Speaker 1: Flex and Frooms.
Speaker 2: Flex and Fromes. This is the Flex and Frooms catch
Speaker 2: up podcast.
Speaker 1: It is Flexing Frooms com Cat. We must discuss I
Speaker 1: think we might be overdue for this discussion anyway. Why
Speaker 1: do Australians hate successful people? You might feel a little
Speaker 1: bit taken aback by that statement. I say it one
Speaker 1: more time so it really hits. Why do Australians hate
Speaker 1: successful people? You might say, no, we don't. We love
Speaker 1: successful people. Then what is tall poppy syndrome? Please? I
Speaker 1: didn't make that up? Frooms. Did you make that up?
Speaker 2: No? But I've definitely all across.
Speaker 1: It, heard of it one too many times. It factors
Speaker 1: into one too many conversations For those of you who
Speaker 1: aren aware what tall poppy syndrome is. It's a social
Speaker 1: phenomenon in Australia, specifically to describe someone who stands out
Speaker 1: from the crowd due to their success. Tall poppy syndrome, however,
Speaker 1: is involves when we attack, scrutinize, discredit, or criticize, or
Speaker 1: generally dislike someone in the public eye who is experiencing
Speaker 1: any level of success above our own. And in other words,
Speaker 1: to participate in tall poppy syndrome is to cut down
Speaker 1: the tall poppy the person who is standing out from
Speaker 1: the crowd. Now, if you look at a field of
Speaker 1: poppy flowers, a tall poppy, you know. So if you
Speaker 1: look at a field of poppy flowers, they're usually growing
Speaker 1: to like the same height until they look beautiful and
Speaker 1: red and everything's uniform, and every now and then there'd
Speaker 1: be a couple of poppies that are higher than the rest,
Speaker 1: and so you have to cut them down so they
Speaker 1: don't ruin the landscape. That's where that comes from. Cool now, cool.
Speaker 1: We love when things make sense. Now you might be
Speaker 1: the victim of tall poppy syndromes. I feel like a
Speaker 1: lot of people don't really know if they're being sensitive.
Speaker 1: What if they call it sensitive snowflake, or if you
Speaker 1: actually are experiencing an exceptional level of critique or disrepute
Speaker 1: for just being good at something right. So, if you're
Speaker 1: not sure if you've experienced it, I'm going to for instances.
Speaker 1: Article from Refinery twenty nine by Vanna O'Brien unpacking everything
Speaker 1: about tall poppy syndrome. But part of the characteristics of
Speaker 1: a victim of this syndrome is hesitating to hesitating to
Speaker 1: or feeling embarrassed in sharing your success, for example, the
Speaker 1: news of a promotion at work with your colleagues or
Speaker 1: at pay rise, or telling a friend you know who
Speaker 1: is in the same level of success you are about
Speaker 1: what you're doing, Feeling ashamed to promote your achievements achievements online,
Speaker 1: feeling the need to downplay your skills or hide them away,
Speaker 1: socially monitoring yourself out of fear of being perceived as arrogant. Now,
Speaker 1: I didn't think I had tall Poppy syndrome, I said,
Speaker 1: not me, not me. I don't have that. However, up
Speaker 1: until very recently, I was having a conversation with Rooms
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks ago, and I said, I don't
Speaker 1: like to use my Instagram as promotional channel as much
Speaker 1: as I should, because it feels embarrassing to say, Hey, everyone, Reminder,
Speaker 1: I'm a best selling author. Reminder I wrote a really
Speaker 1: amazing book. Reminder of an amazing business. It just doesn't
Speaker 1: feel appropriate. That's the way they kept coming up. Oh, like,
Speaker 1: it just feels a bit weird considering the state of
Speaker 1: the world. Lah la lah, But the Instagram is my
Speaker 1: place of business. Would I go into a butcher and
Speaker 1: if the butcher's it feels weird to talk about what
Speaker 1: meets we have on sale right now, considering the state
Speaker 1: of the world. No, tell me what you have going
Speaker 1: on so I can know whether or not to participate whatever, whatever,
Speaker 1: whatever Now. Coming up after the break, I want to
Speaker 1: discuss podcasts. No sorry, Coming up on the podcast, I
Speaker 1: want to discuss on the adverse, how to stop being
Speaker 1: a perpetrator of top poppy syndrome. This is one of
Speaker 1: those things where you'd be like, no, not me. I
Speaker 1: would never cut somebody down. I want us all to win.
Speaker 2: Rahh.
Speaker 1: You've definitely done it before, and what better time than
Speaker 1: the present to really catch us catch ourselves up on
Speaker 1: being you know, people who sometimes do bad things. So,
Speaker 1: still referencing that Refinery twenty nine article, you might be
Speaker 1: the perpetrator of tall poppy syndrome if you find yourself
Speaker 1: being jealous of a friend after they announce a milestone.
Speaker 1: You go out of your way to ignore a colleague
Speaker 1: who has earned a promotion or a pay increase. You
Speaker 1: frequently gossip about how unimpressed you are with a certain
Speaker 1: celebrity or someone. When you found fame, you exclude someone
Speaker 1: socially who you don't want to be compared to you
Speaker 1: feel inadequate when you hear about someone's success. The question
Speaker 1: I post is why do Australians hate successful people?
Speaker 2: I have some ideas, yes, okay, when it comes to
Speaker 2: the media industry in Australia, I believe that like unlike
Speaker 2: America and the UK, there are less opportunities, right Like,
Speaker 2: I think that is an actual fact. So therefore, I
Speaker 2: think the tall poppy thing because we are a small
Speaker 2: we have like small dog syndrome. We're like Chihuahua Nation,
Speaker 2: where we're like, well, don't get too big. You're still
Speaker 2: from Australia, and our whole culture is like down, like
Speaker 2: it's built into our DNA in white Australia is to
Speaker 2: be like oh nah nah, like oh yeah nah, Like
Speaker 2: even that phrase yeah nah is just so like downplay
Speaker 2: downplay down by predictions, contradictions absolutely. So I also think
Speaker 2: there's like this, I'm sure this is the same in
Speaker 2: a lot of countries, but this like needing to all
Speaker 2: be uniform and like to not speak out, not be
Speaker 2: not be annoying, like just go with the status quo,
Speaker 2: be chill. I feel like we're very like let's be
Speaker 2: chill Nation. And I think we also find pride, like
Speaker 2: I've heard all the time through my whole life, being
Speaker 2: like Americans like motor bot, not motor boat, Americans like
Speaker 2: show boat, like they always want to talk about that
Speaker 2: their success at sickening. We find it sickening. But then yeah,
Speaker 2: I also think that it happens to more women than
Speaker 2: men because I also see it in my own experience. Well,
Speaker 2: that's because I'm being more threatened by women because there's
Speaker 2: less opportunities for us as well. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1: It makes sense, so.
Speaker 2: I completely it completely makes sense why this is the
Speaker 2: thing in Australia, and I have seen it in myself
Speaker 2: and something that I had to work on is when
Speaker 2: I feel jealous of someone, my instinct is to want
Speaker 2: to talk to someone about it, to try and think, oh,
Speaker 2: but you think they're annoying too, right, or you think this,
Speaker 2: or you think that. And being on the receiving end
Speaker 2: of like working in the media, it's and worrying that,
Speaker 2: Like it's hard to know if someone being tall poppy,
Speaker 2: if I'm being criticized or am I actually being X
Speaker 2: y Z. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it does makes it of sense. How do you
Speaker 1: think tall poppy syndrome manifests like not in a work.
Speaker 2: Context, yes, or like socially yeah, probably like saying someone,
Speaker 2: why does it happen socially? Because I think socially is
Speaker 2: the same as work in terms of wanting to see
Speaker 2: where you are on the pecking order. That's actually what
Speaker 2: work is about as well. I think is this order situation?
Speaker 2: So you want to think, oh, well there, I think
Speaker 2: I remember, Like it's like if someone is not naturally blonde,
Speaker 2: you want to say, oh, no, like they're not naturally blond.
Speaker 2: Are they're only hot because they've got fake natural blonde hair?
Speaker 2: Does that make sense?
Speaker 1: This one's a bit too rare for me. I don't
Speaker 1: really know this culture.
Speaker 2: We've spoken about it for like the blonde hair thing
Speaker 2: where people want to say they've.
Speaker 1: Spoken about like blonde supremacy, blonde hierarchies. But I was
Speaker 1: when I spoke about it was because I was I
Speaker 1: was seeing it for the first time. I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is It's not a joke. It's a real thing
Speaker 1: between blondes and brunettes and redheads and where they sit
Speaker 1: in the hierarchy and what it means for them. But
Speaker 1: in the sense I don't know this tall poppy thing.
Speaker 1: It feels like a self fulfilling prophecy because the same
Speaker 1: people who would say it's an issue, I'm sure keep
Speaker 1: it sutors of it as well, the weird thing. And
Speaker 1: I get what you were saying, this idea of like
Speaker 1: there's only space for a few, there's only space for
Speaker 1: a few, there's only space for a few. And I
Speaker 1: think the reason why, and because we've had conversations about
Speaker 1: professional jealousy as well, and I think the reason why
Speaker 1: I don't feel is jealous because don't feel like I
Speaker 1: should be here anyway. I don't feel like I'm in
Speaker 1: competition with a lot of people because Australian media is
Speaker 1: so white, so I feel like if I'm in these spaces,
Speaker 1: I'm not compared in a lot of ways. So I
Speaker 1: don't feel like the next person is coming to get
Speaker 1: what's mine, because there is no next person. And so
Speaker 1: that's why in the past I've had peas to be like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, you're so free with your information, like
Speaker 1: you're not afraid to say like what you get paid
Speaker 1: and what you're doing here, and what you're doing here.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, yeah, because you're not gonna come and
Speaker 1: steal my job by virtue of me feeling really unique
Speaker 1: to be in this particular position. I think that if
Speaker 1: I was, yeah, I don't. It feels like a self
Speaker 1: fulfilling prophecy. It feels like a double edged sword, and
Speaker 1: it feel feels like a trap that people want you
Speaker 1: to fall into, like imposter syndrome. Yes, they want you
Speaker 1: to feel like you don't belong here. They want you
Speaker 1: to doubt yourself. They want you to feel like something's incorrect,
Speaker 1: so you'll take yourself out of the race. Do you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying?
Speaker 2: Major, Yeah, because you do worry about Yeah. If you're
Speaker 2: worried about it, it's harder to make decisions and you
Speaker 2: do is this feeling like, oh, well, I don't want
Speaker 2: to be I don't want to be targeted, so I'm
Speaker 2: just not.
Speaker 1: And nobody can validate if it's real or not real.
Speaker 1: If you went to a group of people and said,
Speaker 1: am I the victim of tall poppy syndrome? It'd be
Speaker 1: like the invisible monster just being paranoid. There's no real monster, hear,
Speaker 1: You just don't feel inadequate. Therefore take yourself out of
Speaker 1: the game. You don't feel like you fit in this conversation,
Speaker 1: then take yourself out you don't feel like you fit
Speaker 1: in the friend group, then reveal yourself. You know what
Speaker 1: I mean? It feels like this really insidious way for
Speaker 1: people to self adjust, for you, to put yourself on
Speaker 1: the hierarchy a few rungs lower to create space for
Speaker 1: those who recognize the game that's being played.
Speaker 2: So it's like self destructive, do you mean?
Speaker 1: Or it's I think it's like any system that was
Speaker 1: built to be self regulating, like capitalism, like racism, like sexism,
Speaker 1: it's not often someone doing it to you, it's you
Speaker 1: keeping yourself in that position as well. Not that racism
Speaker 1: is something you do to yourself, but in the sense of,
Speaker 1: like I get really frustrated, like, for example, I don't
Speaker 1: like talking about oppressive narratives about blackness, especially online or
Speaker 1: in spaces, but anyone can take that narrative because it
Speaker 1: reaffirms I don't want out there, you know, like people
Speaker 1: were like, you never talk about your failures exactly, max
Speaker 1: fact exactly because what's that doing for me? You know?
Speaker 2: So?
Speaker 1: I think the thing about self poppy self poppy tall
Speaker 1: poppy syndrome is that it makes you choose where you
Speaker 1: fit on the ladder, and it's always going to be
Speaker 1: lower than you think it's going to be for fear
Speaker 1: of getting higher and someone taking you off.
Speaker 2: Now it's making sense. Now, it's making sense. You know,
Speaker 2: I never thought of it like that.
Speaker 1: You are the monster afraid of Oh no, you are
Speaker 1: the person with the cheese keeping everybody in line.
Speaker 2: You've been listening to The Flex and Froom's daily podcast.
Speaker 2: For more, Tune in de cater on DAB or stream
Speaker 2: it on iHeartRadio.