Speaker 1: You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Speaker 2: Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and warders
Speaker 2: that this podcast is recorded on I promise that it's
Speaker 2: only like two more days. I'm allowed to reference Meghan
Speaker 2: and everything if her TV show is a legitimate hit.
Speaker 2: Partly it's snaff bit because the people who hater will
Speaker 2: watch it and go back, But the actual show itself
Speaker 2: is so inoffensive and pleasant. Hello and welcome to MoMA
Speaker 2: Mia out loud. It's what women are actually talking about
Speaker 2: on Monday, the tenth of March. I'm Holly Wainwright, I'm.
Speaker 3: Mea Friedman, and I'm Jesse Stevens.
Speaker 2: And on the show today we all got exactly what
Speaker 2: we wanted for International Women's Day, Validation that yes, we
Speaker 2: do do absolutely everything, and some helpful feedback from Rob Catter. Also,
Speaker 2: why after a weekend of digesting with love Meghan and
Speaker 2: some wickles sprinkled with flowers, It's clear that the royal
Speaker 2: family made a big mistake and what is snuff? We
Speaker 2: hate to break it to you, but it's all over
Speaker 2: your phone. But first, I still love you, and I'm like.
Speaker 1: This is exhausting, you know, like we're never getting that
Speaker 1: together like ever No.
Speaker 3: It hps, you missed it.
Speaker 1: Ben Afleck continues to be a lazy boy by dipping
Speaker 1: back into his bag of ex wives called Jennifer. The
Speaker 1: gossip over the weekend was that now his Jennifer Lopez
Speaker 1: divorce has been finalized, he is sniffing around the original
Speaker 1: Jennifer ex wife, Ghana. Page six published photos of Affleck
Speaker 1: and Jennifer Ghana sharing a laugh at their son's paintball party,
Speaker 1: and the next day a source told the outlet that
Speaker 1: Affleck would love another chance. The insider added that the
Speaker 1: actor would definitely be open to giving things another shot
Speaker 1: with Jen if the timing is ever right, but that
Speaker 1: he knows it's just not realistic time in their lives,
Speaker 1: which is a bit of a weird thing to say,
Speaker 1: because Jennifer Ghana has been dating a businessman called John Miller.
Speaker 1: He's like the heir to a big Hamburger franchise. She's
Speaker 1: been dating him since twenty eighteen, a little bit on
Speaker 1: and off, but they're currently on. My question is.
Speaker 4: Why you missed the part about the body language expert
Speaker 4: who had some things to say about how when men
Speaker 4: and women hetero men and women usually hug They keep
Speaker 4: their pelviss apart to indicate space and not a romantic investment.
Speaker 4: But their pelvis is rubbed, which is.
Speaker 2: But that's because they have rubbed before exactly, and so
Speaker 2: they have muscle memory of rubbing.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 2: I think that Jennifer Ghana is way too smart to
Speaker 2: go anywhere in that.
Speaker 4: Ever, Again, I agree with you one hundred percent, but
Speaker 4: it reminded me of a certain type of man and
Speaker 4: perhaps woman who exclusively only dates the same people. Again,
Speaker 4: I think because they're incapable of emotionally investing in a
Speaker 4: new person and learning about who they are. There's an
Speaker 4: ease to kind of fitting in two year old pair
Speaker 4: of jeans rather than having to go out and try
Speaker 4: on a new pair underpants. Yeah, and I have experienced this.
Speaker 4: I had partners in my twenties who we would break
Speaker 4: up and then they'd come back and I'd go, I
Speaker 4: knew it, I'm so desirable irresistible that finally he's back.
Speaker 4: But he was just back because he didn't want to
Speaker 4: bother getting to know a new one, and I was easy.
Speaker 1: I think there are other Jennifers that Ben could move
Speaker 1: on to that he hasn't pollinated. Before, such as Jennifer Aniston.
Speaker 2: That would be me. That would be Imagine how excited
Speaker 2: I would be if that happened.
Speaker 1: We could gossip Jennie that one. Jennifer love Hewitt is
Speaker 1: an option. Yeah, I think she's married, but anyway, and
Speaker 1: also my request would be Jennifer Coolidge, Oh, that would
Speaker 1: be awesome.
Speaker 3: Is she single? I believe she is fabulous?
Speaker 4: Friends, Saturday was into National Women's Day. How did you celebrate, Holleen?
Speaker 4: What did you do on this Saturday?
Speaker 2: Well, gosh, I was alone with my children. Brent's been away,
Speaker 2: so I did a lot of what I believe statistically
Speaker 2: is called women's work. Several loads of washing, cooked at
Speaker 2: least three meals, did some shopping, drove a daughter to work,
Speaker 2: organized a playdate in inverted commons, which just means trying
Speaker 2: to prize young boys off video games. That was it.
Speaker 2: That was my day. Yay me celebration, Maya.
Speaker 3: How about you?
Speaker 1: What did you do? I made myself a cake, Okay,
Speaker 1: not because I remembered that it was International Women's Day,
Speaker 1: just because I felt like a cake and no one
Speaker 1: else would make one. But I made it out of
Speaker 1: a cake mix, so it wasn't very elevated. Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: shamed to say, got my nails done and I had
Speaker 1: a nap. So I had a great day.
Speaker 4: I forgot that it was Saturday. But on Sunday I
Speaker 4: went to hear you speak Maya on a panel which
Speaker 4: was lovely.
Speaker 3: It was great. I'm going to tell you all about
Speaker 3: it later.
Speaker 4: Holly and I went to another panel that my friend
Speaker 4: was on at all about women, and I realized that
Speaker 4: there's this tendency, I think for women on or around
Speaker 4: International Women's Day to spend a decent amount of money
Speaker 4: to go and hear other women speak about things they
Speaker 4: agree with and applaud, while men.
Speaker 3: Just get to sit at home in their pajamas or eat.
Speaker 1: Lunch and money.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I had a full I had quite a full
Speaker 4: Sunday due to International Women's Day commitments, and no one
Speaker 4: made me a cake.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: Is there any of your cake left?
Speaker 5: Yep?
Speaker 3: Okay, great.
Speaker 4: I saw some headlines which I really wanted to discuss
Speaker 4: with you both. So when the clock ticked over to
Speaker 4: March eight, we were all restless.
Speaker 3: I know we were.
Speaker 4: We were impatient because we needed to know what Robbie Catter,
Speaker 4: the leader of Kata's Australian Party and MP son of
Speaker 4: Bobby Catter, had to say about this momentous occasion.
Speaker 3: He delivered he always does.
Speaker 4: In a Facebook post, Katter shared his thoughts on Internet
Speaker 4: Women's Day, which he describes as pushing a dangerous agenda
Speaker 4: by turning women into victims and demonizing men. He wrote
Speaker 4: that the official theme this year was Accelerate Action, and
Speaker 4: I'm going to stop him there, because that's not the thing.
Speaker 4: It's a long story, but this random organization purchased the
Speaker 4: domain name for International Women's Day and puts out their
Speaker 4: own theme every year creates what I'm going to call
Speaker 4: corporate confusion. We go by the UN Australia theme, which
Speaker 4: was actually March Forward.
Speaker 3: Anyway, he got the theme wrong, But point.
Speaker 2: Is we're much former than accelerate. The kind of similar
Speaker 2: yeah like ballpark?
Speaker 3: Okay, well, reach for the Stars that's next to go
Speaker 3: You go girl.
Speaker 4: According to Katta, he wrote that women are not oppressed.
Speaker 4: He said, my success has been built on the quiet,
Speaker 4: unwavering strength of the women behind me.
Speaker 1: Does that do sound a little bit oppressive? Being behind
Speaker 1: and underneath? I'm mister Carter.
Speaker 4: When men talk about the women behind them, My mother
Speaker 4: wife and daughters. They're not looking for praise, according to him,
Speaker 4: just getting on with the hard work, supporting and pushing boundaries.
Speaker 4: The women in my life don't get caught up in
Speaker 4: the victimhood off and pushed on this day. They live
Speaker 4: their strength every day, quietly and powerfully with that's convenient
Speaker 4: for him.
Speaker 3: Credit, Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 4: It's like when your partner says like, oh, I love
Speaker 4: how we don't do birthday presents, and it's like, I
Speaker 4: actually wanted a birthday. To be clear, I think his
Speaker 4: wife and daughters would have liked.
Speaker 2: To I love how we don't get caught up in
Speaker 2: the patriarchy and stuff.
Speaker 4: With this house exactly, and they're like, actually, we bitch
Speaker 4: about your time. He had a few things to say
Speaker 4: about toxic masculinity, and I agree with the sentiment that
Speaker 4: women hold value whether they're in the workplace, where they're
Speaker 4: at home, and that demonizing all forms of masculinity isn't helpful.
Speaker 4: But sir, five minutes ago, you were attempting to amend
Speaker 4: Queensland abortion laws, which the Royal Australian and New Zealand
Speaker 4: College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists had to come out and
Speaker 4: oppose because they said it would cause emotional trauma for
Speaker 4: patients and healthcare providers.
Speaker 1: So he ordered to bound abortion in Queensland.
Speaker 4: He wanted to make some amendments that the expert said,
Speaker 4: what you're going to do is traumatize women who have
Speaker 4: babies that are like they're incompatible with life.
Speaker 3: So he just was like, I want to make your
Speaker 3: life harder.
Speaker 2: He'd like it on the agenda. He would definitely like
Speaker 2: it on the agenda.
Speaker 4: MEA, were you disappointed that Kata didn't just bake you
Speaker 4: a cake and give us an encouraging tap on the head.
Speaker 1: No, I think it's always a good day to hear
Speaker 1: from men like Bob Katter about what feminism should be. Sorry,
Speaker 1: Robbie Catter, Bobby Robbie Robbie is Bob Okay, son of
Speaker 1: the big Hat. I assume he also wears a.
Speaker 2: Big cat does slightly smaller hat.
Speaker 1: And because he has three daughters and a wife, he's
Speaker 1: eminently qualified to speak. And I think International Women's Day
Speaker 1: is the day that he should speak, because we need
Speaker 1: to hear more from men like him who have daughters.
Speaker 1: He also so behind them.
Speaker 3: You can't see them.
Speaker 4: They hit an He didn't say as well that International
Speaker 4: Women's Day started off as a day to really celebrate
Speaker 4: the strength of women. That's not what it started off as.
Speaker 4: It's a day of protest. So he got that fact
Speaker 4: wrong too.
Speaker 1: About things like the gender pay gap.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Holly, what did you make of our good friend Robbie.
Speaker 2: Well, look, he is exhibiting the kind of confidence in
Speaker 2: hubris that is not surprising and is apparently statistically typical
Speaker 2: of the chaps at the moment, and I, rather than
Speaker 2: criticize them for it, I think we should all take
Speaker 2: a little dose of this. There was some statistics came
Speaker 2: out last week and not that many people reported on
Speaker 2: them because they were so expected. But every few years
Speaker 2: this big report comes out. It's called the Household Income
Speaker 2: and Labor Dynamics in Australia Report Hilda, which is a
Speaker 2: very good name, a very good female name, and basically
Speaker 2: it reports on the state of men and women in
Speaker 2: lots of different areas of equality. And what it said
Speaker 2: is that Australian men are not doing any more housework,
Speaker 2: domestic chores or caregiving tasks. Actually, although that's changed a
Speaker 2: little bit then they were twenty years ago, right, So
Speaker 2: that shows a certain amount of stubbornness and commitment on
Speaker 2: their part, I think to refusing to move. But what's
Speaker 2: particularly charming is that most of them, however, think they're
Speaker 2: doing a fair share. So math isn't really my strong suit.
Speaker 2: But apparently women do at least twenty percent more household work.
Speaker 2: They always have they continue to do so. But fifty
Speaker 2: eight percent of men believe they do very much their
Speaker 2: fair share, which reminded me of the way that men
Speaker 2: behave And this is very stereotypical. Let's say heterosexual men
Speaker 2: maybe in a traditional partnership, maybe when they are suddenly
Speaker 2: required to do some like say you've got mates coming
Speaker 2: round or people coming to stay, and they're like, i'll help,
Speaker 2: and then they empty the fish tank.
Speaker 4: Perhaps, yes, so I was thinking about these. Sometimes they're
Speaker 4: put to work, like I see in my parents' dynamic.
Speaker 4: My mum will say we're hosting family Christmas this week,
Speaker 4: I need you to do some jobs, and dads like say,
Speaker 4: no more, I'm on it. I'm a helpful guy. Whipp
Speaker 4: a snipper out. Don't need the whipper snipper. Actually, we
Speaker 4: need you to wipe the bench, That is the case.
Speaker 4: And look, Luca is in terms of domestic labor. Like,
Speaker 4: you know, he is the exception. I accept the stats,
Speaker 4: but he does do a lot. But there is something
Speaker 4: where men are wired differently when it comes to hosting, right,
Speaker 4: Like when people are coming over, I think that I
Speaker 4: instinctively know I should vacuum, the house should smell good.
Speaker 4: Like there are just kind of a hierarchy of things.
Speaker 4: That's when Luca will be like, I think it's time
Speaker 4: to wage war on.
Speaker 3: The ants, and it's like no, no, no, or reoil
Speaker 3: the deck.
Speaker 4: Reoil the deck. Oh the wood is rotting. I don't
Speaker 4: give a shit, or like slug bait, I'm going to
Speaker 4: clean the dog's water bowl.
Speaker 3: No, they are not top one hundred tasks of what
Speaker 3: we need to do right now. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I can't really get on board with this because I
Speaker 1: do nothing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're really the exception.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what do you mean when you say you do nothing?
Speaker 2: You mean ever? Or when people are coming round.
Speaker 4: People are coming round? Both you've held, you've held Christmas before?
Speaker 4: What do you do you spill something in preparation?
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I'll go and buy things. I'll go and
Speaker 1: buy vessels to put things in. Like I'll go and
Speaker 1: buy bins and Jason will be like, why are you
Speaker 1: buying bins? I'm like, because I feel like we need them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, that's your contribution.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think men often will. Again we're talking in
Speaker 1: such stereotypes, but maybe look at the exterior of the house.
Speaker 3: Perhaps they go outside, they wage war with the possums.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I just think that there are some people who
Speaker 1: are good entertainers, good hostesses I know we're going to
Speaker 1: be talking about Megan in a minute, and some who aren't,
Speaker 1: some who really think about the moments that their guests
Speaker 1: need to experience.
Speaker 2: I accept that to a point. But even if you
Speaker 2: don't like hosting, there is a certain amount of hosting
Speaker 2: that in every life must fall, right, Like, you're not
Speaker 2: going to get away with never ever having family members
Speaker 2: or people coming round. So I totally agree with you.
Speaker 2: Some people love it and it's a way of them
Speaker 2: expressing their love, and that's great, But there's also just
Speaker 2: a certain amount of grudge hosting that has to oh yeah,
Speaker 2: and so when that occurs, who does it? That's kind
Speaker 2: of what this is about, right.
Speaker 1: That's another argument that I have with my husband a lot,
Speaker 1: because I feel that if they're close enough to come
Speaker 1: to your house. You shouldn't really have to do anything.
Speaker 1: I have people in and out of my house all
Speaker 1: the time, and I'm like, do I need to clean up?
Speaker 2: Not really in terms of being the change you need
Speaker 2: to see in the world, we should normalize you come
Speaker 2: to my house and it looks like it does on
Speaker 2: a random Tuesday night. But we can't because we've so
Speaker 2: internalized the idea.
Speaker 4: Yes and maya your baseline of your house. And maybe
Speaker 4: it's because your kids are older and stuff is pretty good,
Speaker 4: right my mum growing up two sets of twins in
Speaker 4: two and a half years house. You could see the
Speaker 4: floor right, really really messy, and people are going to
Speaker 4: drop in, and I remember my mum has spoken about
Speaker 4: this moment and my mum is difficult to offend. But
Speaker 4: I think someone dropped in. You know, people used to
Speaker 4: do that, They used to drop in. And this friend
Speaker 4: went and whispered to other friends about the state of
Speaker 4: the house and how horrified she Oh my god. And
Speaker 4: that will always fall on women. That is never like,
Speaker 4: can you believe how Tony manages that house well?
Speaker 1: Because men aren't judged by.
Speaker 4: No that as a and as there were some great
Speaker 4: videos going around over the weekend to mark International Women's Day,
Speaker 4: and I just want to play you this clip by
Speaker 4: one of my favorite comedians. Her name is Sarah Pasco,
Speaker 4: and here's what she said about the gender divide.
Speaker 3: Equality is a lie.
Speaker 6: All there is is oh women, go on, have jobs,
Speaker 6: go on, have careers if you want one, go on.
Speaker 6: Be proud of yourself as long as when you come
Speaker 6: home you very quickly do all of the housework like
Speaker 6: it's your hobby. And if you're a straight man, now
Speaker 6: shout in at in your head being no. Actually, I
Speaker 6: put a ladder back in the shed on Saturday. I
Speaker 6: cleaned the bath when she was crying on her birthday.
Speaker 3: Thank you, thank.
Speaker 6: You, you're one of the good ones. I'm actually not
Speaker 6: attacking you. I'm not saying that men don't do anything
Speaker 6: you do, but it's just that there is too much
Speaker 6: to do and our input isn't parity. And I do
Speaker 6: have proof men if they want to, I have so
Speaker 6: much spare time about being dads that they can have
Speaker 6: secret second families.
Speaker 3: Just jump in the car half.
Speaker 6: An hour down the road, another bit of dinner.
Speaker 2: Night kids.
Speaker 6: There is no woman who after twenty four hours of
Speaker 6: drudgery and then I go to Chelmsford and I scrub
Speaker 6: somebody else's kitchen.
Speaker 4: I love that, And I thought that there were that
Speaker 4: you referred to, Holly. There was a great line in
Speaker 4: it that said, the report also shows men are more
Speaker 4: satisfied than women with the division of the unpaid.
Speaker 3: And I'm like, yeah, I bet, I bet they are going.
Speaker 3: I think things are actually fine.
Speaker 2: I've got an extra six hours a week. In a moment,
Speaker 2: has Loved Meghan showed how the royal family made a
Speaker 2: big mistake in letting their gold star princess go. Meg
Speaker 2: Sussex is celebrating today. Her show with Love Meghan is
Speaker 2: in Netflix's top ten worldwide and has officially been greenlit
Speaker 2: for a second season, which has already been filmed. So
Speaker 2: we don't imagine that was very much of a surprise
Speaker 2: to Megs. But anyway, it's good if you like me.
Speaker 2: Spent the weekend watching Meg's perfect manicure doing lovely things
Speaker 2: to Lettice, You've been thinking a lot about this new
Speaker 2: act of Duchess Meghan. She's on the cover of People,
Speaker 2: she's on the Drew Barrymore Show, she's out of hiding,
Speaker 2: and what's on full display her perfect credentials as a princess.
Speaker 2: Now the story goes according to both the royal family
Speaker 2: at the time and Harry in his book, which we
Speaker 2: won't discuss the title of because we all know that
Speaker 2: it's me or what is it Wow that when everything
Speaker 2: went down and Harry and Meghan exited the royal family,
Speaker 2: what the Sussexes wanted at the time and what they
Speaker 2: tried to negotiate to get was a different model of
Speaker 2: royal life, right. They wanted one where maybe they could
Speaker 2: live overseas, be allowed to make their own money, and
Speaker 2: do good for causes that they cared about on their terms.
Speaker 2: And those negotiations famously failed. But actually it's exactly what's
Speaker 2: ended up happening because Harry and Meghan are living their
Speaker 2: royal light life. They live overseas, they make their own money,
Speaker 2: and as last year's tours to Nigeria and Columbia showed,
Speaker 2: as well as the Invictus Games and their Archroal Foundation projects,
Speaker 2: they're doing royal esque charity and ambassadorship roles on their
Speaker 2: own terms. But most of all, Meg proves herself, I
Speaker 2: think through this show to be the perfect princess Mia.
Speaker 2: Do you think that the proper royals are kicking themselves
Speaker 2: this week.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do in a way, although obviously she I
Speaker 1: mean she could have had this show as a royal.
Speaker 1: She really could have, because well, everything that people complain
Speaker 1: about about the show is what makes a royal woman
Speaker 1: good at her job. She looks beautiful, she's very thin,
Speaker 1: she's very perfect. She is utterly inoffensive, bordering on bland.
Speaker 1: She's very careful to be inclusive, to not do anything controversial.
Speaker 1: When she cooks Mexican food, she has a Mexican chef there.
Speaker 1: When she cooks Korean food, she has a Korean chef there.
Speaker 1: There's nothing sort of to grab hold of, and people
Speaker 1: are acting as though that is a flaw, but it's
Speaker 1: actually the feature. It's the feature of It was the
Speaker 1: feature of Instagram influencers in you know, twenty fifteen or so,
Speaker 1: before things became more extreme and they needed to find
Speaker 1: more dramatic ways to get attention. And it was the
Speaker 1: model for the Tig, which was her lifestyle blog that
Speaker 1: she had back then. And it's essentially also what Kate
Speaker 1: Middleton does, Like that's what she has to do as
Speaker 1: a princess. You have to be ornamental, you have to
Speaker 1: be decorative. You have to be kind and supportive and
Speaker 1: caring of other people, or at least perform that, and
Speaker 1: that's exactly what she's doing.
Speaker 2: She's very good at it, and I agree with everything
Speaker 2: you've said, But Kate could never make that show because
Speaker 2: if you think about the criticism that's come for Megan
Speaker 2: about unrelatability, the money, the time, all that stuff. If
Speaker 2: that was a proper Royal, that would also come with
Speaker 2: a side of we're paying for those flowers, We're paying
Speaker 2: for that house. Obviously, the actual literal logistics of that
Speaker 2: are complicated, but that's why royals have to look aspirationally
Speaker 2: wealthy and glamorous, but not ostentatiously glamorous, because that is
Speaker 2: a bit like, well, you're paying for those jewels, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean. So Megan's got the freedom to
Speaker 2: be able to show the lifestyle that she obviously really
Speaker 2: likes and she obviously really wanted and certainly is on
Speaker 2: par with what the Royals are living without that level
Speaker 2: of criticism. But I think it's true. I think that
Speaker 2: she is very skilled at the kind of royal show
Speaker 2: just enough without saying too much, seem relatable, while also
Speaker 2: never messy, say a lot of words without any of
Speaker 2: them really saying any think that's what royals do. You're
Speaker 2: so right, Mia, And it's like, in a way, I
Speaker 2: think she would have been great at it in the family.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but what undermines that royal performance is her biological
Speaker 4: family and she has no control over this. I've done
Speaker 4: a lot of soul searching between I think last week
Speaker 4: and today. This show isn't for me, and that's totally fine.
Speaker 4: But to sit down and create anything is a feat
Speaker 4: and it's brave. And I think whenever Thomas Markle rears
Speaker 4: his head, I go into a position of just feeling
Speaker 4: such empathy for Meghan. And he has come out just
Speaker 4: I think in the last day or so and said
Speaker 4: that his mother would be turning in her grave at
Speaker 4: Meghan's decision to change her name from Markel to Sussex.
Speaker 1: Which is bizar thing to say.
Speaker 4: It's a bizarre thing to say given that most women
Speaker 4: still upon getting married do change their name.
Speaker 1: He's really grasping, He is really graping to stay in
Speaker 1: the conversation.
Speaker 4: And it also made me look at Meghan in a
Speaker 4: different way because I went, no, wonder she doesn't want
Speaker 4: to be known as Meghan Markle like, I wonder if
Speaker 4: there's an element of really wanting to separate herself, not
Speaker 4: only from Thomas but from her brother, who every time
Speaker 4: she takes a breath, they're asked by the male in
Speaker 4: the UK if they'll comment. They both admitted to not
Speaker 4: actually watching any of it, but Thomas Markle was like, well,
Speaker 4: cooking shows are usually spontaneous and blah and.
Speaker 1: Just it's grows how imbittered he is. I also watched
Speaker 1: a lot more of it over the weekend, and our
Speaker 1: own newsletter about how I was a bit sick over
Speaker 1: the weekend and I couldn't really focus on anything, so
Speaker 1: I just wanted that sort of background TV that would
Speaker 1: wash over me. And it really did the trick. It
Speaker 1: was almost quite soothing, and I came away The first
Speaker 1: episode I found quite frustrating because I think we were
Speaker 1: graining it on a curve that is not the same
Speaker 1: as other lifestyle shows or other cooking shows or crafty shows.
Speaker 1: I think we brought all the baggage of our opinions
Speaker 1: about Megan and the money she was paid and everything
Speaker 1: that's happened. But when I just kind of watched more
Speaker 1: of it, it made me feel sorry for her in
Speaker 1: the sense that she felt very timid, unsure of herself,
Speaker 1: really needing validation and praise for everybody. All the people
Speaker 1: that were in her house didn't seem to know her
Speaker 1: very well or at all. Some of them had never
Speaker 1: met her before, and she really needed their approval, and
Speaker 1: she really needed them to say things like, you've always
Speaker 1: been the hostess with the most and you've always nurtured
Speaker 1: with food, and food is really a love language. It
Speaker 1: was very saying the quiet part out loud. She was
Speaker 1: doing a lot of trying to put forward this other
Speaker 1: version of herself, which I understand. Since she became famous
Speaker 1: by hooking up with Harry, the media has written her
Speaker 1: story for her and her family have and then they
Speaker 1: did that Netflix show where they had to be very
Speaker 1: negative and angsty about their whole experience, which I understand
Speaker 1: to be true from their point of view. But she's
Speaker 1: never been able to just be kind of ordinary.
Speaker 4: And there's an irony to and a lot of the
Speaker 4: reviews are like Megan, it's desperate for us to like her.
Speaker 4: It's like, imagine how traumatizing it would be to be
Speaker 4: the most hated woman in the world for the very
Speaker 4: worst crime she could maybe be guilty of is not
Speaker 4: managing staff well Maybey. Yeah, being someone who some people
Speaker 4: don't like, which is a.
Speaker 1: Very also to say about a person of color. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know that they're uppity. That's very coded.
Speaker 3: And in the same way.
Speaker 4: I mean, I know a lot of people who have
Speaker 4: watched it and they don't warm to Megan, right. They
Speaker 4: they don't relate to it to whether it's a sense
Speaker 4: of humor or her She doesn't.
Speaker 1: Have a sense of humor. And it's all very perfect,
Speaker 1: and that isn't how you connect, no matter how many
Speaker 1: times she says, Oh, it doesn't have to be perfect,
Speaker 1: and I'm just ordinary and has her bare feet. It's
Speaker 1: so unrelatable that she's desperately wanting to be liked and
Speaker 1: seen for who she is. But there's this massive barrier
Speaker 1: because when you take a crew of eighty people to
Speaker 1: make a show about how easy it is to make breakfast,
Speaker 1: there's massive disconnect.
Speaker 2: I don't know about that because I think again, she
Speaker 2: is very deliberately made a show that isn't really about her,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. It's supposed to be about
Speaker 2: the things so Mike dms and everything and Instagram over
Speaker 2: the weekend. We're just full of people sharing themselves, making
Speaker 2: things that Megan's making, some of them badly, some of
Speaker 2: them well. But people are into it. She's given us
Speaker 2: other things to talk about other than just her. But
Speaker 2: the other thing is I think, because I agree with
Speaker 2: you Mia that while I was watching it, one of
Speaker 2: the things I wrote down, especially that first time, is
Speaker 2: why does she so desperate for everybody to like her
Speaker 2: so much? And as you've just said, Jesse, I think
Speaker 2: that definitely everybody hating you for however long would do
Speaker 2: that to you. And this bumps into something that was
Speaker 2: obviously always a problem with the Royals.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: Megan is, and this has been said before, it's non
Speaker 2: original thought, a creature of American aspiration.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: She obviously gets an enormous amount of pleasure from the
Speaker 2: fact that she now has a lovely life with lovely
Speaker 2: stuff in it, and she gets to meet people who
Speaker 2: are very high for lutin and interesting, and she gets
Speaker 2: just In Trudeau's family to come over for summer and whatever,
Speaker 2: and she's hanging out with it like she obviously likes
Speaker 2: all that, And in America that is in no way shamed.
Speaker 2: Being ambitious and socially ambitious I'm talking about too, is
Speaker 2: not shamed in Britain, and particularly if you're royal. You're
Speaker 2: born at the top, right, there's nowhere to aspire to,
Speaker 2: which is why they're often very busy making their houses
Speaker 2: look a bit crumbly, and they don't have all the
Speaker 2: flushing toilets and they don't have all that stuff. I
Speaker 2: think that's another reason why it was always going to
Speaker 2: be hard for her, who's obviously a striver, obviously tries
Speaker 2: very hard. Obviously she says it out loud a couple
Speaker 2: of times. I love to get a gold star. I
Speaker 2: love it when I get approvals and someone tells me
Speaker 2: I've done a great job. That is very unroyal. And
Speaker 2: so even though it makes her the perfect princess because she's,
Speaker 2: you know, performing at this level all the time, that's
Speaker 2: not what being a princess is supposed to be. It's
Speaker 2: supposed to be effortless.
Speaker 1: And also service to others. I think the thing that
Speaker 1: rankles me most is this exhaustion with all these women,
Speaker 1: whether it's Nara Smith who makes you know, rice bubbles
Speaker 1: from scratch with a grain of rice when her children
Speaker 1: want breakfast to Megan they're women who are performing the
Speaker 1: act of leisure and domesticity, and yet they're being paid
Speaker 1: for it, and there's a whole business behind what they're doing.
Speaker 3: Constraints.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the woman who is making her children breakfast does
Speaker 4: so with fifty five constraints of the modern world on her.
Speaker 2: Such time doesn't want to pop like rice bubbles from scratch,
Speaker 2: as well as not being able.
Speaker 1: To fetishizing the stuff that most women have to just
Speaker 1: do every day. And yes, it would be lovely to
Speaker 1: decant a packet of crackers and put them into a
Speaker 1: lovely cellophane thing and make a calligraphy, but most of
Speaker 1: us don't have a crew of eighty people and millions
Speaker 1: of dollars from Netflix to make that happen. And the
Speaker 1: disingenuine usiness from me is twofold.
Speaker 3: First of all, it's.
Speaker 1: The being a duchess and cosplaying royalty, but also trying
Speaker 1: to come across as one of the people, and also
Speaker 1: cose playing leisure and domesticity when it's hard work and
Speaker 1: it takes a lot of money and a lot of time.
Speaker 1: And this is something that women are taught to have
Speaker 1: our value from our abilities as homemakers. And yet now
Speaker 1: we're also expected to go out and work and earn
Speaker 1: a living and often support our families.
Speaker 2: But some women do love to aspire to that, like
Speaker 2: not necessarily doing it all the time. But the three
Speaker 2: of us have all obviously given ourselves away when talking
Speaker 2: about hosting that it's not our jam literally, But you know,
Speaker 2: I know plenty of people who get an enormous amount
Speaker 2: of pleasure out of baking a beautiful cake. I don't
Speaker 2: think that just because Megan, and she's not the only one.
Speaker 2: There's a whole industry of this, of literally lifestyle content.
Speaker 2: It's not all about us and making us feel bad,
Speaker 2: and lots of women love plugging into it, so what's
Speaker 2: wrong with that?
Speaker 4: And on the other hand, I think that seeing through
Speaker 4: the Thomas mirkl lens is that this is a woman
Speaker 4: who is estranged from her father and her brother, who
Speaker 4: is raising children with a man who lost his mother
Speaker 4: very very young. And I just think that there's something
Speaker 4: in trying to create a childhood that was either different
Speaker 4: from your own or can be. You know, people who
Speaker 4: who have a strange family members raising little children can
Speaker 4: be really confronting because bring back a lot of memories.
Speaker 4: And Harry grew up in a circus like I can
Speaker 4: understand trying to make that a little bit more perfect.
Speaker 1: And for her too, because she talks about growing up
Speaker 1: as a latchkey kid. She had a single mum and.
Speaker 3: Which Thomas Michael completely denies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but her parents were divorced and she lived either
Speaker 1: with her dad or her mum. But she had a
Speaker 1: single mum or a single dad, and her parents worked.
Speaker 1: And so it's not the aspiration of it's not nice
Speaker 1: to make a cake or make people feel welcome, or
Speaker 1: do it little, you know, arrange some flowers.
Speaker 3: It's not that.
Speaker 1: It's the making it seem really easy and effortless and
Speaker 1: hiding all the work and the effort and the money
Speaker 1: and the time that it takes, as if anyone can
Speaker 1: do it. We know that's not true.
Speaker 2: We'd have some feedback for the Constitution. If you thought
Speaker 2: we were having a federal election any minute now, You're
Speaker 2: not alone. But ex cyclone Alfred paid to that this weekend,
Speaker 2: as it should, and instead we're back in election limbo
Speaker 2: and Instagram reel by Charlotte Mortlock, friend of the pod
Speaker 2: and who's worked in politics for years, articulated why this
Speaker 2: is a problem and what should happen to solve it,
Speaker 2: and it's an opinion it has to be said that
Speaker 2: shared by the Prime Minister sometimes Peter Dutton and plenty
Speaker 2: of people in politics. They haven't made a reel about
Speaker 2: it yet and they should because here's what Charlotte said.
Speaker 5: The Prime Minister was set to call the election tomorrow
Speaker 5: and that would mean an April twelve election that is
Speaker 5: no longer happening and I have no critique of that.
Speaker 5: The government needs to be focused on the emergency efforts
Speaker 5: and the recovery efforts. However, it does mean that Australia
Speaker 5: is going to be in this quasi campaign limbo for
Speaker 5: yet another month because we have Easter Anzac Day, so
Speaker 5: now we're not having the election tool may That means
Speaker 5: we've been in kind of this campaign mode for around
Speaker 5: six to eight months and very little effective democracy has
Speaker 5: done in that time because everyone is hyper, you know,
Speaker 5: part of the hyper focused on political point scoring.
Speaker 3: That is just the reality.
Speaker 5: We need to change to a four year term and
Speaker 5: it needs to be a fixed term because you're also
Speaker 5: trying to always gain the system, hold the election on
Speaker 5: a date that suits you when you've got momentum for
Speaker 5: your party, again, no critique.
Speaker 3: That is a reality, but that's not always.
Speaker 5: In the country's interests. And so I do think that
Speaker 5: we really need to have a really good look at
Speaker 5: our democracy and why we can't change that and why
Speaker 5: it's taken us so long to get to that point.
Speaker 5: And I don't think it was being controversial. I think
Speaker 5: we make our politicians look a lot longer into the future,
Speaker 5: or at least a little, which is only a good thing.
Speaker 2: So for a bit of context for us to change,
Speaker 2: Australia to change to a four year fixed term, which
Speaker 2: is what America has, It's what Britain has, it's what
Speaker 2: lots of places happen.
Speaker 3: Does a fixed term mean they don't get to decide?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so fixed term. What they're talking about there is
Speaker 2: that you go right, so the election is always on
Speaker 2: November get whatever, or it always has to be before
Speaker 2: this date, and that instead of three year terms, which
Speaker 2: is what Australia has, you have four year terms. Now
Speaker 2: the US do that, the UK do that. Actually, our
Speaker 2: states and territories also do it. Our state and territory
Speaker 2: elections I've never noticed, to be honest, always fall at
Speaker 2: the same time and a fixed term. But for this
Speaker 2: to happen at a federal level, that has to be
Speaker 2: a referendum because it would be changing the constitution. So
Speaker 2: when I was saying before that the Prime Minister's voice
Speaker 2: support and both sides of politics have voiced support for this.
Speaker 2: Over time, there is not very much appetite for a
Speaker 2: referendum because we know how they go.
Speaker 1: After the break snaff and why it's all over your phone.
Speaker 3: Wan unlimited out loud access.
Speaker 4: We drop episodes every Tuesday and Thursday exclusively for Mum
Speaker 4: and Maya subscribers. Follow the link in the show notes
Speaker 4: to get us in your ears five days a week,
Speaker 4: and a huge thank you to all our current subscribers.
Speaker 1: If you're wondering why being online seems so relentlessly exhausting
Speaker 1: lately and why you're so often left with an anxiety, hangover,
Speaker 1: or just a feeling of yuckiness as you scroll, it
Speaker 1: could be because of snaff. The founder of BuzzFeed, Jonah
Speaker 1: pretty recently wrote a think piece that explained the concept
Speaker 1: of snaff and how it has come to dominate social media.
Speaker 1: He says that social media has become overrun with snaff,
Speaker 1: and snaff stands for s is for stakes, exaggerating the
Speaker 1: stakes to make the content urgent and existential. N is
Speaker 1: for novelty, manufacturing novelty, and spinning content as being this
Speaker 1: has never happened before. A is for anger, manipulating people's
Speaker 1: anger to drive engagement via outrage. R is for retention.
Speaker 1: Retention hacks include like withholding info like wait till the end,
Speaker 1: watch till the end, or clickbaiting. And F is for fear,
Speaker 1: so really taking advantage of fear to make people focus
Speaker 1: with urgency on the content. So he argues that the
Speaker 1: social media overlords at Meta and TikTok don't care about
Speaker 1: actual content. They care about keeping people addicted to scrolling
Speaker 1: so that they can monetize our eyeballs for longer. I
Speaker 1: think we all by this stage know that to be true.
Speaker 1: And the result of that is this proliferation of a
Speaker 1: particular type of content that the algorithm rewards aka snaff.
Speaker 1: So it means that the type of content that gets
Speaker 1: created and recommended isn't the best content, but the content
Speaker 1: that elicits the most compulsive and predictable response from the
Speaker 1: human brain. Is this ringing a little bit true for you, Jesson?
Speaker 4: My goodness, it explains literally everything from publishers to politicians,
Speaker 4: to individual commentators.
Speaker 1: Influencers TV shows.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I think I saw it over the weekend.
Speaker 4: Sometimes there are attempts at snaff. There's a story that
Speaker 4: people are like, this is rich with potential snaff. Let's
Speaker 4: try and find it.
Speaker 1: What's the snaff angle?
Speaker 3: Where's the snaff in this?
Speaker 4: And I was watching it unfold over the weekend with
Speaker 4: the another Simple Favor premiere because it's Blake Lively, right,
Speaker 4: and the Blake Lively She's got it.
Speaker 3: It's a second movie sequel.
Speaker 4: It's a sequel with the it was the Anna Kendrick
Speaker 4: movie and Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni was sort of
Speaker 4: the ultimate snaff story. There was enormous novelty. The stakes
Speaker 4: were so high. Either a woman was sexually assaulted or
Speaker 4: she lied about it, which you know was anger fear,
Speaker 4: and the retention was the receipts. It was like it
Speaker 4: was perfect because you could do a fifteen minute TikTok
Speaker 4: video on it with all the information and people were
Speaker 4: just stuck to it. And so I saw attempts to
Speaker 4: kind of find the snaff in this story over the weekend,
Speaker 4: and there was a headline that I read this morning.
Speaker 4: That was like Anna Kendrick's three word reply to a
Speaker 4: quest about working with Blake Lively. And here's what she
Speaker 4: actually said, What.
Speaker 3: Does it mean to be working with Blake again? Does
Speaker 3: that it? To be clear? All she said was oh,
Speaker 3: you know, and then it feels like she got interrupted. Yeah,
Speaker 3: like that was the entire story.
Speaker 4: So if you feel as though you go onto the
Speaker 4: internet and everything feels existential, everything feels like life or death,
Speaker 4: that the biggest commentators in Australia right now look as though,
Speaker 4: I'm going to be completely honest about how I feel
Speaker 4: about it. Look as though they are unwell because they
Speaker 4: are stuck in this cycle.
Speaker 1: Of everything's in emergency and.
Speaker 4: Almost like mania of just you see them get on,
Speaker 4: they're breathless. I don't actually think that's put on. I
Speaker 4: think that you become so invested in the algorithm and
Speaker 4: the reward. We're like mice with little every time we
Speaker 4: press a button, we get a reward, and we're addicted
Speaker 4: to this drug. And you see people radical themselves in
Speaker 4: their ideas because they get like almost taken away by
Speaker 4: the scale of the thing they're talking about.
Speaker 2: Also, this is because all content is so examined now,
Speaker 2: So to pull the curtain back a little bit, like
Speaker 2: ever since I've worked at digital media, we know everything
Speaker 2: about why people click on things, right, We've known that
Speaker 2: for a very long time, and so in the old
Speaker 2: days we used to call it clickbait, very similar to
Speaker 2: snaff really like, make it seem really dramatic, hold back
Speaker 2: something of novelty, make sure there's a reason to retain
Speaker 2: them by clicking. You know all of those things, right,
Speaker 2: And so we are all hyper data driven, and the
Speaker 2: people who are constantly snaffing, I'm just trying to find
Speaker 2: different ways to use the word because I love it
Speaker 2: so much. Constantly snaffing on the Internet, obviously are doing
Speaker 2: it for monetary reasons, engagement reasons, validation reasons.
Speaker 1: Attention reasons.
Speaker 3: Literally there's a job, yeah.
Speaker 2: Because they know it works. So you'll notice that with
Speaker 2: any of the socials you follow, including ours, there'll be
Speaker 2: a while where the headlines look like this, and then
Speaker 2: they'll change and now they'll look like that, and then
Speaker 2: there'll be a time when the pictures look like this,
Speaker 2: and then they look like that. Isn't this just playing
Speaker 2: people where they are? You know what I mean? Like
Speaker 2: if it didn't work, we wouldn't.
Speaker 1: Do it well in a way, yes, because in order
Speaker 1: to stay relevant and get views so that they can
Speaker 1: make money, creators a force to make snaff content or
Speaker 1: at least market the content that they make from a
Speaker 1: snaff point of view. And what Jonah Pardi argues in
Speaker 1: this piece is that snaff content is reshaping politics and
Speaker 1: culture and society, and it's often producing hateful and misleading
Speaker 1: or really destructive content. Because the one word that isn't
Speaker 1: in there that I think ends should be more more
Speaker 1: than for novelty. It should be for negativity because feel good,
Speaker 1: positive content does not elicit that fight or flight or
Speaker 1: fury response in you.
Speaker 4: Right, I've had to I think we've probably all had
Speaker 4: this as an editor. You have people come in or
Speaker 4: even brands and they say, why don't we do some
Speaker 4: good news And I've had to say, no, one gives
Speaker 4: a shit about good news.
Speaker 3: And so it doesn't feel like an emergency exactly right.
Speaker 4: It doesn't kind of inspire any feeling in you. And
Speaker 4: we've all played this game. I've had to play this
Speaker 4: game and have felt myself do it online. There was
Speaker 4: a great quote in this article about how the internet
Speaker 4: used to serve beer and wine at a communal dinner party,
Speaker 4: and now there's fentanyl and crack, and to try and
Speaker 4: make people pay for wine when they can get crack
Speaker 4: for free is very difficult.
Speaker 1: The whole Internet is running on crack and fentanyl.
Speaker 4: Yes, But I did think, as I agorithm as I
Speaker 4: was reading this, I'm someone who probably turns towards criticism
Speaker 4: of institutions, that monopoly that the tech industries have over
Speaker 4: algorithms and all of that. I agree that this is
Speaker 4: an algorithmic issue. I do think that individuals and publishers
Speaker 4: need to take some responsibility, which is what BuzzFeed is doing.
Speaker 4: But I think it's a cop out to go, well,
Speaker 4: I'm just playing the algorithm. As someone who exists as
Speaker 4: a person on the Internet and as a person in
Speaker 4: the media, I have felt myself get sucked into the
Speaker 4: vortex of snuff and I have felt myself have to
Speaker 4: literally sit down and go what are your values?
Speaker 3: What are your boundaries?
Speaker 4: On the internet? What do you want to do? If
Speaker 4: you are chasing an algorithm, you're going to end up
Speaker 4: as a person you don't like. Because often you'll see
Speaker 4: a piece of content and it might be funny, and
Speaker 4: it's got novelty, and it's gone absolutely viral, and you go,
Speaker 4: that is ultimately hateful. You've just spurted hate into the world.
Speaker 4: You've not made the world better or anyone's day better.
Speaker 4: And to resist that as someone who creates content is
Speaker 4: really hard.
Speaker 1: I think that's why a lot of us are looking.
Speaker 1: A lot of content creators are looking to have a
Speaker 1: smaller audience because the way to ride the algorithm is
Speaker 1: with snuff. And in terms of it changing culture, you
Speaker 1: can see it in so many ways. So in politics,
Speaker 1: the obvious example is Trump. Trump is the ultimate snaff
Speaker 1: political candidate versus someone like Joe Biden had his own issues.
Speaker 1: But Kamala Harris is just like was fairly neutral. She
Speaker 1: wasn't going to get the same amount of attention. Look
Speaker 1: at in TV shows The Bachelor, there was not that
Speaker 1: high stakes drama and it faded away only to re
Speaker 1: replaced by maths, which is constant snaff, constant drama, outrage, scandal,
Speaker 1: high stakes. So that's how you can see that it's
Speaker 1: shaping the culture.
Speaker 2: I think people are wise to snaff and have been
Speaker 2: for a while, even if they didn't know what it
Speaker 2: was called. Because if you look at news refusal. We've
Speaker 2: talked about that a lot, people turning away from news.
Speaker 2: I promise that it's only like two more days. I'm
Speaker 2: allowed to resference Megan and everything. If a TV show
Speaker 2: is a legitimate hit, it is for this reason in
Speaker 2: lots of ways, well in two different ways. Partly it's
Speaker 2: snaff bait because the people who hater will watch it
Speaker 2: and go back. But the actual show itself, as you've
Speaker 2: already said today, Maya is so inoffensive and pleasant. And
Speaker 2: I know that I'm often looking for, particularly in audio,
Speaker 2: like books or podcasts or things when I've been swimming
Speaker 2: in the news cycle for days that do the opposite
Speaker 2: and that will suit me enhich me, make me think
Speaker 2: about things in a different way, but also just soothe
Speaker 2: me and not freak me out. And I think that
Speaker 2: we definitely have gotten wise to it.
Speaker 4: I think it's taken over news. There was a great
Speaker 4: example in that story about the LA fires. How you
Speaker 4: can get a week into a news event, no none
Speaker 4: of the facts, but know the debates about DEI you've
Speaker 4: seen fake images you to.
Speaker 2: Be mad about today yelling it out us.
Speaker 4: We even said it last week with cyclone Alfred when
Speaker 4: we were talking about that, it was a bizarre moment
Speaker 4: because there was nobody to be angry at. Like the
Speaker 4: news cycle relies on going, who can we yell at?
Speaker 4: Because that's a story that.
Speaker 1: The beginning of COVID was like that. Remember when no
Speaker 1: one had an one to be angry at and it
Speaker 1: was just felt strange and people were singing opera on
Speaker 1: their balconies and sharing Kumbaya memes and then we're snaffed.
Speaker 1: Then it got snaffed.
Speaker 3: We devolved into snuff. Our hands got sticky.
Speaker 5: With the snuff.
Speaker 2: That's all we've got time for today. Friends, A massive
Speaker 2: thank you to all of you out louders for listening
Speaker 2: to today's show and to our fabulous team for putting
Speaker 2: it together. As always, we're going to be back in
Speaker 2: your ears tomorrow.
Speaker 3: Goodbye bye.
Speaker 1: Shout out to any Muma Maya subscribers listening. If you
Speaker 1: love the show and want to support us as well,
Speaker 1: subscribing to mom and Maya is the very best way
Speaker 1: to do so. There is a link in the episode
Speaker 1: description