Speaker 1: You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Speaker 2: Mamma Mere acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
Speaker 2: that this podcast is recorded on Hello and welcome to
Speaker 2: Mamma Mia. Out loud, what women are actually talking about
Speaker 2: on Wednesday, the eighteenth of September. I'm Holly Waynwright. Sorry
Speaker 2: I forgot that part. I'm Holly Wayne Right, I'm and.
Speaker 3: I'm jeffew Stevens.
Speaker 1: I got me who I.
Speaker 2: Was for a moment. It's not surprising brain was wondering.
Speaker 2: I'm back in the room and on the show. Today.
Speaker 2: Instagram is finally doing something about teenagers on its app,
Speaker 2: but others think this is just a parental cop out.
Speaker 2: We unpack Also, are you terrified of breaking a streak?
Speaker 2: When does a self improvement have it become an addiction?
Speaker 2: And what are hours? And a very famous Australian man
Speaker 2: is in complete public free fall?
Speaker 1: Is it time to look away?
Speaker 2: But for us Jesse steven.
Speaker 3: In case you missed it, as a close personal friend
Speaker 3: of both Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez, I am at
Speaker 3: my wit tend Matt Damon and I we've been on
Speaker 3: the phone.
Speaker 2: I bet you have.
Speaker 3: We have because where we are in the same boat.
Speaker 2: The benefit support what'sapp groups must be going.
Speaker 1: There's Ben again.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's what we call our group.
Speaker 1: Oh no, not Ben again.
Speaker 3: We event and we rage. And this is because on Saturday,
Speaker 3: Ben and Jen were pictured having brunch together with afflex
Speaker 3: two kids and Lopez's twins, and apparently the reports are
Speaker 3: that they were kissing and Affleck couldn't keep his hands
Speaker 3: off Lopez.
Speaker 1: I raise reports denied, Well, there was one report that
Speaker 1: said that, and then the other reports, plus some of
Speaker 1: the photos showed him what looked to be shouting at
Speaker 1: her baldy language was awful.
Speaker 3: I don't ah, but some of the ones I saw
Speaker 3: they were very very close.
Speaker 1: They arrived together in a car. I don't know what's
Speaker 1: going on. I don't know why they would do the
Speaker 1: pat walk and go to I think it was such
Speaker 1: a famous so where they know they are going to be.
Speaker 1: Perhaps it was a pet walk, right, So what are
Speaker 1: they trying to achieve with a pet walk? They don't
Speaker 1: need to be in the media more. I guess if
Speaker 1: they want to send a message, stop writing. It's just
Speaker 1: started a whole new cycle.
Speaker 3: Ye pressure, and she had her engagement ring on her
Speaker 3: pinky finger.
Speaker 2: Do you think they're getting back together?
Speaker 1: I don't.
Speaker 3: But I don't think that this helped with the rumors
Speaker 3: because's a friend.
Speaker 2: I'm concerned the divorce announcement, and then can't keep our
Speaker 2: hands off each other. Maybe whatever.
Speaker 1: I'm so tired, I know, right, it's like, really, what.
Speaker 3: Do I say to Jen?
Speaker 2: What do I say? You say, No, that man is
Speaker 2: not going to change. That's what you say. He's not
Speaker 2: going to change. You think he's going to change, He's
Speaker 2: not going to change. Just keep moving forward.
Speaker 1: What Matt Damon was trying to tell her.
Speaker 3: Okay, I feel as though their kids are close, and
Speaker 3: what I saw was two people who want what is
Speaker 3: best for their kids. And in the reports it said,
Speaker 3: you know, they want to make sure their kids are
Speaker 3: still hanging out. The big question is, of course, couldn't
Speaker 3: they hang out in the backyard in a private location.
Speaker 1: Well, the kids are not little kids now. The kids
Speaker 1: do hang out together, I think. But also it is
Speaker 1: genuinely really tricky when you've got a blended family and
Speaker 1: the two parents bring children into their relationship. I've seen
Speaker 1: this play out a number of times, and the kids
Speaker 1: become really close to their step siblings and then they
Speaker 1: just part ways, and it's not like when you know
Speaker 1: two parents and their biological children. If the two parents split,
Speaker 1: the biological children will see both and they'll probably the
Speaker 1: kids will stay together and will go between parents. But
Speaker 1: when it's everyone came with their own children, they kind
Speaker 1: of leave with their own children, and then the children
Speaker 1: don't see the other parents and relationship siblings, Yeah, what
Speaker 1: is that relationship with your former stepfather and your former
Speaker 1: step siblings. It's really tricky.
Speaker 2: I think I'm glad you're seeing so much real life
Speaker 2: in the Benefit saga. I'm just more like past the popcorn.
Speaker 4: They're an automatic set of protections for teens that try
Speaker 4: and proactively address the top concerns that we've heard from
Speaker 4: parents about teens online, things like who can contact them,
Speaker 4: what content they see, and how much time they spend
Speaker 4: on their device.
Speaker 1: Instagram's about to change dramatically for teenagers is the breaking news,
Speaker 1: and they are not going to be thrilled. But anyone
Speaker 1: losing sleep over how much sleep teens are losing because
Speaker 1: of incessant Instagram notifications and the fact that social media
Speaker 1: has been proven to cause major harm to kids and teens, well,
Speaker 1: it is a good day for you. You might remember
Speaker 1: last week we spoke about how the government announced that
Speaker 1: they would be looking at the banning of kids from
Speaker 1: using social media.
Speaker 2: We're looking at the range between fourteen and sixteen.
Speaker 1: That's one of the reasons why we're having a trial,
Speaker 1: and what we're looking at is how you deliver it.
Speaker 2: This is a global issue.
Speaker 1: Well since that conversation in the last twenty four hours,
Speaker 1: Instagram has tried to make a preemptive move to avoid
Speaker 1: government regulation. Not just in Australia, but a lot of
Speaker 1: governments are sort of rumbling around the world about this.
Speaker 1: And Instagram, owned of course by Meta, who own Facebook,
Speaker 1: They've announced changes of their own. And the big change
Speaker 1: is that teen accounts are going to be introduced for
Speaker 1: anyone under eighteen. You're not meant to be on Instagram
Speaker 1: anyway under thirteen, So if you're a teenager, starting with Australia,
Speaker 1: the UK, the US and Canada and then rolling out
Speaker 1: for the rest of the world, here are the key changes.
Speaker 1: All teen accounts will be set to private as a default.
Speaker 1: It's going to start happening now. So if you teenage,
Speaker 1: or if a teenage already has an account, presuming that
Speaker 1: they entered their correct air state, which they probably didn't.
Speaker 1: It will be set to private. Followers who the user
Speaker 1: has not accepted, cannot see their content are interact with them.
Speaker 1: That's what private means. Teenage users will automatically be placed
Speaker 1: on a more restrictive setting for sensitive content, such as
Speaker 1: material promoting cosmetic procedures and sexually explicit or violent content.
Speaker 1: No thought, maybe that might have been happening before, seems not.
Speaker 1: An anti bullying feature will filter out offensive words or
Speaker 1: phrases in comments and DM requests, which should go swimmingly
Speaker 1: given that the words that teenagers use aren't even understood
Speaker 1: by anyone. They'll also get a notification which they can ignore,
Speaker 1: to tell them to leave the app after sixty minutes.
Speaker 2: You stay very cynical about it. I was sitting there
Speaker 2: going that sounds good. That sounds good.
Speaker 1: Have you met a teenager? The interesting one also is
Speaker 1: that sleep mode will be automatically turned on for all
Speaker 1: teen accounts between ten pm and seven am, which means
Speaker 1: that they'll get no notifications. Now, if you're sixteen or seventeen,
Speaker 1: you can opt out of all of those settings, but
Speaker 1: if you're fifteen or younger you'll need a parent or
Speaker 1: guardian's permission to do so, or your teenager will just
Speaker 1: get your phone and pretend to be you an opt
Speaker 1: out on your behalf.
Speaker 3: I hear your cynicism. Yeah, but haven't we been yelling
Speaker 3: at metas to do something? And now Meta's done something
Speaker 3: and everyone's going while the teenagers can just override it.
Speaker 1: This is very different to the fact that they just
Speaker 1: shouldn't be on social media. So this is designed to
Speaker 1: plicate governments and parents and make everyone think, oh, they're
Speaker 1: being responsible, they're doing something. Therefore, it takes all the
Speaker 1: wind out of the sales of a total ban, right,
Speaker 1: which is what governments have been talking about, which we
Speaker 1: know is far better for the kids.
Speaker 2: Yes, but that's going to take so much time an
Speaker 2: actual legal ban in different territories around the world. And
Speaker 2: it's interesting you were saying how Australia is not the
Speaker 2: only one. It's not. But we discussed last week the
Speaker 2: social media restrictions that our government are discussing putting in
Speaker 2: are amongst the harshest in the world, and they're talking
Speaker 2: about them in America like everybody's talking about them.
Speaker 1: So I but that's why this is happening whole No
Speaker 1: I get that.
Speaker 2: I don't want no, no, But my point is it's
Speaker 2: going to take a really long time, so something's better
Speaker 2: than nothing. From my perspective.
Speaker 1: It won't necessarily take a really long time because they
Speaker 1: have bipartisan support for this legislation, so to be lobbied
Speaker 1: about the government, they're.
Speaker 2: Going to be lobbied and lobbied and lobbied by these
Speaker 2: massive like if Australia manages to do it. Nowhere else
Speaker 2: has managed to do it yet, So if Australia manages
Speaker 2: to do it, great, But my perspective is I know
Speaker 2: why they're doing it, and it is cynical. They're trying
Speaker 2: to divert some of this heat. But something is better
Speaker 2: than nothing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's a bit of a defeatist attitude. Frankly.
Speaker 1: So parents are also going to have some new features
Speaker 1: that they can use, like supervision features. None of these
Speaker 1: features parents will understand how to use. And I am one,
Speaker 1: and I'm very but.
Speaker 2: This sounds simpler than the other things a little bit.
Speaker 1: It's pretty complicated. Have you ever tried to get your
Speaker 1: kids phone and try to make it like it's really hard?
Speaker 2: One hundred percent yes, But and this is exactly why
Speaker 2: they've done it so that people like me who are
Speaker 2: umming and ring about whether or not my teenagers should
Speaker 2: be on Instagram. But this sounds like a really simple
Speaker 2: way for me to be at because I cannot do
Speaker 2: all that parental control stuff. I know I should, and
Speaker 2: I google and I watch YouTube videos about how to
Speaker 2: do it. I find it really confusing soda most parents.
Speaker 2: If I can just from the get go set them
Speaker 2: up with an account that is all these things are
Speaker 2: built into it, that's a good thing.
Speaker 1: But what are they actually so their account won't be
Speaker 1: public like it sounds like a lot, but it's.
Speaker 2: Ten o'clock to get off or like this, which reminder
Speaker 2: I'm like, you need to kick him off.
Speaker 1: Doesn't mean you can't look at it. I just won't
Speaker 1: get push notifications. But you know who also isn't happy.
Speaker 1: Evan Spiegel, our friendly billionaire husband of Miranda Kerr. He's
Speaker 1: the boss of Snapchat. And what's interesting about this is
Speaker 1: that Instagram is not the main game for teenagers and
Speaker 1: Facebook doesn't even exist for them. That's something that their
Speaker 1: grandparents use. They are all on Snapchat and TikTok, and
Speaker 1: the bosses of those social platforms do not agree with
Speaker 1: the Instagram approach, and the loudest pushback has come from
Speaker 1: Evan Spiegel. He's the boss of Snapchat and he's the
Speaker 1: father of their three children, who are too young to
Speaker 1: have phones conveniently, and he says, there's a teenager in
Speaker 1: it's the all Under Bloom one. I think, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's the Orlando Bloom one. He's fourteen. So he says
Speaker 1: he weighed on not about the Instagram band, but he
Speaker 1: weighed into the idea of Australia's planned social media age band,
Speaker 1: and funnily enough, he's not in favor of Funny that.
Speaker 1: He says, parents have already got these tools today. We
Speaker 1: use the iOS level controls and screen time at our
Speaker 1: house to limit what our teen who's fourteen, what he's
Speaker 1: able to use. We have Family Center as well inside
Speaker 1: of Snapchat that allows parents to monitor their teens activity
Speaker 1: on Snapchat and put in place more stringent content controls
Speaker 1: and things like that. He clearly has not spent much
Speaker 1: time with his fourteen year old, and maybe he has
Speaker 1: because he's the boss of Snapchat, so he understands how
Speaker 1: to work it. Yeah. I have never been more puzzled.
Speaker 1: I tried to get on Snapchat many years ago, like
Speaker 1: a lot of people did, because I like to try
Speaker 1: and understand social platforms from the inside, because I'm always
Speaker 1: a believer. If you don't know the game, you can't
Speaker 1: make the rules. It is so confusing. It felt like
Speaker 1: wandering around in the dark. I didn't understand it. And
Speaker 1: this is where kids are doing all their communicating. So
Speaker 1: we might use group techs, WhatsApp groups, they do all
Speaker 1: of it on Snapchat. So Snapchat is the big game,
Speaker 1: and the big insidious thing that Snapchat has that's so
Speaker 1: I think so awful for teens is the snap maps,
Speaker 1: so you can see where all your friends all are
Speaker 1: at all times, and that means that you can see
Speaker 1: when everybody's at a party or when everybody's at some
Speaker 1: house and you haven't been invited.
Speaker 3: Evan says that Snapchat's really good for well being though.
Speaker 2: Yeah so, and he actually says that they're not even
Speaker 2: really a social media platform, so I shouldn't really be
Speaker 2: included in these exactly.
Speaker 1: So puts it on to parents. He said, we've really
Speaker 1: done a lot to empower parents to make the right
Speaker 1: choices for their teenagers. And again, all those tools already
Speaker 1: exist for parents who would rather restrict the use of
Speaker 1: certain naps for their teens, would we I'd rather they
Speaker 1: just be banned.
Speaker 3: So, as you say, of course he's going to say that,
Speaker 3: I was looking at the data. So most Snapchat users
Speaker 3: are between the ages of thirteen and thirty four. One
Speaker 3: in five are between thirteen and seventeen.
Speaker 1: I think the only one that's thirty four is Evans
Speaker 1: is going to say, yeah, one year old is on Snapchat.
Speaker 3: Oh, I know millions are under the age of twelve.
Speaker 3: So of course it is for little little kids. And
Speaker 3: as you say, it's so rich for a tech founded
Speaker 3: to tell us about the parental controls. We work in
Speaker 3: digital media. We're pretty tech savy. I've never heard of
Speaker 3: the iOS level controls, what the family center something something.
Speaker 3: I was like, I have no idea what you're talking about, Like,
Speaker 3: you are so literate in this in a way that
Speaker 3: parents aren't. And on the Instagram thing, I know that
Speaker 3: you were saying they're doing this, you know, to appease governments,
Speaker 3: and there's been this pushback. On the one hand, I'm
Speaker 3: glad that they've done something, and I really I want
Speaker 3: to pay that the cynic in me is going this
Speaker 3: is a move because they're looking at potentially losing millions
Speaker 3: and millions of users.
Speaker 1: And Adam Assiri said that, he said, it's bad for business,
Speaker 1: but we'll struggle through.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, no, no, this is good. This is a
Speaker 3: good for business move because the options are because they
Speaker 3: didn't have any of these controls. The Jonathan Heights of
Speaker 3: the world, who's written that very famous book about the
Speaker 3: Anxious Generation, He's spoken a lot about Instagram and mental
Speaker 3: health rates declining with the introduction of Instagram and Snapchat
Speaker 3: and TikTok. The push has been get them off, that's
Speaker 3: the big argument. In fact, parental controls aren't what they're saying.
Speaker 3: They're saying get them off. So they're clearly sitting in
Speaker 3: board meetings going, well, we can't lose them all together.
Speaker 3: We're going to have to make some like this is
Speaker 3: a new product, essentially to tailor it specifically to a
Speaker 3: generation that they can't afford to lose. Like I don't
Speaker 3: think that this is about giving anything.
Speaker 1: The sound you can hear are parents heaving a big
Speaker 1: sigh at the thought of the mental load of having
Speaker 1: to navigate all of this new stuff and what I
Speaker 1: struggle with well, I don't struggle with But my belief
Speaker 1: is that we agree as a society that there are
Speaker 1: certain things that are bad and there are certain things
Speaker 1: that we need to do to protect everyone in our community.
Speaker 1: For example, seat belts. We don't just say, oh, seat
Speaker 1: belts are there, you can use them. We've installed them
Speaker 1: if you want to. But it's up to parents to
Speaker 1: decide whether kids use a seat belt or not. There
Speaker 1: are really strict rules around that. Same with alcohol, with vaping,
Speaker 1: all of these things that we understand. The driving age,
Speaker 1: it's not like parents should be able to decide when
Speaker 1: the kids are able to drive or smoke or drink.
Speaker 2: I'm with you on that.
Speaker 3: But then what Meta is doing. What I appreciate about
Speaker 3: what they're doing is about how automatic it is, like
Speaker 3: is happening overnight. It's not that you need to go
Speaker 3: home tonight. It's not any parent. It doesn't need to
Speaker 3: go and press one hundred buttons. That's going to happen automatically.
Speaker 3: I also think this thing where and it's interesting the
Speaker 3: head of Instagram came out and he was saying he's
Speaker 3: not even going to talk about all the tools they're
Speaker 3: going to use to ensure that teenagers are protected because
Speaker 3: we don't want to give teens an instruction manual. Because
Speaker 3: I find this thing about, well, they're just going to
Speaker 3: use a new VPN. We'll talk about this last week.
Speaker 3: It's like, well they are.
Speaker 2: Now, Well, no, they are, though. Look I'm at the
Speaker 2: absolute coal face of this. Right. My fourteen year old
Speaker 2: daughter uses social media and I have not yet bought
Speaker 2: a phone for my twelve year old son, but he
Speaker 2: will get one in January because he's gone to high school.
Speaker 2: And that, like, it's really interesting. The Jonathan hypebook that
Speaker 2: you mentioned before, when we look back at this time
Speaker 2: of realignment about social media and kids and teens, that
Speaker 2: was an absolute cut through pivotal change. It spoke to
Speaker 2: the right people in the right voices. It was massively influential,
Speaker 2: and it has Remember when we first saw that and
Speaker 2: we talked about it on the show, that big piece
Speaker 2: that was about in New York Times, and I said,
Speaker 2: it's making me feel sick, and we discussed it. That
Speaker 2: is going to be one of the big temp pole
Speaker 2: moments where we all went, Oh, the thing is, as
Speaker 2: I think about, right, I'm going to buy my son
Speaker 2: a phone for high school, and I get a chance
Speaker 2: to do over right what I did with my teenager.
Speaker 2: With all this new information that has come out, particularly
Speaker 2: in the past twelve months, what am I going to
Speaker 2: do differently? Probably nothing, is the God's honest truth, right,
Speaker 2: of course I will. I'm more aware, I've read the things.
Speaker 2: But at the same time, the same social pressures are
Speaker 2: going to be there, particularly for a kid who might
Speaker 2: be a little quirky, a little different. I'll have some
Speaker 2: issue around social relationships. The same issues are going to
Speaker 2: be there that everybody else is on it, everybody else
Speaker 2: is doing it. If I'm not on that, I can't
Speaker 2: talk to blah blah blah. So I actually appreciate, even
Speaker 2: though I am smart woman and I can see absolutely
Speaker 2: the cynicism with which these changes are being made. You're
Speaker 2: one hundred percent right Mia and Jesse about that. They're
Speaker 2: panicking about what they're about to lose, and so they're
Speaker 2: going how can we mitigate? How can we mitigate? I
Speaker 2: appreciate anything that is going to make it really simple
Speaker 2: for me?
Speaker 1: So which parts do you think?
Speaker 2: So I think of making those changes on Instagram automatic
Speaker 2: and immediate, but is really mean which.
Speaker 1: Changes in particular do you think are going to help.
Speaker 2: The fact that all I have to do is make
Speaker 2: my daughter's account. If I give it to her a
Speaker 2: teen account, and it's automatically private, and it's automatically going
Speaker 2: to have various restrictions on it, on content that's served
Speaker 2: to her. That's good. It's better than not. It's not perfect,
Speaker 2: but it's good.
Speaker 1: Wouldn't it be better if she wasn't on it?
Speaker 2: Well, she's not on it, and if I decide to
Speaker 2: do it, it's such a sort of at the moment
Speaker 2: still a very ideological Wouldn't it just be great if
Speaker 2: no kids had phones? Wouldn't it just be great if
Speaker 2: no kids looked at social That's not the world I
Speaker 2: live in. I might live in that if I was
Speaker 2: a very different kind of person with a very different
Speaker 2: kind of life. But actually technology plays quite a big
Speaker 2: part in my life, of my kids' lives, and it's
Speaker 2: going to for the rest of their lives. So but
Speaker 2: what I'm not a fan of the luod eye.
Speaker 1: What we can see, what Instagram have shown us is
Speaker 1: that they can identify all the kids' accounts right everyone
Speaker 1: under eighteen or under sixteen, or under whatever aage, and
Speaker 1: they can apply restrictions so what they could do is say,
Speaker 1: no child under let's just say sixteen needs to be
Speaker 1: on Instagram between ten pm and six a three. So
Speaker 1: you don't just get notifications like do you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? That's why when you actually drill into what
Speaker 1: they're doing and what they could clearly do but aren't doing.
Speaker 2: And I have one hundred percent agree with that, and
Speaker 2: I also I am a fan of the age gating
Speaker 2: of social media apps, I really am, and I hope
Speaker 2: it happens, but it hasn't happened yet, and so we're
Speaker 2: still in the wild West at the moment. Like the
Speaker 2: tweaks are okay, But the place that this gets really
Speaker 2: thorny for parents is what Evan Spiegl's saying, which is like,
Speaker 2: it's your fault. So, for example, with the ten pm
Speaker 2: one rule that I do have in my house and
Speaker 2: it's very strict and we do not breach it is
Speaker 2: no phones in the bedrooms, so after a certain time
Speaker 2: of night, they're not allowed their phones, generally speaking. Enormous
Speaker 2: pushback to that one that Matilda first got a phone
Speaker 2: all that, but now that's just set. That's just the
Speaker 2: way it is. No one argues about it. Anymore. There
Speaker 2: is a point there people will say, well, that's up
Speaker 2: to parents, and that's subjecnt and like some of it is,
Speaker 2: and some of it is easier to do than others.
Speaker 2: So that's that can be easy ish to do, depending
Speaker 2: on whether or not you've got a lock box, which
Speaker 2: we do, whether or not you've got control of the
Speaker 2: Wi Fi and all those things. But what is complicated
Speaker 2: for me, even as Jesse's already said, as someone who's
Speaker 2: very tech savvy, is when I hand my son the phone,
Speaker 2: have I put the right restrictions on it? Are the
Speaker 2: filters right? Everything that he needs to do has to
Speaker 2: go through me, and I have to password to prove it.
Speaker 2: And I have a hard time remembering any of my
Speaker 2: passwords ever, because I'm a woman of a certain age.
Speaker 2: Perhaps I don't know why, but I do like I've
Speaker 2: DoD so make it easy for me until we've solved
Speaker 2: this problem.
Speaker 3: And I know there is a term that's totally overused,
Speaker 3: but I feel, like Evan Spiegel, I think this is gaslighting.
Speaker 3: This is gaslighting parents, and it is guilty parents.
Speaker 1: And he's so privileged because not everybody has staff and
Speaker 1: nannies and people at home and able to supervise their
Speaker 1: kids twenty four seven. Yeh so and.
Speaker 2: Divert them with really like enriching activities.
Speaker 3: So I'm going to create an app that will addict
Speaker 3: your children. It is designed to addict you. And he said,
Speaker 3: on the same day as he gave these comments, we're
Speaker 3: on pace for record annual revenue this year. So he's
Speaker 3: celebrating his wins which have been caused by creating absolute addiction.
Speaker 3: And then he's going to sit there and wag the
Speaker 3: finger at parents and say, if your kids are addicted,
Speaker 3: that's your fault. What's the difference between ritual and obsession,
Speaker 3: an enjoyable habit and a compulsion. How do we know
Speaker 3: what serves us or brings us joy and gives our
Speaker 3: life structure? And what might we be a little bit
Speaker 3: too reliant on? You might have heard of the running
Speaker 3: app Strava.
Speaker 2: Have you like everyone that my running friends are very
Speaker 2: into their Strava?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't have any running friends.
Speaker 3: Well. A recent article in The Guardian by Chloe Hamilton
Speaker 3: tells a story of a man named Tom Vickery and
Speaker 3: he cannot break his Strava streak. He's on a streak
Speaker 3: and streak is just what we were talking about. Word
Speaker 3: popularized by snapchat. You're on snap streaks, which is when
Speaker 3: you've been messaging each other constantly for a very long
Speaker 3: period of time, and this language, well, yes, exactly right.
Speaker 3: It's the gamification of habits essentially. But this streak language
Speaker 3: has now infiltrated a lot of apps that we use
Speaker 3: because it ensures that you will use it every day.
Speaker 3: So he has to log his run and Hamilton also
Speaker 3: speaks to people who have the same relationship with wordle
Speaker 3: or due lingo. They can't go a day without completing it.
Speaker 3: In fact, do you two remember, I think it was
Speaker 3: just a week ago that we talked about tarot and
Speaker 3: magic and all that. Anyone else checking their bloody coaster? Yes,
Speaker 3: I've checked it every single day since I've downloaded that
Speaker 3: god forsaken out.
Speaker 1: Have you learnt much?
Speaker 3: Yes, it's changed how I live my life. And that's
Speaker 3: really it's a real problem because it's not real. According
Speaker 3: to gamification expert Kimba Cooper Martin, this is due to
Speaker 3: something called loss of version. So it's a psychological principle
Speaker 3: that says humans are often more motivated by the fear
Speaker 3: of losing something than the prospect of gaining something new.
Speaker 3: So that means that if you're on a streak, you
Speaker 3: are terrified of breaking it because you're now invested in
Speaker 3: this kind of long game. So is this healthy? I mean,
Speaker 3: if it's a running app, you think this is great,
Speaker 3: it's encouraging exercise. Or is it a kind of addiction
Speaker 3: and his addiction always bad? What do you think?
Speaker 1: The first thing that I thought of was actually when
Speaker 1: people who have become sober talk about how many days
Speaker 1: of sobriety they have or how many years of sobriety
Speaker 1: they have. And I was listening to an interview with
Speaker 1: Demi Moore this week and she was talking about how
Speaker 1: she got sober when she was like twenty two, and
Speaker 1: that was forty years ago. But then she was clear
Speaker 1: to point out that she then I can't know how
Speaker 1: she called it a detour. She called it a detour,
Speaker 1: and that she has twelve years of sobriety. In the
Speaker 1: interviewer was sort of saying, yeah, was it hard to
Speaker 1: start again? Because essentially the clock resets. And the other
Speaker 1: story that I remember is David Sedaris. Remember when everybody
Speaker 1: got Apple watches and it was about ten thousand steps
Speaker 1: and suddenly you could measure you steps. And David Sidaris
Speaker 1: is an amazing writer and comedian, and he became obsessed.
Speaker 1: Every day he went for a walk near his home
Speaker 1: in northern England, I think, and he would pick up
Speaker 1: rubbish and then he started needing to beat his ten
Speaker 1: thousand steps, and then it became I've got to do
Speaker 1: fifteen and twenty. And he kept going until he was
Speaker 1: doing like fifty thousand steps, walking twenty miles a day
Speaker 1: and was like winning awards in the community because we
Speaker 1: picked up so much rubbish and he couldn't stop. His
Speaker 1: watch eventually broke and he was so kind of relieved
Speaker 1: because that was the only way it had to be
Speaker 1: taken out of his hands, because he was so addicted
Speaker 1: to this streak in this routine.
Speaker 2: It's very clever loss of version. It's very clever, and
Speaker 2: so many people use it. In fact, we should use
Speaker 2: it like watch your mommere out loud listening streak Like
Speaker 2: you don't want to break it, do you? It's this
Speaker 2: is it's a brilliant marketing tactic. It's infiltrated my world
Speaker 2: lately because I might be one of the few people
Speaker 2: who started doing wordle in lockdown and kept going. So
Speaker 2: do you still do it? I do Wordle and the
Speaker 2: New York Times every day. I try and do it
Speaker 2: every day. So my routine is, and we're going to
Speaker 2: talk about routines that before I fall asleep, I do Wordle,
Speaker 2: Connections and Strands, which are three New York Times word
Speaker 2: games before I fall asleep.
Speaker 1: Doesn't that activate arouse your brain too much? Maybe?
Speaker 2: But for me, I find it quite a good wine down.
Speaker 2: And I also like to believe that I'm like fending
Speaker 2: off Alzheimer's or something, you know. But they have only
Speaker 2: recently introduced streaks for all those things. So your word
Speaker 2: or streak they've had for a while. So when you
Speaker 2: finish Wordle and you get it, you start to immediately
Speaker 2: pop up, It's got your streak on there, It's got
Speaker 2: you know. Obviously you often get it on three or
Speaker 2: you often get it on four. And then now with
Speaker 2: Connections and Strands being two other word games, and they're
Speaker 2: they're slowly introducing streaks for those two. And I have
Speaker 2: had two very consciously uncouple myself from being attached to
Speaker 2: the streak because what was happening to me is I
Speaker 2: would fall into bed exhausted from doing whatever else, or
Speaker 2: working late or doing whatever I was doing.
Speaker 1: With the kids.
Speaker 2: And then I'd be like, fuck, I've got to do
Speaker 2: wordle because if I don't do word I lose my streak.
Speaker 2: And then I'd remind myself I'm a growner, yeah, and
Speaker 2: I am in charge of my own life, and the
Speaker 2: New York Times app does not own me. And then
Speaker 2: I give myself a stern talking to And does it
Speaker 2: hurt a little bit the next day when it says
Speaker 2: you're on zero? Yes, But do I have to just
Speaker 2: remind myself that I'm a grown up.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 3: But we do this even though you know apps have
Speaker 3: done it because they're capitalizing on the psychology of habits,
Speaker 3: which enormous amount of research has gone into lately. We
Speaker 3: all do it within our own lives. We game of
Speaker 3: fire habits all the time. Well, for example, I have
Speaker 3: started going to the gym and have been like, I
Speaker 3: am going to go three times a week. So in
Speaker 3: my head, that's kind of the streak. If I didn't
Speaker 3: go three times in a week, I would definitely feel
Speaker 3: a sense of loss and like I hadn't.
Speaker 2: So if you get to the end of the week
Speaker 2: and you haven't done it. You go, I have to
Speaker 2: go tomorrow because I have to do money exactly. I
Speaker 2: have to do my three It's weird. I'm not a
Speaker 2: numbers person, but I'm a data person, so I have
Speaker 2: to have something I can track. And I've used my
Speaker 2: Apple Watch like I have my Kilo jewels on it
Speaker 2: and I have to hit a certain amount of Killo
Speaker 2: jewels in order to establish that I have done the
Speaker 2: right workout that I have done sort of enough. And
Speaker 2: this goes to James Clear, who I've talked about before,
Speaker 2: who wrote the book Atomic Habits. He says, when you
Speaker 2: want to change your behavior, you can simply ask yourself,
Speaker 2: how can I make it obvious? How can I make
Speaker 2: it attractive? How can I make it easy? And how
Speaker 2: can I make it satisfying? And that's kind of the
Speaker 2: big ask.
Speaker 3: Well, it's it's the four things, because it's like que
Speaker 3: behavior something and reward. You need four things in order.
Speaker 3: So it's like a weird thing. Right, every morning, I
Speaker 3: make my bed. But the way that I now do
Speaker 3: that process is I walk into my room and the
Speaker 3: curtains is still drawn, and I know I can't open
Speaker 3: the curtains till the bed is made. So it's this
Speaker 3: weird thing because then I get to open the curtains
Speaker 3: me like the day has started and the light's in.
Speaker 3: Like it's a really simple cue that I there is
Speaker 3: this tiny little reward at.
Speaker 1: The end of you worked that out from reading that book.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so there are like all of these things. Another
Speaker 3: weird one that I've gamified in my life is I
Speaker 3: have a pickieater in Luna, and I was feeling a
Speaker 3: lot of stress. Still I am about what she doesn't
Speaker 3: doesn't it. I now have these lists in my phone.
Speaker 3: This is insane, but this is what I've done because
Speaker 3: I've gamified it. Every time I give her a new food,
Speaker 3: I have to write it down because if I write
Speaker 3: it down, then I feel like there has been an achieved,
Speaker 3: like I did do a thing. I tried to do
Speaker 3: a thing, and I need to mark that. And then
Speaker 3: I've got a list of all the things she will
Speaker 3: eat and so I look at it and I go,
Speaker 3: look at your achievement. She does have things that she like.
Speaker 1: You know, the gamifying. They say that kids have to
Speaker 1: be given something. I think it's seven times before they'll
Speaker 1: accept it. So that's also a way to game of
Speaker 1: fy it isn't.
Speaker 3: It exactly, because otherwise it feels very mundane.
Speaker 2: I think you and me are very because you love
Speaker 2: a routine. I think you have worked that out about
Speaker 2: yourself without having to gamify it, right, Like, your routines
Speaker 2: are quite immovable in some ways, so am mine completely
Speaker 2: so mine, But you didn't need to do that to
Speaker 2: do that. But well, how do you feel if your routine, say,
Speaker 2: your morning routine gets disrupted.
Speaker 1: I don't feel like myself and I need my routines
Speaker 1: to be seven days unfortunately, which is a real shame
Speaker 1: because sometimes it's nice to have a day off. But
Speaker 1: the thing about routines is that they lighten your mental
Speaker 1: load because they mean it's less decisions that you have
Speaker 1: to make, less choices that you have to make. That's why,
Speaker 1: for example, the best time to exercise is in the morning,
Speaker 1: and not give yourself a choice and just make it
Speaker 1: part of your morning routine. Because as soon as you say,
Speaker 1: if it's at the end of the day, you've then
Speaker 1: got the whole day to find reasons not to do.
Speaker 3: It, and your willpower starts to fall off a clear.
Speaker 1: And I would always maybe other people are different. Maybe
Speaker 1: doing it at night can be your routine. But for me,
Speaker 1: I would spend the whole day with the mental load
Speaker 1: of should I, should I not, could I not? Will?
Speaker 1: But maybe how will I feel? So to me the
Speaker 1: mental load of choice. What I have for breakfast? Am
Speaker 1: I going to exercise? Should I wash my hair or not?
Speaker 1: I try to remove as many of those choices as
Speaker 1: possible from my day with routine, light steeve jobs and
Speaker 1: the black pole.
Speaker 3: Have any tricks for the shit you don't want to do?
Speaker 3: Like one example that I read was a writer or
Speaker 3: let's say there's emails or salespeople have to make fifteen
Speaker 3: calls and they don't want to make the calls, right
Speaker 3: was you need a visual cue? So they said in
Speaker 3: one jar you have like hairpins, or you have paper
Speaker 3: clips or whatever, and then you move it every time.
Speaker 3: You need a visual sense of progress. For a lot
Speaker 3: of people, that's like something I have to do. What
Speaker 3: do you do if you've got a task that you
Speaker 3: really really don't want to do? How do you trick yourself.
Speaker 2: Into doing it?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 1: Don't? I just don't do it? And that's a real problem.
Speaker 1: So one of the sort of the productivity hacks is
Speaker 1: eat the frog first, yea. So they say, if you've
Speaker 1: got thing, something that you really don't want to do,
Speaker 1: do that first. You get it out of the way,
Speaker 1: and then you need to treat everything else you do.
Speaker 1: The reason that that doesn't work for everybody, particularly if
Speaker 1: you have ADHD, is that the thing you don't want
Speaker 1: to do become so insurmountable that it means that not
Speaker 1: only will you not eat the frog, you won't do
Speaker 1: anything else that you've got to do afterwards. And so
Speaker 1: that's how your life can sort of descend into a
Speaker 1: bit of chaos and things can just get postponed, postponed.
Speaker 3: So how about you, Holly, Yeah, Like, how about the
Speaker 3: shit you don't want to do?
Speaker 2: Little treats? Yeah, it's the only way. It's like if
Speaker 2: I do that, I get to blah blah so and
Speaker 2: that might be a different thing on a different day,
Speaker 2: depending on where I am. The treat might be like
Speaker 2: a literal treat, like I get to eat that thing,
Speaker 2: drink that thing, or it might be I'm not allowed
Speaker 2: to go in my garden and do the thing I'm
Speaker 2: do in my garden until I've written that many words
Speaker 2: like there will be that like or whatever it is,
Speaker 2: you know, whatever the task is I have to do, Like,
Speaker 2: I'm not allowed to do that until I've done that.
Speaker 1: I think about how teens is also for me. If
Speaker 1: you do them for long enough, they're not routines anymore.
Speaker 1: They become almost part of your identity. It doesn't even
Speaker 1: occur to me making breakfasts or what the thing I
Speaker 1: make for breakfast. It's literally muscle memory. Like my body
Speaker 1: moves in a way. I notice this when I'm in
Speaker 1: the shower. My body moves in a way in the
Speaker 1: shower that I'm not even aware of. Yeh, but I
Speaker 1: do this. Then my face, then I do this, and
Speaker 1: then I reach and then I do this.
Speaker 3: Well, it's got of common ingrained process. And this is
Speaker 3: what clear says that when you walk into a dark room,
Speaker 3: you switch on the light, and that's not a conscious thought.
Speaker 3: So I think we imagine.
Speaker 1: People cost nothing in mental load.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and people go, oh, me a exercise of seven
Speaker 3: days a week. Where does she get the motivation? You
Speaker 3: don't have any motivation when it comes to exercise. No,
Speaker 3: You've actually outside.
Speaker 1: Where do you get the motivation to brush your teeth?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 1: You don't even think about that as a choice. It's
Speaker 1: just a thing that you do.
Speaker 2: I'm obsessed with my morning walk. If I don't get
Speaker 2: to do it, I'm really pissed off. I will organize
Speaker 2: my day around that, whether I'm here, whether I'm at home.
Speaker 2: It's like if I don't get to do it, if
Speaker 2: I've got an early meeting or an early interview, or
Speaker 2: I've got to dry it like it, just do you
Speaker 2: actually enjoy the war?
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 2: I love because I don't really.
Speaker 1: Enjoy my exercise in the morning. I don't enjoy it,
Speaker 1: but I enjoy how I feel afterwards, and I enjoy
Speaker 1: having done it, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Which is how I feel about things like running and
Speaker 2: like hard things. But walking isn't hard. Walking is just
Speaker 2: nice and I like being outside and I like, I
Speaker 2: don't know for what I mean. It gives me whatever
Speaker 2: it gives me. But it's interesting to me that if
Speaker 2: I think now about like maybe tomorrow, I might not
Speaker 2: get to go because I've got this thing and that
Speaker 2: thing or I've got to finish that thing, I can
Speaker 2: feel the like, the unhappiness, the anxiety building in my
Speaker 2: chest because I just love it. Right, So it's become
Speaker 2: a routine that I very much embrace.
Speaker 3: My trick has been pairing those things I don't want
Speaker 3: to do with things I.
Speaker 1: Love, like opening the curtains.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and there's always tasks, like you know, whether it's
Speaker 3: invoicing or emails you don't want to reply to, or
Speaker 3: there's work I don't want to do. I have to
Speaker 3: do it alongside something I enjoy it, which is usually coffee.
Speaker 3: It's like when you sit down to have the coffee,
Speaker 3: which you love, you've got to do you don't want
Speaker 3: to do.
Speaker 1: Tea is my conduit into doing anything.
Speaker 3: Really and saving podcasts for exercise because then I'm looking
Speaker 3: forward to the podcast, and I've convinced myself I'm looking
Speaker 3: forward to the exercise. Out louders, I want to know
Speaker 3: how you keep good habits. What are your little tricks?
Speaker 3: What have you gamified? Do you think it's sometimes a
Speaker 3: little bit toxic? Do you have a bit of a
Speaker 3: streak like Collie does with her world or I know
Speaker 3: lots of people I was traveling recently and that I went, Okay,
Speaker 3: we need to have an intervention. Because there is addiction
Speaker 3: with word.
Speaker 1: Or going on.
Speaker 2: Yes, there definitely is. But also for me and brand
Speaker 2: it's a togetherness thing too, because we send each other
Speaker 2: our stats. If we're not together, there go see it's
Speaker 2: cute saving lives. Just wait for the Montmere out loud streak.
Speaker 1: Do you want daily out loud access? Why wouldn't you?
Speaker 1: We dropped episodes every Tuesday and Thursday exclusively for mum
Speaker 1: MEA subscribers. Follow the link in the show notes to
Speaker 1: get us in your ears five days a week, and
Speaker 1: a huge thank you if you're already a subscriber.
Speaker 2: Yesterday, the front page of a Sydney tabloid newspaper, beaming
Speaker 2: out at us from every servo and convenience store shelf,
Speaker 2: was of a famous man who had just suffered a
Speaker 2: drug overdose. Andrew O'Keeffe used to be a mainstream TV hero.
Speaker 2: He hosted game shows, Morning TV and he even received
Speaker 2: an order of Australia Medal in twenty seventeen for his
Speaker 2: TV and charity work. Things began to go pair shaped
Speaker 2: for him in the late twenty teens, in quite a
Speaker 2: familiar pattern for those who've seen the celebrity downfall narrative
Speaker 2: unfold before scuffles with photographers, a divorce, a dui, a
Speaker 2: big dollar contract with his employer Channel seven not renewed,
Speaker 2: and then things ramped up. The man who was once
Speaker 2: the chairman of White Ribbon was arrested in twenty twenty
Speaker 2: one on domestic violence and common assault charges against his partner.
Speaker 2: Those charges were dismissed on mental health grounds. He was
Speaker 2: ordered into an intense mental health program. Then later that
Speaker 2: same year, more assault charges and now drug possession. His
Speaker 2: reliance on methamphetamine ice as many people call it, becomes clear.
Speaker 2: Since then, more assault charges, more DUIs, a five month
Speaker 2: stint and rehab, arrested for breaching, an avo, intimidation, stalking,
Speaker 2: and this week an overdose an ice possession. Back in
Speaker 2: court before a judge who's saying that jail might be
Speaker 2: the only thing to save Andrew O'Keeffe's life. There are
Speaker 2: more paparazzi outside court, more front pages, more news articles,
Speaker 2: more headlines. Why are we talking about Andrew O'Keefe today, Well,
Speaker 2: I've got a question. Should this man's descent into an
Speaker 2: absolute freefall of mental illness and drug addiction and violence
Speaker 2: and desperation be on our front pages at all? Would
Speaker 2: not covering this be giving a free kick to a
Speaker 2: privileged celebrity who's been convicted of assaulting women or is
Speaker 2: continuing to cover this just added cruelty, unhelpful, robinecking and
Speaker 2: exploitation of a fascination with riches to rags stories.
Speaker 3: Jesse, I think it's voyeurism, and I don't think it's
Speaker 3: in the public interest anymore. I keep seeing this on
Speaker 3: the front page of papers and on every homepage. He
Speaker 3: has not worked in media for almost four years, like
Speaker 3: he isn't on television currently. He is clearly very very
Speaker 3: unwell with addiction issues and mental health issues. And there's
Speaker 3: a video that's been circulating that was broadcast on Channel seven.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure if other networks picked it up, but
Speaker 3: he was being followed by a paparazzi who was snapping
Speaker 3: and filming, who yelled at him Big Weekend Mate in
Speaker 3: reference to him nearly dying over the weekend of a
Speaker 3: drug overdose. He obviously, I mean, I would assume, reacted.
Speaker 3: He didn't want to be followed out of the police station,
Speaker 3: and he was yelling back, and this cameraman was saying,
Speaker 3: you're a degenerate, You're a degenerate, And I thought, when.
Speaker 1: You say a camera man, I don't think it was
Speaker 1: anyone employed by the media necessarily. I think it was
Speaker 1: someone with a phone who then sold the footage.
Speaker 3: Yes, but around were television cameras, so what I could
Speaker 3: see was he is followed everywhere. Yes, he's followed absolutely everywhere,
Speaker 3: which begs the question why do we need to see this?
Speaker 3: Who is it?
Speaker 1: Four?
Speaker 3: Is this a way for us to sort of mock
Speaker 3: or even get some titillation out of addiction? And even
Speaker 3: reading what the judge this is a really really sad story.
Speaker 3: And I don't mean just sad for Andrew o'caife. There
Speaker 3: are serious victims. I feel for his family, like this
Speaker 3: is just horrific. But the judge said they've tried rehabilitation facilities,
Speaker 3: they've tried mental health facilities and nothing is working. For
Speaker 3: a lot of Australian families, is probably quite familiar that
Speaker 3: you just get absolutely stuck. But I don't think we
Speaker 3: should be looking anymore. Is there an argument of public
Speaker 3: interest here?
Speaker 1: I guess the argument could be it's a cautionary tale.
Speaker 1: It's as close to our own Britney Spears or Amanda
Speaker 1: Binds as we've seen. Obviously he doesn't have that kind
Speaker 1: of level of fame. But the line between mental health
Speaker 1: and addiction and crime and self destruction. I mean, there
Speaker 1: is no line. They're all just so blurred. And I think, well,
Speaker 1: the thing about fame is that you can't give it
Speaker 1: back like he will always be. You can't turn it off,
Speaker 1: and you can't retrospectively go because people aren't following, you know,
Speaker 1: Joe Brown around and photographing him every time he gets arrested.
Speaker 1: And as you say, Jesse, this will be a really
Speaker 1: familiar cycle to people who have loved ones who are
Speaker 1: struggling with addiction. The problem is what are you meant
Speaker 1: to do? Like the justice system and the legal system,
Speaker 1: they're made up of people, right, we understand, and the
Speaker 1: judges understand. And he's been shown an extraordinary amount of
Speaker 1: leeway and compassion and given a lot of chances. But
Speaker 1: a crime is a crime. And when you are caught
Speaker 1: with a band substance, when you are driving under the influence,
Speaker 1: when you're endangering people's lives, when you're assaulting people, you
Speaker 1: can't really look away. And the fact that he was
Speaker 1: a white ribbon ambassador or a chair and he was the
Speaker 1: guy on all the game shows and on breakfast television,
Speaker 1: the rubbernecking and the I won't say necessarily public interest
Speaker 1: but the public curiosity because if no one was buying
Speaker 1: the newspapers and clicking on the stories, they would stop
Speaker 1: and he wouldn't be followed anymore. But people do want
Speaker 1: to look. They do because it is so shocking up.
Speaker 1: You know, I met Andrew a few times in various
Speaker 1: media capacities. I always thought he was an intense guy.
Speaker 1: He is quite a prickly guy. But it's shocking that
Speaker 1: someone that you have met that seems like they had
Speaker 1: it all, that had a wife and kids and fame
Speaker 1: and fortune, this could happen to them.
Speaker 3: He's in and out of court like he's And this
Speaker 3: is what I mean is that he is being reprimanded,
Speaker 3: but that.
Speaker 1: In itself becomes the narrative.
Speaker 2: The clear comparison to here was Ben Cousins, right, This
Speaker 2: is exactly what happened to Ben Cousins. Now he's particularly
Speaker 2: famous in Western Australia, the footballer who we've talked about
Speaker 2: on the show before, because his redemption arc is now
Speaker 2: in full swing. It was the same. It was public
Speaker 2: incident after public incident. Do you wi cops chasing photographers, assault,
Speaker 2: stalking like almost exactly the same playbook. Anyone who knows
Speaker 2: anything about serious addiction knows that it will take and
Speaker 2: Matthew Perry's book was very clear on this and obviously
Speaker 2: tragic ending there. It will take many trips to rehabit
Speaker 2: will take many Like it's not we like everything to
Speaker 2: have a neat narrative like problem, you know, treatment fixed.
Speaker 2: It's not generally how it goes with very entrenched addiction
Speaker 2: and mental health. This will go on. And there's an
Speaker 2: element here that you've got to unpick the kind of privilege,
Speaker 2: because there is privilege at play here. As mere reference before,
Speaker 2: particularly in his first domestic violence and assault case, he
Speaker 2: got off on a way that he would not have
Speaker 2: got off if he was Joe Brown. He could afford
Speaker 2: the really good lawyers. He's had a lot of leeway.
Speaker 2: And so there's an argument there that it's kind of like,
Speaker 2: particularly when it comes to violence, often famous and powerful
Speaker 2: and rich men get away with a lot more shit.
Speaker 2: I mean, men in general get away with a lot
Speaker 2: of things when they do things to women that they shouldn't,
Speaker 2: but famous and powerful and rich men more so, more so,
Speaker 2: more so, so, you could argue that that is a
Speaker 2: narrative that plays out here. But arguing against myself about
Speaker 2: that there is also just an element of public shaming
Speaker 2: here that we clearly find irresistible. And me is right,
Speaker 2: they're not necessarily reputable. Cameramember that the people who are
Speaker 2: covering this are yelling at him, You're a disgrace, You're
Speaker 2: a degenerate in order to get a reaction from him.
Speaker 2: It's like, how low do they want him to stoop?
Speaker 2: How low do we need that man to be so
Speaker 2: that we can be like, hat, look at you? And
Speaker 2: I don't know. It's interesting about whether we should look
Speaker 2: away because do I think that if and when Andrew
Speaker 2: O'Keeffe manages to get on top of this in some
Speaker 2: way in the way that Ben Cousins apparently has, I
Speaker 2: want him on Dancing with the Stars in three years time? No,
Speaker 2: absolutely not, not with that rap sheet. But do I
Speaker 2: think he deserves to be on the front page every
Speaker 2: time that you know he's in then? Also No, I
Speaker 2: think there's kind of a middle ground there of like,
Speaker 2: is it just time to look away and let this
Speaker 2: shit out?
Speaker 3: We're just compounding the man's distress. And you were saying
Speaker 3: we like things to be black and white, and even
Speaker 3: victim perpetrator, and in the case of the DV incident,
Speaker 3: there is victor pert distress and yeah, but.
Speaker 1: It's so interesting these conversations. Sorry to interrupt you about
Speaker 1: when you're saying, we're compounding this, so we should stop.
Speaker 1: What is the role of the media, And I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that in a rhetorical way, like genuinely, what is
Speaker 1: the role of the media, because is it to protect Andrew?
Speaker 3: Is it to harass someone who's mentally ill? Because I
Speaker 3: don't think so. I think if you've got a mental illness,
Speaker 3: so imagine if it was something like dementia and what.
Speaker 1: But is that a mental illness or is he just addicted?
Speaker 2: You know, he has been diagnosed with mental illness, bipolar
Speaker 2: disorder and even addiction.
Speaker 1: Who have bipolar disorder and mental illness don't spit on
Speaker 1: women and assault them and have drugs and drive under
Speaker 1: the influence. So I think that you can't just say, oh, well,
Speaker 1: if you've got the mental health card, therefore all bets
Speaker 1: are off and you're exempt from all scrutiny.
Speaker 2: But it is a relentless and awful disease.
Speaker 3: It just is, right, Yeah, I guess the question is
Speaker 3: if privacy is a human right, like if it's some.
Speaker 2: Court reporting, like you're allowed to report on court. If
Speaker 2: Joe Brown was in that, we need to report on it.
Speaker 2: It's got to be a transparency.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think the redemption arc your ben cousin's
Speaker 3: point is interesting, right, because part of me wonders, is
Speaker 3: the redemption arc possible because we kept him in the
Speaker 3: spotlight because because he never went away exactly, he never
Speaker 3: went away, so he was always famous. So you're going
Speaker 3: to profit off my fame. I'm going to profit off
Speaker 3: my fame. I think at this point, Andrew o' keef
Speaker 3: needs to not be famous, like we've got it.
Speaker 1: His money unbecome famous.
Speaker 3: Well, I think we look back at Britney Spears, right,
Speaker 3: and we look at her and it might be Pollyanna
Speaker 3: or whatever, but we go, hey, maybe you shouldn't have
Speaker 3: been taking photos of someone who would just shave their
Speaker 3: head and was throwing around an umbrella. And having people
Speaker 3: in my family who have struggled with mental illness and
Speaker 3: various things, who have had moments like that, you don't
Speaker 3: broadcast it like there is some privacy and intimacy in
Speaker 3: those moments that you have this instinct to protect.
Speaker 1: But that's because you are their family you're not the
Speaker 1: media who can monetize those pictures.
Speaker 2: Also, in that particular case, there's a very solid argument
Speaker 2: that it was making it worse, that the attention was
Speaker 2: actually making it well.
Speaker 3: And so is this I would say with Andrew O'Keeffe,
Speaker 3: whether it's the addictional the mental illness, it's like, this
Speaker 3: is actually compounding a man's distress and it's not helping
Speaker 3: his victims. I think that it's easy for the media
Speaker 3: to go, oh, we're just reflecting, but to not hold
Speaker 3: the media any kind of ethics in this situation, I
Speaker 3: think is like what do we want here? Because we
Speaker 3: all know where this is heading and what the next
Speaker 3: headline might be, and if that headline comes, it's like, WHOA, Yeah,
Speaker 3: I think the media had something to do with it.
Speaker 2: I don't think they helped.
Speaker 1: I don't know about that.
Speaker 2: That's I know exactly what you're saying. Could the media
Speaker 2: be proud of the way they've covered this?
Speaker 1: Y are the media we're talking about?
Speaker 3: You're a degenerate.
Speaker 2: But here's the thing is that I agree, I know
Speaker 2: what you mean, But we do ask ourselves that, Like,
Speaker 2: whenever we're talking about these kind of things, we go like,
Speaker 2: is there an interesting point to discuss here, or are
Speaker 2: we just rober necking? And you know, it's a line
Speaker 2: that we might not always exactly get right, but it's
Speaker 2: definitely an examined thing. Right we make a conscious choice.
Speaker 2: I think it's interesting because I know what you're saying.
Speaker 2: Could the media, including ourselves, say we treated that with respect? No,
Speaker 2: they couldn't. Yeah, but could you argue that they have
Speaker 2: blood on their hands? I would say in this case,
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 3: Think it's blood on your hands, but I don't think
Speaker 3: it would be far fetched to say that there are
Speaker 3: people you could look at celebrities who have whether it's
Speaker 3: addiction or mental health issues that if you were to go,
Speaker 3: did the media help or hinder they had a hand
Speaker 3: in it. Yeah. Out Louders, if you enjoy listening to
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