Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Outspoken. It's your dose of the
Speaker 1: hottest influencer and pop culture news twice a week. I'm
Speaker 1: Sophie Torba and coming up on today's show, Sarah's Day
Speaker 1: slams her Son's school over holiday debacle and Steph Claire
Speaker 1: Smith's Baby Bonanza. But first, m Davies and Lucy Jackson
Speaker 1: have shocked their followers by revealing how many times they've
Speaker 1: ordered Uber eats. Now, this is all part of a
Speaker 1: TikTok trend called the uber Eats Challenge, and it is
Speaker 1: all over my fore page at the moment. But for
Speaker 1: those who haven't seen it, there's a setting in the
Speaker 1: uber Eats app that tells you how many times you've ordered.
Speaker 1: I want to know is this a new feature that
Speaker 1: uber Eats is trying to promote or has someone just
Speaker 1: stumbled across it, because either way it seems like good
Speaker 1: pr for uber Eats. Well, it's great pr because Nicki
Speaker 1: and Lucy ended up sharing this video that's had over
Speaker 1: three hundred and ten thousand views and in it they
Speaker 1: expose their order numbers. So to make it more entertaining,
Speaker 1: they guessed their numbers before they were revealed, so Nicki
Speaker 1: gets two hundred and she was pretty close. She ordered
Speaker 1: one hundred and forty seven times. As for Lucy, she
Speaker 1: shocked everyone by revealing she had ordered uber eats five
Speaker 1: hundred and forty five times. I want to know, is
Speaker 1: this over the past year or is this the lifetime
Speaker 1: of them having the app? Well, when I originally saw it,
Speaker 1: I thought it was over a year, and I was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, has she been ordering uber eats twice
Speaker 1: a day? However, the figure is a summary of the
Speaker 1: lifetime of the app, so thank god. Yeah, but even so,
Speaker 1: that is a lot of orders. Uber Eats even commented
Speaker 1: on the video, writing, doll, that's outrageous. The fact that
Speaker 1: uber eats is commenting and getting in on this makes
Speaker 1: me feel like it's part of an over arching marketing strategy. See,
Speaker 1: I actually don't think that's the case, because a lot
Speaker 1: of the conversations around it is that people are ashamed
Speaker 1: about how many times you're ordering from the app and
Speaker 1: that they need to cut back. Yeah, I suppose. It
Speaker 1: was quite interesting because m Davies also got in on
Speaker 1: the action, so she filmed a video with Nicki and
Speaker 1: M guessed that she had ordered Uber eats nine hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty times, and even though that sounds like an
Speaker 1: outrageous number, she had actually underestimated just how many times
Speaker 1: she'd ordered. Let's have a listen to what she said.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be bad. I'm scard.
Speaker 2: You have ordered uber eat one two hundred and seventy
Speaker 2: seven times.
Speaker 1: That's why my financial advice is like stun what.
Speaker 2: Stretch?
Speaker 1: I love how Nikky audibly gore so. I mean, I
Speaker 1: thought Lucy's was ridiculous, and then I heard m Davies.
Speaker 1: Isn't this just typical of influences though they're the ones
Speaker 1: who have disposable income, even though they've probably got more
Speaker 1: time than any of us to cook, They're like, nah,
Speaker 1: fuck it, I'll order it. I mean, I love the
Speaker 1: concept of Uber Eats and the ease of just being
Speaker 1: able to get something delivered. But I haven't looked at
Speaker 1: what my number is. I would think that it's probably
Speaker 1: a handful of times I've actually ordered from there because
Speaker 1: I don't want to pay for delivery, and I also
Speaker 1: find that when it's delivered it's often very cold. See
Speaker 1: I use it more. I actually did look at my number,
Speaker 1: and I have ordered it over the eight years I've
Speaker 1: had it eleven times. I know that's not a huge amount,
Speaker 1: that's not very many. But my husband also uses his
Speaker 1: app and he is the one that usually orders our takeaway,
Speaker 1: and he had two hundred times. See, I would rather
Speaker 1: just jump in my car, go down the road and
Speaker 1: make sure that the food is hot. Like, I think
Speaker 1: it takes a particularly lazy person to want to order
Speaker 1: on there that many times. Yeah, I think it's a
Speaker 1: pretty brave thing to do to expose your number, particularly
Speaker 1: if you're m Davies or Lucy Jackson, because I think
Speaker 1: it does say a lot about you as a person.
Speaker 1: Because when I heard their numbers, I immediately started making
Speaker 1: assumptions about their financial situation. You know, if the number
Speaker 1: is really high, You're like, oh, they must be earning
Speaker 1: so much money they don't even have to think about
Speaker 1: spending money or takeaway. And I also began to question
Speaker 1: their priorities and whether they should just be making their
Speaker 1: food at home. I think there's also a lazy connotation
Speaker 1: to it, But then there's all that's a lot of
Speaker 1: people that have been wearing it as a badge of honor.
Speaker 1: Do you not really irritates me when I'm down at
Speaker 1: a takeaway store, I just say Zambreros, for instance, and
Speaker 1: I have to wait for them to make the Uber
Speaker 1: Eats people's orders, and I'm like, I'm fucking in the store.
Speaker 1: I've bothered to get myself out on a winter night
Speaker 1: stand in the store order, and I'm having to wait
Speaker 1: for these people at home who are being lazy. Oh
Speaker 1: it pisses me off too. It has really screwed over
Speaker 1: how quick takeaway places are in terms of m davies.
Speaker 1: She ended up sharing a follow up video to explain
Speaker 1: herself a little bit further. This is what she said.
Speaker 3: I think I generally need to be put in rehab
Speaker 3: for Uber Eats. I have been looking at everyone else's
Speaker 3: on TikTok, and the worst part is Joel pretty much
Speaker 3: cooks for me every night on the barbecue. So I
Speaker 3: really don't have any excuse apart from the fact that
Speaker 3: I'm a mum. I reckon like, yeah, yeah, it's a
Speaker 3: serious problem, man, it's probably your house to close it.
Speaker 1: Now, and went on to say that seventy percent of
Speaker 1: Uber Eats orders were from Nando's, which is something that
Speaker 1: she could easily make it home. Now. A lot of
Speaker 1: people were trying to let her off the hook and said, look,
Speaker 1: you're a mum. Nikki Westcott waged in though and said
Speaker 1: ha ha. Joel said, you'd order a packet of chips
Speaker 1: from the survey if the mood's striped and coffees most
Speaker 1: days to be fair. Someone else pointed out that m
Speaker 1: Davies has had the app for around eight years, but
Speaker 1: it's only been a mum for less than ones. Well,
Speaker 1: it's quite interesting because when you crunch the numbers, so
Speaker 1: she's been on the app, as you say, for around
Speaker 1: eight years, that works out to one hundred and seventy
Speaker 1: orders a year. So she is ordering from uber Eats
Speaker 1: roughly two to three times a week. That is a lot.
Speaker 1: I mean, even her financial advisor has got involved and
Speaker 1: said that she needs to stop ordering from uber Eats.
Speaker 2: Honestly, I wasn't even going to bring this back up
Speaker 2: because I'm just like ugh, erasing it from my mind,
Speaker 2: and I also know that it's going.
Speaker 1: To ruffle Oh thank you a few people's feathers. Sarah's
Speaker 1: Day has slammed her son Fox School after they denied
Speaker 1: him leave to attend a family trip to Fiji. Despite
Speaker 1: the decision from the school, the self proclaimed holistic health.
Speaker 1: Princess still pulled the six year old out of class
Speaker 1: for the vacation, So can you tell us more well.
Speaker 1: Sarah and her family have been in Fiji celebrating her
Speaker 1: mum's sixtieth and also her sister's thirtieth, and it's actually
Speaker 1: the first time that Sarah has been overseas with her
Speaker 1: parents and sisters, but it is one of many of
Speaker 1: her trips with her husband and kids over the past
Speaker 1: few years. They feel like they've been to Fiji quite
Speaker 1: a few times in the last five years and Hawaii,
Speaker 1: Hawaii is one of their favorite places to go to.
Speaker 1: And whilst over the past week we've seen a lot
Speaker 1: of happy snaps and vision of the extended family having
Speaker 1: the time of their lives on this holiday, we have
Speaker 1: since discovered that the trip got off to a pretty
Speaker 1: sour note because while Sarah and her family were at
Speaker 1: the airport waiting to board their flight, Sarah got an
Speaker 1: email from her son, Fox's school, saying that his leave
Speaker 1: had not been approved and it was important for him
Speaker 1: to be at school learning. Now. Fox turned six in
Speaker 1: March and that's actually the same month he started school.
Speaker 1: Because it's compulsory and new South Wales for a child
Speaker 1: to start school by the time they're six years old, However,
Speaker 1: it's normal for them to actually start when they're five
Speaker 1: years old. Yeah, most parents try and get their kids
Speaker 1: into school as early as they can and start that education.
Speaker 1: But I mean, I wonder if it's due to flexibility.
Speaker 1: She wanted him at home more to lead more of
Speaker 1: a flexible lifestyle with him. I'm really not sure. I
Speaker 1: suppose it's her personal decision. But despite knowing that this
Speaker 1: news about the school would ruffle feathers, she decided to
Speaker 1: share this update with her one point two million followers anyway.
Speaker 1: She jumped on her Instagram stories while she was walking
Speaker 1: on a beach in Fiji and explained that as it's
Speaker 1: her son's first year of school, she was unaware of
Speaker 1: the school's policy for leave. Now. She prefaced that Fox
Speaker 1: didn't go to a special school AKA, she wanted everyone
Speaker 1: to know that he's at a public school and not
Speaker 1: a fancy private school, and she was quite surprised by
Speaker 1: the depth of the application process. Now. The school's rules
Speaker 1: stated that she had to apply for leave because her
Speaker 1: son was going to be away for longer than three days.
Speaker 1: They were actually spending a week in Fiji. Let's have
Speaker 1: a listen to some of what Sarah said.
Speaker 2: So I basically feel in this like extended le form.
Speaker 2: I talked to the receptionist girl and she's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: all good. You just have to send us now, like proof.
Speaker 1: Of your flights. And I was like, okay, cool. So
Speaker 1: I sent him proof of my flights.
Speaker 2: They responded by an email saying, sweet, We've got everything
Speaker 2: we need for this like getaway or whatever. And I said, obviously,
Speaker 2: like this is his Grandma's sixtieth trip, it's really important.
Speaker 2: Where he's only missing five days of school anyway, So
Speaker 2: day one of the trip, I get an email back
Speaker 2: like we're at the airport and basically it says that
Speaker 2: Foxes leave hasn't been approved. Yeah, anyway, I just I
Speaker 2: could go on and on about it, and I think, like,
Speaker 2: if you know, if you're a mom like me, like
Speaker 2: you get it. Yes, I want him to learn how
Speaker 2: to read and write and like be.
Speaker 1: In the classroom and everything.
Speaker 2: But I'm not, like I haven't pulled him out of
Speaker 2: school for like a month, and it's not like he's
Speaker 2: not anyway whatever whatever. But I responded and I was like, Okay,
Speaker 2: we'll we're at the airport, like, thanks, I guess.
Speaker 1: Anyway, whatever, whatever, well school. The fact that she referred
Speaker 1: to the receptionist as that receptionist girl like that just
Speaker 1: shows the amount of respect that was going on. It
Speaker 1: was quite patronizing. It's clear that she knew that this
Speaker 1: was going to be a controversial take, because she prefaced
Speaker 1: the post by saying that she was likely going to
Speaker 1: ruffle some feathers. I just am at a loss as
Speaker 1: to why you would take a potshot at your child's school.
Speaker 1: It's easily something that she could have just kept private.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's no question in my mind that this
Speaker 1: is getting back to the school, either through the parents
Speaker 1: or the staff who may follow her. Yeah, and it
Speaker 1: seems like she maybe wanted it to get back there,
Speaker 1: because why else would you put this out. She was
Speaker 1: clearly pissed off about it, and I mean, you can
Speaker 1: already see where the school stands on this. There's going
Speaker 1: to be a bit of animosity when she goes back
Speaker 1: into the classroom because they've made the decision that it's
Speaker 1: in his best intro that he be at school learning.
Speaker 1: Yet she's just been like, no, he's going to miss
Speaker 1: the whole week. I mean, that's going to put him behind.
Speaker 1: I mean, as someone whose parents are both teachers, maybe
Speaker 1: I look at this from a different perspective, but I
Speaker 1: feel for the teacher in this situation because not only
Speaker 1: is the teacher now going to have to invest more
Speaker 1: time in Fox, they're gonna have to take time away
Speaker 1: from the other kids in the class to make sure
Speaker 1: that he is then up to speed with what's going on,
Speaker 1: and that would not only be stressful for the teacher
Speaker 1: in the class, but also Fox. I'm interested to know
Speaker 1: what the ramifications are for ignoring the school, because I personally,
Speaker 1: I didn't know that a school could actually say no,
Speaker 1: you can't take your kid on a holiday. I understand
Speaker 1: why they have that process in place, though, because it's
Speaker 1: very disruptive for the child and also the class. As
Speaker 1: you were saying, yeah, I was talking about it to
Speaker 1: my husband, his dad is also a teacher, and we
Speaker 1: were like, I'd never really heard about this happening when
Speaker 1: we were kids, And it's because at school you get
Speaker 1: so many holidays, like every ten weeks, you then get
Speaker 1: two weeks of holidays. At the end of the year
Speaker 1: get five weeks of holidays. Most everyday. People also have
Speaker 1: to lodge holidays with their own work, so generally you
Speaker 1: try and fit around those school holiday times, even though
Speaker 1: it can be more expensive to go away. But I
Speaker 1: suppose from our family's perspective too, with our parents being teachers,
Speaker 1: we went on holidays because they had the break then,
Speaker 1: So it is more difficult for parents who aren't teachers
Speaker 1: to align their holidays with the school holidays. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: that's why there's generally more planning. In this instance, it
Speaker 1: felt like a bit of a last minute decision. It
Speaker 1: seemed like this form was lodged very late, which is
Speaker 1: why the school only got back to her when they
Speaker 1: were at the airport. It also really demonstrates the different
Speaker 1: lifestyle the influencers lead. I mean, if you look at Sarah,
Speaker 1: she is used to locking in a trip whenever she
Speaker 1: pleases due to the flexibility of her working for herself,
Speaker 1: and she's also got a disposable income. I mean, we
Speaker 1: saw it recently with Molly May. She decided to book
Speaker 1: a family trip with Tommy and Bambi to Dubai and
Speaker 1: they booked it in a day before they left. So
Speaker 1: they don't have the confines of the real world like us.
Speaker 1: Like they can just book whenever they want. So it's
Speaker 1: kind of interesting when people then send their kids to
Speaker 1: school and they have to abide by someone else's rules
Speaker 1: that they have a problem with it. Yeah, it makes
Speaker 1: me wonder whether she held back in rolling Fox into
Speaker 1: school for this very reason that she didn't want to
Speaker 1: have to abide by their rules. You know what I
Speaker 1: also found confusing. She seemed to be pleading a lot
Speaker 1: of ignorance in this case about the school's policies. But
Speaker 1: many people who have listened to Our Sarah's Day Deep
Speaker 1: Dive episode will know that she actually studied to become
Speaker 1: a primary school teacher before her YouTube took off. I
Speaker 1: think she only had a semester or so to go,
Speaker 1: but she was doing pracks within school, so surely she
Speaker 1: would have some understanding of the policies in place for leave.
Speaker 1: I also thought maybe she would have a different stance
Speaker 1: on the importance of education as well, all some respect
Speaker 1: for teachers. I have seen some people say, oh, well,
Speaker 1: he's probably learning more on this trip than he would
Speaker 1: be back at school, because obviously people learn about different
Speaker 1: cultures and through experiences. What do you think about that theory? Well,
Speaker 1: I think that is a pretty good point, But he
Speaker 1: has been to Fiji fairly recently, I think maybe within
Speaker 1: the last year to six months, so I'm not sure
Speaker 1: how much more beneficial it would be going again. But also,
Speaker 1: when you go to a place like Fiji, typically you
Speaker 1: are stuck in a resort. It was a tourist bubble,
Speaker 1: and I understand that obviously they have some traditional dances
Speaker 1: that come into the resort and those sort of things,
Speaker 1: but I'd hardly say it's the same as going to Europe,
Speaker 1: where you're going to be going on different excursions and
Speaker 1: learning about history and that sort of thing. I think
Speaker 1: age also comes into it as well, with Fox being
Speaker 1: six and being a little bit delayed at primary school.
Speaker 1: The hope probably was from his teachers that he would
Speaker 1: do a couple of terms of reception and then go
Speaker 1: into year one. However, this holiday may have delayed that
Speaker 1: process a little bit. Also think that it sends a
Speaker 1: bad message to him that you can just leave school
Speaker 1: whenever you want to on a holiday. And I mean
Speaker 1: reception in year one. They're really fundamental years where you
Speaker 1: are learning the absolute basics that you need to then
Speaker 1: progress into the next years. I just don't understand why
Speaker 1: she's publicly put it out there that the school isn't
Speaker 1: happy with her decision, as well the fact that she's
Speaker 1: been in the business for ten years, she is savvy
Speaker 1: enough to know that her critics and even the media,
Speaker 1: they had to create a narrative about this self important
Speaker 1: influencer who has pulled their son out of school to
Speaker 1: go on a lavish holiday, which is exactly what the
Speaker 1: Daily Mail did. And I just wonder if maybe she's
Speaker 1: so out of touch and was so mad that the
Speaker 1: school scolded her in this way, that she just wanted
Speaker 1: that instant affirmation from her supporters and wanted reassurance from
Speaker 1: other mums that maybe she made the right decision. Because
Speaker 1: she kept saying, oh, the mums will get it, I
Speaker 1: felt it saying I don't actually think they will. I
Speaker 1: think she's probably just surrounded by yes people and this
Speaker 1: is the first time in a long time someone has
Speaker 1: said no to her. Yeah. I also wonder if she's
Speaker 1: trying to get a bit of engagement. She hasn't created
Speaker 1: much controversy for a while now, and that is reflected
Speaker 1: in her viewcount. I mean, obviously she's still getting okay views,
Speaker 1: but it's nowhere near to the engagement she used to get.
Speaker 3: So I realized I kind of shot myself in the
Speaker 3: foot with the whole wait count down to the baby coming,
Speaker 3: because now it's making the anticipation.
Speaker 1: Of so Steph gles Smith and her husband Josh Miller
Speaker 1: announced the arrival of their baby daughter on Friday night.
Speaker 1: The finness influencer and models struck up a deal with
Speaker 1: Vogue magazine, releasing exclusive photos from her birthing suite. Sophie,
Speaker 1: We've been on baby watch for a while now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this feels like one of the longest pregnancies, and I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's because I've been experiencing it alongside
Speaker 1: Steph clear Smith in a parasocial way, because I think
Speaker 1: that you have this special connection with influencers when you're
Speaker 1: pregnant around the same time as them. She's only a
Speaker 1: few weeks ahead of me, and I keep looking at
Speaker 1: her as to what I'm expecting next. That influencer for
Speaker 1: me was jar Da Tuni, So we've spoken about it recently,
Speaker 1: but when she's gone for round two, I was like, honey,
Speaker 1: I'm not up to that yet. I think there was
Speaker 1: also more anticipation around this pregnancy because Steph les Smith
Speaker 1: and her husband. They decided to keep the gender a secret.
Speaker 1: That made it really exciting for us playing at home,
Speaker 1: and you can tell Steph was absolutely over the moon
Speaker 1: when she found out that she had a little girl. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: it looked like she had some sort of professional photographer
Speaker 1: in the birthing suite, because she shared this carousel of
Speaker 1: very beautiful black and white photos of the moment she
Speaker 1: discovered the gender. And in one of the photos she
Speaker 1: is literally screaming in excitement, and then she burst into tears.
Speaker 1: So she shared these on social media and wrote, one
Speaker 1: of the most euphoric feelings in the world. These snaps
Speaker 1: are raw moments of us finding out our little one's gender.
Speaker 1: And my gosh, the surprise was so so special. It
Speaker 1: was you in there all along the way. You came
Speaker 1: out so calm, so alert, just looking straight into my eyes.
Speaker 1: I fell in love instantly, So grateful to have another
Speaker 1: little being to love like this now. She dubbed these
Speaker 1: photos as their gender reveal. Is this going to be
Speaker 1: a new thing. We've got cakes, We've got the glitter guns.
Speaker 1: Is this now going to be a thing where people
Speaker 1: who decide to have the surprise have a professional photographer
Speaker 1: in there to capture the moments that the parents discover
Speaker 1: the gender. Well, maybe just for influencers. I mean it
Speaker 1: did get me thinking because I found out the gender
Speaker 1: of my baby, and if I were to have a
Speaker 1: second one, seeing this photo, I was like, maybe it
Speaker 1: would be nice to find out in the I think
Speaker 1: that's something special about not finding out the second time,
Speaker 1: because there can be a bit of gender disappointment if
Speaker 1: you're really gunning for a particular gender. And then I
Speaker 1: think in the moment, obviously, birth is so beautiful and
Speaker 1: exciting that whatever you get you're gonna be happy with.
Speaker 1: If I was to have another boy, I'd be like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's amazing, brothers, because I do think that there is
Speaker 1: a special connection that same sex siblings have. And then
Speaker 1: if it was a girl, I'd be so excited because
Speaker 1: I'd have one of each. So I think when it
Speaker 1: gets to the point where you'd be excited about both,
Speaker 1: that's when maybe you're like, Okay, we'll have it as
Speaker 1: a surprise. Yeah, we got to talk about the name.
Speaker 1: So they have called their baby girl Billy Claire Miller,
Speaker 1: and I thought it was pretty iconic that they put
Speaker 1: the Claire in there. Yeah, I like that nod to
Speaker 1: her name because she's become known as Steph cles Smith.
Speaker 1: Claire is obviously her middle name. It's a brand, isn't it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: not a lot of us go by our full name
Speaker 1: with our middle name. I think it was an instrum
Speaker 1: thing where Steph Smith would have been taken. Olivia Rogers
Speaker 1: does it as well. She a lot of people know
Speaker 1: her as Olivia Molly Rogers. I don't know if it
Speaker 1: was just Instagram. I mean, I think it's the fact
Speaker 1: that Steph Smith sounds pretty shit like it doesn't It
Speaker 1: sounds pretty plain, Steph Clay Smith. That sounds good exactly.
Speaker 1: You've got to throw the middle name in there. I
Speaker 1: am just predicting that we're going to have an onslaught
Speaker 1: of baby girls called Billy. Well, it's been a popular
Speaker 1: name for a while, like Bet Judd's daughter is called
Speaker 1: Billy and she's about eight years old. Actually, I checked
Speaker 1: the charts and it ranks at number sixty three in Australia,
Speaker 1: so it's not as popular as what I thought it was.
Speaker 1: I think it was a while ago, so maybe she's
Speaker 1: bringing it back. Well, Steph said that when it came
Speaker 1: to girls' names, they had been set on Billy for
Speaker 1: quite a while, but they were struggling to come up
Speaker 1: with boys' names. She said they had around three boys'
Speaker 1: names that they liked, but they weren't in love with
Speaker 1: any of them, so it was quite a relief that
Speaker 1: they had a girl. It's hard when you already have
Speaker 1: a boy and you've picked your favorite name, So it
Speaker 1: does seem like, oh, I don't really know. When asked
Speaker 1: why she gave her daughter the same middle name, Steph
Speaker 1: explained that they all shared Josh's family name and she
Speaker 1: loves it. It allows her to have this other identity
Speaker 1: outside of her work as Steph Claire Smith. But she
Speaker 1: still wanted her daughter to have a connection to her
Speaker 1: Smith family name, and as soon as she said Billy Claire,
Speaker 1: she said the decision was done. It just flowed and
Speaker 1: sounded really lovely. See when the name was first revealed,
Speaker 1: I was like, doesn't Josh have a sister called Billy.
Speaker 1: His sister is actually called Bailey, So they've got a
Speaker 1: Bailey Miller and now a Billy Miller. I feel like
Speaker 1: they're different enough, though, but there's a lot of eyes
Speaker 1: and elks going on, Like it's a very matchy matchy name,
Speaker 1: but when you stick Claire in there, it kind of
Speaker 1: I mean, Claire's got Elleen and I in as well.
Speaker 1: Maybe Billy will have to just been known as Billy
Speaker 1: Claire the whole time. Yeah, I actually think she probably
Speaker 1: will be. It probably shouldn't have been surprising to me
Speaker 1: that there was this professional photographer in the birthing suite
Speaker 1: because Steph had lined up an exclusive deal with Vogue magazine,
Speaker 1: which I think surprised some people because we've seen Vogue
Speaker 1: covering a lot of influencer's weddings. I haven't seen them
Speaker 1: covering influencers berths. I'm wondering if will get printed in
Speaker 1: the monthly edition or if this is just an online thing,
Speaker 1: because I think there's a lot of prestige around being
Speaker 1: featured in Vogue, particularly weddings. I mean, we've seen Tammy
Speaker 1: Hembro m Davies podcast of Victoria Devine, but I don't
Speaker 1: know if they're actually printed in the magazine. I think
Speaker 1: when you're printed in the magazine it's a different level.
Speaker 1: I think these will just be online versions. I'm really
Speaker 1: curious to how this deal actually works, because, as you said,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of prestige involved in being in Vogue,
Speaker 1: even if it's just the online edition, and there's a
Speaker 1: lot of influencers who will agree to be in there
Speaker 1: for free, just for the exposure. In some instances, I've
Speaker 1: actually heard of lesser known influencers trying to buy their
Speaker 1: way into Vogue, particularly when it comes to weddings. Apparently,
Speaker 1: if you see an influencer wedding in UK Vogue, they've
Speaker 1: definitely paid for it. Oh okay, But in this case,
Speaker 1: I wonder if Vogue agreed to sprook her fitness app
Speaker 1: Kick in exchange for the exposure, or if there was
Speaker 1: money exchange. It was a little bit different this time
Speaker 1: around because with the web, normally the influencers will hold
Speaker 1: off sharing their photos until they share them concurrently with Vogue. However,
Speaker 1: Steph announced the arrival of her baby before the Vogue
Speaker 1: spread went out. Well that's what made me think that
Speaker 1: potentially this article was just a bit of extra exposure
Speaker 1: for Kick and for Steph Claire Smith as a brand.
Speaker 1: She wasn't getting paid. Well, I suppose Vogue did get
Speaker 1: a lot out of it because they got a bunch
Speaker 1: of exclusive photos and Steph also wrote the article herself,
Speaker 1: so she was writing about different parts of motherhood. It
Speaker 1: was clear she wrote it before actually giving birth. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I was expecting a bit more from the article.
Speaker 1: It was quite short, didn't really give that much away.
Speaker 1: Something that has sparked debate is the so called body
Speaker 1: checking that people think she's been doing after birth. It
Speaker 1: is something that fitness influences like Sarah's Day and Tammy
Speaker 1: Hembro were also accused of. I feel like the term
Speaker 1: body checking gets thrown around a lot, but sometimes there's
Speaker 1: confusion as to what it actually is. In terms of influencers,
Speaker 1: it's when they'll generally film themselves examining certain parts of
Speaker 1: their body in the mirror. So when it comes to
Speaker 1: a postpart and body check, they will show how their
Speaker 1: body looks straight after giving birth. So they focus on
Speaker 1: touching their star miach or showing certain areas that have changed.
Speaker 1: And I feel like on TikTok in particular, body checking
Speaker 1: has become so normalized, not just with postpart and women,
Speaker 1: but with a lot of lifestyle influencers. I mean, if
Speaker 1: you reflect, we'll see food influences sharing what I eat
Speaker 1: in the day video and they flash us their stomachs
Speaker 1: or we'll see influences in the gym showing us their muscles.
Speaker 1: I feel like these happen a lot in fitchecks as well,
Speaker 1: because it's an excuse for a creator to show you
Speaker 1: a number of different angles of their bodies and for
Speaker 1: them to focus on certain parts. But it's all in
Speaker 1: the guise of showing you the outfit, when in reality
Speaker 1: they're trying to show you how skinny they are. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I think we have seen the shift on TikTok
Speaker 1: in particular with everyday women coming online and showing what
Speaker 1: their real postpart and body looks like, and it's been
Speaker 1: really helpful for a lot of mums that are like,
Speaker 1: oh wow, I can see myself within that person, because
Speaker 1: there was a time where a lot of influencers and
Speaker 1: celebrities would just show how quickly they quote bounced back
Speaker 1: and you wouldn't see this in between things, and I
Speaker 1: think that's what Steph has been trying to do well.
Speaker 1: That's what can be dangerous though, is that often fitness
Speaker 1: influencers can disguise this as being innocent content. So a
Speaker 1: lot of the time, postpart and body checks are generally
Speaker 1: shared by fitness influencers who are keen to show us
Speaker 1: their starting point after having a baby, and a lot
Speaker 1: of the time they are trying to spook a fitness
Speaker 1: plan afterwards, it feels very much like this is my before.
Speaker 1: And that's why they're being so open because they know
Speaker 1: that they're after is going to impress everyone. And that's
Speaker 1: the thing. It triggers a lot of women because there's
Speaker 1: a lot of comparison because for those fitness influencers, they
Speaker 1: think that they're being super relatable by showing their stomach
Speaker 1: after birth because for them, they're used to having a
Speaker 1: flat stomach and abs, so a little bit of a
Speaker 1: pouch for them is like, oh my goodness, this is
Speaker 1: it extreme. But a lot of women would see that
Speaker 1: image and be like, wow, I didn't even have that
Speaker 1: before I gave birth. Yeah, And as you touched on earlier,
Speaker 1: Sophie Tammy Hembro also copped flak after showing off her
Speaker 1: postpartum body. So after she gave birth to her daughter, Posey,
Speaker 1: she shared a bunch of mirror selfies showing her body
Speaker 1: at different angles and you could see that she still
Speaker 1: had abs and a very flat looking stomach. And while
Speaker 1: she acknowledged that people should never compare themselves, she said
Speaker 1: that she wanted to motivate and inspire, and then went
Speaker 1: into detail about how she stayed as active as possible
Speaker 1: before and during her pregnancy, of course, using her Tammy
Speaker 1: Fit app. She then prefaced that she couldn't wait to
Speaker 1: get back into the fitness program once she was twelve
Speaker 1: weeks postpartum, and Tammy Hembro of course got so many
Speaker 1: followers to begin with on Instagram for sharing her fitness
Speaker 1: journey when she was pregnant with her first son. WUK, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it just felt like a bit of a marketing exercise.
Speaker 1: As for Steph, I think that she has been a
Speaker 1: lot more mindful about how she's sharing about her postpartum body.
Speaker 1: I mean, with her fitness empire Kick, her and a
Speaker 1: team would have thought very strategically about this, and I
Speaker 1: think that's why a lot of people do have a
Speaker 1: problem with it, because we know that she's trying to
Speaker 1: promote something to us under the guise of body positivity.
Speaker 1: I mean, Kick the fitness app has actually got a
Speaker 1: little bit of a problematic background because originally it was
Speaker 1: called keep It Cleaner. They have always tried to be
Speaker 1: body positive and say it's not about diet, it's not
Speaker 1: about before and afters. But then Steph and her co
Speaker 1: founder Laura Henshaw are the faces of the program and
Speaker 1: are both models who are very skinny. Yeah, but I
Speaker 1: think they're trying to do better, And I actually have
Speaker 1: quite liked the way that Steph has shared about her
Speaker 1: postpart and body. I know I've had a bit of
Speaker 1: a joke that Steph Claire Smith has poo bared it
Speaker 1: through her whole pregnancy. She has had her bump out
Speaker 1: for the whole nine months. Basically, I don't think I've
Speaker 1: seen her in one outfit that doesn't reveal her bump.
Speaker 1: And it's quite interesting because she's continued that. So even
Speaker 1: days after birth, she's been wearing a lot of middrift tops.
Speaker 1: She's been showing off what her stomach actually realistically looks
Speaker 1: like after giving birth. But there was this, it's one
Speaker 1: Instagram story where she was standing in front of a
Speaker 1: open fire holding her baby Billy, and she had her
Speaker 1: top rolled up to show her stomach, and then she
Speaker 1: purposely moved from side to side so you could see
Speaker 1: every angle. It felt like a body check that she
Speaker 1: was trying to pass off as being incidental. That's the thing, though,
Speaker 1: I feel like body checks are almost allowed if the
Speaker 1: person's body is deemed as being relatable, which is very
Speaker 1: complex and quite wrong in itself as well. I've been
Speaker 1: really grappling with myself as to why I have found
Speaker 1: her body checks uncomfortable because she's doing all the right things.
Speaker 1: I normally enjoiceing people on TikTok show what their real
Speaker 1: life postpart and body looks like at every angle, not
Speaker 1: just what you look like with leggings up to your
Speaker 1: middrift and you know you're only showing part of your stomach.
Speaker 1: She has shown it all. I think what I'm having
Speaker 1: difficulty with is the fact that I feel like something
Speaker 1: is coming. It's being used as promotion. It might be
Speaker 1: being used as promotion for a positive postpartum fitness, but
Speaker 1: it's still being used as promotion to earn money. Maybe
Speaker 1: that's why I'm feeling uncomfortable. She's actually received a lot
Speaker 1: of praise for the way that she's been doing it
Speaker 1: because she shared on TikTok a video which she entitled
Speaker 1: two Days Postpartum, and in it she was wearing disposable
Speaker 1: maternity underwear, and she showed again a number of different
Speaker 1: angles of her stomach as she pulled on compression tights
Speaker 1: and she captured the post the female body is insane,
Speaker 1: and the overwhelming feedback was that people were impressed that
Speaker 1: she was showing herself basically essentially in a maternity nappy.
Speaker 1: One user wrote, maternity nappies were a god send for
Speaker 1: mums too, You're amazing. Another said love you normalizing the
Speaker 1: reality of it, whilst another said good on you for
Speaker 1: making it real. And she's been very open about how
Speaker 1: her pelvic floor has struggled after giving birth, and she's
Speaker 1: going to be wearing these nappies and pads for the
Speaker 1: foreseeable future. So I think people have loved that she
Speaker 1: has opened up about this because normally women don't talk
Speaker 1: about it. I just had a light, bold moment when
Speaker 1: you were talking Sophie. I think I feel uncomfortable about it.
Speaker 1: Is even though she's wearing an appy and she's showing
Speaker 1: off her stomach. That has kind of deflated a little bit.
Speaker 1: It's because she still looks fucking good. She's looked good
Speaker 1: throughout this whole pregnancy. She looks good with a bump,
Speaker 1: she looks good with abs, she looks good anytime. But
Speaker 1: I mean I have to defend her. I feel happy
Speaker 1: as seeing these types of posts than the one where
Speaker 1: Tammy's flexing in a mirror and sucking in and contorting
Speaker 1: to all these different angles. I think it's relatable to
Speaker 1: see the deflated stomach and see that. You know, your
Speaker 1: uterus takes quite a number of days, months, whatever it
Speaker 1: takes week, It takes probably six to eight weeks for
Speaker 1: your uterus to contract. I think the thing that I
Speaker 1: do find troubling though, is that these body checks, whether
Speaker 1: they're relatable or not, all they're there to do is
Speaker 1: to spark comparison, and I don't think comparison is always
Speaker 1: helpful in these situations. And the body checks are this
Speaker 1: underlying part of the fitness world. You do a body check,
Speaker 1: you do before and after. So while Laura and Steph
Speaker 1: have always said we don't do before and after, this
Speaker 1: is essentially what we have been. She also feel like
Speaker 1: there's a bit of a tone like, wow, that's brave
Speaker 1: to share that. I just find it all very performative,
Speaker 1: even though she's doing the right thing. The thing that
Speaker 1: makes me feel uncomfortable, though, is I feel like women
Speaker 1: are damned if they do damned if they don't. For Steph,
Speaker 1: she shares a lot about her life, And I think
Speaker 1: if she suddenly disappeared from her TikTok and her Instagram
Speaker 1: and only appeared when she was back to how she was,
Speaker 1: we'd also criticize her for it. But I think people
Speaker 1: would be like, oh, she's taken time off to be
Speaker 1: with her baby. Like the fact that we've had this
Speaker 1: influx of content, I wasn't really expecting it. And if
Speaker 1: we only saw her return with her stomach looking flat
Speaker 1: and her abs back, we'd be like, Gee, she's been
Speaker 1: in hiding. She's only wanted to return when she's back
Speaker 1: to how she was. True. I mean, I don't know
Speaker 1: in this day and age, if there is a right
Speaker 1: way to do it or not. In Steph's Vogue article,
Speaker 1: she touched on bounce back culture, and she admitted during
Speaker 1: her first pregnancy that she did feel the pressure and
Speaker 1: expectation to get back to her pre baby body. She
Speaker 1: said it infuriated her that after years of rebuilding her
Speaker 1: relationship with food, exercise, and body image, the postpartum period
Speaker 1: rocked how she felt about herself. That was quite relatable
Speaker 1: because we're always told that bounce back is a dirty word,
Speaker 1: which it is, but it's really hard you know, being pregnant.
Speaker 1: Of course I would love to look exactly the same
Speaker 1: after giving birth. In reality, that's not going to happen.
Speaker 1: But is it wrong for someone to think that. I
Speaker 1: think that there's a lot of these conversations that happen
Speaker 1: behind the scenes between friends where people are like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, I really want to feel good again and
Speaker 1: I want to feel like myself again. But then there's
Speaker 1: this sort of fakery where you're not allowed to, you know,
Speaker 1: it's like, oh no, no, no, I'll just be happy. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think maybe because I've heard Steph talk about this before,
Speaker 1: that that's why I'm leaning towards feeling like this whole
Speaker 1: body checking thing has been a little bit performative, or
Speaker 1: maybe it's been our exercise, or maybe it has been
Speaker 1: for her own mental health to go, Okay, I'm going
Speaker 1: to put this out there and share this with everyone,
Speaker 1: and maybe she needed the positive feedback from others.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: I think it's also the fact that she has worked
Speaker 1: out quite I don't want to say sessively, but she
Speaker 1: shared a lot of workout content during her pregnancy. It's
Speaker 1: her job. Well again, it's her job, and she obviously
Speaker 1: loves it and there's nothing wrong with working out during pregnancy.
Speaker 1: It's actually so good for a lot of pregnant women
Speaker 1: to do so. But it's also good if you don't
Speaker 1: want to work out exactly. I mean, I think I haven't. No,
Speaker 1: I didn't do any workouts, and I thought maybe I would.
Speaker 1: I did walk in the first trimester, and somewhat into
Speaker 1: the second I was doing some of the kick bump exercises,
Speaker 1: and I was quite enjoying it, but then just as
Speaker 1: I got further in, I was like, I don't think
Speaker 1: I could do this anymore. I've tried to stay active
Speaker 1: on walks. I found that really good, because I do
Speaker 1: also think it's really terrible if you just don't do anything.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of benefits for actually staying active. I mean,
Speaker 1: each of their own people also experience pregnancy very differently.
Speaker 1: So you have some women who have HG and can't
Speaker 1: get out of bed and can't keep any food down,
Speaker 1: and then you have others that really aren't affected by
Speaker 1: it that much. I did like the way that Steph
Speaker 1: said in the Vogue article that she thinks it's unfair
Speaker 1: how women's bodies are really celebrated during pregnant, But then
Speaker 1: how quickly they're scrutinized and compared once the baby has arrived,
Speaker 1: which is why I think she's making that effort to
Speaker 1: still have her stomach on display afterwards. Yeah. Well, she
Speaker 1: did do a lot of pregnancy photo shoots as well,
Speaker 1: so maybe she will be doing more postpartum photoshop. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't have liked this, Kate, though, because I did
Speaker 1: notice in the Vogue article she did plug that if
Speaker 1: she's feeling better in six weeks, she would do her
Speaker 1: kick Bump post natal program. And of course I'm sure
Speaker 1: she'd be taking us along for the ride now away
Speaker 1: from the body checking. A lot of people were interested
Speaker 1: to see whether Steph would show her newborn's face, because
Speaker 1: she did show her first son, Harvey's face, when he
Speaker 1: was a newborn. She's only recently stopped showing him online,
Speaker 1: and she and Josh basically explained that they felt comfortable
Speaker 1: to show Harvey's face because newborn's and babies they changed
Speaker 1: so much until upwards of about three or four. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so people weren't sure if she was going to show
Speaker 1: Billy's face or not, and I think she was a
Speaker 1: bit unsure as well. Yeah, well, it turns out that
Speaker 1: they have been trying to hide her face. So there's
Speaker 1: been a lot of photos of Billy from different angles,
Speaker 1: but none of her face front on. Oh there was
Speaker 1: a front on one, but she put a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of text over it, so you couldn't really see. There
Speaker 1: have been some questions as to whether Billy looks like Harvey,
Speaker 1: and Steph said there are some similarities. But she did
Speaker 1: want to say that Billy is definitely a Smith. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she definitely has Smith jeans. Yeah. She said that those
Speaker 1: Smith jeans were strong. This is going to be a
Speaker 1: gorgeous child. I did notice that Harvey had a little
Speaker 1: white squiggle over his face in the Vogue spread. I
Speaker 1: thought that they might have covered his face in a
Speaker 1: little bit more of a sophisticated way, pixelated or like
Speaker 1: he's on bloody witness protection or something. Yeah, but maybe
Speaker 1: just not use that photo or It's a tough one
Speaker 1: because in the future, I'm sure they don't want their
Speaker 1: whole photo albums full of pictures of their son's face
Speaker 1: concealed in a weird way. Those are special moments. Just
Speaker 1: don't give it to Vogue to share. Well, that's where
Speaker 1: we're going to wrap things. Up today. Thank you again
Speaker 1: for listening to Outspoken. If you do enjoy the show,
Speaker 1: we would really appreciate it if you could leave us
Speaker 1: a review and make sure you are subscribed on Apple
Speaker 1: and Spotify. This episode was recorded on the traditional land
Speaker 1: of the Ghana people of the Adelaide Plains. We pay
Speaker 1: respect to elders past and present.