading, like it's probably his greatest passion in life, 0:08:48.440 --> 0:08:51.960 apart from his children, obviously, and he always wanted to 0:08:51.960 --> 0:08:55.040 start a book club. And we're talking in retirement, and 0:08:55.600 --> 0:08:57.720 just men don't want to be in a book club. 0:08:57.920 --> 0:09:01.079 They don't want to sort of vocal out loud that 0:09:01.120 --> 0:09:03.800 they like reading and that they want to talk about books. 0:09:03.880 --> 0:09:07.880 And it's sad that even a sort of immaturity because 0:09:07.960 --> 0:09:10.439 their luke is talking about being a child and ashamed 0:09:10.520 --> 0:09:12.719 of it. But I think that that stigma around men 0:09:12.760 --> 0:09:15.439 and reading sadly continues through life. 0:09:15.800 --> 0:09:19.160 And so many of them genuinely enjoy it. I have 0:09:19.200 --> 0:09:22.600 a friend who's in his late twenties who's just taken 0:09:22.679 --> 0:09:25.680 up reading for the first time, and when he was 0:09:25.679 --> 0:09:30.080 explaining how he had just not read until like unless 0:09:30.080 --> 0:09:32.840 he was in school, like back in the day, he said, 0:09:32.880 --> 0:09:35.800 it's because like boys weren't actually taught how to read. 0:09:35.840 --> 0:09:36.480 And I don't mean. 0:09:36.400 --> 0:09:39.080 Physically how to read, but the culture of reading, Like 0:09:39.080 --> 0:09:40.840 they don't talk about books. I don't know when to 0:09:40.840 --> 0:09:42.640 grab a book, they don't know how to find books 0:09:42.679 --> 0:09:45.120 or how to find what they enjoy reading. And he's like, 0:09:45.120 --> 0:09:47.880 there's this whole part of reading that we just never 0:09:48.000 --> 0:09:50.320 enjoyed because we never taught how to enjoy it. 0:09:50.440 --> 0:09:52.400 That's so true. If you go into any bookshop, you 0:09:52.440 --> 0:09:55.120 know how bookshops these days a sort of half bookshop 0:09:55.120 --> 0:09:58.440 half gift shop. Yeah, and all of those gifts related 0:09:58.480 --> 0:10:03.160 to reading, the jigsaw puzz the novelty mugs, the calendars, 0:10:03.640 --> 0:10:07.400 you got, the Jane Austen ones, you got the romanticy ones. 0:10:07.400 --> 0:10:10.520 But there's not a lot of like book related stuff 0:10:10.840 --> 0:10:12.520 that's masculine coded. 0:10:12.880 --> 0:10:15.920 So when I found Luke Bateman, it was about I 0:10:15.920 --> 0:10:18.000 think it was a few years ago now. He was 0:10:18.040 --> 0:10:21.199 on TikTok And this was when I started getting into romanticy, 0:10:21.280 --> 0:10:24.400 Like I was reading the Akatar series, I was reading 0:10:24.440 --> 0:10:27.440 the Fourth Wing series and had big romanty novels and 0:10:27.440 --> 0:10:30.480 I've become so so famous, And it was this guy 0:10:30.720 --> 0:10:35.360 sitting in his tractor, This very attractive, muscly guy, rugged 0:10:35.440 --> 0:10:40.120 up sitting in his tractor holding an Akatar book and saying, 0:10:40.280 --> 0:10:41.840 I'm so excited to read this. 0:10:42.360 --> 0:10:45.040 So what led him to that? To the point where 0:10:45.040 --> 0:10:50.000 Emily discovers him. Right, So he has this football career, 0:10:50.920 --> 0:10:53.760 as he describes it, in a hyper masculine environment from 0:10:53.800 --> 0:10:57.120 a very young age. One of the he talks now, 0:10:57.160 --> 0:10:59.240 obviously about where that led him in terms of our 0:10:59.240 --> 0:11:03.280 coll abuse drug also how he sought and was treating 0:11:03.280 --> 0:11:05.640 women during that time. He's very honest about it, which 0:11:05.640 --> 0:11:10.040 I also really respect. So rather than pretending that he's 0:11:10.080 --> 0:11:15.440 always been this really enlightened guy who sort of understood 0:11:15.440 --> 0:11:19.760 all the codes that a man in twenty twenty six shoot, 0:11:19.760 --> 0:11:21.439 he doesn't say that. He says that he cheated on 0:11:21.520 --> 0:11:23.760 a lot of girlfriends. He thinks he has a lot 0:11:23.800 --> 0:11:27.640 of internalized misogyny from those years when his life fell apart. 0:11:27.800 --> 0:11:30.320 So the addiction issues and the gambling got to the 0:11:30.320 --> 0:11:33.120 point that he was actually thinking of taking his own life. 0:11:33.320 --> 0:11:35.640 In an Australian story, he talks about this night that 0:11:35.720 --> 0:11:37.559 his mother had to spend on the phone with him 0:11:37.600 --> 0:11:41.120 all night, talking him literally off a ledge. He went, 0:11:41.480 --> 0:11:44.040 he pulled out of all of that world, went to rehab, 0:11:44.080 --> 0:11:47.800 went to therapy, and moved back to the country. So 0:11:48.280 --> 0:11:51.040 his mum and his stepdad were like, we'll pay off 0:11:51.040 --> 0:11:52.760 your debts and help you out of this, but you 0:11:52.840 --> 0:11:55.120 have to come and work for your stepdad in this 0:11:55.400 --> 0:11:58.640 timber business way out in the middle of nowhere, in 0:11:59.240 --> 0:12:01.800 outback queens right farm. So he's living in a little 0:12:01.800 --> 0:12:04.760 shed there and he's back in his love of reading. Yeah, 0:12:04.800 --> 0:12:07.360 he has no Internet connection because of the gambling addiction, 0:12:07.920 --> 0:12:10.560 but when he gets one, the man makes a TikTok. 0:12:12.360 --> 0:12:15.920 This is where you see him started. His fame comes 0:12:15.960 --> 0:12:18.880 really quickly. Now somewhere in between this he does also 0:12:18.880 --> 0:12:21.880 appear on The Bachelor, so there. So he obviously has 0:12:21.920 --> 0:12:27.120 an interest in like probably his charisma is kind of undeniable. 0:12:26.600 --> 0:12:29.960 Yeah, especially in his TikTok's. When I first saw his 0:12:30.000 --> 0:12:33.080 first TikTok, I think it only had like around three 0:12:33.200 --> 0:12:36.000 thousand views, which in TikTok language is not a lot 0:12:36.000 --> 0:12:38.559 of views. And then I saw a second TikTok and 0:12:38.600 --> 0:12:39.400 it was in the millions. 0:12:39.600 --> 0:12:41.960 He says he got on there, started talking about books 0:12:42.320 --> 0:12:43.480 he couldn't believe it. 0:12:43.480 --> 0:12:44.040 It just went. 0:12:45.600 --> 0:12:47.800 And this talks to the fact that women love men 0:12:47.840 --> 0:12:50.760 who read. We talked about that before. All his followers 0:12:50.760 --> 0:12:53.400 are all women. All of his comments are all women, 0:12:53.679 --> 0:12:56.320 and it's women who are like thirsting over him, who 0:12:56.320 --> 0:12:59.760 are obsessed, as well as women who are just genuinely intrigued. 0:12:59.760 --> 0:13:02.240 And he has to say about their favorite books. And 0:13:02.280 --> 0:13:04.680 he just got the like it feels like two separate 0:13:04.720 --> 0:13:07.960 audiences that he's just got together. Does he have a 0:13:08.000 --> 0:13:11.160 partner at the moment, Not that he's publicly disclosing. 0:13:11.559 --> 0:13:13.360 So he did go on. 0:13:13.720 --> 0:13:16.559 I did see him on Bumble a year ago. 0:13:17.520 --> 0:13:20.079 He did not match with me, and that's why you 0:13:20.120 --> 0:13:22.600 have tension with him. 0:13:21.760 --> 0:13:28.480 And we both like romanticy just saying just putting out there, look. 0:13:28.480 --> 0:13:32.120 Okays like when Travis put out there on the New 0:13:32.160 --> 0:13:36.240 Heights podcast about Taylor, all right. 0:13:36.760 --> 0:13:37.160 She's. 0:13:39.559 --> 0:13:44.200 Luke, Well you did anyway. So he becomes, as we say, 0:13:44.320 --> 0:13:46.640 like a bit of a thirst trap, but also very 0:13:47.600 --> 0:13:50.640 sort of embraced by the BookTalk community. Then he gets 0:13:50.679 --> 0:13:53.160 a book deal. Here's a little grap about what happened 0:13:53.200 --> 0:13:54.600 then book Talk. 0:13:54.880 --> 0:14:00.000 I just wanted to share some incredible news with you all. 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:02.880 I've just signed a two book deal with Atriar. So 0:14:02.920 --> 0:14:05.640 when I first announced my book deal, it receives a 0:14:05.760 --> 0:14:07.760 heap of criticism and backlash. 0:14:08.000 --> 0:14:11.040 You stepped on a lot of people's next to get 0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:13.200 a two book deal, and some people just get the 0:14:13.240 --> 0:14:13.920 silver spoon. 0:14:14.040 --> 0:14:17.920 Man was just handed a publishing deal basically because his weight, 0:14:18.120 --> 0:14:20.760 he's hot, and he has a strong book type platform. Boom, 0:14:20.800 --> 0:14:21.760 here's a publishing deal. 0:14:21.880 --> 0:14:25.640 It's quite rare in my experience to receive that kind 0:14:25.680 --> 0:14:28.640 of attention for a fantasy novel of four things. 0:14:29.480 --> 0:14:32.400 This is a childhood dream come true for me. What 0:14:32.640 --> 0:14:36.000 really upset me about it was that I'd spent thirty 0:14:36.040 --> 0:14:40.960 years in my life loving books, loving reading, loving writings, 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:47.240 and then I'd finally join this community where I felt like, oh, 0:14:48.120 --> 0:14:51.480 I'm home, just where I belong, and then all of 0:14:51.520 --> 0:14:54.320 a sudden, that community turned on me. 0:14:54.880 --> 0:14:58.160 So the voices you heard in that clip were from 0:14:58.440 --> 0:15:03.680 two book talkers, authors of color, questioning whether Luke Bateman 0:15:03.720 --> 0:15:06.160 would have got this deal if he hadn't been a 0:15:06.160 --> 0:15:12.000 white man. You also heard from his publisher sort of 0:15:12.040 --> 0:15:15.160 defending why he got his deal and the reaction to it. 0:15:16.840 --> 0:15:18.680 Part of what you've got to understand about this and 0:15:18.680 --> 0:15:21.240 obviously I'm in this industry. Is book deals are incredibly 0:15:21.240 --> 0:15:22.760 hard to get. I don't know if that's something you 0:15:22.840 --> 0:15:25.000 have to spell out, but like a lot of people 0:15:25.120 --> 0:15:28.600 spend their entire life dreaming of getting a book deal, 0:15:28.880 --> 0:15:33.000 submitting manuscripts, approaching agents, like trying try and trying to 0:15:33.080 --> 0:15:36.560 break into this very difficult world. There is a model 0:15:36.600 --> 0:15:40.640 of scarcity in publishing, no question. And I also have 0:15:40.720 --> 0:15:43.680 to say that it is not unusual for people with 0:15:43.760 --> 0:15:47.280 big social media followings of all kinds to get a 0:15:47.400 --> 0:15:50.160 leg up and an open and a door open into 0:15:50.200 --> 0:15:51.600 that world before anyone else. 0:15:51.880 --> 0:15:54.880 I think it felt for the book talk community who 0:15:54.880 --> 0:15:55.880 are avid readers. 0:15:55.960 --> 0:15:58.280 I think it felt a bit of like a betrayal. 0:15:58.840 --> 0:16:03.160 Like this beautiful man says that he loves Roman to 0:16:03.160 --> 0:16:05.040 See and he's getting the word out there. Maybe he's 0:16:05.040 --> 0:16:07.920 going to convince his friends to also read Roman to See. 0:16:07.960 --> 0:16:10.760 Because for a long time Roman to See a lot 0:16:10.760 --> 0:16:13.080 of people coined it as like very smart, and it 0:16:13.120 --> 0:16:15.200 was seen as something you should be embarrassed about, something 0:16:15.200 --> 0:16:17.760 that you should like turn away from, that you should 0:16:17.760 --> 0:16:19.760 don't want to be reading out in public. And then 0:16:19.800 --> 0:16:22.880 we have this guy who's like the epitome of what 0:16:22.920 --> 0:16:26.400 looks like privilege reading these books, like from so many 0:16:26.400 --> 0:16:28.320 women who felt like they should have been embarrassed to 0:16:28.320 --> 0:16:31.240 read these books, going these books are very cool. He 0:16:31.320 --> 0:16:33.520 comes out with a book deal, and then where all 0:16:33.600 --> 0:16:36.280 like was this his plan all along was to just 0:16:36.320 --> 0:16:39.360 pretend to like these books, get this massive audience because 0:16:39.400 --> 0:16:42.080 he knows he's very good looking and he's a beautiful voice. 0:16:42.280 --> 0:16:44.240 And then he's just making money off of this book deal. 0:16:44.840 --> 0:16:48.320 So if you take him at face value from his 0:16:48.440 --> 0:16:51.240 content and his Australian story, and from what he's doing 0:16:51.280 --> 0:16:54.520 now in terms of his advocacy work, I would be 0:16:54.520 --> 0:16:56.280 inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt as 0:16:56.320 --> 0:16:58.520 obviously a lot of the industry is doing, which is 0:16:58.560 --> 0:17:00.720 that his love of books is reading. It's not he 0:17:00.760 --> 0:17:02.920 didn't wake up one day. I mean, maybe we may 0:17:02.960 --> 0:17:04.960 well be proved wrong on that, but he didn't just 0:17:05.000 --> 0:17:06.800 wake up one day in his cabin in the woods 0:17:06.800 --> 0:17:10.040 and go I'm going to become a massive you know, 0:17:10.400 --> 0:17:12.240 you know, a quick way to get famous would be 0:17:12.320 --> 0:17:17.320 to be a BookTok influencer. However, there is no question 0:17:17.880 --> 0:17:23.160 that that world like a very maskie you know, footballer 0:17:23.240 --> 0:17:25.639 guy with the gruff voice and all those things. Stepping 0:17:25.680 --> 0:17:28.920 into that world has a lot of it's very different, 0:17:29.000 --> 0:17:31.199 it's very different from what else is out there, and 0:17:31.280 --> 0:17:34.080 so it was very clever marketing for him to do that. 0:17:34.200 --> 0:17:38.320 Whether where however it came about. I haven't heard about 0:17:38.480 --> 0:17:41.359 what the book is like, but as he says, and 0:17:41.440 --> 0:17:44.560 what is published to say, it's real people don't publish. 0:17:44.640 --> 0:17:46.320 I'm sure there'll be people shouting at my phone and 0:17:46.359 --> 0:17:49.400 saying that's not true. Publishers aren't going to publish Trash 0:17:49.720 --> 0:17:52.040 because it's got Luke Bateman's name on it, because they 0:17:52.080 --> 0:17:54.000 also know that the scrutiny on this is going to 0:17:54.000 --> 0:17:57.320 be huge, So would be really interesting to see where 0:17:57.359 --> 0:18:01.080 it goes. He now is often at literary events. But 0:18:01.160 --> 0:18:04.080 one of the things I think about Bateman is that, 0:18:04.600 --> 0:18:09.560 aside almost I'm really impressed with how he walks his 0:18:09.760 --> 0:18:15.160 talk in terms of speaking out about domestic violence around sport, 0:18:15.960 --> 0:18:21.800 because so few do, like really really so few football 0:18:21.840 --> 0:18:24.560 as men from within that culture do. Lots of the 0:18:24.600 --> 0:18:26.720 rest of us do talk about it all the time, 0:18:26.800 --> 0:18:29.600 talk about you know, domestic violence spiking during state of origin, 0:18:29.720 --> 0:18:32.560 talking about the culture needing to shift, talking about the 0:18:32.840 --> 0:18:36.359 different standards for footballers than other professionals when it comes 0:18:36.400 --> 0:18:39.840 to being on different kinds of violence charges. But he does, 0:18:40.640 --> 0:18:42.679 and I find that really encouraging. 0:18:42.880 --> 0:18:45.520 I agree. And also gambling. There are a lot of 0:18:45.600 --> 0:18:47.600 people who in this country who make a lot of 0:18:47.600 --> 0:18:50.920 money off gambling, and I think it's brave of him 0:18:50.960 --> 0:18:53.960 to speak up to that industry when I'm sure probably 0:18:54.480 --> 0:18:57.560 it means him turning down money from that industry. 0:18:57.359 --> 0:19:00.680 And getting a lot of criticism I think from in 0:19:00.720 --> 0:19:05.000 his old world. Notably on the Australian story, the Canberra Raiders, 0:19:05.000 --> 0:19:07.800 his former team, didn't want to talk. I'm sure that 0:19:07.880 --> 0:19:11.280 he has lost some friends in that world. Let's say, 0:19:11.960 --> 0:19:14.680 did they interview any of his former teammates. They interviewed 0:19:14.680 --> 0:19:19.879 his former like flatmate kind of, but no, the footballing 0:19:19.920 --> 0:19:23.640 world were noticeably absent. So I think I think he's 0:19:23.680 --> 0:19:27.520 a really interesting character. I really want to celebrate different 0:19:27.600 --> 0:19:32.520 versions of masculinity and also versions of masculinity that kind 0:19:32.520 --> 0:19:35.920 of overlap. That's saying you can be a little boy 0:19:35.920 --> 0:19:38.720 and love football and fantasy books like of course you can, 0:19:39.240 --> 0:19:41.080 you know, like of course you can do. 0:19:41.000 --> 0:19:42.960 We think that's his real voice. 0:19:43.680 --> 0:19:46.040 Oh, I have my hopes, Wait, what do you mean? 0:19:46.760 --> 0:19:49.560 You mean like he's Nara Smith, like he puts on 0:19:49.600 --> 0:20:00.560