Speaker 1: Hey guys, and welcome back to another episode of Life
Speaker 1: Fun Card. I'm producer Keisha and I'm filling in at
Speaker 1: the moment for Britain Laura while they take a bit
Speaker 1: of a summer break. And we decided this year that
Speaker 1: we wanted to bring you some of the absolutely incredible
Speaker 1: conversations that we had from our live shows back in
Speaker 1: October when we got to fly all around the country.
Speaker 1: We visited seven cities and we had some amazing guests
Speaker 1: joining us on stage, so we wanted to bring them
Speaker 1: to you so that you could enjoy them over this
Speaker 1: summer period. Joining us today is the weapon of a woman,
Speaker 1: Flex Marmy. Now, if you haven't met Flex, or if
Speaker 1: you haven't heard Flex speak before, she's a person that's
Speaker 1: actually quite hard to put into words because she can
Speaker 1: take these really deep, complex topics and she can just
Speaker 1: make them so light and so funny to listen to.
Speaker 1: I find Flex such an engaging person because she's able
Speaker 1: to do that so well. In this conversation, the girls
Speaker 1: speak about where the name Flex Mammy comes from, because
Speaker 1: believe it or not, that is not her birth name.
Speaker 1: They speak about personal branding and when that becomes a
Speaker 1: business They also spoke about the concept of performative authenticity
Speaker 1: and whether being authentic online and being openly vulnerable is
Speaker 1: always a good thing, or whether people could have different
Speaker 1: motives for why they actually act that way online, whether
Speaker 1: it could be for followers, for engagement, for a multitude
Speaker 1: of reasons. And that led into another conversation that I
Speaker 1: found very very interesting, particularly for Flex's perspective, and that
Speaker 1: is on the idea of businesses increasing their diversity, so
Speaker 1: whether that be that they're catering for different sizes or
Speaker 1: colors or whatever it could be, and when that advertising
Speaker 1: is actually quite tokenistic. I think you're really gonna love
Speaker 1: this chat, so let's get into it with Flex mummy.
Speaker 2: All right, everyone, this takes us to our second half
Speaker 2: of the show, where we're going to introduced to you
Speaker 2: some of our absolutely phenomenal guests that we have who
Speaker 2: have come here to be with you guys tonight.
Speaker 3: Now, the first guest off.
Speaker 2: The ranks is someone who so many of you might
Speaker 2: know across social media, but she is like the entrepreneur
Speaker 2: of entrepreneurs. She is a DJ, she is a podcaster,
Speaker 2: she is a radio host. She is a TV presenter,
Speaker 2: She is a jewelry designer. She is an influencer. Honestly,
Speaker 2: Flex Mammy is everything. She can do everything, jack of
Speaker 2: all trades and master of everything. This woman Flex get
Speaker 2: on out here.
Speaker 3: Looking fine. I might say, I love it. Hi, take
Speaker 3: the hot seat. Flex.
Speaker 4: If that is even your real name, we'll get to that.
Speaker 3: Thanks for coming today.
Speaker 4: We're going to kick start with and accidentally unfiltered because
Speaker 4: we make everyone do an embarrassing story.
Speaker 5: I thought really long and hard about this, and I
Speaker 5: was tossing up between the time I was robbed at
Speaker 5: a hotel, but I thought I would do something lighter.
Speaker 5: I was thinking about, like, I don't know, it's not
Speaker 5: just me, because I'm not deranged on my own, but
Speaker 5: the kind of mental illness that happens when you're in
Speaker 5: a new relationship and all you are is like horny
Speaker 5: and excited, horny and excited to that moving to a
Speaker 5: new city extra horny, extra excited. I feel alive. So
Speaker 5: I move into this amazing new apartment complex. It's bougie.
Speaker 5: They don't have a gym, it's a health club. What's
Speaker 5: the day? They don't have just like a space for
Speaker 5: you to go and eat. It's an outdoor area. With
Speaker 5: a habachi grill. They don't have an area for you
Speaker 5: to just do work. It's a coworking space, so you
Speaker 5: can only imagine what's going on. There's staff and everything.
Speaker 5: So I invite my new boyfriend to my apartment. I'm
Speaker 5: feeling I was gonna say Horney, but I've said it
Speaker 5: too much, so I'm like, let's go.
Speaker 3: To the spa. There's a spa. It's gonna be amazing.
Speaker 5: So it's like maybe eleven pm on a Friday, there's
Speaker 5: nobody there. Was I going to do anything. No, I'm
Speaker 5: a sensible woman with a public profile. I wouldn't do anything.
Speaker 5: So I get into this spa. It's PG, guys, it's
Speaker 5: almost g rated. I had thought to myself, are there cameras?
Speaker 3: Surely not.
Speaker 5: Surely in a place where you pay this amount of rent,
Speaker 5: they wouldn't document you without you knowing.
Speaker 3: Boy, it was I wrong.
Speaker 5: I don't think I did anything particularly inappropriate. But when
Speaker 5: you wake up on a Monday morning nine am with
Speaker 5: a building wide bulletin that says we respect and condone
Speaker 5: anything that adults want to do in their spare time, honeymooners, beware,
Speaker 5: there are cameras.
Speaker 3: You are being watched.
Speaker 5: Do what you want to the offending participants. They referred
Speaker 5: to me as, we will be directly emailing you if
Speaker 5: you make this mistake twice. Just know you were being watched.
Speaker 5: Tell me why. I was like, sure, it couldn't be me,
Speaker 5: because I didn't really say it was Friday A or whatever.
Speaker 5: I had gotten a response after I'd opened the email
Speaker 5: ten minutes later, directly to me, Hi Miss Lilian, government names, say, Hi,
Speaker 5: Miss Lilian, just letting you know that that email was
Speaker 5: for you. In particular, I didn't do anything, though I could.
Speaker 3: Have and I wanted to.
Speaker 4: Also, I love the way you move, But also do you.
Speaker 5: Think in that instance, like I was now thinking about
Speaker 5: privacy and security like that it's their fault.
Speaker 3: Well that's what I need and exposure that they witnessed.
Speaker 3: But that's what I was saying.
Speaker 5: But babes, I didn't actually do anything anyway, that's what
Speaker 5: they all say. I think I've been on probation because
Speaker 5: they are on to me. I come to the reception,
Speaker 5: they smiled cheekily. How's it going, they say, how's the relationship?
Speaker 5: No comment, you're in I'm but a victim and a
Speaker 5: pretty girl.
Speaker 2: Flex I mean obviously, Lilian, I would love to know,
Speaker 2: and I think so many of the people who follow
Speaker 2: you would love to know.
Speaker 3: Where did Flex come from. I wish it was a
Speaker 3: good story, and it's just not.
Speaker 5: And I've thought about lying. I've had the name for
Speaker 5: ten years. I really thought about lying, but it's not
Speaker 5: a good one. I was nineteen and I was working
Speaker 5: in pr and I was really burnt out, and I
Speaker 5: thought the solution would be to get another job, but
Speaker 5: a fun job and a cool job. So I became
Speaker 5: a door girl, which was like the height of.
Speaker 3: Excitement at nineteen.
Speaker 5: But then through that I became a DJ, and like,
Speaker 5: I like music, but I didn't think the criteria of
Speaker 5: being a DJ was just liking music. It was that
Speaker 5: easy at the time. So I went to my friends,
Speaker 5: I'm like, I want to be a DJ. Let's do
Speaker 5: a round table, let's make a name. And so, literally,
Speaker 5: like you have to be on the internet ten years
Speaker 5: ago to know how not cool flex is.
Speaker 3: It's like lit on sleek or whatever we used to
Speaker 3: say to it.
Speaker 4: I literally still say that it's like yolo.
Speaker 2: I think it's one of those words. Though that's now
Speaker 2: it's been so long it's come back around and now
Speaker 2: you've made it cool again, yea talking to.
Speaker 5: Someone that says volcano, and so I was like, yeah,
Speaker 5: it would be flex, it would be great. So I'm
Speaker 5: like trying to buy, trying to secure the Facebook account
Speaker 5: or whatever, and naturally Flex is taken up by Chiropractice
Speaker 5: and yoga Instructure and everybody else. And I was like, guys,
Speaker 5: like quick, I've got my first gig on Friday. I
Speaker 5: need a name, and then Flexmami it became. Howd I
Speaker 5: have known it would be something that would be tied
Speaker 5: to me for this long?
Speaker 3: I would have done it differently, But DJ Lillian was
Speaker 3: never gonna work. It was never gonna work. It doesn't
Speaker 3: Land doesn't. It doesn't like DJ Lily Lilia. Okay. The
Speaker 3: thing that I.
Speaker 2: Find so interesting though, is is like you say you
Speaker 2: stumbled across this, but like I look at you on
Speaker 2: social media and I see someone who is so good
Speaker 2: at branding. I'm like, you are so clever at the
Speaker 2: way that you brand yourself, and you brand all the
Speaker 2: different types of things that are a part of your
Speaker 2: Flex empire. So then how if you think, oh it
Speaker 2: just kind of happened, I just across this, how intentional,
Speaker 2: then is your branding when it comes to your business?
Speaker 3: It was a trauma rest bot. I'm telling you it was.
Speaker 5: There's something about you have to imagine what like the
Speaker 5: music landscape was like ten years ago. You weren't just
Speaker 5: like a DJ, like a female DJ, and everybody had
Speaker 5: opinions about what your intention was.
Speaker 3: To be a musician. You couldn't just like music.
Speaker 5: And so the only reason why I became intentional about
Speaker 5: branding is because people would say the most deranged things.
Speaker 5: I used to write in all caps no reason. Thought
Speaker 5: it was aesthetic, thought it was fun. So tell me
Speaker 5: why I open up my browser because I had Google
Speaker 5: alerts on myself.
Speaker 3: I do.
Speaker 5: And so I see this article by a youth broadcaster
Speaker 5: that will not be named, that has written like a
Speaker 5: feature on me.
Speaker 3: I'm like, this is sick. I feel like a celebrity.
Speaker 5: Why do they lead with flex mummy right in all
Speaker 5: caps as a way to creatively express what it's like
Speaker 5: to take up space in a male dominated industry? I said, babe,
Speaker 5: shut it down, deleted, Like that's what happens. People curate
Speaker 5: and craft these really convincing ideas about who you are
Speaker 5: and why you say things and so I feel like
Speaker 5: if it seems like I'm intentional about my brand, but
Speaker 5: I'm paranoid.
Speaker 2: I honestly like you could not have led into the
Speaker 2: conversation that we're having better and that was such an
Speaker 2: unintentional setup. But what we wanted to talk to you
Speaker 2: about is this idea of like authenticity on social media
Speaker 2: and online and verse performative, you know, and so where
Speaker 2: does that line see it? Especially in how people who
Speaker 2: have public profiles use it? And I think it's so
Speaker 2: interesting that you say so much of the brand that's
Speaker 2: being created, part of it's been intentional, but part of
Speaker 2: it's being created around you. Yeah, So then how do
Speaker 2: you think in terms of when it comes to being
Speaker 2: authentic online?
Speaker 3: What does that look like for you? It's really tricky.
Speaker 5: I was thinking the other day, I like to ask
Speaker 5: people questions that aren't small talk because I think I
Speaker 5: get bought easily. But I was saying to a friend
Speaker 5: of mine, what's a misconception people make about you constantly
Speaker 5: that you use your advantage? Because I think about that
Speaker 5: so often, like we're so paranoid about like are we
Speaker 5: being perceived the right way? And do I come across well?
Speaker 5: But when we don't. What do you do about it?
Speaker 5: If someone's like, oh my gosh, you come across so gentle.
Speaker 5: I love that you were color often you must be
Speaker 5: so bold. What are you gonna say you read me wrong?
Speaker 3: No, you know, I mean like, thank you. That like
Speaker 3: works for me.
Speaker 5: So when people were saying because I wrote in all
Speaker 5: caps and wore color and I'm overweight, she's a buddy
Speaker 5: positivity pritaincess, like, I was like, so, whatever you want
Speaker 5: to do, I'm just a yes.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And at the.
Speaker 5: Time, especially like the Internet was like visuals first, visuals first,
Speaker 5: So whatever the visual was saying, it didn't matter that
Speaker 5: I had an alternate narrative because everyone's like, but we
Speaker 5: get it, like we know this vibe, say no more.
Speaker 5: And so now when I think about authenticity and I'm like,
Speaker 5: this we trajectory on the internet, because you know, I
Speaker 5: didn't intend to be an influencer or anything. Because I
Speaker 5: was saying to you earlier that if I reflect on
Speaker 5: who I was when I was like a high schooler,
Speaker 5: I was so inarticulate, empty headed, ditsy, dreamy. I could
Speaker 5: never get finish's sentence out. I literally have such strong
Speaker 5: memories of trying to tell my friend's stories and watching
Speaker 5: like the light fade from their eyes?
Speaker 3: Do you know what I'm saying? Like you're like, okay,
Speaker 3: let me start again. I'll start from the top because
Speaker 3: I can get missing my point. I start from the
Speaker 3: st that's your mind. And so then so I.
Speaker 5: I think about, like what that felt like, and it
Speaker 5: to be articulate was a trauma response. I was like,
Speaker 5: oh my god, nobody listens to me, nobody cares. And
Speaker 5: so when I started DJing at nineteen and I suddenly
Speaker 5: had to create a brand, I was like, oh, I
Speaker 5: have to start like knowing who I am and saying
Speaker 5: what I like.
Speaker 3: And I think now people are like, oh, this is
Speaker 3: so cool. You're so confident.
Speaker 5: Back then, everybody was like, why are you so obnoxious?
Speaker 5: Why do you always talk about how you feel? Why
Speaker 5: do you think it's important that people know what you think?
Speaker 3: Just shut up?
Speaker 5: And to that, I said, I am the youngest sibling
Speaker 5: of two older brothers.
Speaker 3: I deserve space to speak. I earned this.
Speaker 5: So now when it comes to authenticity, I try really
Speaker 5: hard to be myself. But the older I get, the
Speaker 5: more sensitive I get, and I'm like, oh, it's really
Speaker 5: hard to be yourself and have everything about you come
Speaker 5: across as conceptual and therefore critiqued. I think people really
Speaker 5: struggle to conceptualize how hard it is for people to
Speaker 5: not only see you, but make assumptions about you and
Speaker 5: then tell them to you. It could be little things
Speaker 5: like I remember not too long ago, I got this
Speaker 5: comment from someone that was like, I just love that
Speaker 5: every time like you wear an outfit, your stretch marks
Speaker 5: poke through, because it makes me feel so confident. I said,
Speaker 5: which ones?
Speaker 3: I don't.
Speaker 5: I don't know which one are you talking about. I
Speaker 5: don't think I noticed those. So in this instance, if
Speaker 5: I was being authentic, i'd say, shut up, you freak.
Speaker 3: Like, why would you say that? That's weird?
Speaker 5: But to perform authenticity, I have to reward that open.
Speaker 3: Display of co vulnerability.
Speaker 5: Yep, Because to shut you down in a moment where
Speaker 5: you felt like you were connecting something, I'm the bad guy.
Speaker 4: It's a real balance between people wanting authenticity from the
Speaker 4: people that they follow and the people online. But then
Speaker 4: there's this balance on too much authenticity, like when the
Speaker 4: crossover to performative authenticity. When something traumatic's happening in someone's
Speaker 4: life and the first thing they've thought of. I don't
Speaker 4: know about you, guys, but when I watch someone that's
Speaker 4: like almost died in a car accident and the first
Speaker 4: thing they've done is get their phone out to film
Speaker 4: themselves crying that they almost died, I'm like, why is
Speaker 4: that your response?
Speaker 3: There's a part of me that's.
Speaker 4: Like, why did you just jump online to share that?
Speaker 4: And that's where I struggle with people that I'm like,
Speaker 4: I don't believe that. And I'm sure for you you've
Speaker 4: had a lot of virtue signaling, like you're seeing a
Speaker 4: lot of people do that.
Speaker 3: What's your view on that?
Speaker 5: I don't think it's a fine line between authenticity and
Speaker 5: performing authenticity. I think the reason why authenticity online doesn't
Speaker 5: work is because everything about documenting yourself is contrived. Even
Speaker 5: the fact that you get a chance to decide how
Speaker 5: you want to show up on a device, where you
Speaker 5: decide the angle and the lighting and the context and
Speaker 5: the time you post it and the reason why you
Speaker 5: post it, it's all contrived. It's inauthentic in its very being.
Speaker 5: The concept can never be authentic. So to bypass that
Speaker 5: and to pretend that everything in this moment is authentic
Speaker 5: because I'm coming across well doesn't make sense. And I
Speaker 5: also think, you know, he was authentic, Ted Bundy. He
Speaker 5: was being authentic, that's a a turn. Was being true
Speaker 5: to himself, and nobody was like, oh, I love authentic characters.
Speaker 5: There's also this like misconception about what you're saying when
Speaker 5: you say you like authenticity, because when your feed is
Speaker 5: full of people with like really harmful views, suddenly it's
Speaker 5: not okay anymore and I'm not gonna be a country
Speaker 5: And he's like, don't say how you feel. But I
Speaker 5: think the difficulty with social media is that we're all
Speaker 5: in denial about how real and not real it is.
Speaker 5: It amplifies all the ways that we're contrived in real life,
Speaker 5: but just in a digital space. Like I think about
Speaker 5: like fundamental social norms and politics. I can't go in
Speaker 5: a room when I'm feeling pissed off and act the
Speaker 5: way that I want to act because it's inappropriate. I'm
Speaker 5: being inauthentic every time someone says, hey, how are you going,
Speaker 5: and I'm like, I'm dead parised in my brain, but
Speaker 5: I'm like, hey, that's so fine, nic see meet it's inauthentic.
Speaker 5: I promise you. I always tell my friends. People don't
Speaker 5: want you to be authentic. They want to be entertained,
Speaker 5: they want to be validated, or they want to be educated,
Speaker 5: and if it doesn't fit between that, suddenly you come
Speaker 5: across as inauthentic.
Speaker 2: Do you know what I think is so interesting as
Speaker 2: this of this conversation as well, and it's something I've
Speaker 2: witnessed on social media over the years, is that as
Speaker 2: people become more and it's a very different thing between
Speaker 2: authenticity and vulnerability, right, they're different, two different conversations, but
Speaker 2: as people become more vulnerable, they can sometimes be rewarded
Speaker 2: for that vulnerability by more followers, more likes, more comments.
Speaker 2: You know, you see the post of someone crying about
Speaker 2: something that is a touch point, and then that's when
Speaker 2: it can grow into using it as a tool, I
Speaker 2: think as well. And that is a very gray area
Speaker 2: because there's obviously and I mean we're talking about it
Speaker 2: from podcast perspective, We've done it for years, but there
Speaker 2: is definitely a gray area where it comes from a
Speaker 2: point of sharing for a purpose and sharing for a motive.
Speaker 3: There are two.
Speaker 2: Different aspects I think that social media can portray, and
Speaker 2: they both have different incentives behind them.
Speaker 3: As well, I also.
Speaker 4: Think we need to do a disclaimer that we do
Speaker 4: not support Ted Bundy.
Speaker 3: Like you were.
Speaker 4: On a serious note, you were such a touch point
Speaker 4: for a lot of people during the Black Lives Matter.
Speaker 4: I don't want to say movement because that's you know,
Speaker 4: it just doesn't feel right like the movement it was,
Speaker 4: but it should trend.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a conversation that was and it was
Speaker 2: really in the limelight there for a moment. And it's
Speaker 2: not that it's not now, but it was really front
Speaker 2: and center on everyone's minds as the way Instagram works.
Speaker 3: But how do you feel.
Speaker 4: Like the landscape has changed since we all started speaking
Speaker 4: more openly about Black Lives Matter?
Speaker 3: Have you noticed a difference?
Speaker 5: I think it's ironic because I try to explain to
Speaker 5: people that it's as good as it is worse in
Speaker 5: the same way that you know when you give context
Speaker 5: to someone who's hurt you about the ways that they've
Speaker 5: hurt you, and they're like, can you explain it differently?
Speaker 5: Can you explain it better? Can you see it from
Speaker 5: my perspective? And then sudden you're like, wait, I thought
Speaker 5: I was the one who was hurt at the moment,
Speaker 5: I thought I was the one who needed to be
Speaker 5: listened to that, so that conversation felt like it started
Speaker 5: in this really helpful place where it's like, oh, these
Speaker 5: all these experiences that felt really subjective are now being
Speaker 5: put in a very objective lens.
Speaker 3: Like it's happening.
Speaker 5: It's it's tricky, it's uncomfortable. But the way that I
Speaker 5: trickled down in conversation became really conceptual. And then I
Speaker 5: also felt like it turned out to be like kind
Speaker 5: of like the way that feminism is positioned. I think
Speaker 5: a lot of people are like, oh, no, I say
Speaker 5: I'm a feminist, so you think I'm not a bigot.
Speaker 5: Not because I'm like trying to me myself make sure
Speaker 5: that there's a quality of the sexes. That's just a
Speaker 5: bit much like I just want you know I'm not
Speaker 5: a bad person. That's what it felt like at the time.
Speaker 5: And it's so strange because like, I don't feel like
Speaker 5: in the audience now I don't have to like respond,
Speaker 5: But how often are you actually thinking about your skin color?
Speaker 5: Whether that's like I'm tanning, I'm not tanning, I'm not burnt.
Speaker 5: But when the whole world is authorizing you for this thing,
Speaker 5: you're like, damn, I could be all these things, and
Speaker 5: then at the end of the day, someone's like, oh,
Speaker 5: but you're black first. And then even if I am
Speaker 5: black first, I'm like, if this is the way that
Speaker 5: it comes across, everyone's like, well, don't say that.
Speaker 3: Like they're making everyone feel weird. So I don't know.
Speaker 3: I just think.
Speaker 5: It was an interesting time for to see the world
Speaker 5: change in that way. But I also just felt like
Speaker 5: it gave people the language to justify their behavior. So
Speaker 5: when we're having these private conversations in public, people are saying, well,
Speaker 5: I believe in anti racism.
Speaker 3: I don't even know what that is.
Speaker 4: Do you still experience racism now in the day to day?
Speaker 5: I think I experienced more like microaggressions, you know, like
Speaker 5: one that comes across so well is like.
Speaker 3: When did you get here? Like when did you were
Speaker 3: you born here? How? That's crazy? Yeah, your family must
Speaker 3: be well off. How did you do? How did you
Speaker 3: how did you? How about how'd that happen? And you're
Speaker 3: so articulate, like you can read and write.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And so I'm like, and so I don't want
Speaker 5: to have to challenge that idea in someone that's not
Speaker 5: not hours in a day. But that's how it comes across.
Speaker 5: It's this veiled compliment in an insult, you know, like.
Speaker 3: Oh, that's so great.
Speaker 5: I don't usually get along with black people, but you're different.
Speaker 3: I like you.
Speaker 5: And because you want to take the compliment, you're like,
Speaker 5: thank you. I like my personality as well, but also
Speaker 5: don't say that, you freak.
Speaker 2: You mentioned something really interesting when we were talking about
Speaker 2: this backstage, and you said that in terms of how
Speaker 2: things have changed in media and in your profession, that
Speaker 2: things have changed. There's there's more, there's more jobs, like
Speaker 2: brands are being more open and they're trying to book
Speaker 2: more diversity quote unquote, but it hasn't the needle hasn't
Speaker 2: shifted in terms of the preparation for that. Can you
Speaker 2: explain a little bit of what that looks like.
Speaker 5: So what I was saying is like, I feel like
Speaker 5: people are like, well, because you're in all the campaigns
Speaker 5: and because you're booking these amazing jobs, that must mean
Speaker 5: things are changing. I'm like you would think so, but
Speaker 5: I'll still go to a shoot and like, well, we
Speaker 5: don't really have anyone who can do your hair and makeup,
Speaker 5: so so it's like, oh, I'm the talent and I'm
Speaker 5: here to represent myself, but no one can do my hair,
Speaker 5: no one can do my makeup, the clothes don't fit,
Speaker 5: and but the whole article is about inclusivity and diversity. Geez.
Speaker 2: But then you're in the situation where if you call
Speaker 2: that out, then you're making it uncomfortable when everyone's trying
Speaker 2: to do the right thing. So then how do you
Speaker 2: then navigate that situation?
Speaker 5: And it's so boring in my heart of hearts, I
Speaker 5: don't want to be a nark, I really don't. But
Speaker 5: when things don't click, when are we gonna say it?
Speaker 3: It feels strange to say while we're.
Speaker 2: On the shoot, especially when you have people there and
Speaker 2: no one's taking responsibility because it's like, oh, the samples
Speaker 2: didn't come in that size, and you.
Speaker 3: Know we didn't.
Speaker 2: I didn't know, so like, you know, what, how do
Speaker 2: you normally do your makeup?
Speaker 3: How many black people are in a showlike anyway? Like
Speaker 3: how was? I know? Like you know how it is,
Speaker 3: and we don't really have models here, and if they
Speaker 3: do get hear them, they really tell you about their hair.
Speaker 5: And sometime I'm like, I get it, but you asked
Speaker 5: me to be I don't really know what's going on.
Speaker 3: It's just it's a.
Speaker 5: Strange time because also I can acknowledge that I am
Speaker 5: grateful to be able to have opportunities, but I also
Speaker 5: don't want to be the vehicle of a false narrative
Speaker 5: that only affects me poorly, because that's the other thing.
Speaker 5: Like I can recognize when I'm being tokenized, right, and
Speaker 5: I can say, if there's a check to be made,
Speaker 5: I'll take it as green. But in the same vein,
Speaker 5: I'm like, at what cost? You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 5: Like it's what it's not. It's not just about me, Like,
Speaker 5: it's not about the individual check that I get to
Speaker 5: make or the individual isolated experience. It's all representative of
Speaker 5: a greater issue that people feel like they're doing enough of.
Speaker 5: Because but wasn't flex in Vogue how we beat racism?
Speaker 3: We beat it? She was a page spread. What's the issue?
Speaker 4: So do you feel like because I feel like and
Speaker 4: we shouldn't say it, we shouldn't think it. But I
Speaker 4: reckon everyone has at some point. Sometimes you see big
Speaker 4: campaigns or big brands and it's amazing that they're so inclusive,
Speaker 4: But I reckon, there's a lot of times you say
Speaker 4: to yourself, Oh, looks like they've ticked the boxes. Or
Speaker 4: there are companies that hire because they're like, well, we
Speaker 4: need a person of color because we haven't ticked that
Speaker 4: box yet. Do you feel like you've been in that
Speaker 4: position where you've been a box to tick?
Speaker 5: I could count on one and a half hands how
Speaker 5: many times I've gone to a makeup shoe to be
Speaker 5: the face of a makeup brand or to be a
Speaker 5: lead in the campaign shoe, get there, get really excited,
Speaker 5: and haven't been like, we're going to actually use another
Speaker 5: brand because we don't have your shade. But it won't
Speaker 5: matter because eventually it'll be coming out. I've signed the contract,
Speaker 5: everyone like, and you know what it says in contracts
Speaker 5: you cannot bring the company's name into disrepute Otherwise you're
Speaker 5: in breach and we can sue you.
Speaker 3: That feels like dress And I'm not a lawyer, do
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 5: And again it's like as an individual, I remember I
Speaker 5: used to make it my problem. I would go and
Speaker 5: meet with the heads of these really big Australian beauty
Speaker 5: department stores and say like, Hey, what's happening what's going on, babes.
Speaker 5: If to get a social post on an Instagram page,
Speaker 5: it has to go to forty five people. You think
Speaker 5: it's not a conscious decision to exclude a whole demographic
Speaker 5: and have time.
Speaker 3: I don't known where foundation anymore.
Speaker 5: Some might say it was a trauma response.
Speaker 3: Flex.
Speaker 2: We think you are phenomenal, everything that you have achieved,
Speaker 2: everything that you do. One thing that has been said
Speaker 2: to us by someone that we interviewed in the past
Speaker 2: who I really really understood this. She said, you walk
Speaker 2: into the room as someone who's Caucasian and you represent yourself.
Speaker 2: But when you're someone of color, you walk into a
Speaker 2: room and you speak, but you also then speak on
Speaker 2: plf of everyone of your nationality or everyone that you're representing.
Speaker 2: Do you feel feel that it is a burden? And
Speaker 2: I mean, it's a joy for us that we get
Speaker 2: to share these conversations with you. But I can only
Speaker 2: I can only imagine that it must be a constant
Speaker 2: education piece for people.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, But I recognize I'm compensated for it. Imagine the
Speaker 5: times where I wasn't you know, it's so strange. I
Speaker 5: would remember going to like corporate job interviews when I
Speaker 5: worked in pr and I would get to these jobs,
Speaker 5: they'd be like, oh, I thought you were German. Doesn't
Speaker 5: sound like an African last time. Anyway, my friend was
Speaker 5: telling me she's from Kenya, by the way, do you
Speaker 5: know her?
Speaker 3: Anyway, she was telling.
Speaker 5: Me that, you guys, that's not your real hair, and
Speaker 5: I was saying, why would they put fake care in
Speaker 5: their real hair?
Speaker 3: Anyway? I don't know how you people do it, but
Speaker 3: I was saying, you know.
Speaker 5: And it's like, okay, So I don't understand how we've
Speaker 5: gotten to this point, and I would just like to
Speaker 5: go back to this Lilian Hankin. It's it is an
Speaker 5: African name, it's not German anyway, That's what it becomes like.
Speaker 5: And then I get really, I don't know what the
Speaker 5: word is. I'm mindful because I have a lot of
Speaker 5: opinions and I really believe in you aren't and like,
Speaker 5: you know, a couple of years ago, I used to
Speaker 5: host a philosophy and psychology podcast with a fellow black woman,
Speaker 5: and she's South African and lives in America and I'm
Speaker 5: African like Ghani and I live in Australia. People assume
Speaker 5: we're the same because I give back, black whatever, very different.
Speaker 5: That's a lot of what the podcast was about. But
Speaker 5: through doing that, I was like, even even the audience
Speaker 5: that we curated kept on homogenizing, up was kept on saying,
Speaker 5: but how do you guys think so differently? Why don't
Speaker 5: you guys have the same experience? And I was like,
Speaker 5: I don't really feel like you're pushing fording that frontal
Speaker 5: lobe developed, Like I don't understand how to simplify this
Speaker 5: topic to a point where it makes sense to explain
Speaker 5: to people, Like it sounds like I would be infantilizing
Speaker 5: someone to be like, hey, just because I'm this way
Speaker 5: and this person is this way, where different people.
Speaker 4: And we've just asked you to do it in twenty minutes.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you're all complicit. I don't know, Like, I just
Speaker 5: like to have fun with it. I like to have
Speaker 5: a good time. But I think it's a discussion worth
Speaker 5: having because in the same vein, I'm not privy to
Speaker 5: a bunch of conversations about different ethnic experience, different sexual experience,
Speaker 5: different socioeconomic experiences. And I would hate for someone to
Speaker 5: demean me or degrade me for not knowing what I
Speaker 5: could know if I had access to but I also
Speaker 5: feel like the world is a farked place, Like the
Speaker 5: world is such a scary place, and we have so
Speaker 5: much individual responsibility to ensure it's different, and we can't
Speaker 5: just fall back on I didn't know, because you can
Speaker 5: tell me all the people Taylor Swift as dated and
Speaker 5: all the little easter eggs in her songs and all
Speaker 5: of these meanings you pull out of these arbitrary things.
Speaker 5: But there are real people with real life consequences, and
Speaker 5: we fall back on ignorance too often. And I'm all
Speaker 5: cool with not knowing, but I feel like we've been
Speaker 5: in a really fortunate time.
Speaker 3: People are given a lot.
Speaker 5: Of grace for not knowing, but the world is getting
Speaker 5: really angry and really violent and really dismissive of people
Speaker 5: who don't know. And I'm really fearful for well, what
Speaker 5: happened to those people who were coasting on ambiguity, who
Speaker 5: were kind of hoping that, like, oh, I'm going to
Speaker 5: get it in five years time.
Speaker 3: I don't know if people are going to be that accommodating.
Speaker 4: Flex, we could talk to you forever, but unfortunately we
Speaker 4: can't live. But we will be doing a podcast with
Speaker 4: Flex soon. She doesn't know that she knows. Now we're
Speaker 4: going to be doing a podcast on this.
Speaker 3: Is that cool? Thank you for the consent, the false consent,
Speaker 3: in form consent.
Speaker 1: She is such an interesting girl. I just love flex mummy.
Speaker 1: Now I know that we're taking a break and we're
Speaker 1: bringing you some episodes of our live show Conversations. But
Speaker 1: where we are not taking a break is the Life
Speaker 1: on Cut discussion group. It is the Facebook group. It's
Speaker 1: like sevy five ish thousand friends in there and we
Speaker 1: chat all day long. If you're not a part of it,
Speaker 1: I will put a link in the show notes, but
Speaker 1: if you want to search on Facebook, it is called
Speaker 1: the Life Uncut Discussion Group. And you know the drill,
Speaker 1: Tell you mum, tell your dad, tell your dog, tell
Speaker 1: your friends, and share the love because we love love