The 'Hot Assassin'. Pretty Privilege and the Robin Hood Effect

Hey Lifers!

Laura has given herself an ick and Britt has a new friendship test that has crossed the line even for Keeshia. There are just some things that friends draw the line at and that point has been established.

It was Britt’s hens party!! We had the best day and early night! We have a conversation about sober curiosity. Have you noticed a shift in alcohol in your friendship groups?

How do you feel about your partner’s phone use before bedtime? Apparently it could be ruining your relationship. So is it a bit of a harmless decompression time or should we really be trying to be more present? 

Could ‘the Robin Hood’ effect excuse Luigi Mangione of murdering United Health CEO Brian Thompson?
The trial is happening right now and there has been a documentary released called ‘Who Is Luigi Mangione?’ We unpack the rather strange public and celebrity response to this case and some studies that explain just how far attractiveness bias and the halo effect extends.
We also speak about the ethical ambiguity at the heart of the Robin Hood effect: the belief that wrongdoing is excusable—or even noble—if the victim is morally corrupt. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This episode was recorded on Cameragle Land. Hi guys, and
welcome back to another episode of Life.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
I can't I'm Laura, I'm Brittany, and Laura just said, guys,
I've got something I've got to start with. Trust me
on it.

Speaker 3 (00:19):
Trust me.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
I can't wait to hear this one.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
So much information and it started low and then end
on a high.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
No, you know how sometimes you talk about how you're
really proud of your like your former self, Like you know,
you'll say, I'm so proud of like past Laura for doing.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
This, because they never said that about myself.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
You don't talk to yourself like that.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
But I'm proud of you, Brittany.

Speaker 3 (00:37):
No, I don't.

Speaker 4 (00:37):
Anytime I organize anything I'm in the future, I'm like, oh,
I'm so proud of past me for doing that.

Speaker 5 (00:44):
It made my life easier.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Oh, I'm not proud of myself internally, which weird. Okay,
hang on, Okay, We're see.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
If I do something that like helps my future self
and makes my life easier in the future, like something
that was like didn't really take a lot of time
and effort, but you always like put it off, put
it off, put it off, and then Finally, when you
do it, it's like annoying because you' left it too late.

Speaker 3 (01:02):
For example, parking fines.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
If I actually pay it on time, I don't have
to then overpay it, but I usually forget, and then
my future self is mad at my former self because
I'm now paying like a penalty fee. This is not
I mean, I wish that this was a happy story.
I wish I could say, like, I'm so proud of
my yesterday's sell for what my today self is experiencing.
But it's the opposite, because yesterday's self ate a sandwich
that has onions on it, and I hate onions. And
you want to know what I'm experiencing right now? All

(01:26):
I can smell is onions in my microphone.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
And that's that's my microphone. Out of your breath.

Speaker 3 (01:31):
No it's not.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
It's the morning I've had nothing except cleaned, beautifully sparkly
teeth today.

Speaker 3 (01:37):
No, it is. My microphone smells like yesterday's onions.

Speaker 5 (01:40):
I hate raw onion.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
And I also have like really heightened, really heightened sense
of smell.

Speaker 3 (01:46):
Smell noll, it's just smelley. I love to snell.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
I have a really hot ined senseive smell. Because I'm pregnant.
So now all I can smell is yesterday's onions. I
hate myself.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
My smell down the gurgler lucky because I can't smell anything,
which means I can't smell myself, which is bad. But
since I got COVID, I got really bad COVID, like
went to hospital with it, and I cannot smell since then,
Like it takes a lot for me to be able
to smell it.

Speaker 5 (02:09):
No, I back you on this.

Speaker 4 (02:10):
I've opened your fridge before and been like, Brittany, there
are so many things there's Yeah, you've got to be
at least three things in this fridge that are off.

Speaker 5 (02:16):
I don't know how you haven't noticed, Yep, I can.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
Kisha and I were standing next to each other. She's like,
there is something off in this fridge and my head
was in it, and I was like, I promise you,
I smell nothing. I need her to come into a
sweep of my house.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
I with that in mind, can we change microphones then,
because I'm a better experience if that's the.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
Camera, because now it's still something gives me the ignoring.
Your whole microphone is hung in this morning, speaking of ick, Sorry,
this is probably too much information. But I had this
shower thought well, this wasn't my best thinking. But I
was led down a path where I almost thought I
didn't have a choice, and I realized that there is
a new friend test, like you know, it's like who
do you call when you're in trouble? Who would that

(02:53):
person be? And now this has happened, if this has
happened on sex and the city. But I have my
period at the moment, you guys know, I use a
menstrual cup and I don't know what it is, but
I have the heaviest period I've ever had. I don't
know if it's a stress thing. My mouth is full
of ulcers from stress. I don't know what's happening to
my body. But it was insane anyway, this has never
happened in all the time I have used my period cup.

(03:16):
I could not get it out. I could not get
it out. It was so far my body had sucked
it so far up. I was in every position you
could imagine, on all fours, one leg up on the ground,
on my back, bearing down to try and push.

Speaker 3 (03:31):
It out to birth your period cup.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
And I couldn't get it. I was trying to swivel it.
I was trying to move my body to like move
it on the inside, like you're trying to turn a baby.
I couldn't breathe. I was puffing so hard, and I
was like, what am I going to do? And I
was like, I'm gonna have to call Keisha.

Speaker 3 (03:50):
Can I just say out of the body? No way
you'd call me?

Speaker 4 (03:52):
Think even we have reached the line, no to a
hospital before I would do it myself.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
Wouldn't you put I even thought I had gloves under
the sea. I was like, I was like, I've got gloves.
I could get her to put the gloves on. I
thought I could do it.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
She doesn't make sense. She's got the smallest fingers out
of everyone in the room that's never reached.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
It small hand hands.

Speaker 5 (04:10):
I would be trying to use a pair of tweezers
or something.

Speaker 3 (04:12):
No, I think it's a it's a finger job. It's
a free job.

Speaker 1 (04:15):
If you need to finger you're a boss key shirk
that might really really overstep the hr on his face.

Speaker 3 (04:20):
But if there's a job that's got to be done,
Keisha will do it.

Speaker 6 (04:23):
So Keisha, if you can stop down now and you
can bring me in the bathroom. She's but I did
think I wonder if she would do it if it
was life or death. Well, it could be, obviously, that
would probably. And I am good in a crisis.

Speaker 4 (04:42):
Sadly, I've been in a couple like few, but I've
noticed that I'm quite good in those crisis.

Speaker 5 (04:47):
I'm very logical and very pragmatic, and I don't get
too emotional in them.

Speaker 4 (04:50):
But that one might do, you know why, because it's
not happening in the moment. I think I'd be able
to do that for a stranger more than what I'd
be able to do because i'd have to look at
you later you see me make it all the time
I had to, Yeah, not by choice.

Speaker 3 (05:03):
I've been in the room, I mean, as I say,
for three berths. That's not true.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
I've been in the room for more than that, since
I was in the room for my own But I
reckon i'd be fine in that crisis.

Speaker 2 (05:12):
Okay, So maybe I got it wrong.

Speaker 3 (05:13):
Maybe, like I'm offended, I wasn't at the top of
the list, But that's okay.

Speaker 6 (05:17):
You only won't because I thought you'd be too busy,
Like Kisha was more available.

Speaker 3 (05:21):
I was packing school lunches, so it would have been
a trick.

Speaker 2 (05:24):
Been like I've got a head out putting together. Eventually
I did, but it was like, I don't know how
I got it out diastraate. It was really diastrates. But
I'm actually I don't know. I would have done it
for Yukis. So I'm a bit put off. But I
really expected that conversation to go differently. I thought you'd
be like, yeah, I do it.

Speaker 1 (05:40):
I mean, it might be surprising to everyone, but we
actually had big things to talk about today since.

Speaker 3 (05:44):
We really started off where we did. It was Britney's
Hands party on the.

Speaker 5 (05:50):
So much fun.

Speaker 4 (05:51):
I had so much fun. And my word, did anyone
pray for that weather? Because it was like Baltic the
day before, pouring down with rain. It was a summer
day on the Saturday, and then the Sunday.

Speaker 5 (06:01):
Back to freezing cold winter.

Speaker 2 (06:03):
The sky's opened up. The tarot reader that I got
the night before did tell me it was raining, storming,
and she did say, you have a lot of luck
around you, and then we woke up to clear skys,
so I reckon she put that on me, the taro reader.
She did give me some stones as well. That said, well,
like good luckstones, so I reckon there was a lot
in it. No, we had the hens. It was amazing.
It was everything that I wanted because I mean, you guys,

(06:26):
this shouldn't come as a shock. I have said on
the podcast before. I'm not a huge partier. I don't
want to go out shotting. I don't want to party
to five am, like that's my worst nightmare.

Speaker 1 (06:34):
But you do want to get in a stretch limo
sober at eight pm at night. But stretch stretch lives
down the ceiling and Taylor's with absolutely blaring yeah No.

Speaker 2 (06:43):
So we had the most perfect day. All I wanted
was like to send it in the day for a
couple of hours and then like be home having tea
at nine. And we were home having tea at nine.
But I I mean, I'm thirty seven, where all my
friends are about the same age, like youive will take
a couple of some are a bit older, some are
a bit younger, but I think it just comes with age.

(07:05):
Half of them are pregnant or breastfeeding and the other
half are like, oh, I can't send it like I
used to like people just I don't have a big
drinking circle. Everyone's quite like healthy and everyone just wants
to sip cocktails for a couple of hours and then
call it a day. And it was actually the most tame,
semi sober Hens that I think I've ever been to.

Speaker 1 (07:26):
Yeah, I think that there's this real misconception. I mean,
I know that we've joked about it. We didn't have
a stripper, that's one thing, guys, I know you've been
sitting on this edge of your seat for an update.

Speaker 2 (07:33):
Will Channing tan and was busy.

Speaker 1 (07:35):
But I think that there is a misconception that in
order to have like a good Hens party or a
sendoff or a buck or whatever, that everyone ends up
getting absolutely turned right. And I think that that was
my perception in my twenties as well. It certainly wasn't
my experience of my Hens. Like we were all back
at the Airbnb drinking tea as well at like nine
o'clock at night, which sounds.

Speaker 2 (07:53):
In some ways lame, kind lame.

Speaker 1 (07:56):
And I understand that, but also I mean it kind
of well, it leads us in a big conversation that
we want to have around sober curious And the reason
for that is is because so many people at your
Hens brit actually don't drink.

Speaker 3 (08:07):
Like Mitch doesn't drink. Kisha, you don't drink.

Speaker 2 (08:10):
I don't drink currently, I don't drink.

Speaker 3 (08:12):
Britt, You're not a big drinker.

Speaker 1 (08:13):
But I would say fifty percent of the people at
that party were not drinkers or big drinkers by any means,
which is really just shows this interesting shift that's happening
in friendship circles around how we approach alcohol. And I
know I've spoken about this in the past, but I
think I had quite a looking back on it, quite
a problematic relationship with alcohol in my twenties, but I
didn't realize it was that at the time. But it

(08:35):
also just goes to show that you can have such
an amazing time and alcohol doesn't need to be the
highlight of a day for everyone to enjoy themselves.

Speaker 2 (08:42):
I have never my entire life been a big drinker.
I didn't really drink from eighteen to about twenty three,
like sporadically, I had a couple of years in the
middle where I sort of went hard when I was traveling,
but I wasn't going hard because I actually don't even
know why. I think it was actually a problematic time
in my life that I felt pressured to be partying
because I wasn't a partier. I don't know if that

(09:02):
makes sense. And I was like, oh, I'm single, I'm
only young once, and.

Speaker 3 (09:05):
It's nothing you do.

Speaker 2 (09:06):
It's the thing that you do. And all my friends
with parties. But I've never really loved alcohol. I love
it to sip with a dinner. I love it for
a cocktail or two in the sun, very like sporadically,
but like I've had three drinks this year, Like I've
never needed alcohol to have fun. Like he's to be
the person that would get kicked out of somewhere for
being too drunk. When I was the designated driver, I
was literally like, I'm driving, I'm so sober.

Speaker 5 (09:27):
More offensive than it is. What your personality is, that's
the problem.

Speaker 2 (09:31):
I was like, Hosy, not your alcohol consumption is the problem,
because I'd be on the dance floor the whole night
and I'd probably look like I was wild, but I
was always sober, and so I quite like the fact
that we had this great hens where like probably three
quarters of the people were sober.

Speaker 1 (09:46):
Yeah, I mean, Keisha, I love your take on it
because I know that this is something when I met you,
you absolutely were not sober. I mean you were sober
at the interview, but then after that it was sober
less than you. But you had a real shift in
like your approach to alcohol as well, going from like
being twenty nine to thirty and now where you're at,
like you're not drinking at all.

Speaker 3 (10:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (10:05):
My experience is when I hear people have conversations about
sober curiosity and that kind of thing, I feel as
though I have a bit of a different version to
the majority.

Speaker 5 (10:13):
And I don't mean to be like I'm so unique.

Speaker 4 (10:15):
I mean mine kind of happened by accident, and it
was that I never felt like I had a bad
relationship with alcohol because I didn't feel as though I
was a problem when I was drunk. I'm sure I
was annoying, but I was never the person doing things
that I like hugely regretted.

Speaker 5 (10:31):
I mean, it was probably a little more promiscuous than
I would have been if I was sober, but I
had never caused fights.

Speaker 4 (10:36):
I wasn't the one who was like emotional or crying
or I wasn't a problem, you know. And so we
used to have a lot of fun on our weekends
and like my group of friends kind of all were similar,
like no one was terrible when we were drunk, and
so we would go out, we would drink, we would
come for kick ons at my next door neighbor with
Will's house, and like we had a heap of fun together.
And then when I was diagnosed with ADHD and I

(10:58):
was eventually medicated, this really weird thing happened and I
just had almost like the evaporation of the desire to drink,
Like I can't actually I can't pinpoint it other than
finding out a lot more about ADHD and how the
medication works.

Speaker 5 (11:14):
And I was like, oh, this actually makes a lot
of sense. My drinking was dopamine seeking.

Speaker 4 (11:18):
It was me kind of thrill seeking having that lubrication,
not that a It's not that I feel like I
need lubrication for social environments obviously, Like all of us
are very confident people.

Speaker 5 (11:27):
We can hold a conversation. We wouldn't be podcast as
if we weren't.

Speaker 4 (11:30):
But I just found it was easier, Like I found
that I didn't have as much thought about what I
was talking about to the person and whether they were
enjoying it, and like a lot of the masking side
of ADHD. I felt like, you know, alcohol kind of
softened that a lot. But when I was medicated, I
was like, oh, I just don't I really feel like
I need it. And it's not like I'm going around

(11:51):
being like my body is a temple. I'm not going
to put, you know, anything in it that's potentially bad
for it.

Speaker 5 (11:55):
I mean, I take amphetamines every day.

Speaker 4 (11:57):
You know, It's not like I'm doing it for or
complete health reasons.

Speaker 5 (12:01):
But my word, I cannot even begin.

Speaker 4 (12:04):
To explain the difference in what is described as like
anxiety that I have not felt since not drinking. You know,
I never thought that I had anxiety because I thought
it was related to the behavior that you had when
you were drunk, and that you were embarrassed about it
and you felt like you had to apologize for it.

Speaker 5 (12:20):
Mine was more like neurochemical. I felt as though.

Speaker 3 (12:23):
The weeks, yeah, the week to weeks.

Speaker 4 (12:25):
Sir, after having big drinking events, I would have these
depression and anxiety.

Speaker 5 (12:30):
Lulls that were really, really deep, And I never connected
it to alcohol until I wasn't drinking.

Speaker 2 (12:35):
People forget alcohol's drug, like people forget how bad it
actually is because it is so accessible and legal. We
don't think of it to be detrimental to our bodies.

Speaker 1 (12:43):
I don't know, I think people do. But I just
think people are quite happy to kind of park that.
I mean, there's so much research and so much conversation
about how anxiety inducing it is the next day and
how you feel blah blah blah. But I think people
just park that for the social experience and the elevated
high that you get when you are really drunk out
in a social environment. You know, I think becomes part
of your routine. I know for me, like it was

(13:05):
so part of my routine. Go out, have wine, get
a bit too excited, have too many wines, and I
what I think, call on X Literally I end up
with you up, wake up the next day with even
worse anxieties than in the bed.

Speaker 2 (13:18):
No.

Speaker 1 (13:19):
But I mean, from my experience, and the reason why
I find this really quite interesting is because we've been
doing this podcast for six years. Alcohol has come up
as a conversation throughout the six years. We've talked about
mummy wine culture, We've talked about people, We've talked to
people who have had addiction issues with alcohol. We've talked
about people who drink probably too much from a social perspective,

(13:39):
but I would say over the last six years, my
opinion has changed quite a bit, and also so many
people from my friendship group have become sober.

Speaker 4 (13:48):
This is actually backed in research. I was listening to
a podcast a couple months ago and the stock prices
of huge alcohol companies, the biggest ones in the world,
they were down by And I'm trying to remember this exactly,
so please don't take this as quote.

Speaker 3 (14:00):
It was about thirteen percent, which is fascinating.

Speaker 1 (14:03):
But I think for myself, and I look back on
my twenties, and I didn't have the clarity of this
at the time. And I know you say, like, we're
all really big personalities and we can hold a conversation
and we're fine in social situations. I think I drank
because I think it gave me an elevated sense of confidence.
I think I felt as though I fitted into social environments,
especially like at nighttime or if it was dinners, or
it was like in big groups. I felt like I

(14:25):
fitted in it and I was more fun to be
around if I was drunk, like and I would never
know or quite know my limit, especially with white wine.

Speaker 3 (14:33):
That was my kryptonite.

Speaker 1 (14:34):
But I you know, obviously since having kids, being pregnant
really puts a spanner in the drinking works. But I'm
not drinking at all at the moment, and with every
child I've had, and also with the longer duration that
Matt and I have been together, because Matt doesn't drink,
it's well, he drinks very, very sporadically. That has had
an impact on me as well, and I find that
it's become less and less something that I rely on,

(14:56):
or less and less something that I need at all.

Speaker 2 (14:58):
But you're absolutely a product of you. And this saying
of like you are the product of the five people
that you're around, it's so true. And when I even
when I say I went through that phase of drinking,
it was like when I was over in living in
Europe and everyone around me drunk. That's what you did
and if you didn't do it, you didn't really get
to do anything, Like you didn't get to if you
didn't go out with them and party. That's just what

(15:18):
they did. So you start doing that, and now the
product of my environment is like thirty women on a
boat that almost no one drinks. And I think you
end up finding your people. I also have never dated
a drinker. Like everyone that I've dated, not by choice,
happens to have not been a big drinker.

Speaker 3 (15:35):
That's interesting.

Speaker 2 (15:36):
Well, I mean, like Ben and Jordan were athletes or athletes,
so they would maybe drinking their off season, but that's
ninety nine percent of the year. My first partner I
was with for eight years didn't drink, didn't like it,
didn't like alcohol. So I don't drink. Like so when
you're living with someone and that person that is in
your space doesn't all of a sudden, you don't want
to drink on your own. So it's like you think

(15:57):
how often you come home. If I had a partner
that was having a wine with dinner every night, I
probably would be inclined to. But when you're sitting down
at dinner with your partner who just is having a
Coke zero or something, you just sort of do what
they do. You gravitate towards the same thing.

Speaker 1 (16:10):
But Britt, even like I mean, I don't know if
you remember, but when we first started this podcast, you
would come to my house. We'd always record a mine
in my bedroom, like you guys, you guys know if
you're og, and I would always crack a bottle of wine.
Like almost every record, I would have a glass of
wine to record the pod. I mean, maybe don't go
back and listen to the first episodes or do and
do a comparison, but for me it was such a

(16:31):
standard part of almost every evening.

Speaker 3 (16:33):
I would have wine.

Speaker 1 (16:34):
And Matt grew up in a household with an alcoholic
and that's really impacted his approach to alcohol. He doesn't
have a problem with me having drinks because I don't
over consume an alcoholic. But in the same time, it's like,
it's actually not as fun to do on your own,
you know, well you realize that you're just cracking a
bottle of wine to have glasses by yourself. That kind
of comes a point, not for everyone, but for me,

(16:56):
there was this real come to Jesus moment where I
was like, I actually don't need this and I don't
feel great in the morning, so why am I doing this?
But I would be so interested to know from Like
you guys are lifers. Have you seen a shift in
your friendship groups? Have you seen a shift in your
own behavior? Are we in a little isolation bubble here
because it's what our friends are doing and it's kind
of like, what has changed over the last six years

(17:17):
of our life or is this something that's playing out
around you as well.

Speaker 2 (17:20):
Yeah, and don't get me wrong, I do love a wine.
I really enjoy a wine, but.

Speaker 3 (17:23):
Like once sometimes nice San GRAVESI.

Speaker 2 (17:25):
It's an interesting social experiment that we inadvertently conducted on
the weekend at my hands party because out of I
think twenty five women, yes there were some people that
were pregnant, will take them out, but the people that
sent it, the people that actually sent it and got
loose with the mums, they were all the moms that
were like, and I don't know what that means.

Speaker 3 (17:45):
I don't know if it means like.

Speaker 4 (17:46):
Their first time that they've been able to have a
bit of a weekend away in.

Speaker 5 (17:49):
A long time.

Speaker 1 (17:50):
And I think you're I mean, no judgment, but I
think it definitely does show like mummy wine culture is rife,
like help, so there is this feeling of like once
you have stopped breast feed or when you get a
night off, like there is this liberation feeling. I think
a lot of mums definitely feel and I would say
like the most hungover I have ever been in my
thirties was after I'd finished breastfeeding, and then I drank

(18:13):
for the first time, and I think we went out
of the podcast towards and.

Speaker 3 (18:16):
I literally could not get out of bed. The next day.
I had to call you, canceled interview.

Speaker 1 (18:20):
I canceled an interview, I canceled work, I had to
call a baby sit, had to take care of my
kids because I was so unwell. I think it was
just like this feeling of like wanting to grab onto
my old self, wanting to grab onto something that made
me feel like I wasn't a mum and I was
the old version of me for a moment.

Speaker 2 (18:34):
I think it also leans into the fact that those
nights are few and far between that you even have
the option to go out. And I know my friends
that did send it that were mums, there's not a
lot of times that they actually get a weekend away.
So they were like, it's now or never, so let's
just do it. But I do want to recommend anybody
that is having a HENS party. There is a company

(18:54):
in a website that we used, I say we Planning
a HENS has got to be one of the worst
jobs in the world. No one wants that responsibility. Nobody
enjoys it. I don't care if you say you do.
No one is enjoying planning somebody else's hands night for
like thirty people. And so I found this company called
my Ultimate Hens, which is like, have a look at it.
It is a one stop shop where there are so

(19:16):
many different packages of things that you can do with accommodation, drinking, restaurants, bars, boats, tarot,
reading like whatever. There's pre made packages that are actually
so well priced you will never be able to plan
a Hens for the price that they put these packages together.
You can also design your own packages, which is what
I did. So my packages are on there. I sort
of just like added different things together, but they just

(19:39):
do everything for you. And so I sort of started
to put this together and with the company until Keisha
saw in my diary that I had a that you're
planning your She's like, what is this meeting in here?
Saying Britain my Ultimate Hens, and I was like, oh,
I'm planning my hands and she was like what. So
Keisha and Sherry and a few I think maybe Shannon,
but Kisha was a huge part sort of took over

(20:01):
and I took a step back, but I just can't
recommend this company enough for just putting stuff together, and
you just it takes I mean, kish you ended up
organizing with them, but it takes so much stress out
of what you've got to do.

Speaker 4 (20:13):
I've had to plan a HENS before when I was
living in a different city, and obviously, like some people
are really good planners. They're the person that if you
go on holidays with them, they're the itinerary people, right,
They're the one. Yeah, they're the ones who are so
happy because then.

Speaker 5 (20:26):
They get a bit of control and they can relax
because they know what they're doing. I'm literally the polar
officer of that person.

Speaker 4 (20:33):
So planning that kind of thing, when I had to
do it from a different city, like, I can't even
I cannot explain the amount of stress that I felt.
And I also felt like I was never I wasn't
even able to enjoy myself on the day because I
was so worried about whether everything was going to go
to plan, whether anyone else was enjoying it or whatever.
And to compare that to using my ultimate hands was
like chalk and cheese.

Speaker 2 (20:54):
And you know what else about Hens, the person that
plans it, they always end up pain more like you
always end up get lunch extra past and it's just
not fair for people. Like anyway, it's not in my
vibe of the week. It's just a recommendation for anyone
having a Hans party.

Speaker 5 (21:07):
Yeah, yeah, I had the bad I actually real I'm
so glad that.

Speaker 4 (21:10):
The day went exactly the way it did. I wouldn't
change a single thing. I had so much fun. It
was so nice to be around the people that, like,
you've been friends with since you were a kid, and
it was nice having conversations with them because you know,
and you've been really open on the podcast about the
fact that you were one of the later ones to
find a partner and get married, and there was a
time where you were like, I just don't know if
this is ever gonna happen for me, and like, just

(21:32):
looking at you with this son in the background on
poor Sydney Harby in this gorgeous dress looking so hot,
I was like, it's happened.

Speaker 5 (21:40):
For your mate, It's happened.

Speaker 2 (21:41):
I'm not an overly emotional person and I wasn't expecting it,
but when I walked in on the night time, I
had about eight of my friends waiting the night before
because the hens hadn't started yet, and they sort of
like all jumped out from their little hiding spots and
the popper and I just started crying and they're like,
what's wrong, and I'm like, I don't know us, Like
I just I felt very loved and I wasn't expecting

(22:05):
to feel that over a hen's party. But I think, yeah, it's.

Speaker 1 (22:07):
Like the best thing though, And it's probably it's the
thing that I underestimated the most about getting married, but
it was having all of my favorite people in the
same room to be able to celebrate something that was
so important to me. Like there's this real sense of
community that comes around it, and like you never ever
get opportunities in life to have your favorite people all
together and like hands parties and weddings sometimes big birthdays

(22:31):
are literally the only times that happens, and it's really
really special.

Speaker 2 (22:34):
Yeah, And I was worried I wasn't going to cry
at the wedding, but I think it's going to come.

Speaker 3 (22:37):
I think I think we all.

Speaker 4 (22:41):
All right.

Speaker 3 (22:41):
Well, something I want to get a rid of the
room on.

Speaker 1 (22:44):
What is your opinions on your partners using their phone
before bedtime and the reason why I say this is
because there's an article going around talking about how detrimental
it is to relationships over use of phones. Now, I
think we all know, like how disconnected you can feel
with your partners when you're part there's a sitting there
scrolling on Instagram or TikTok or whatever.

Speaker 3 (23:02):
But I read this.

Speaker 1 (23:03):
And I was like, oh, maybe I have some conflicted
feelings or maybe I'm the problem. Probably both may but genuinely,
when you're with Ben, how often is he on his
phone pre going to bed?

Speaker 3 (23:14):
Does he use his phone? Does it get put away?

Speaker 1 (23:16):
Keep saying with you, how much time are your partners
spending on their phones as a wine down before going
to bed?

Speaker 2 (23:21):
Ben and I, I mean, it's hard. We'll be together
for a couple of weeks at a time. We're usually
pretty good at not being on our phones because we
try to value the time that we have. But that
is not to say they're definitely times where we have
to say to each other, Hey, let's just like actually
focus on each other for a second. We've got like
a week by the way, Yeah, we've got a week left.
But it's interesting that even happens now in a way
like this is my version of it as long distance.

(23:43):
A couple of nights ago, this exact thing happened. I
call Ben. I have a sticky phone, so like I
stick it into the shower, like we walk around and
just talk on the phone.

Speaker 3 (23:51):
When she says a steeve phene, she means the thing
that you can stick on to a wall. That's the cover.

Speaker 2 (23:55):
It's not one of those jels things click and they
stick to the.

Speaker 3 (23:57):
Phone is not sticky.

Speaker 2 (23:59):
It's a sticky cover. Put my phone anywhere. So I
put it into the shower with me. We talk in
the shower. He comes out. We whatever anyway, So I
was in the shower, obviously naked. He answers the phone.
We say hello, blah blah, and I can see he's
not looking at me. He's like looking up something else.
He'll be on his iPad. He'll nentwer his iPad and
I'm like, what are you doing. He's like, oh, just
there's a football match. And I was like, oh, is

(24:20):
it an important one? He's like no, And I was like, well,
why the fuck are you not looking at me? Then
I was like, I'm naked in the shower. What could
be more important now?

Speaker 1 (24:26):
But it's something really really humbling when not only is
it for wine down, but you're completely nude in the
shower during long distance your partner doesn't care, bro.

Speaker 2 (24:33):
That's what I said. That was my point to him,
and I was like, wow, is this where we are?
But that just means it's like normal to him, right,
we're always talking naked. But I was like, wow, you're
that distracted by something else playing. And that's our equivalent of, like,
you can't even just give me ten minutes of your
attention because it's something. I was like, turn the TV
off and let's talk. We get such limited times of
the day, but that's my equivalent of the distraction.

Speaker 4 (24:55):
I feel really triggered reading this because I know that
in my relationship, I am one hundred percent the guilty
one of this. Like I spend way more time on
my phone.

Speaker 5 (25:03):
Do you know what really annoys me though?

Speaker 4 (25:05):
When we'll be watching TV, Like we'll have a show
that we'll be watching together, and often we'll be eating
dinner and I'll be sometimes on my phone as well.

Speaker 5 (25:15):
I never ask to rewind. I never like, oh what
just happened? I missed that?

Speaker 4 (25:20):
But my boyfriend has a real issue with it. He's like,
get off your phone. I'm like, no, no, this is
free time.

Speaker 2 (25:25):
Yeah, like I'm enjoying this.

Speaker 4 (25:27):
It's almost as though he thinks that because I'm on
my phone, I'm not able to connect with the show
as much or.

Speaker 5 (25:33):
With him, And I'm like, no, no, no, I disagree with this.

Speaker 4 (25:35):
I'm able to be on my phone, and I know
that in our relationship he would be on his phone
so much less, so this article is probably more true
from his perspective, and I'm the one who would need
to make changes.

Speaker 3 (25:45):
Well.

Speaker 1 (25:45):
The reason why I want to talk about this is
mostly because I mean, we've spoken before, like the number
one cause of relationship breakdown is cheating, but the number
one complaint in therapy from psychologists who sit with couples
therapy every single day is phone news. Now, I absolutely
can see how people can get so distracted into their
phones that they're not having connected conversations with their partners.

(26:06):
But I also wonder, like, where is the fine line
between using it as a wind down tool and that
being the time that is allocated and allowed for Because
I feel like I use my phone as a wind down.
I feel like I get to a point in the
day where I don't want to have any more conversations
with my husband. I don't want to have any more
conversations with my kids. I don't want to do anything.
I don't want to watch the shitty free to air

(26:28):
TV that Ellie's watching.

Speaker 3 (26:29):
I don't want to do anything.

Speaker 1 (26:30):
I just want to sit on the couch on my
phone and scroll videos of goats, Like.

Speaker 3 (26:35):
That's what I want to do.

Speaker 1 (26:36):
I feel that, And why is that something that should
be seen as like a personal vindication. I think maybe
it comes down to like allocated time, But even that
then feels really restrictive.

Speaker 3 (26:46):
It's like, well, here's your personal time that I'm not
going to talk to you.

Speaker 2 (26:49):
I think that's what it does come down to you.
I think everyone is allowed to have their wind down,
and a phone for a lot of people is a
wind down. But if it starts to interrupt the quality
of your relationship, I know and tobler own and I
know like their situation. The reason that that's an issue
for tod blerone is for him, that is their time together,
like watching TV. Yeah, he is so busy. He likes

(27:10):
to make sure they are watching show at the same time.
They can't go ahead and watch it without each other,
because that's the way that he spends time with Keisha
when he's not working. They bond over it. So for him,
that's when he's like, this is our chosen time. Can
you give me your attention? Even though he knows that
she can do both, he doesn't. He doesn't feel like it,
you know. And I think that is the difference, is

(27:30):
that maybe the allocated time for Keisha's phone wind down
needs to be separate to the TV wine down.

Speaker 5 (27:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (27:36):
I mean, I absolutely agree, and I think it's kind
of very justified.

Speaker 5 (27:40):
But there's actually this thing.

Speaker 4 (27:41):
They talk about it a lot in ADHD like conversations,
but I think it actually applies to absolutely everyone. I
think that maybe we're just a little bit more susceptible
to it. So this thing called revenge bedtime procrastination.

Speaker 3 (27:52):
Oh yeah, oh I do that.

Speaker 4 (27:53):
Yeah, it's basically this kind of I guess maybe phenomenon
or this idea.

Speaker 3 (27:58):
I guess that I don't think it a specif to EIGHTHDA.
I don't either.

Speaker 1 (28:01):
I think people who are overworked, who are burnt out
and feel like it's the only time of day that
they have to claw back some time to their unproductive
time yes, but it's like, you know, you end up
staying up so late scrolling on your phone when you
could have just gone to bed early, but there's some
sort of sense of like this is my only me time.

Speaker 4 (28:16):
So the actual definition says, this term describes the intentional
act of sacrificing sleep in order to engage in leisure
activities like scrolling, binge watching, or other low effort activities
that provide temporary enjoyment. And I think it's just that
we live in a world where we're all so overstimulated
and this is kind of that.

Speaker 5 (28:33):
Easy dopamine hit for me.

Speaker 4 (28:35):
I kind of tend to do this before bed as well,
and I convince myself that it relaxes me.

Speaker 3 (28:39):
And calms me down.

Speaker 4 (28:41):
But sometimes, you know, I think you can end up
in these scroll holes or these kind of doom scrolling
episodes where you don't realize but like an hour and
fifteen minutes has gone, and then I freak out that
I'm like, oh my god, I'm losing so much sleep.
I can only now get six hours and forty minutes
tonight because I've been doing this revenge bedtime procrastination.

Speaker 1 (28:58):
But it feels nice, it feels soon My thing is
I just say the mat I'm going to bed, but
I'm not actually going to bed. I'm just going to
go lie in the dark and scroll my phone a plate. Yeah,
I am going to bed.

Speaker 3 (29:08):
I didn't say I was going to sleep.

Speaker 2 (29:09):
I do the revenge sleep thing to the extreme, to
the point, like it's my that has to be one
of my worst habits. I will do it to the
point that I physically cannot keep an eye open anymore.
There is no way you could give me a million
dollars to say, oh wait, that's how I do it
to the last. If you're looking at me on the
video to the last like blink and then the phone

(29:30):
goes down and then I drift off. I don't know
why I push myself to the limit.

Speaker 3 (29:33):
Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (29:34):
I mean, coming back to this conversation around how it
like affects relationships, I think it's twofold. I think, on
one hand, there are absolutely relationships where partners are on
their phones too much. That's a whole different kettle of fish,
especially if it's affecting your ability to have conversations. If
you're talking to your partner and they can't even hold
a conversation because they pick up their phone midway. Like
we've all experienced that, We've all been trying to have

(29:54):
a conversation and then they've gotten distracted, picked up their
phone and they're not actually listening to the stuff that
we're saying.

Speaker 2 (30:00):
It's also worse when you see that the finger is
moving because you know that it's a scrolling Instagram.

Speaker 3 (30:04):
You even not paying a bill.

Speaker 1 (30:06):
That type of distracted multitasking can be absolutely infuriating. But
on the other side of things, I also think it's
okay to have very separate bedtime routines to your partner,
especially if you've been in a long term relationship, and
having some allowance for the fact that now phones have
become And I'm not saying it's healthy to your sleep
hygiene or whatever else, but that's not my place to criticize.

(30:26):
If that's become part of your winddown routine, that should
also be an allowance in something that should be seen
as okay. I don't take it as a personal insult
if Matt wants to spend half an hour scrolling TikTok
on the couch, but that's so long as I've gotten
something out of him in the day.

Speaker 4 (30:39):
I think this would be particularly relevant for people who
have children, because like, if you imagine you've had a
big work day, Let's say you get home at six o'clock,
Like for us brit we would probably get home and
have at least fifteen minutes where you know, you just
might go to.

Speaker 3 (30:53):
The toilet, have a shower, have a scroll, whatever.

Speaker 5 (30:56):
And I'm saying fifteen minutes to give mine would be
a lot more. It's probably half an hour. I just
take that wine down time.

Speaker 4 (31:01):
But I think if you walked in the door to
kids and then you've got a parent, like, you just
don't get that buffer of like, oh now this is
mental relaxation time.

Speaker 3 (31:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (31:10):
And I also think it's different if you're going to
bed and your partner's next to you on their phone,
because like that could be time that potentially something could
happen if they weren't looking at goats but instead they're
looking at pimple popping videos and it really doesn't ignite
the passion were pleasure. Okay, Well, I mean no, I
just know I know which days not to do it.
It's the days that I go in and have a
shower and I'm like, all right, well, that's on now anyway.

Speaker 3 (31:33):
So you're like, oh, how often? Not often enough.

Speaker 1 (31:38):
I'm sure you guys are pretty familiar with the name
Luigi Mangioni. And if that doesn't ring bells, well this
story will. He is the twenty six year old filmer
Ivy League graduate who is currently on trial for the
assassination of the United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson. I bet
you you didn't know Brian Thompson's name off by heart.
That's what we're going to get into now. There was
recently a new documentary that's been released on Binge and

(32:00):
that was titled Who Is Luigi Mangioni? And it's very
much back in the sphere at the moment because he's
on trial. One of the most surprising things about this
specific murder and assassination was the very mixed reaction from
the public. I'm sure you guys will remember the photo
that was released of him from the CCTV footage where
he was smiling at the receptionist at the hostel with

(32:24):
his chiseled jawline and his beautiful white teeth. Now that
footage of Luigi was released and literally the Internet went
into meltdown about who he was dubbing him the Hot Assassin.
On one hand, there seemed to be very little regard
widespread empathy from the majority of the population over the
death of Brian Thompson, and the way that people justified

(32:44):
it is that he represented the corruption and profit of
the American private health insurance companies. And I guess the
thing that we wanted to talk about on this episode
is this concept that surrounds Luigi and it's the Robin
Hood Effect. What we also wanted to unpack was the
psychology behind some of the very mixed public reactions, the
obsession that the Internet had with the Hot Assassin, and
how things like pretty privilege and also the Halo effects

(33:07):
come into play.

Speaker 2 (33:07):
Just to set up who he is, he's very young,
very privileged, very well educated man from Baltimore.

Speaker 3 (33:13):
He very good looking, came from a.

Speaker 2 (33:14):
Wealthy family who sent him to college, gave him everything
he needed, and he had an accident. He had a
really bad back. He was surfing. He went and got surgery.
There's conflicting information here, so the documentary leads you to
believe that he had surgery for his lower back that
then exacerbated the pain and that's what started this vendetta
against the healthcare system. But then there's other diary entries

(33:35):
that say his pain got better, which is why the
courts of leading us to say, let's not form any
biases based on any of this information, because we're not
actually sure what is entirely correct.

Speaker 1 (33:44):
Yeah, and also I think it's important to note that
he is not a customer of United Healthcare, neither is
anybody from his family. So he has taken aim at
one of the biggest health insurers in America, specifically at
the head of that health insurance company who was a CEO,
but he has acted no ties to that specific health
insurance company at all.

Speaker 2 (34:03):
So just to tell you what he is actually charged with.
Charges include federal murder and terrorism charges which he has
pleaded not guilty to. He's also charging Pennsylvania with forgery,
carrying firearms without a license, tampering with records or identification,
possessing instruments of crime, and providing a false identification to police.
So there's like a multitude of things they're trying to

(34:23):
get this kid on. I guess the reason that this
is an interesting chat for us is the idea that
do we view criminals differently if they are not the
way that we think a criminal should look, and especially
a murderer. Do we think that there is a young,
well educated, pretty handsome looking man that has assassinated someone,
do you have an internal, pretty privileged bias when you

(34:45):
look at them? Because there are reports and studies that
say that, without even knowing subconsciously, us as the public
and jurors are led down the track of giving lighter
sentences based on the way somebody looks.

Speaker 1 (34:58):
Yeah, and I think, like the big thing about this
and what was interesting from the doco look. To be honest,
I didn't watch the doco and go like, oh my god,
you need to run and watch this, but it very
much is in the sphere of pop culture at the moment.
The reason why it's crossed over from being like a
true crime story to being pop culture facing is because
of how much commentary there was around the sky when

(35:19):
this all happened. And I'm talking the day that his
mugshot was released, not even his mugshot, the CCTV footage.
There were lookalike competitions that were held in the United
States in the same way that they do look like
competitions for like Harry Styles. This is like some of
the commentary that happened online. Jamila Jamil the day of
it happened wrote a star is born in reference.

Speaker 2 (35:41):
Yeah, I was shocked by that. That shocked me that
it came from her now.

Speaker 1 (35:44):
Totally Jonathan Vannas. She copped a lot of backlash for that.
Jonathan van Ness, who is one of the main hosts
of The Queer Eye, he wrote, the next season should
be solely dedicated to Luigi Mangioni. No, I would not
touch those gorgeous curls. Well, maybe just refresh them a
little bit, but those brow would never touch them. Following
on from that, there were people who wrote things like
this needs to be the new norm, posted one ex user.

(36:06):
Eat the rich were some of the other comments, and
things like I hope that the UHC CEO shooter is
never identified and goes on to become a hero of
American folklore for hundreds of years.

Speaker 2 (36:18):
Well, Stephen Colbert, who's like a late night comedian, he
even said, you know the guy's Italian because you get
great parmesan on those abs, and the idea that we're
perpetuating talking about somebody like this as a hot assassin
with great abs and great brows et cetera. Even if
they don't intentionally mean to and they're capitalizing on a
moment to make a little bit of humor. What mean, Well,

(36:39):
what it does is sets the tone for the general
public to think, oh, actually, maybe it is okay, Maybe
it wasn't so severe.

Speaker 3 (36:44):
Maybe he's just.

Speaker 2 (36:45):
Been a vigilante that is fighting for the poorer part
of America. That is what has absolutely happened, because healthcare
in America is dire. Like if you don't know about
the healthcare system in America, it is skewed towards the rich.
The rich can get what they want, get richer, and
the poor are left without health care basically, so Americans,

(37:05):
and I guess the people around the world. But Americans
are looking at him not as somebody that has murdered
one person, but they're looking at someone that is standing
up to the establishment. They're looking at somebody that is
coming up and standing up for the little people and
for the poor people and doing what everyone wanted to
do but no one could ever have the guts to do.
So all of a sudden, Brian Thompson isn't a person anymore.

(37:28):
He's a Conglomerate's yeah, He's the representative of what is
everything wrong with America and he's being applauded for it.
He had over one million dollars donated to his fund
to keep him out of prison, to help him get
the best lawyers from the public.

Speaker 3 (37:43):
It's pretty insane when you think about it.

Speaker 1 (37:45):
And when I first read about the case, I want
to be honest, I kind of like read the memes.
I read the top line story, I was like, he's hot.
I didn't really care. I didn't have this deep sympathy either.
And I'm not saying that I like sit here with
this like overtly emotional response to what has happened. But
I think what the reaction is is truly fascinating. There's

(38:05):
some details that are important around the actual killing itself.
It happened like on a main street in Manhattan, so
like shot dead on a main street in front of people.
On top of that, the bullets that he was shot
with had been inscribed with the permanent marker saying delayed, denied, defend,
which are the hallmarks of what the health insurance companies
in the United States is supposed to do. Delayed claims,

(38:26):
deny claims, defend claims to try and give out as
little health insurance as possible in order to maximize profits,
because at the end of the day, these are all
private corporations that all are based and funded around profits.
But the thing about this is that talking about him
as though he's a Robin Hood vigilante, as we've just established,
rather than someone who has been deeply radicalized, like this

(38:47):
is a man who created a riff raft gun on
a three D printer, went out in the streets and
shot someone dead in the back. Like it's pretty fucking insane.
And I do think that there's many versions of how
we managed to kind of gloss over the gory details
of someone's crime simply because of the way that they
look or how they present, and we find reasons and
validations and excuses to say, well, it's not that bad,

(39:10):
because look at all these things this guy did. Where
really Brian Thompson was just a CEO of a company,
going to work every day. He was a father of children,
he was a husband, and he got shot dead on
a day that he was supposed to be presenting at
a seminar for work.

Speaker 3 (39:23):
Yeah, and I think when we initially spoke about this,
and you know, we touched on. Oh, well, you know,
it's pretty privilege. He's hot, he's being treated better.

Speaker 4 (39:30):
And then as we went into a couple of studies
and like what the halo effect actually implies, have realized
that there is this implicit bias that we have, whether
we realize.

Speaker 3 (39:39):
It or not.

Speaker 4 (39:40):
Firstly, for anyone who doesn't know what pretty privilege is,
it's kind of concept that good looking people have higher
moral traits and they benefit in society in almost every way,
in the partners that they can get, in the jobs
that they can secure.

Speaker 5 (39:52):
It is a real privilege to be attractive.

Speaker 2 (39:55):
Yeah, colloquially it's just pretty privilege. Has it easier? Yeah,
pretty people have it easier.

Speaker 4 (39:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (40:00):
It's also known as attractiveness bias.

Speaker 4 (40:01):
There was this one study in twenty twenty one that
examined the stereotype that beauty is good, and it found
that attractive people were perceived to have more moral traits
than unattractive people. There's also a study called Evaluating Faces
on Trustworthiness after Minimal Time Exposure, And what I found
really really interesting about this is that the study asked
people to report what they thought about a person based

(40:24):
off of an image alone, and they found out that
they made most of these assumptions about their trustworthiness based
on less than a second of looking at them. It's yeah,
it can be based off of things like facial symmetry
or how much you see yourself reflected in someone. A
lot of it is unconscious though, like a lot of it,
you don't really know why it's happening.

Speaker 2 (40:42):
Well, it's interesting if you think, like if you just
put yourself in a position now everyone where you're in
a group of people, you meet somebody and you might
walk away. How many times have you ever said, like,
I don't know what it is, but there's something about them.
I just didn't gel with r It's something I didn't like.
And that's to do with that initial meeting where you
haven't realized but you've already formulated an opinion based off

(41:02):
one thing that might not seem But I.

Speaker 4 (41:04):
Feel like that could be a little bit more spidy senses,
like you can just sometimes get a vibe about someone.
I think the study found that this happened in zero
point three of a second, so like, you haven't had time.

Speaker 3 (41:13):
To form an opinion based off of what they sound like,
what they say.

Speaker 4 (41:17):
You know, it's only that really initial, this is what
this person looks like, and a further look.

Speaker 5 (41:23):
They're calling it a study. I would personally call it
more of a survey.

Speaker 4 (41:27):
But what they did find was interesting. They found that
unattractive defendants tend to get hit with longer harsher sentences,
on average of twenty two months longer in prison. Pretty
privileged kind of can be extended into this thing called
the halo effect, and that's basically where when you know
one thing about a person, you make all of these
assumptions about other things that they might have.

Speaker 5 (41:47):
We see this a lot with I mean I even
see it.

Speaker 4 (41:49):
I actually see it really really regularly with my own partner.

Speaker 5 (41:52):
He's a doctor.

Speaker 4 (41:53):
And when I tell people that, I initially see them
go oh wow.

Speaker 2 (41:58):
They make all of these wells sounds about it.

Speaker 4 (42:00):
Well, like they just make all the mother be proud
that he is a really moral person, that he's a
good person, that he's a hard work and that he
cares about people. Luckily, for me, those things are true,
but they're not necessarily and I know plenty.

Speaker 3 (42:11):
Of doctors who are like terrible people.

Speaker 4 (42:13):
But it's this halo effect of like we hear one
thing and we positively associate it with something else. And
there was this interesting study done in twenty twenty two
that found that if someone is perceived to be less
attractive and less intelligent looking, they also seem to be
less human to an onlooker. So to flip this, it
generally means that if we find someone attractive, we also
ascribe a greater sense of humanness to them, so like

(42:35):
we think that they have a higher sense of humanity,
and in contrast, if they are unattractive, we dehumanize them.

Speaker 1 (42:42):
If he was an unattractive middle aged man with a
terrible haircut and a pot belly, I guarantee you people
would not care about this case in the same way.
It would have made headline news for a couple of
days while everyone talked about Brian Thompson's death and tried
to unpack the reasoning why he would not have the
celebrity that goes with it and the other part of this.

(43:02):
You know, this is not something that's just isolated to
this case, and it's something that we see quite a
bit when you get these hot, hot celebrities. You guys
would all know the hot felon that mugshot is iconic.

Speaker 2 (43:14):
Jeremy Meeks.

Speaker 3 (43:15):
Yes, his name is Jeremy Meggs.

Speaker 1 (43:16):
He was arrested for gang violence, being part of what's
called the Crips in twenty fourteen. He was sentenced to
eighteen months or two years in prison. Part of that
was assaulting a sixteen year old boy and the other
part of that was for robbery and grend theft. After
that was released, he went viral on BuzzFeed. He had
the most hits, like, he became a meme overnight.

Speaker 5 (43:36):
I can see his mugshot right now, beautiful than ten years.

Speaker 2 (43:39):
He's so hot, mixed.

Speaker 1 (43:41):
Race, beautiful, pissing blue eyes. I think most people can
recall what that mugshot looks like.

Speaker 2 (43:45):
He also went on to marry a very rich woman.

Speaker 1 (43:48):
He went on to marry Chloe Green, who is the
heiress of top Shop.

Speaker 3 (43:51):
He has children with her.

Speaker 1 (43:52):
He went on to be a successful actor, a successful model.
His entire life and career changed because he was a felon.

Speaker 2 (43:59):
Who already he's stunned, but he's.

Speaker 3 (44:03):
Like, how could you be mad at that phase?

Speaker 2 (44:05):
I know it, Ellen, But he's hot because he's so beautiful.
He's almost one of the most beautiful men I have
ever seen.

Speaker 1 (44:14):
But obviously, you know, his crime is minor in comparison,
but it's the same thing that happened with Jeffrey Dharmer
and women writing him letters and falling in love with
him while he was imprisoned as a serial killer who
has the most insane story. We're all aware of it,
But what I think a lot of people might not
be aware was how many women fell in love with
him and committed to him throughout his time that he

(44:35):
was in prison. And it's this weird social paradox that
happens when someone is good looking, and how we're managing
to overlook the things that they've done.

Speaker 2 (44:43):
Well when they're yes, But when they're good looking, you're
more likely to lean into the ethical ambiguity of saying, well,
you know what, they did, do it for a good reason,
like that person wasn't that good of a person anyway,
Whereas if they were socially unattractive, you're going to be like,
you can't just go around murdering people like that is
our own internal bias. But I did this recently to

(45:04):
you guys. This was before we did this prep right,
I was just doing our normal like let's look at
the news, let's look what's happening in the world. And
I came across an article. I didn't want to talk
about it. I was just shocked myself, and I sent
it to you guys, just to chat between friends, and
I said, isn't this unusual? Like, isn't this weird? And
it's about a relatively young woman in the UK. She's

(45:26):
a mom to two kids. She was a probation officer.
She used to help people find their homes again and
get jobs. And she is stunning, Like I'm going to
show you a photo now. She could be a model.
She is a beautiful blonde, she's just like she's actually
just stunning. She has just been charged with killing her
partner from It was an asset attack and she was

(45:46):
involved in the potential kidnapping of him, but he did
die in hospital. And I was so shocked at the
fact that a beautiful young woman was behind the attack.

Speaker 4 (45:56):
You actually said to me, you said, gosh, she doesn't
look like the type of person who would orchestrate an
ass that attack, does she.

Speaker 2 (46:00):
It's literally what I said, because I was so shocked
that I started to even not look into the attack anymore.
I was so interested in the fact that this young, beautiful,
seemingly normal woman could be behind that. And I think
that is what we're seeing with the shock of all
these beautiful young people that are committing these crimes. You
don't even know you have the internal bias, yes.

Speaker 1 (46:20):
And that is like literally the halo effect in action.
And I know that it's something that we can all.
I mean, a lot of people can experience it without
even realizing that that's what we're doing. But one of
the things I found really interesting from the documentary about
Luigi Manjerney and from all the research that we've done
since since going down this rabbit hole, I know more
about this man than what I care to is that
on the surface level, and like we talked about the

(46:42):
Robin Hood effect, on surface level, it looks like it
is someone standing up to the corruption of a big industry.
But when you go and you dig into I mean,
this was a man who is very prolific on Reddit.
He has many journal entries. This is quite a radicalized
potential sociopath. And the reason why I say this is
because of the documented reviews that he has given around

(47:03):
the Unibomber. He was a unibomber sympathizer and understood why
the unibomber was.

Speaker 3 (47:08):
Doing the things that he was doing.

Speaker 1 (47:09):
A lot of people would think that he's like far left,
but his political views are not congruent. There is like
things out there that are very far right facing. It
is like someone who has gone down an absolute mental spiral.
And I think when you look at that and you
place that alongside this idea of the Robin Hood effect,
it gives you a greater picture because you're like, oh, no,
this is someone who is mentally unwell who went and

(47:30):
did this. This is not someone who was sane of mine,
who decided that actually this is a stance against a
political injustice. And I think that that's a really important
thing to keep in perspective, because we can create the
story around someone, but that story isn't necessarily true, and
that is what seems to have happened with the public
around Luigi.

Speaker 4 (47:48):
I also think it's quite convenient if you look at
the political situation in America at the moment. I mean,
we even saw the riots, you know, with Trump on
January sixth, and like there seems to be this real
pushback on institution, and I think that he is kind
of now at the moment being heralded as the pinup
boy of this pushback and this vigilante justice and take
down the big dogs.

Speaker 3 (48:09):
And it's been encouraged because Trump is back in power.

Speaker 4 (48:12):
You know, we're seeing that these people are wanting to
vote for this anti establishment kind of rhetoric.

Speaker 5 (48:17):
And I myself have found it.

Speaker 4 (48:20):
I've been intrigued by the fact that so many people
have romanticized Luigi, and I think that the pretty privilege
in the halo effect that happened instantaneously, and I feel
as though the other factors that kind of justified their
romanticization of Luigi happened a little bit later, you know,
like it was more finding out about things like Brian Thompson.

(48:41):
You know, he was done for inside of trading, and
like there were things that were morally questionable that he did,
and he did lead this organization that.

Speaker 5 (48:48):
Really fucked a lot of people's lives.

Speaker 3 (48:50):
I don't no doubt about that.

Speaker 5 (48:51):
Yeah, I can see why people have this kind of
ned Kelly.

Speaker 4 (48:55):
Essence to him, of like, you know, you've done the
wrong thing, but you've done it for the right reasons,
and therefore I can get behind you.

Speaker 5 (49:00):
But at the end of the day, this guy murdered someone.

Speaker 1 (49:03):
Yeah, And I don't get me wrong, Cash, that was
absolutely my impression of it as well. And We've had
a lot of conversations about this, and I've unpacked it
with a few friends, and I think at the start,
I was more a sympathizer, like I don't want to
say a sympathizer. I just didn't care that much. Like
I was like, he's hot, kind of looked at the memes,
thought they were funny. I didn't really process the other
side of it. And I think that, you know, it's

(49:24):
very easy to get caught up in the exactly what
we said, their celebrities and the storyline that's being created
and not really think about what happened because the gory
details are kind of left in the sideline of the memes,
and you can really get caught up in like the
hooha and the hotness, and then potentially the actual stories
get rewritten and we're recreating history of what actually happened,

(49:44):
and what gets lost in this is the violence and
the victims.

Speaker 3 (49:47):
At the end of the day, I.

Speaker 2 (49:49):
Think this is something like we've never seen before, the
justification of why he's done it. And I say that
because we often do justify a crime if we think
it is deserved. So if somebody commits a crime against
somebody else because they committed a crime against a child,
we're always going to say, well, that's why they did it.
The reason this is on steroids and we are still
talking about it all around the world is because of

(50:10):
the level of reach and the level of people in
America that have been touched by the injustices of the
American healthcare system. There is almost no one there that
hasn't had some kind of interaction disproportionately to probably what
they are paying or what their companies are paying for
their insurance. You'd be hard done by to find someone
that hasn't had a negative interaction with the healthcare system there,

(50:31):
which is why this is bigger than Ben Hurt's why
every single person is like, you know what, absolutely because usually,
as somebody we sit back and watch a crime, it
has nothing to do with us. We can still say
morally questionable, but we get it. But in this case,
it touches almost every single American, which is why they're
all rooting for him.

Speaker 1 (50:49):
I agree, and I guess like the thing that is
important to keep perspective on is that this Brian Thompson guy,
the guy who is the victim who.

Speaker 3 (50:56):
Literally no one knows the name of.

Speaker 1 (50:58):
He's become the pin up of the entire corrupt system
of America, and that seems like a completely unfair burden
for one man to carry at the end of the day.

Speaker 3 (51:08):
And I'm not saying that he's innocent in the corrupt world.
I didn't deserve the.

Speaker 1 (51:12):
Health insurance, you know, but like that is a beast
that one person is not responsible for the United Healthcare
whatever it is, Like, they are not responsible for it.
It is part of a greater system, and having one
person be the pin up of that, and having an
assassination be justified because of a greater political problem seems
like to me a really grotesque thing to try and
justify in any way.

Speaker 4 (51:33):
The only thing that I'm kind of left wondering is
whether this will actually cause any change to happen within
the insurance industries, you know, like whether.

Speaker 3 (51:41):
No, they'll just have more security for there.

Speaker 4 (51:43):
That's kind of where I am, Like, you know, maybe
he wanted to be this symbol of resistance, and maybe
people are kind of heralding him as that. And I
can imagine that if I was personally touched by the
effects of these healthcare companies, and I might feel differently
to how I feel, But I just wonder if it's
kind of like nothing thing's going to change, you know.
The only thing, like you said, is that they might
ramp up security, and that would be a really sad thing,

(52:04):
because I think the only silver lining of this crime
is that it has shone a light on just how
corrupt it is the world now knows. You know. I
know that we all knew that the insurance companies in
America were kind of cooked, and I don't think I
had any understanding as to how bad it was. And
maybe that's the one positive thing that came from this,
is that they are under the spotlight more. But unless
it's going to be reform and the actual legal change,

(52:26):
I don't see it changing.

Speaker 2 (52:28):
Well, it is time for suck and sweet, our highlights
and our low lights of the week. I will kick
it off because I'm getting married. I had to wind yeah,
I know, shock. I had to intentionally wind back my
migraine botox because I need to be able to hold
my neck up for the dance so that you don't
flop around. You know what else I've even realized it's

(52:48):
not just the dancing, because Bend's so much taller than me.

Speaker 3 (52:52):
Gotta look up.

Speaker 2 (52:52):
Yeah, when I look up at him, when it gets
to a certain angle, I can't hold it anymore and
it flips back.

Speaker 5 (52:57):
See a bridesmais for mate?

Speaker 2 (53:00):
What hold my neck up? What if you hold my train?

Speaker 3 (53:02):
Now kiss the bride?

Speaker 5 (53:03):
Sherry, please hold the back of Britain's head.

Speaker 2 (53:05):
I had to wind my neurologists was like, let's give
you like half and if it's if all hell breaks loose,
we can do more, but you're not going to be
able to dance or dip or kiss or look up.
So because of that, my headaches are like back with
a vengeance, which is fine. I'm managing it. It's not
migrain level yet, but it's quite bad. Like vomited this morning.
I feel really sick today. But after the wedding, I'm
back pumping that shit up. We're gonna have to wear

(53:27):
a neck brace after the wedding. But my sweet is
my mom came to the Hens as well, which is
really fun. I don't get to see my mam a lot.
She lives five hours up the coast, but she did
come down with my sister in laws and my sister,
and she sent it. She loved it. She was like
probably the most energetic at the end of the night.
It was good to see her having fun, and also

(53:47):
she got to meet everyone in my life because she
knows a lot of you via distance. I actually think, Laura,
it was the first time you met her in person?

Speaker 3 (53:54):
Was it all seeing that once before? In person? Yeah,
spoken on the phone, you.

Speaker 2 (53:57):
Speak all the time. But it was nice. You know,
I see your mum a lot more because she's closely.

Speaker 1 (54:02):
She's here, she's Sydney, well, she's gon Gone Bay, so
she's here more often for sure.

Speaker 2 (54:05):
So it was cool just to see my mom having
a good time and see her like get to meet
all the people in my life. Laur's what's your suck?

Speaker 3 (54:11):
My suck for the week is that I thought I
was in the clear.

Speaker 1 (54:15):
I thought I was second trymester, ready to get down boogie.
I am so sick. So I was like great for
about three weeks. I had morning sickness for the first trimester.
Then I was good for about three maybe four weeks,
and then it's just come back with a vengeance. So
like boarding the boat for Britz hens just before we
brought it out to go and buy a chicken sandwich.

Speaker 3 (54:33):
Then you were.

Speaker 2 (54:34):
Eating the second we're on the boat.

Speaker 1 (54:35):
I was like, I ate a full chicken sandwich at
eleven am because I was like, I need to eat
or I'm going to vomit. I had fruit tangles gaviscon.
I had one of those quick ease little chewbulls. Also,
they are delicious. Maybe that can be my vibe for
the week this week. They're the nicest of all of
the indigestion medication that you gotta take.

Speaker 3 (54:51):
I have my sister the intergestion.

Speaker 4 (54:52):
Yeah, we're talking about a geriatric hens. We have just
gone into like know, we've gone into old territory.

Speaker 3 (54:58):
Guys.

Speaker 1 (54:58):
I've literally tried to all tablets. The rennies are so effective,
but they taste like shit. They taste like eating chalk.
They're so disgusting, but they work really well. So also
had those.

Speaker 3 (55:08):
You also think at.

Speaker 2 (55:09):
This point, like medication like that they'd put a little
bit of effort into making it taste good. It can't
be that hard to put a bit of flavor in
it in.

Speaker 1 (55:15):
A way, and I can't do spearmint, So that's maybe
on me but Spearmint, for me is my most attested
flavor of all flavors in the entire world, even more
than onion microphone. So like, I'm just gonna double down.
And my sweet for the week is is that we
have picked a name for the baby.

Speaker 3 (55:32):
Mate.

Speaker 2 (55:32):
You can't do that if you're not going to tell
us first name, middle name, and also last name. Surprise, surprise,
it's the one that we know.

Speaker 3 (55:39):
You guys, don't know the middle name yet.

Speaker 2 (55:40):
No, but the first one.

Speaker 1 (55:41):
You know the first name. Marley chose the middle name,
which also out of options or just she just picked it.

Speaker 3 (55:48):
She picked it.

Speaker 1 (55:48):
Look, it's a cute name, but the reasons behind it.
I don't know if the child's gonna love, but that's
fine that I don't.

Speaker 3 (55:53):
Need to know.

Speaker 2 (55:53):
Can't wait to hear that one.

Speaker 3 (55:54):
Then yeah, it's gonna be another Johnson. So there you go.

Speaker 1 (55:57):
But I won't tell tease you, Yeah, I'll tell you. Okay,
can't wait anyway, guys, that is it from us. If
you loved the episode, go leave a review.

Speaker 3 (56:09):
All the places where you can leave a review.

Speaker 1 (56:10):
You can also join in the conversation on each episode
on Spotify. So if you leave us listen on Spotify.
You can leave comments on the episode, which is always fun. Also,
you can watch us on YouTube and go and join
the discussion group on Facebook, join Instagram at Life on
Cut podcast all of the good stuff I know the
so

Speaker 2 (56:29):
Your mum te dot te friends, and share the love
because we love love