August 21, 2025 • 47 mins
Clare Stephens is a writer, screenwriter, editor and podcaster. She’s the former editor-in-chief at Mamamia and host of the podcasts Cancelled and But, Are You Happy? Clare also worked as a writer and producer on the Binge series Strife starring Asher Keddie and is about to publish her first novel, The Worst Thing I’ve Ever Done!
It tells the story of Ruby Williams, a young woman working in digital media who publishes an article that sees her at the bottom of an online pile-on. More broadly, it’s about shame - the way it never truly leaves you, and how we bury it. Clare is here to speak about the psychology of pile ons, cancel culture, what type of people handle being cancelled better than others and the media narratives surrounding public shaming!
Today we speak about:
- Why Clare chose to go out on her own after almost a decade at Mamamia
- Public shame and ‘metacognition’
- How the psychology of online debates and conversations is different to in person
- How it feels to be at the bottom of a pile on
- How and why some influencers cause pile ons of other people and use outrage to grow their own platforms
- There’s no good response to a pile on; silence is interpreted as guilt, speaking back causes more headlines and fuel on the fire
- What makes someone more likely to be cancelled?
You can pre-order The Worst Thing I've Ever Done (out September 30) here.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This episode was recorded on Cameragle Land.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hi guys, and welcome back to another episode of Life.
I'm Cut, I'm Laura, I'm Brittany, and we have a
very good friend here in the studio, Claire Stephens. She
is a writer, a screenwriter, an editor, and a podcaster.
She's the former editor in chief at Mamma Mia and
host of the podcast Canceled and also but Are You Happy.
Claire also worked as a writer and a producer on
the Binge series Strife starring Ashi Ketty, and is about
(00:34):
to publish her first novel, The Worst Thing I've Ever
Done Now. This tells the story of Ruby Williams, a
young woman working in digital media who publishes an article
that sees her at the bottom of an online pylon.
Claire is here today to speak about the psychology of pylons,
cancel culture, what type of people handle being canceled better
than others, and the media narratives surrounding public shaming.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Hello, I'm so excited to be here.
Speaker 4 (01:00):
I can't wait to get to the bottom of this.
Speaker 5 (01:03):
I'm fascinated to hear why you decided to write about
this topic and you're researching it I do know you've
reached out to me in the past as contribute to it.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Yeah, you been cancelled. What are you talking about? It's
a joke.
Speaker 5 (01:16):
No, I haven't been canceled, but there have been attempted cancelation.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
And this is interesting though, right, Like what makes a
cancelation VERSEU an attempted cancelation?
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Like what is the psychology.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Ingredients that makes one worse than the other? Because yeah,
we've seen them play out, we will unpack.
Speaker 5 (01:33):
But let's before we get into that, do accidentally unfiltered
our most embarrassing story.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
I feel like you've got a goodie.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
I've got a really bad one. I thought.
Speaker 6 (01:41):
I was like, oh, I should think of a less
embarrassing one, but I didn't have time, so I just
had to go with the absolute worst.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
We like it to really scrape the bottom of the bar,
or they're the good ones.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
It's disgusting, Like it's the kind of story people will
be like, oh.
Speaker 6 (01:54):
No, that actually is incredibly humiliating. So we all remember COVID.
During COVID, I was quite proud of this. I didn't
really drink during COVID just because it was my partner
and I at home. I was like, actually exercising, properly,
living my best life for the first time ever. So
I didn't drink. But then the lockdown laws lifted for
(02:15):
the first time, and there are gonna be a group
of girls listening to this that know exactly where it's going.
But a friend of mine was like, all, book a
boozy lunch, like we'll do it in bond eye group
of girls, margaritas, like unlimited alcohol, let's do it. And
I was like, cannot wait. Didn't think about the fact
that I hadn't drunk for several months. So I go
(02:36):
to this lunch and we're all too excited. We're too excited.
All our lives have fallen apart.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
It's freedom, You're back again together, finally share trauma right.
Speaker 6 (02:46):
And everyone's like everything's terrible. But it was very very bonding.
So I'm smashing these margaritas. Then we had rose. I
was just going, going, going, no sense of how much
I've had anything like that.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
I am not a.
Speaker 6 (03:01):
Particularly big drinker, so even like growing up, I didn't
have that many instances of just writing myself off.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
You're also a very tiny person.
Speaker 6 (03:09):
And that's another thing that if I'm sitting next to
somebody who's six foot tall and like athletic. They can
down twice as much as I can. So I'm just
keeping up with everyone. I'm having all these drinks. We
go to one of the girl's houses, We're having more drinks.
I'm like, I'm gonna go to the bathroom. And then
I stood up and was like, I have never been
this drunk in my entire life.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Somehow, I don't. This is where I black out.
Speaker 6 (03:32):
I have a tiny memory of being outside Messina on
Hall Street, passed out absolutely. Somehow I messaged my now
husband to be like I'm fucked, and he arrived.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
I don't know how.
Speaker 6 (03:47):
I don't know how I knew where I was, Like
I'd gone to somebody's house. I don't know how we
knew anyway, he gets me, I'm vomiting on the street
in BONDI the day the lockdowns, so like I cannot
tell you how many people would have been on that street.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
Thing like, is that that person?
Speaker 6 (04:03):
Does? I think I know that first? So my partner
gets me. I wake up in hospital and we've got
a drip. We've got a drip because.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
They actually didn't need ambulance.
Speaker 6 (04:15):
Yeah, they don't pump stomachs anymore. They just fluids and stuff,
and so I wake up. I'm like, how humiliating. Anyway,
Jesse's there trying to help, but Jesse's also drunk, so
she her entire job was to hold my hand straight
so that the fluid could go in. She got distracted
and didn't do that, and then I woke up to
like this huge bubble of fluid on my arm, and
(04:37):
the doctor's like Jesus Christ, the emergency room is full
of drunk people. Anyway, I still live with the thought
that I'm like someone I know definitely saw me that day.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Definitely lucky that no one.
Speaker 5 (04:52):
Took video, no one took photos, because that could have
been the end of that.
Speaker 4 (04:56):
Could have you your pilot, your cancelation, Like who I.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Could have been?
Speaker 6 (05:00):
Know when Scomo fell into the Joyce fell into the plan.
I had so much empathy when he did that.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
That read free my head.
Speaker 6 (05:09):
I'm like, you know what, I disagree with your politics,
but we've all written ourselves so that what we.
Speaker 4 (05:14):
Said we felt for him, we did.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
We feel for him guided that much. I did.
Speaker 6 (05:19):
And then he said he was on a medication that
made him more sensitive to alcohol and I'm like, I
don't believe you, but like it's fine.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Mushrooms is like Claire, which medication were you on?
Speaker 6 (05:28):
Absolutely none? Absolutely none? So that was yeah. No, that
was the most embarrassing moment of my entire life. And
if you have photos of that, no you don't, Okay,
I'll pay for the photos.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Oh God, You've had like a very big year.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
And one of the things in terms of you, you've
left myma Mia, you have gone out do your own work,
to write your own book. Not just the reasons around
like why did you leave momameir or decide to go
out in your own but I think for anyone who
has ever had a massive work transition where they have
taken a punt, whether it's been that they wanted to
start their own small business, but making that huge leap
(06:03):
between what feels completely safe to the unknown. Firstly, why
did you want to do that for yourself? And also
what has this period been like for you?
Speaker 6 (06:11):
I wanted to do it because I think I don't
know if you had this, Laura, But when you have
a child, I think sometimes it can be quite clarifying.
For me having Matilda I for the first time ever,
it's like I realized time was finite and that like
it totally changed my idea of hold on, if there's
(06:33):
things I want to do, I actually have to do them.
And I think something to do with seeing someone grow
in front of you that you're like, oh my god,
that's five months, that's six months, that's seven months, and
you're seeing it and you kind of can't ignore it.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Puts time into perspective exactly exactly.
Speaker 6 (06:48):
So I think having Matilda made me realize, hold on,
if there's things I want to do, if there's risks
I want to take, I actually have to do it.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
It's not just going to happen.
Speaker 6 (06:57):
So I had been at Mameya for almost a decade
and I really wanted to work on some independent projects
and challenge myself, like really step outside my comfort zone.
The other thing was I'm a twin and my twin
sister works at Mama and I'd worked with her for
ten years, and I think that was also a bit
(07:19):
of a safety blanket that at the time, Like people
probably didn't know this when we were working there, but
we were so like if I wrote something, I'd always
get her to read it before I sent it off
to be published, or if I had an idea I'd
run it past her, and I think as fun as
that is, I did think a psychologist would probably tell
me that it really important, that's really important to back
(07:42):
yourself and learn who you are outside the context of
that relationship.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Well, I've heard you speak a little bit about feeling
as though you were in the shadows of what Jesse
was doing a little bit, especially within a company when
I mean we've had Jesse Stevens on the podcast before.
Brilliant is also one of the co hosts of Muma
Mia out Loud, And it's like when you are the
same growing up because you're twins, and then you're in
a company where one person potentially is getting more jobs
or there's comparisons that are being made. How do you
(08:09):
deal with that when it's your sister.
Speaker 6 (08:10):
A lot of times throughout my twenty when I did
struggle with that, because I have struggled with that growing up,
Like you can't help it. You just get compared. And
then when you have the same interests and you go
into the same type of work, the comparison's even clearer.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
And so many people were like, why do you do that?
You guys are so weird?
Speaker 6 (08:29):
Why don't you just follow two different career paths and
then you wouldn't have to worry about the comparison. But
I think the problem is that we love working creatively
together and we just have the same interest. But I
did think if I'm going to really challenge myself and
tap into what I'm actually interested in and what my
strengths are and all of that, I have to step
(08:49):
outside that dynamic, which was really hard because I absolutely
love working with Jesse and I'm sure will end up
doing I mean, we are working on a project together
at the moment, but I think I was just like,
I really want to have this time in my life
where I give it to go on my own and
see what I'm capable of and throw myself into the
(09:10):
deep end.
Speaker 5 (09:11):
It's also really scary to go, and anyone that has
started their own business or gone out on their own
to go from a stable income to not knowing where
your income is going to come from, yeah, is something
that you really well, I mean financially, you need to
be in a position that you either have support to
help you or but it's a really scary jump. But
imagine there's a lot of anxiety around that, especially because
(09:33):
your business that you went into is writing.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
Yes, yes, that doesn't happen overnight.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
Exactly.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
You've got a few degrees.
Speaker 5 (09:40):
I hear in psychology, and I want to unpack that
first because a lot of your book that you have
written is based around the psychology in the Kingcel culture,
and I think it's important to set the precedence of
like you have done the due diligence.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
What are your degrees in and where did that interest
come from?
Speaker 6 (09:55):
So I did a Bachelor of psychology and then an
honors in psychology, and I was Masters of Research when
I left to work at mum Maya, which that like
academic writing. I just have so much respect people who
stick with that because it is so bloody hard. But
I was always really interested studying psychology about how shame
(10:17):
and they call it metacognition. Basically, our thoughts about our
thoughts can be the most toxic thing. It's not even
that you're experiencing something that's the issue. It's the story
you tell yourself about.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Thoughts about our thoughts. Break that down.
Speaker 6 (10:31):
So for example, and there's a theme about it in
the book, this is what happened to me. If you
have a baby and you have a really traumatic birth,
and you come out of that experience, you're feeling like, Wow,
that did not go how I thought it would. That's
one thing, and that's actually quite easy to treat. The
issue is when you then start telling yourself, no, it's
(10:53):
wrong to feel that I shouldn't. I shouldn't be allowed
to say that that wasn't a positive experience like. That's
where she comes in. So for the book, what really
interested me was this idea of shame and the fact
that when we stuff up, we all make mistakes, we
all do terrible things and regret them. That happens all
(11:13):
the time in life. We forgive each other for all
sorts of things and in friendships and relationships and families.
But on the internet, there isn't that grace. There isn't
that forgiveness. I don't think we have a narrative for
forgiveness online. And the shame that we bombard people with
is actually counterproductive. It stops people from seeing your perspective.
(11:39):
So I'm sure you guys would have seen it that
if you stuff up, and I have stuffed up, I've
written stories that I regret, I have posted things that
I regret.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
If somebody comes to me and says.
Speaker 6 (11:49):
Hey, you wrote this thing, actually like it doesn't quite
sit right, and this is why nine times out of
ten I'm like, oh my gosh, yes, thank you for that.
If someone one says you're an absolute monster psychopath, what
is wrong with you, you're instantly defensive totally.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
But it's also because their perception of you is so
far from who you are that it's like, I can't
rationalize with the way you think of me.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
I'm not even going to entertain it.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
So therefore you throw it all out with the bathwater
the baby as well, instead of being like, Okay, I
actually can see your point and you've raised some good
reasoning here, and you know what that's made me think
about x y Z.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
I think.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
The thing though, that is slightly different when we talk
about like online cancel culture versus our friendships or within
our own communities, is that often the story in the
narrative that's happening online is also not the truth. So
there's this feeling of wanting to defend yourself because people
have got partial truth, so they've got the media version
of the truth, or they've got one influencer's version of
the truth because they're screaming on the internet, and so like,
(12:50):
I think that that's why it can be really hard
for someone to take any sort of responsibility because they're like,
but you want me to take responsibility for something I
didn't fucking do. And so it's this really challenging space
where we hold such a high moral compass for people
we don't know, but also have no grace for forgiveness
for the things that they potentially didn't even do anyway
(13:11):
in the way that we think they have exactly.
Speaker 6 (13:13):
And I was thinking about this idea for years because
working in media, I saw that happen over and over again.
It might be that, like when I was editor in chief,
I made a decision or we did a campaign, and
it would be received in a certain way, and it
might seriously be that something was just not true whatever
(13:33):
the story people had run with.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
I would say.
Speaker 6 (13:36):
Hey, do you want to get on the phone and
have a chat about this, because what you're saying actually
is actually false. And I saw that happen to people
in media, to people I know, where it would be
something where I could tell all they wanted to do
was scream and say, actually, no, you've got the wrong story.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
So with this book.
Speaker 6 (13:52):
What I wanted to do was I kind of considered
making it nonfiction for a little bit. I thought maybe
I could interview people and tell their stories, and I thought, no,
the thing I really want to elicit is that feeling.
All I want is for people to know what that
feeling is when you feel like you're misunderstood and your
reputation's at stake, and it's incredibly scary. And I guess
(14:14):
the question that I wanted to engage with was how
are we meant to if we're the most self actualized
versions of ourselves, Are we meant to be fine with
people saying things about us that aren't true, with people
having with their being a narrative out there that is false?
Or is it a really natural human instinct to want
(14:36):
to have integrity and challenge defend yourself.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
I mean it's interesting for me that you've gotten so
into this space. I mean, obviously you had the podcast
canceled with your sister, which was kind of almost I
mean it was as much as it looked at like
the reasons for why people were canceled and whether they
were deserving of their cancelations or not. It also had
a real comedy based to it as well, But for
the people who are at the bottom of those cancelations,
there's nothing fucking funny about it. No, what was it
(15:04):
about cancel culture that made you want to go so
deep on it as something to research, but also as
something to write a book about.
Speaker 6 (15:11):
I read John Ronson's so You've been publicly shamed ten
years ago.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Can't believe that was ten years ago, ahead of his time?
Speaker 6 (15:18):
Really, Oh my gosh, so ahead of his time, and
the fact that he wrote that and then ten years later,
if anything, I think it's just gotten worse. So I
was really interested in the idea of public shaming and
what it does to an individual, and I feel like
there's been all these stories in the last decade about that,
and also this idea that on the internet, the more
(15:41):
time we're spending online, and I think, I hope I'm
in a forgiving company when I say, are we all
ashamed of how much time we spent on it?
Speaker 3 (15:48):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Yeah, I looked yesterday and it was horrifying.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
It's sickening.
Speaker 6 (15:52):
And I think that the more time we are spending
on our phones and we're essentially living online as opposed
to living in the real world, and is just going
to make that even more terrifying. But the more time
we are spending on our phone, the more we are
dehumanizing each other, and the less we are able to
see the nuances of the human condition. And you see
it more and more in the way people talk to
(16:14):
each other online. There's a researcher who calls it digital hostility,
and it's just this thing that we do where we
really paint people with two dimensional brushes. And you might
not think that it's a big deal if you're online
and you're just saying you're racist, you're sexist, you're misogynistic,
you're just saying all these things, and you think, well,
maybe there's some kind of social utility to what you're doing.
(16:36):
But to that person, what you're doing is dehumanizing. But
it's also prejudice. It's also, ironically, it's exactly what you're
kind of saying that you don't want to do, which
is that you're being prejudiced because you're not giving that
person the opportunity for careful, considered judgment or understanding, and
you're just making this snap assessment of them that actually
(17:00):
really is soul destroying and does something incredibly scary to
that person's emotional state.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
I think that because you've touched on it twice, you've
said that the impacts that it has on people, but
also like the toll it takes them, Like what is
the impact of cancel culture and someone who is at
the bottom of that pylon.
Speaker 6 (17:18):
So I interviewed a lot of people in media, most
of them off the record for this book, and interviewed
both of you guys on but Are You Happy?
Speaker 3 (17:27):
And we sort of touched on record.
Speaker 6 (17:30):
On and off record and really talked about what it
feels like when basically you're being screened at online, when
somebody's attacking you, and in those conversations and actually, by
the time this episode comes out, I hope my podcast
The Pylon will be out where I'm interviewing people about
exactly this. I have found that there is serious mental
(17:55):
health consequences to that, to the point where people who
are otherwise it's quite healthy contemplate suicide. For a lot
of people, it is the darkest moment of their life.
And what's really scary is that you can't say it.
You're not allowed to say it because the nature of
the pylon means that you are not the victim. Someone
(18:18):
else is the victim, so you're not allowed to say, hey,
I'm not okay. There have actually been quite a few cases,
and one well known case in Australia where there was
a pylon and the person at the center of it
did choose to end their life, and I think we
don't give a lot of consideration to that. And suicide
is incredibly complicated and there are always so many factors.
(18:41):
But this particular researcher who researches digital hostility, says, if
we are choosing to live online and we have essentially
uploaded our identity online and that identity is being destroyed,
there is something really fundamental and terrifying about that moment,
and it really does.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
But also, day you.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
It's not just about that specific moment. People lose their
actual jobs. I mean, you know, we can touch on
and talk about like how the council culture impacted Georgia
Love and her career, but also we interviewed Sam Frost
on this podcast a little while ago, and you guys
will all remember what happened in COVID when Sam came
out and spoke about her fears around the vaccine, which
(19:25):
genuinely are very valid fears, and she wasn't saying that
she'd never had it. She wasn't saying she wasn't going to,
but she was like, there is absolutely no grace at
the moment for people who have mental health problems or
severe anxieties around what these vaccines could do. And to
be fair, I know that everyone was angry because COVID
was obviously a very very emotionally heightened time. There were
(19:46):
people who are far more immunosuppressed and who needed other
you know, as that sort of like mass vaccination. Everyone
needed everyone to kind of band together as a community.
But that's not to say that what she said didn't
have validity to it, but we had absolutely no grace
and the way that the Internet, in particular some influences
went after her. When she spoke to us on this podcast,
(20:07):
she talked about how she has been so close to
ending her own life, but she also said, there is
nothing that anyone could say to me in that moment
that was worse than how I already felt about myself.
She's like, I hated myself. She left home and away,
she retreated from her life. Online ended her career, it
ended her acting career. It's actually crazy how impactful some
(20:30):
of these things can be and I do think that
sometimes it is the forefront of it is other influencers
doing it to each other. Yeah, And the thing that's
so scary about that is they should know better because
when they are the ones who are on the receiving end.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Of it, then they're like, why is everyone attacking me?
Speaker 2 (20:45):
It's like, dude, you do it to everyone else, Like
how can you not take some or have some self
reflection that what you do hurts people deeply?
Speaker 4 (20:54):
Because it's weaponized. We know it's weaponized. We know it's
weabonized by specific people that capitalize off it.
Speaker 5 (21:00):
In Australian media, we've all seen it. And what happened
to Sam Frost isn't an isolated to be honest, which
it was devastated, which is the sad part. And I think,
and I speak from experience, a big problem is when
you are being attacked by somebody, even though you know
it's not true what they're saying, you can't say anything.
I couldn't say anything like I had suicidal ideations.
Speaker 4 (21:24):
I've spoken about that.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
The person knows. I told the person what I was
going through. Couldn't give a fuck.
Speaker 5 (21:31):
Ye did not matter you can't say anything because you're
so scared of the double down. Yeah, Like, if I
tried to defend myself, if I tried to apologize, if
I tried to explain or tell the truth, it doesn't
matter because the pylon is worse. I was so scared
of this person making what I was already a very
(21:52):
dangerous time for me worse that I couldn't say anything.
And I know that from experience, that's what multiple people feel.
Speaker 6 (21:58):
Yeah, and that's exactly what happens in the book that
this character learns that the more she says, the more
she tries to explain herself, that is going to be
dissected to the point where there is no purpose in
trying to explain it. The other thing that I kind
of built into the book that's a little bit timely
(22:19):
that I didn't realize would be is the idea of
these gossip forums.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
And there's a scene where she discussed.
Speaker 6 (22:26):
That there's tell yes, that there's a gossip forum about her.
I think, as you were saying, Laura, about somebody like
Sam Frost, where it's like you say something and it's attacked,
I think what we really need to do is relearn
the art of debate and arguing, because I am all
for if it's COVID and there's somebody who questions the vaccine,
(22:49):
I'm all for an argument that says, yes, but this
vaccine is our way out and this is really important. Like,
I am all for that argument. What I am not
for is the conflation of an individual with an ideology.
So in that moment, Sam Frost sees to be Sam Frost,
complex human being who we love for many, many, many reasons,
(23:09):
who we.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
Watched on TV and all adored.
Speaker 6 (23:12):
She sees to be that person, and instead just became
this ideology of anti vaccine.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
You know what it was.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
And I remember that so clearly because I remember watching
her video and I remember how bad the cancel culture
was with that, and I felt so deeply for her
because I knew that she'd been misunderstood. She used the
word it's causing segregation, and everyone latched onto that and
then said, you're a racist because you're comparing this to apartheid.
I actually don't think she realized that she meant separation
(23:40):
rather than segregate. I genuinely think that that was she
just used the honest mistake. She literally just written and
published a book called believe about her mental health and
trying to advocate to help the better mental holds for
people in general. And I remember seeing how hard people
were going on that one word, and I was like, absolutely,
there is an education piece around how maybe that word
(24:01):
wasn't used correctly, that that doesn't make her racist because
she didn't understand that she's used it in this context,
maybe not in the right way. And now we're conflating
racism and fucking vaccines, like what is going on.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
It was just a crazy time.
Speaker 5 (24:17):
And I don't want to sit on Sam because this
is not about Sam, and I understand she's come up.
But an important note in that example is that I
truly believe the people that were going after her knew
that that was an honest mistake. They absolutely knew that
she did not mean anything by that, But they don't care.
Speaker 4 (24:34):
They want to be angry and they want to be loud.
Speaker 6 (24:36):
And I think that's what I wanted to explore as well,
this idea that we are using the internet and using
each other to prosecute really complex moral questions, and we're
doing it a lot at the moment. We are looking
at individuals and because and there is a justified reason
for it, which is the state of the world right
(24:57):
now is so terrifying and there there are so many
moral and legal and ethical atrocities going on that it
is too hard to try to engage with them.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
So what we do is we engage with people.
Speaker 6 (25:10):
Because it's easier to just look at somebody in Australia
and say, well, I'm going to hold them to account
for a huge issue that's happening internationally, because it's easier
to yell at that person than it is to create
any actual political change. And it is and there is
also utility in that, and that is exploring the book
as well, that there are many moments where these sort
(25:31):
of conversations have led to significant change. But I do
think it's important for us to know that in terms
of change, in terms of advocacy, there is so much
that doesn't have to be done online, and there is
a lot that we do online that doesn't actually turn
into change totally.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
I think that that is probably the real nail on
the head moment. There's a lot of yelling online that's
been dressed up as advocacy but actually makes no real
tangible change whatsoever. It gets people angry and I actually
think that sometimes. And we saw this in the Great
Makeup Debate from a million years ago on YouTube. It
was the first time that we had seen cancel culture
(26:14):
used as a way of growing your own engagement. Yes,
and I think that there are people who use outrage
as a way to grow their own following on social media.
It's a formula that works. We see it work time
and time again. I have a big following, you have
a big following. I'm going to scream at you. More
people who agree with me are going to come and
join my following. Outrage culture is the easiest way to
(26:36):
amass the biggest following in the quickest way. And I
actually do think, you know, unpacking what is the real
world tangible changes that's made by that, probably not a lot,
to be honest.
Speaker 6 (26:47):
And I think if you look at it at a
macro level, and this is something that in my Pylon podcast,
I hope it'll illustrate this point that disproportionately the people
we come after in online outrage are women and women
of color, and they are the ones who suffer the
consequences the most. And what scares me about that is
(27:09):
that then we look at the media landscape and we think, oh,
it's weird, we've got no diversity.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
And I know a.
Speaker 6 (27:16):
Lot of women of color in media who have been
attacked in such vicious ways that they disappear because it's like, well,
I don't or women who are minorities in all sorts
of ways who have put themselves out there. The vitriol
has been so horrendous that they're like, oh God, no,
(27:38):
no sane person would do this. I'm not going to
do this. So what you end up with is, you know,
I love Karl Stefanovic, but you end up with the
Karl Stefanovics who are like I am.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
Untouchable jeth One.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
They don't ever experience cancer culture because no one's ever
going to go after them, or the debate is online
is like, oh but we're not Carl, because Carl's lovely,
But the debate is online is like, but we expect
that of them, So I don't go after them because
I expect that, But I don't expect it of you.
So I'm going to hold you to a much higher
moral standard because you're a woman and I expect better
from you and X y Z. But it's I mean, yeah,
(28:13):
it's such a tricky one to try and get to
the bottom of, like what is the reason why are
we like this?
Speaker 4 (28:18):
Or something we've been speaking a fair bit about lately.
Speaker 5 (28:20):
But I hate this rhetoric of, well, you put yourself
in the public eye, you need to expect this, You
need to expect the pylons and the cancelations and the
attacks and the racism and the people that hate you.
And I call bullshit on that, And I think that
circles back to what you were just talking about. Gone
are the days where you can agree to disagree with
someone and have an educated discussion with somebody, And like
(28:41):
I think, if you're in the public eye, you welcome that,
and you can welcome constructive criticism, but it doesn't open
you up to a firing round of every single person's
hate betrayal, and you know, like they know better.
Speaker 6 (28:53):
And there's stuff that's just unhelpful and you want to
just you just want to yell about it. And I
had an experience recently that I thought was funny because
I shared something about my book that the cover was out,
and I was really excited, and then I hope again,
I hope I'm in forgiving company. I googled my book
(29:13):
to work out if I could see anywhere how it
was performing. By the way, the pre orders had been
opened for like five minutes. But I'm like, am I.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
Bet Shelly Yah?
Speaker 4 (29:22):
New York Times is calling it?
Speaker 6 (29:24):
So I google it and when I googled it, a
gossip forum came out and I was like, uh, do
press it. Dopress it, depress it, pressed it and it
was a screenshot of my book announcement and it was
like basically, holy crap, she looks so old. And I
was like oh, and I had like a moment of
like ooh, and you go all hot. And then I
thought about it and I was like, this is so
(29:46):
fucked up because I've written a book.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
I never claimed to look young. I'm not selling your
skincare you know what.
Speaker 4 (29:51):
Like, and I just thought, yeah, I'll do anything.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
What does that do?
Speaker 6 (29:56):
And I thought this is just such an interesting example
of women are often yelling at each other being like,
don't get botops, don't get filler. It's so unfair you're
putting pre and then don't say you don't, and then
it's like you're old and that offends me.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
It's so like, what do you want me to do?
Speaker 4 (30:15):
Like fill one lip, like get just.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
Enough so that I can't tell you're old because it's true.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
But it's undetectable because if it looks too dumb, that
it's triggering to me.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
Also, that's why I won't click on it.
Speaker 4 (30:29):
I just got to stop doing it.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
You have more self control. I could done everything I
love to read.
Speaker 4 (30:33):
No, I've got PTSD. My mental health wouldn't take it.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Now.
Speaker 4 (30:37):
If I could see whole threads, I just couldn't do it.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
I've reached a state of nirvana where I find it
funny and it's really taken a long time, and I
do genuinely mean this. For a long time, it used
to severely impact me. I don't know what changed. I
actually think it might have been having kids and I
don't take things as seriously at all, Like I don't
take anything seriously anymore.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
Life's a show survive.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
So when I see people having got me online, I
find it quite funny now because it's usually, like you know,
it's usually something that's just like so ridiculously critical about
something I've never thought of that I'm like, wow, I
live rent free in your brain you spend time thinking
about me, that's you're a.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
Fan, You're like, cue, you are fan Claire.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
You said something about the book specifically and about how
the character is trying to defend herself and she's making
the situation worse in this whole Pylon catastrophe. And I mean,
we've brought this up a couple of times over the years,
but the best advice I've ever received during one of
these really heated moments of like public spotlight was from
(31:44):
Mere Friedman. She slid into our DMS and she's always
been someone who's been very very kind during any kind
of exchange because she's experienced it so many times herself.
And she said, do not reply, Do not respond, Do
not put gas on the fire.
Speaker 4 (31:59):
Don't give it oxygen.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Every time you reply, it's you give them some new
headlines to write. You give them something else to respond to.
She was like, never respond, but you know what, like.
Speaker 5 (32:09):
She group shatowed us to say that, but that for me,
I've been battling with that advice. I originally thought it
was the right thing to do, and now I'm not
sure because I know for my Pylon, I didn't respond once,
not once, and I was attacked for eighteen months over
and over again, and it got to the point where
I was like, I'm gonna fucking take shit down if
(32:30):
this happens one more time.
Speaker 4 (32:31):
And I even remember you've been Laura being like breathe
through it.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
We're not going to do it.
Speaker 4 (32:34):
And I said, why why can't I respond?
Speaker 2 (32:36):
You know?
Speaker 3 (32:36):
And I battled between it. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (32:39):
But there is a media figure in Australia who I
have spoken to a bit throughout this, and I've and
he's written beautifully about this, and he has no social
media so he's never responded to anything, never read anything
about himself. And I was talking to him about like,
(33:00):
do you detect when there is stuff in the zeitgeist
where like can you feel the energy if you're walking
down the street. And he's like, no, yeah, that No,
it's blissful ignorance. And I have to say this particular person,
any storm, anything, it passes, it passes because he is
not there.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
He's feeling, he's not an eye of it.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
Yeah, but it is different because he's a man, so
it's not as furious, and it's not as it doesn't
come with as much vitriol. And that is what as
women we do to each other online. The cancelations don't
stop they continue and continue. The only reason why I
think that the advice from me of Friedman. Yes, it
can be conflicting because the problem is when you respond
(33:41):
with silence, it's interpreted as guilt and that you're not apologetic.
But the issue is that there is no apology that
is ever good enough. There is unless the apology comes
on the front foot before the cancelation even started. If
your apology comes after that cancelation is in motion, it
means nothing. It doesn't matter how deeply you mean it.
(34:01):
And so for me, I'm like, I think that it
was great advice. And I have definitely seen people make
their situations a fuck load worse by getting on the
internet and yelling back and trying to defend themselves, and
you know, it's it really is just this kind of
like ticking time bomb. Now that I think that all
people who have very public media lives, they are a
whisper away from any sort of like controversy or cancelation.
(34:24):
But what do you think is the defining factor between
people who survived them and people who don't. What is
someone who's an attempted cancelation and someone who's actually defined
as being canceled.
Speaker 6 (34:35):
I do think that in all the kind of cases
I've looked at, all the people I've spoken to, time
does solve it. And that is not always a good thing.
There are many people who have committed crimes, who have
done a horrific thing, mostly men.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and years down the track it's all forgotten.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
They're on our TVs. So long as you're a white
middle aged man, you're fine. You can come back from
anything exactly exactly.
Speaker 3 (35:00):
So I do think that time actually people.
Speaker 6 (35:03):
The one benefit of our attention spans being so disgustingly
short is that we forget or it just gets a
bit muddied, where you're like, eh, I feel like that
person did something once, but whatever, I've completely forgotten about it.
But I do think that there is an element of
(35:23):
kind of self actualization that needs to happen for anybody
who is going to put work out there. So people
who are podcasting, people who are writing where And it
was actually Zara from Shameless who said to me that
a kind of pivotal point for the two of them
was deciding that who they show up as as the
(35:46):
host of that podcast is not who they are as people.
That is two different things. And so if people have
a problem with something they've said on the podcast that's
not them, and they can't conflate the two, because that's
when you've really really start to struggle. But I think
it is kind of important to remember that anybody in
(36:06):
the public eye, even the people that you have kind
of villainized and who might seem ridiculous or whatever, they
are human beings. And the thing that I touch on
in the book, and I wonder if you guys think
this as well, that I think people assume that if
you're the person on a podcast, writing, creating anything, that
(36:27):
you must have incredibly high self esteem and be incredibly
sure of yourself. I find it's the opposite that often
when you're the person putting yourself out there and it's
driven by creativity and it's driven by a desire to
be understood, it can often be because there is actually
(36:47):
quite a deep hole in you that you want filled
by other people validation. Yes, yes, And so when people
come for you, you feel like saying, oh, no, no, no, no, no,
you've misunderstood it.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
I just want to love me.
Speaker 6 (36:58):
I hate myself what you're saying about me. I've thought it,
I have thought it. And in the book. The kind
of backstory is that this particular character who's been canceled
online for something she's done, it sort of unravels that
there's a story from her past that is really the
worst thing she's ever done, that she's never been able
to reconcile. And so it's this thing of shame, the
(37:23):
fact that there is shame in our personal lives where
you don't have to put shame on somebody else. We're
all ashamed. We're all so ashamed of a million different
things that we do, and so shame is not a
helpful emotion to get somebody to change their behavior, and
if anything, it just drives them to a dark, dark,
dark place where they are not going.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
To change their minds.
Speaker 6 (37:45):
And I think in this moment in history, one of
the biggest things we're contending with is how do we
get people to change their minds, How do we encourage
healthy debate and actually sharing information and facts. And I
think the way we're going, people are just becoming more
siloed because shame pushes people more and more to the extremes.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
Do you think when it comes to these conversations online
that it's about accountability of the thing that's happened, or
do you think the reason why the people are engaging
in it is because it makes them feel morally superior. Well, like, well,
I would never say that, I would never do that.
How could they be so bacist, bigoted, misogynist?
Speaker 1 (38:22):
Whatever it is?
Speaker 6 (38:23):
And it's a performance, and I think we have to
remember that that everything that happens online is a performance,
and so calling somebody out for a moral transgression it
is coming from a place of I'm not doing this privately.
Speaker 3 (38:37):
I'm not doing this.
Speaker 6 (38:38):
I'm not reaching out to somebody via text message to say, hey,
you said this thing and it made me feel uncomfortable,
because that would be a very different interaction and you'd
probably find that you were aligned on most things. When
somebody calls somebody out publicly, it is a performance and
it is a performance of morality. And I just don't
(39:00):
think that morality is that simple. I think it's really
complex and that all of us contain multitudes, and it erases.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
All of that I know you just mentioned.
Speaker 5 (39:10):
I mean, we've discussed the fact that women are more
likely to be canceled. What else do you think makes
someone cancelable? Like, is it always their indiscretions and their
actions or is it who they are.
Speaker 6 (39:21):
Something that has scared me a little bit working in
media and looking at this kind of stuff is that,
at least in my world, it is women coming after women,
and I think women are triggered by other women. And
it reminds me a lot of high school. It reminds
me a lot of when you're at school and you
found someone annoying and so you just say really cruel
(39:45):
things about them. And often it is somebody who seems
self assured or is putting themselves out there or taking
some risks, and there's something about that that makes you
feel really, really uncomfortable. So I think it is that,
and what protects from it is often being really self deprecating.
The problem with that is that when women walk through
(40:07):
the world being self deprecating, we're underestimated and we don't
get what we deserve. Yeah, so bat it's yeah, it's
this irritating thing of you feel like you always have
to be squashing yourself down to not upset anyone. But
that's what's kept women in their place for two thousand years.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
How do you think tall poppy syndrome plays into it?
Speaker 6 (40:24):
I think in Australia in particular we definitely have. And
I say this as somebody who has this instinct too,
as I joke about being a communist and I joke
about how bad I am a capitalism, but like, you
do have this instinct of you see what other people have.
(40:45):
And I grew up actually very much with the mentality
that if you had money, or if you had kind
of tangible success, that was morally bad. Maybe it's like
a Catholic thing.
Speaker 3 (40:58):
I don't know.
Speaker 6 (40:58):
It was some weird modesty slash don't have more than
you need thing.
Speaker 4 (41:04):
And if you do, don't talk about it, yes, and
you don't show it.
Speaker 3 (41:07):
And I really grew up with that.
Speaker 6 (41:09):
And interestingly, it was only a few years ago that
I had some conversations with friends and I'm not super
into all the manifesting stuff, like even though I do,
we do it, but we don't ever want to say
that we do it because it sounds too woo wood.
Speaker 1 (41:26):
You're me.
Speaker 4 (41:27):
I manifested my husband.
Speaker 3 (41:28):
Yeah, everyone manifests the love of their life. They do,
and like I journal, I do all that stuff.
Speaker 6 (41:34):
But I did have friends say, do you think the
fact that you have all these weird views about money
means that you're then not like attracting it, like you're
purposely kind of shunning it totally, like in an unconscious
way because you think that money is bad. And I'm like,
oh yeah, And I think Australians do that a little
(41:55):
bit in our culture. And I do think there are
so many issues with capitalism and there are so many
issues with billionaires and the planet's going to shit and
all of that, but I reckon in Australia we do
have this bit of a mentality that we do not
lack people with money, especially women.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
It's an interesting conversation we had with Eliti Pullan and
also with Chloy Fisher, so they both and this was
on podcasts when we interviewed Cloyfisher and she said, you know,
I've never felt so like not hated is not the
right word, but like people really enjoyed the shared trauma
and the shared grief that they were both going through
(42:32):
and then as they've started to find their happiness and
also in that happiness success, Yes, people have turned on them.
Their own audience are like, well, you've changed in some ways,
and it's like, why is it that when people are
down and sad that we're like, yes, they're just two
chicks giving it a go. But then when it's two
people who are successful and they're happy, it's like, hold on,
(42:53):
you've changed.
Speaker 3 (42:54):
Now we hate it.
Speaker 6 (42:54):
It's this visceral thing and it's really I always find
it fascinating in tabloids where they have a successful Australian
woman walking down the street and they calculate how much
her outfit is worth, and I'm like, you would never
do that to Hamish Blake. You would never do that
to cal Stepanovic. You'd never do that to a man,
even though probably the bloody watch on the man's wrist
(43:18):
is worth more than whatever that woman's wearing.
Speaker 1 (43:19):
Totally, they would do it too. It was a real
feature for a while there.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
Every time Zoe Foster Blake stepped out of the house,
they would do it to Zoe, but never once to Hamish.
Speaker 6 (43:26):
It's true, and it's like, why do we have this
instinctive reaction towards a woman who has had success? And
then we talk about wanting pay equality, We talk about
the fact that bloody venture capitalis like women get no
funding for their businesses, women are underrepresented in terms of
extreme wealth.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
With all of this and knowing how deep you've gone
in cancel culture. What is the antidote to it?
Speaker 6 (43:50):
I think the antidote is Oh I hate saying this
because I don't practice it, but I.
Speaker 3 (43:57):
Think we need to spend less time on our phones.
Speaker 6 (44:00):
I really really think that the amount of time we're
spending is what is resulting in the dehumanization and the
language and the anger. I think it's really we're just
totally oblivious to the nuances of real life because we're
not living it as much anymore. So I think that,
(44:21):
But I also think trying to engage with people in
your life more than you're engaging with people online. Like
I think you everybody goes to their family Christmas and
you see the uncle who doesn't believe in climate change
and who is a Trump supporter, and you sit down
(44:42):
and you respect him, and you have a conversation with him.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
You don't stand up and scream at him, don't.
Speaker 3 (44:46):
Tell him to get out.
Speaker 6 (44:47):
Some people I know and those people probably don't have
very long lasting relationships because that's what life's about. And
so I think we just need to interact day to
day with people we don't agree with. And I think
we need to learn relearn the art of debate.
Speaker 5 (45:04):
It's also at the end of the day, we're not
going to spend less time online. It's a beautiful thought.
Speaker 3 (45:09):
I really can someone's I know it.
Speaker 5 (45:13):
Someone can TikTok, But I think it's really important to
just start to try to understand someone's perspective. You don't
have to agree with it, but understand why, why they
might think like that, what might have happened to them
in their life to put them in that position, why
they're doing what they're doing. Again, you can have an
educate debate, you can talk through it. You can hate
(45:33):
them and dislike them, but you don't have to attack
them for it. And I think the understanding is going
to bring us a long way with being more human
in our interactions.
Speaker 6 (45:41):
I remember hearing somebody say a little while ago, like,
how would you behave if you just assumed everyone was
doing their best? Like with what they have, everyone's doing
their best? And I was like, people aren't doing their best.
Everyone's freaking annoying. And since having a child, and I
think the experience of birthing a child, having a newborn
innocence and you're like, oh, everybody was born like this,
(46:05):
and like everybody everybody started innocent, and maybe everybody is
just doing their best with what they have, and that's
what's so complicated about being a human being.
Speaker 1 (46:14):
Well by by a Claire's book. Yes, the worst thing
I've ever done. Claire, You're amazing.
Speaker 2 (46:20):
We love having you here, wedore you. Congratulations on the book.
Speaker 3 (46:23):
Everyone go by it.
Speaker 1 (46:24):
We're gonna put all the links in the show notes
as well.
Speaker 5 (46:26):
And also the pre sales, like the waiting lists and
everything are really important. So like, if you do have
an interest in buying this and you're like, oh, one
day I'll do it, go and jump online, because it
does show the publisher like yeah, yeah, that it could
need this many copies instead and have this much interest.
Speaker 4 (46:40):
So it is important for our little indie.
Speaker 3 (46:42):
I'll get it for sixteen dollars bargain. That's so cheap.
That's like two or maybe two and a.
Speaker 1 (46:48):
Half if you have soy milk.
Speaker 3 (46:51):
That's to.
Speaker 1 (46:53):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (46:54):
Junny kabaaa baaaa
This episode was recorded on Cameragle Land.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hi guys, and welcome back to another episode of Life.
I'm Cut, I'm Laura, I'm Brittany, and we have a
very good friend here in the studio, Claire Stephens. She
is a writer, a screenwriter, an editor, and a podcaster.
She's the former editor in chief at Mamma Mia and
host of the podcast Canceled and also but Are You Happy.
Claire also worked as a writer and a producer on
the Binge series Strife starring Ashi Ketty, and is about
(00:34):
to publish her first novel, The Worst Thing I've Ever
Done Now. This tells the story of Ruby Williams, a
young woman working in digital media who publishes an article
that sees her at the bottom of an online pylon.
Claire is here today to speak about the psychology of pylons,
cancel culture, what type of people handle being canceled better
than others, and the media narratives surrounding public shaming.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Hello, I'm so excited to be here.
Speaker 4 (01:00):
I can't wait to get to the bottom of this.
Speaker 5 (01:03):
I'm fascinated to hear why you decided to write about
this topic and you're researching it I do know you've
reached out to me in the past as contribute to it.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Yeah, you been cancelled. What are you talking about? It's
a joke.
Speaker 5 (01:16):
No, I haven't been canceled, but there have been attempted cancelation.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
And this is interesting though, right, Like what makes a
cancelation VERSEU an attempted cancelation?
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Like what is the psychology.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Ingredients that makes one worse than the other? Because yeah,
we've seen them play out, we will unpack.
Speaker 5 (01:33):
But let's before we get into that, do accidentally unfiltered
our most embarrassing story.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
I feel like you've got a goodie.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
I've got a really bad one. I thought.
Speaker 6 (01:41):
I was like, oh, I should think of a less
embarrassing one, but I didn't have time, so I just
had to go with the absolute worst.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
We like it to really scrape the bottom of the bar,
or they're the good ones.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
It's disgusting, Like it's the kind of story people will
be like, oh.
Speaker 6 (01:54):
No, that actually is incredibly humiliating. So we all remember COVID.
During COVID, I was quite proud of this. I didn't
really drink during COVID just because it was my partner
and I at home. I was like, actually exercising, properly,
living my best life for the first time ever. So
I didn't drink. But then the lockdown laws lifted for
(02:15):
the first time, and there are gonna be a group
of girls listening to this that know exactly where it's going.
But a friend of mine was like, all, book a
boozy lunch, like we'll do it in bond eye group
of girls, margaritas, like unlimited alcohol, let's do it. And
I was like, cannot wait. Didn't think about the fact
that I hadn't drunk for several months. So I go
(02:36):
to this lunch and we're all too excited. We're too excited.
All our lives have fallen apart.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
It's freedom, You're back again together, finally share trauma right.
Speaker 6 (02:46):
And everyone's like everything's terrible. But it was very very bonding.
So I'm smashing these margaritas. Then we had rose. I
was just going, going, going, no sense of how much
I've had anything like that.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
I am not a.
Speaker 6 (03:01):
Particularly big drinker, so even like growing up, I didn't
have that many instances of just writing myself off.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
You're also a very tiny person.
Speaker 6 (03:09):
And that's another thing that if I'm sitting next to
somebody who's six foot tall and like athletic. They can
down twice as much as I can. So I'm just
keeping up with everyone. I'm having all these drinks. We
go to one of the girl's houses, We're having more drinks.
I'm like, I'm gonna go to the bathroom. And then
I stood up and was like, I have never been
this drunk in my entire life.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Somehow, I don't. This is where I black out.
Speaker 6 (03:32):
I have a tiny memory of being outside Messina on
Hall Street, passed out absolutely. Somehow I messaged my now
husband to be like I'm fucked, and he arrived.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
I don't know how.
Speaker 6 (03:47):
I don't know how I knew where I was, Like
I'd gone to somebody's house. I don't know how we
knew anyway, he gets me, I'm vomiting on the street
in BONDI the day the lockdowns, so like I cannot
tell you how many people would have been on that street.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
Thing like, is that that person?
Speaker 6 (04:03):
Does? I think I know that first? So my partner
gets me. I wake up in hospital and we've got
a drip. We've got a drip because.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
They actually didn't need ambulance.
Speaker 6 (04:15):
Yeah, they don't pump stomachs anymore. They just fluids and stuff,
and so I wake up. I'm like, how humiliating. Anyway,
Jesse's there trying to help, but Jesse's also drunk, so
she her entire job was to hold my hand straight
so that the fluid could go in. She got distracted
and didn't do that, and then I woke up to
like this huge bubble of fluid on my arm, and
(04:37):
the doctor's like Jesus Christ, the emergency room is full
of drunk people. Anyway, I still live with the thought
that I'm like someone I know definitely saw me that day.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Definitely lucky that no one.
Speaker 5 (04:52):
Took video, no one took photos, because that could have
been the end of that.
Speaker 4 (04:56):
Could have you your pilot, your cancelation, Like who I.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Could have been?
Speaker 6 (05:00):
Know when Scomo fell into the Joyce fell into the plan.
I had so much empathy when he did that.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
That read free my head.
Speaker 6 (05:09):
I'm like, you know what, I disagree with your politics,
but we've all written ourselves so that what we.
Speaker 4 (05:14):
Said we felt for him, we did.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
We feel for him guided that much. I did.
Speaker 6 (05:19):
And then he said he was on a medication that
made him more sensitive to alcohol and I'm like, I
don't believe you, but like it's fine.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Mushrooms is like Claire, which medication were you on?
Speaker 6 (05:28):
Absolutely none? Absolutely none? So that was yeah. No, that
was the most embarrassing moment of my entire life. And
if you have photos of that, no you don't, Okay,
I'll pay for the photos.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Oh God, You've had like a very big year.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
And one of the things in terms of you, you've
left myma Mia, you have gone out do your own work,
to write your own book. Not just the reasons around
like why did you leave momameir or decide to go
out in your own but I think for anyone who
has ever had a massive work transition where they have
taken a punt, whether it's been that they wanted to
start their own small business, but making that huge leap
(06:03):
between what feels completely safe to the unknown. Firstly, why
did you want to do that for yourself? And also
what has this period been like for you?
Speaker 6 (06:11):
I wanted to do it because I think I don't
know if you had this, Laura, But when you have
a child, I think sometimes it can be quite clarifying.
For me having Matilda I for the first time ever,
it's like I realized time was finite and that like
it totally changed my idea of hold on, if there's
(06:33):
things I want to do, I actually have to do them.
And I think something to do with seeing someone grow
in front of you that you're like, oh my god,
that's five months, that's six months, that's seven months, and
you're seeing it and you kind of can't ignore it.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Puts time into perspective exactly exactly.
Speaker 6 (06:48):
So I think having Matilda made me realize, hold on,
if there's things I want to do, if there's risks
I want to take, I actually have to do it.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
It's not just going to happen.
Speaker 6 (06:57):
So I had been at Mameya for almost a decade
and I really wanted to work on some independent projects
and challenge myself, like really step outside my comfort zone.
The other thing was I'm a twin and my twin
sister works at Mama and I'd worked with her for
ten years, and I think that was also a bit
(07:19):
of a safety blanket that at the time, Like people
probably didn't know this when we were working there, but
we were so like if I wrote something, I'd always
get her to read it before I sent it off
to be published, or if I had an idea I'd
run it past her, and I think as fun as
that is, I did think a psychologist would probably tell
me that it really important, that's really important to back
(07:42):
yourself and learn who you are outside the context of
that relationship.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Well, I've heard you speak a little bit about feeling
as though you were in the shadows of what Jesse
was doing a little bit, especially within a company when
I mean we've had Jesse Stevens on the podcast before.
Brilliant is also one of the co hosts of Muma
Mia out Loud, And it's like when you are the
same growing up because you're twins, and then you're in
a company where one person potentially is getting more jobs
or there's comparisons that are being made. How do you
(08:09):
deal with that when it's your sister.
Speaker 6 (08:10):
A lot of times throughout my twenty when I did
struggle with that, because I have struggled with that growing up,
Like you can't help it. You just get compared. And
then when you have the same interests and you go
into the same type of work, the comparison's even clearer.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
And so many people were like, why do you do that?
You guys are so weird?
Speaker 6 (08:29):
Why don't you just follow two different career paths and
then you wouldn't have to worry about the comparison. But
I think the problem is that we love working creatively
together and we just have the same interest. But I
did think if I'm going to really challenge myself and
tap into what I'm actually interested in and what my
strengths are and all of that, I have to step
(08:49):
outside that dynamic, which was really hard because I absolutely
love working with Jesse and I'm sure will end up
doing I mean, we are working on a project together
at the moment, but I think I was just like,
I really want to have this time in my life
where I give it to go on my own and
see what I'm capable of and throw myself into the
(09:10):
deep end.
Speaker 5 (09:11):
It's also really scary to go, and anyone that has
started their own business or gone out on their own
to go from a stable income to not knowing where
your income is going to come from, yeah, is something
that you really well, I mean financially, you need to
be in a position that you either have support to
help you or but it's a really scary jump. But
imagine there's a lot of anxiety around that, especially because
(09:33):
your business that you went into is writing.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
Yes, yes, that doesn't happen overnight.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
Exactly.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
You've got a few degrees.
Speaker 5 (09:40):
I hear in psychology, and I want to unpack that
first because a lot of your book that you have
written is based around the psychology in the Kingcel culture,
and I think it's important to set the precedence of
like you have done the due diligence.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
What are your degrees in and where did that interest
come from?
Speaker 6 (09:55):
So I did a Bachelor of psychology and then an
honors in psychology, and I was Masters of Research when
I left to work at mum Maya, which that like
academic writing. I just have so much respect people who
stick with that because it is so bloody hard. But
I was always really interested studying psychology about how shame
(10:17):
and they call it metacognition. Basically, our thoughts about our
thoughts can be the most toxic thing. It's not even
that you're experiencing something that's the issue. It's the story
you tell yourself about.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Thoughts about our thoughts. Break that down.
Speaker 6 (10:31):
So for example, and there's a theme about it in
the book, this is what happened to me. If you
have a baby and you have a really traumatic birth,
and you come out of that experience, you're feeling like, Wow,
that did not go how I thought it would. That's
one thing, and that's actually quite easy to treat. The
issue is when you then start telling yourself, no, it's
(10:53):
wrong to feel that I shouldn't. I shouldn't be allowed
to say that that wasn't a positive experience like. That's
where she comes in. So for the book, what really
interested me was this idea of shame and the fact
that when we stuff up, we all make mistakes, we
all do terrible things and regret them. That happens all
(11:13):
the time in life. We forgive each other for all
sorts of things and in friendships and relationships and families.
But on the internet, there isn't that grace. There isn't
that forgiveness. I don't think we have a narrative for
forgiveness online. And the shame that we bombard people with
is actually counterproductive. It stops people from seeing your perspective.
(11:39):
So I'm sure you guys would have seen it that
if you stuff up, and I have stuffed up, I've
written stories that I regret, I have posted things that
I regret.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
If somebody comes to me and says.
Speaker 6 (11:49):
Hey, you wrote this thing, actually like it doesn't quite
sit right, and this is why nine times out of
ten I'm like, oh my gosh, yes, thank you for that.
If someone one says you're an absolute monster psychopath, what
is wrong with you, you're instantly defensive totally.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
But it's also because their perception of you is so
far from who you are that it's like, I can't
rationalize with the way you think of me.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
I'm not even going to entertain it.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
So therefore you throw it all out with the bathwater
the baby as well, instead of being like, Okay, I
actually can see your point and you've raised some good
reasoning here, and you know what that's made me think
about x y Z.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
I think.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
The thing though, that is slightly different when we talk
about like online cancel culture versus our friendships or within
our own communities, is that often the story in the
narrative that's happening online is also not the truth. So
there's this feeling of wanting to defend yourself because people
have got partial truth, so they've got the media version
of the truth, or they've got one influencer's version of
the truth because they're screaming on the internet, and so like,
(12:50):
I think that that's why it can be really hard
for someone to take any sort of responsibility because they're like,
but you want me to take responsibility for something I
didn't fucking do. And so it's this really challenging space
where we hold such a high moral compass for people
we don't know, but also have no grace for forgiveness
for the things that they potentially didn't even do anyway
(13:11):
in the way that we think they have exactly.
Speaker 6 (13:13):
And I was thinking about this idea for years because
working in media, I saw that happen over and over again.
It might be that, like when I was editor in chief,
I made a decision or we did a campaign, and
it would be received in a certain way, and it
might seriously be that something was just not true whatever
(13:33):
the story people had run with.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
I would say.
Speaker 6 (13:36):
Hey, do you want to get on the phone and
have a chat about this, because what you're saying actually
is actually false. And I saw that happen to people
in media, to people I know, where it would be
something where I could tell all they wanted to do
was scream and say, actually, no, you've got the wrong story.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
So with this book.
Speaker 6 (13:52):
What I wanted to do was I kind of considered
making it nonfiction for a little bit. I thought maybe
I could interview people and tell their stories, and I thought, no,
the thing I really want to elicit is that feeling.
All I want is for people to know what that
feeling is when you feel like you're misunderstood and your
reputation's at stake, and it's incredibly scary. And I guess
(14:14):
the question that I wanted to engage with was how
are we meant to if we're the most self actualized
versions of ourselves, Are we meant to be fine with
people saying things about us that aren't true, with people
having with their being a narrative out there that is false?
Or is it a really natural human instinct to want
(14:36):
to have integrity and challenge defend yourself.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
I mean it's interesting for me that you've gotten so
into this space. I mean, obviously you had the podcast
canceled with your sister, which was kind of almost I
mean it was as much as it looked at like
the reasons for why people were canceled and whether they
were deserving of their cancelations or not. It also had
a real comedy based to it as well, But for
the people who are at the bottom of those cancelations,
there's nothing fucking funny about it. No, what was it
(15:04):
about cancel culture that made you want to go so
deep on it as something to research, but also as
something to write a book about.
Speaker 6 (15:11):
I read John Ronson's so You've been publicly shamed ten
years ago.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Can't believe that was ten years ago, ahead of his time?
Speaker 6 (15:18):
Really, Oh my gosh, so ahead of his time, and
the fact that he wrote that and then ten years later,
if anything, I think it's just gotten worse. So I
was really interested in the idea of public shaming and
what it does to an individual, and I feel like
there's been all these stories in the last decade about that,
and also this idea that on the internet, the more
(15:41):
time we're spending online, and I think, I hope I'm
in a forgiving company when I say, are we all
ashamed of how much time we spent on it?
Speaker 3 (15:48):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Yeah, I looked yesterday and it was horrifying.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
It's sickening.
Speaker 6 (15:52):
And I think that the more time we are spending
on our phones and we're essentially living online as opposed
to living in the real world, and is just going
to make that even more terrifying. But the more time
we are spending on our phone, the more we are
dehumanizing each other, and the less we are able to
see the nuances of the human condition. And you see
it more and more in the way people talk to
(16:14):
each other online. There's a researcher who calls it digital hostility,
and it's just this thing that we do where we
really paint people with two dimensional brushes. And you might
not think that it's a big deal if you're online
and you're just saying you're racist, you're sexist, you're misogynistic,
you're just saying all these things, and you think, well,
maybe there's some kind of social utility to what you're doing.
(16:36):
But to that person, what you're doing is dehumanizing. But
it's also prejudice. It's also, ironically, it's exactly what you're
kind of saying that you don't want to do, which
is that you're being prejudiced because you're not giving that
person the opportunity for careful, considered judgment or understanding, and
you're just making this snap assessment of them that actually
(17:00):
really is soul destroying and does something incredibly scary to
that person's emotional state.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
I think that because you've touched on it twice, you've
said that the impacts that it has on people, but
also like the toll it takes them, Like what is
the impact of cancel culture and someone who is at
the bottom of that pylon.
Speaker 6 (17:18):
So I interviewed a lot of people in media, most
of them off the record for this book, and interviewed
both of you guys on but Are You Happy?
Speaker 3 (17:27):
And we sort of touched on record.
Speaker 6 (17:30):
On and off record and really talked about what it
feels like when basically you're being screened at online, when
somebody's attacking you, and in those conversations and actually, by
the time this episode comes out, I hope my podcast
The Pylon will be out where I'm interviewing people about
exactly this. I have found that there is serious mental
(17:55):
health consequences to that, to the point where people who
are otherwise it's quite healthy contemplate suicide. For a lot
of people, it is the darkest moment of their life.
And what's really scary is that you can't say it.
You're not allowed to say it because the nature of
the pylon means that you are not the victim. Someone
(18:18):
else is the victim, so you're not allowed to say, hey,
I'm not okay. There have actually been quite a few cases,
and one well known case in Australia where there was
a pylon and the person at the center of it
did choose to end their life, and I think we
don't give a lot of consideration to that. And suicide
is incredibly complicated and there are always so many factors.
(18:41):
But this particular researcher who researches digital hostility, says, if
we are choosing to live online and we have essentially
uploaded our identity online and that identity is being destroyed,
there is something really fundamental and terrifying about that moment,
and it really does.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
But also, day you.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
It's not just about that specific moment. People lose their
actual jobs. I mean, you know, we can touch on
and talk about like how the council culture impacted Georgia
Love and her career, but also we interviewed Sam Frost
on this podcast a little while ago, and you guys
will all remember what happened in COVID when Sam came
out and spoke about her fears around the vaccine, which
(19:25):
genuinely are very valid fears, and she wasn't saying that
she'd never had it. She wasn't saying she wasn't going to,
but she was like, there is absolutely no grace at
the moment for people who have mental health problems or
severe anxieties around what these vaccines could do. And to
be fair, I know that everyone was angry because COVID
was obviously a very very emotionally heightened time. There were
(19:46):
people who are far more immunosuppressed and who needed other
you know, as that sort of like mass vaccination. Everyone
needed everyone to kind of band together as a community.
But that's not to say that what she said didn't
have validity to it, but we had absolutely no grace
and the way that the Internet, in particular some influences
went after her. When she spoke to us on this podcast,
(20:07):
she talked about how she has been so close to
ending her own life, but she also said, there is
nothing that anyone could say to me in that moment
that was worse than how I already felt about myself.
She's like, I hated myself. She left home and away,
she retreated from her life. Online ended her career, it
ended her acting career. It's actually crazy how impactful some
(20:30):
of these things can be and I do think that
sometimes it is the forefront of it is other influencers
doing it to each other. Yeah, And the thing that's
so scary about that is they should know better because
when they are the ones who are on the receiving end.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Of it, then they're like, why is everyone attacking me?
Speaker 2 (20:45):
It's like, dude, you do it to everyone else, Like
how can you not take some or have some self
reflection that what you do hurts people deeply?
Speaker 4 (20:54):
Because it's weaponized. We know it's weaponized. We know it's
weabonized by specific people that capitalize off it.
Speaker 5 (21:00):
In Australian media, we've all seen it. And what happened
to Sam Frost isn't an isolated to be honest, which
it was devastated, which is the sad part. And I think,
and I speak from experience, a big problem is when
you are being attacked by somebody, even though you know
it's not true what they're saying, you can't say anything.
I couldn't say anything like I had suicidal ideations.
Speaker 4 (21:24):
I've spoken about that.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
The person knows. I told the person what I was
going through. Couldn't give a fuck.
Speaker 5 (21:31):
Ye did not matter you can't say anything because you're
so scared of the double down. Yeah, Like, if I
tried to defend myself, if I tried to apologize, if
I tried to explain or tell the truth, it doesn't
matter because the pylon is worse. I was so scared
of this person making what I was already a very
(21:52):
dangerous time for me worse that I couldn't say anything.
And I know that from experience, that's what multiple people feel.
Speaker 6 (21:58):
Yeah, and that's exactly what happens in the book that
this character learns that the more she says, the more
she tries to explain herself, that is going to be
dissected to the point where there is no purpose in
trying to explain it. The other thing that I kind
of built into the book that's a little bit timely
(22:19):
that I didn't realize would be is the idea of
these gossip forums.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
And there's a scene where she discussed.
Speaker 6 (22:26):
That there's tell yes, that there's a gossip forum about her.
I think, as you were saying, Laura, about somebody like
Sam Frost, where it's like you say something and it's attacked,
I think what we really need to do is relearn
the art of debate and arguing, because I am all
for if it's COVID and there's somebody who questions the vaccine,
(22:49):
I'm all for an argument that says, yes, but this
vaccine is our way out and this is really important. Like,
I am all for that argument. What I am not
for is the conflation of an individual with an ideology.
So in that moment, Sam Frost sees to be Sam Frost,
complex human being who we love for many, many, many reasons,
(23:09):
who we.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
Watched on TV and all adored.
Speaker 6 (23:12):
She sees to be that person, and instead just became
this ideology of anti vaccine.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
You know what it was.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
And I remember that so clearly because I remember watching
her video and I remember how bad the cancel culture
was with that, and I felt so deeply for her
because I knew that she'd been misunderstood. She used the
word it's causing segregation, and everyone latched onto that and
then said, you're a racist because you're comparing this to apartheid.
I actually don't think she realized that she meant separation
(23:40):
rather than segregate. I genuinely think that that was she
just used the honest mistake. She literally just written and
published a book called believe about her mental health and
trying to advocate to help the better mental holds for
people in general. And I remember seeing how hard people
were going on that one word, and I was like, absolutely,
there is an education piece around how maybe that word
(24:01):
wasn't used correctly, that that doesn't make her racist because
she didn't understand that she's used it in this context,
maybe not in the right way. And now we're conflating
racism and fucking vaccines, like what is going on.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
It was just a crazy time.
Speaker 5 (24:17):
And I don't want to sit on Sam because this
is not about Sam, and I understand she's come up.
But an important note in that example is that I
truly believe the people that were going after her knew
that that was an honest mistake. They absolutely knew that
she did not mean anything by that, But they don't care.
Speaker 4 (24:34):
They want to be angry and they want to be loud.
Speaker 6 (24:36):
And I think that's what I wanted to explore as well,
this idea that we are using the internet and using
each other to prosecute really complex moral questions, and we're
doing it a lot at the moment. We are looking
at individuals and because and there is a justified reason
for it, which is the state of the world right
(24:57):
now is so terrifying and there there are so many
moral and legal and ethical atrocities going on that it
is too hard to try to engage with them.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
So what we do is we engage with people.
Speaker 6 (25:10):
Because it's easier to just look at somebody in Australia
and say, well, I'm going to hold them to account
for a huge issue that's happening internationally, because it's easier
to yell at that person than it is to create
any actual political change. And it is and there is
also utility in that, and that is exploring the book
as well, that there are many moments where these sort
(25:31):
of conversations have led to significant change. But I do
think it's important for us to know that in terms
of change, in terms of advocacy, there is so much
that doesn't have to be done online, and there is
a lot that we do online that doesn't actually turn
into change totally.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
I think that that is probably the real nail on
the head moment. There's a lot of yelling online that's
been dressed up as advocacy but actually makes no real
tangible change whatsoever. It gets people angry and I actually
think that sometimes. And we saw this in the Great
Makeup Debate from a million years ago on YouTube. It
was the first time that we had seen cancel culture
(26:14):
used as a way of growing your own engagement. Yes,
and I think that there are people who use outrage
as a way to grow their own following on social media.
It's a formula that works. We see it work time
and time again. I have a big following, you have
a big following. I'm going to scream at you. More
people who agree with me are going to come and
join my following. Outrage culture is the easiest way to
(26:36):
amass the biggest following in the quickest way. And I
actually do think, you know, unpacking what is the real
world tangible changes that's made by that, probably not a lot,
to be honest.
Speaker 6 (26:47):
And I think if you look at it at a
macro level, and this is something that in my Pylon podcast,
I hope it'll illustrate this point that disproportionately the people
we come after in online outrage are women and women
of color, and they are the ones who suffer the
consequences the most. And what scares me about that is
(27:09):
that then we look at the media landscape and we think, oh,
it's weird, we've got no diversity.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
And I know a.
Speaker 6 (27:16):
Lot of women of color in media who have been
attacked in such vicious ways that they disappear because it's like, well,
I don't or women who are minorities in all sorts
of ways who have put themselves out there. The vitriol
has been so horrendous that they're like, oh God, no,
(27:38):
no sane person would do this. I'm not going to
do this. So what you end up with is, you know,
I love Karl Stefanovic, but you end up with the
Karl Stefanovics who are like I am.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
Untouchable jeth One.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
They don't ever experience cancer culture because no one's ever
going to go after them, or the debate is online
is like, oh but we're not Carl, because Carl's lovely,
But the debate is online is like, but we expect
that of them, So I don't go after them because
I expect that, But I don't expect it of you.
So I'm going to hold you to a much higher
moral standard because you're a woman and I expect better
from you and X y Z. But it's I mean, yeah,
(28:13):
it's such a tricky one to try and get to
the bottom of, like what is the reason why are
we like this?
Speaker 4 (28:18):
Or something we've been speaking a fair bit about lately.
Speaker 5 (28:20):
But I hate this rhetoric of, well, you put yourself
in the public eye, you need to expect this, You
need to expect the pylons and the cancelations and the
attacks and the racism and the people that hate you.
And I call bullshit on that, And I think that
circles back to what you were just talking about. Gone
are the days where you can agree to disagree with
someone and have an educated discussion with somebody, And like
(28:41):
I think, if you're in the public eye, you welcome that,
and you can welcome constructive criticism, but it doesn't open
you up to a firing round of every single person's
hate betrayal, and you know, like they know better.
Speaker 6 (28:53):
And there's stuff that's just unhelpful and you want to
just you just want to yell about it. And I
had an experience recently that I thought was funny because
I shared something about my book that the cover was out,
and I was really excited, and then I hope again,
I hope I'm in forgiving company. I googled my book
(29:13):
to work out if I could see anywhere how it
was performing. By the way, the pre orders had been
opened for like five minutes. But I'm like, am I.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
Bet Shelly Yah?
Speaker 4 (29:22):
New York Times is calling it?
Speaker 6 (29:24):
So I google it and when I googled it, a
gossip forum came out and I was like, uh, do
press it. Dopress it, depress it, pressed it and it
was a screenshot of my book announcement and it was
like basically, holy crap, she looks so old. And I
was like oh, and I had like a moment of
like ooh, and you go all hot. And then I
thought about it and I was like, this is so
(29:46):
fucked up because I've written a book.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
I never claimed to look young. I'm not selling your
skincare you know what.
Speaker 4 (29:51):
Like, and I just thought, yeah, I'll do anything.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
What does that do?
Speaker 6 (29:56):
And I thought this is just such an interesting example
of women are often yelling at each other being like,
don't get botops, don't get filler. It's so unfair you're
putting pre and then don't say you don't, and then
it's like you're old and that offends me.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
It's so like, what do you want me to do?
Speaker 4 (30:15):
Like fill one lip, like get just.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
Enough so that I can't tell you're old because it's true.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
But it's undetectable because if it looks too dumb, that
it's triggering to me.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
Also, that's why I won't click on it.
Speaker 4 (30:29):
I just got to stop doing it.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
You have more self control. I could done everything I
love to read.
Speaker 4 (30:33):
No, I've got PTSD. My mental health wouldn't take it.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Now.
Speaker 4 (30:37):
If I could see whole threads, I just couldn't do it.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
I've reached a state of nirvana where I find it
funny and it's really taken a long time, and I
do genuinely mean this. For a long time, it used
to severely impact me. I don't know what changed. I
actually think it might have been having kids and I
don't take things as seriously at all, Like I don't
take anything seriously anymore.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
Life's a show survive.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
So when I see people having got me online, I
find it quite funny now because it's usually, like you know,
it's usually something that's just like so ridiculously critical about
something I've never thought of that I'm like, wow, I
live rent free in your brain you spend time thinking
about me, that's you're a.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
Fan, You're like, cue, you are fan Claire.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
You said something about the book specifically and about how
the character is trying to defend herself and she's making
the situation worse in this whole Pylon catastrophe. And I mean,
we've brought this up a couple of times over the years,
but the best advice I've ever received during one of
these really heated moments of like public spotlight was from
(31:44):
Mere Friedman. She slid into our DMS and she's always
been someone who's been very very kind during any kind
of exchange because she's experienced it so many times herself.
And she said, do not reply, Do not respond, Do
not put gas on the fire.
Speaker 4 (31:59):
Don't give it oxygen.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Every time you reply, it's you give them some new
headlines to write. You give them something else to respond to.
She was like, never respond, but you know what, like.
Speaker 5 (32:09):
She group shatowed us to say that, but that for me,
I've been battling with that advice. I originally thought it
was the right thing to do, and now I'm not
sure because I know for my Pylon, I didn't respond once,
not once, and I was attacked for eighteen months over
and over again, and it got to the point where
I was like, I'm gonna fucking take shit down if
(32:30):
this happens one more time.
Speaker 4 (32:31):
And I even remember you've been Laura being like breathe
through it.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
We're not going to do it.
Speaker 4 (32:34):
And I said, why why can't I respond?
Speaker 2 (32:36):
You know?
Speaker 3 (32:36):
And I battled between it. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (32:39):
But there is a media figure in Australia who I
have spoken to a bit throughout this, and I've and
he's written beautifully about this, and he has no social
media so he's never responded to anything, never read anything
about himself. And I was talking to him about like,
(33:00):
do you detect when there is stuff in the zeitgeist
where like can you feel the energy if you're walking
down the street. And he's like, no, yeah, that No,
it's blissful ignorance. And I have to say this particular person,
any storm, anything, it passes, it passes because he is
not there.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
He's feeling, he's not an eye of it.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
Yeah, but it is different because he's a man, so
it's not as furious, and it's not as it doesn't
come with as much vitriol. And that is what as
women we do to each other online. The cancelations don't
stop they continue and continue. The only reason why I
think that the advice from me of Friedman. Yes, it
can be conflicting because the problem is when you respond
(33:41):
with silence, it's interpreted as guilt and that you're not apologetic.
But the issue is that there is no apology that
is ever good enough. There is unless the apology comes
on the front foot before the cancelation even started. If
your apology comes after that cancelation is in motion, it
means nothing. It doesn't matter how deeply you mean it.
(34:01):
And so for me, I'm like, I think that it
was great advice. And I have definitely seen people make
their situations a fuck load worse by getting on the
internet and yelling back and trying to defend themselves, and
you know, it's it really is just this kind of
like ticking time bomb. Now that I think that all
people who have very public media lives, they are a
whisper away from any sort of like controversy or cancelation.
(34:24):
But what do you think is the defining factor between
people who survived them and people who don't. What is
someone who's an attempted cancelation and someone who's actually defined
as being canceled.
Speaker 6 (34:35):
I do think that in all the kind of cases
I've looked at, all the people I've spoken to, time
does solve it. And that is not always a good thing.
There are many people who have committed crimes, who have
done a horrific thing, mostly men.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and years down the track it's all forgotten.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
They're on our TVs. So long as you're a white
middle aged man, you're fine. You can come back from
anything exactly exactly.
Speaker 3 (35:00):
So I do think that time actually people.
Speaker 6 (35:03):
The one benefit of our attention spans being so disgustingly
short is that we forget or it just gets a
bit muddied, where you're like, eh, I feel like that
person did something once, but whatever, I've completely forgotten about it.
But I do think that there is an element of
(35:23):
kind of self actualization that needs to happen for anybody
who is going to put work out there. So people
who are podcasting, people who are writing where And it
was actually Zara from Shameless who said to me that
a kind of pivotal point for the two of them
was deciding that who they show up as as the
(35:46):
host of that podcast is not who they are as people.
That is two different things. And so if people have
a problem with something they've said on the podcast that's
not them, and they can't conflate the two, because that's
when you've really really start to struggle. But I think
it is kind of important to remember that anybody in
(36:06):
the public eye, even the people that you have kind
of villainized and who might seem ridiculous or whatever, they
are human beings. And the thing that I touch on
in the book, and I wonder if you guys think
this as well, that I think people assume that if
you're the person on a podcast, writing, creating anything, that
(36:27):
you must have incredibly high self esteem and be incredibly
sure of yourself. I find it's the opposite that often
when you're the person putting yourself out there and it's
driven by creativity and it's driven by a desire to
be understood, it can often be because there is actually
(36:47):
quite a deep hole in you that you want filled
by other people validation. Yes, yes, And so when people
come for you, you feel like saying, oh, no, no, no, no, no,
you've misunderstood it.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
I just want to love me.
Speaker 6 (36:58):
I hate myself what you're saying about me. I've thought it,
I have thought it. And in the book. The kind
of backstory is that this particular character who's been canceled
online for something she's done, it sort of unravels that
there's a story from her past that is really the
worst thing she's ever done, that she's never been able
to reconcile. And so it's this thing of shame, the
(37:23):
fact that there is shame in our personal lives where
you don't have to put shame on somebody else. We're
all ashamed. We're all so ashamed of a million different
things that we do, and so shame is not a
helpful emotion to get somebody to change their behavior, and
if anything, it just drives them to a dark, dark,
dark place where they are not going.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
To change their minds.
Speaker 6 (37:45):
And I think in this moment in history, one of
the biggest things we're contending with is how do we
get people to change their minds, How do we encourage
healthy debate and actually sharing information and facts. And I
think the way we're going, people are just becoming more
siloed because shame pushes people more and more to the extremes.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
Do you think when it comes to these conversations online
that it's about accountability of the thing that's happened, or
do you think the reason why the people are engaging
in it is because it makes them feel morally superior. Well, like, well,
I would never say that, I would never do that.
How could they be so bacist, bigoted, misogynist?
Speaker 1 (38:22):
Whatever it is?
Speaker 6 (38:23):
And it's a performance, and I think we have to
remember that that everything that happens online is a performance,
and so calling somebody out for a moral transgression it
is coming from a place of I'm not doing this privately.
Speaker 3 (38:37):
I'm not doing this.
Speaker 6 (38:38):
I'm not reaching out to somebody via text message to say, hey,
you said this thing and it made me feel uncomfortable,
because that would be a very different interaction and you'd
probably find that you were aligned on most things. When
somebody calls somebody out publicly, it is a performance and
it is a performance of morality. And I just don't
(39:00):
think that morality is that simple. I think it's really
complex and that all of us contain multitudes, and it erases.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
All of that I know you just mentioned.
Speaker 5 (39:10):
I mean, we've discussed the fact that women are more
likely to be canceled. What else do you think makes
someone cancelable? Like, is it always their indiscretions and their
actions or is it who they are.
Speaker 6 (39:21):
Something that has scared me a little bit working in
media and looking at this kind of stuff is that,
at least in my world, it is women coming after women,
and I think women are triggered by other women. And
it reminds me a lot of high school. It reminds
me a lot of when you're at school and you
found someone annoying and so you just say really cruel
(39:45):
things about them. And often it is somebody who seems
self assured or is putting themselves out there or taking
some risks, and there's something about that that makes you
feel really, really uncomfortable. So I think it is that,
and what protects from it is often being really self deprecating.
The problem with that is that when women walk through
(40:07):
the world being self deprecating, we're underestimated and we don't
get what we deserve. Yeah, so bat it's yeah, it's
this irritating thing of you feel like you always have
to be squashing yourself down to not upset anyone. But
that's what's kept women in their place for two thousand years.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
How do you think tall poppy syndrome plays into it?
Speaker 6 (40:24):
I think in Australia in particular we definitely have. And
I say this as somebody who has this instinct too,
as I joke about being a communist and I joke
about how bad I am a capitalism, but like, you
do have this instinct of you see what other people have.
(40:45):
And I grew up actually very much with the mentality
that if you had money, or if you had kind
of tangible success, that was morally bad. Maybe it's like
a Catholic thing.
Speaker 3 (40:58):
I don't know.
Speaker 6 (40:58):
It was some weird modesty slash don't have more than
you need thing.
Speaker 4 (41:04):
And if you do, don't talk about it, yes, and
you don't show it.
Speaker 3 (41:07):
And I really grew up with that.
Speaker 6 (41:09):
And interestingly, it was only a few years ago that
I had some conversations with friends and I'm not super
into all the manifesting stuff, like even though I do,
we do it, but we don't ever want to say
that we do it because it sounds too woo wood.
Speaker 1 (41:26):
You're me.
Speaker 4 (41:27):
I manifested my husband.
Speaker 3 (41:28):
Yeah, everyone manifests the love of their life. They do,
and like I journal, I do all that stuff.
Speaker 6 (41:34):
But I did have friends say, do you think the
fact that you have all these weird views about money
means that you're then not like attracting it, like you're
purposely kind of shunning it totally, like in an unconscious
way because you think that money is bad. And I'm like,
oh yeah, And I think Australians do that a little
(41:55):
bit in our culture. And I do think there are
so many issues with capitalism and there are so many
issues with billionaires and the planet's going to shit and
all of that, but I reckon in Australia we do
have this bit of a mentality that we do not
lack people with money, especially women.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
It's an interesting conversation we had with Eliti Pullan and
also with Chloy Fisher, so they both and this was
on podcasts when we interviewed Cloyfisher and she said, you know,
I've never felt so like not hated is not the
right word, but like people really enjoyed the shared trauma
and the shared grief that they were both going through
(42:32):
and then as they've started to find their happiness and
also in that happiness success, Yes, people have turned on them.
Their own audience are like, well, you've changed in some ways,
and it's like, why is it that when people are
down and sad that we're like, yes, they're just two
chicks giving it a go. But then when it's two
people who are successful and they're happy, it's like, hold on,
(42:53):
you've changed.
Speaker 3 (42:54):
Now we hate it.
Speaker 6 (42:54):
It's this visceral thing and it's really I always find
it fascinating in tabloids where they have a successful Australian
woman walking down the street and they calculate how much
her outfit is worth, and I'm like, you would never
do that to Hamish Blake. You would never do that
to cal Stepanovic. You'd never do that to a man,
even though probably the bloody watch on the man's wrist
(43:18):
is worth more than whatever that woman's wearing.
Speaker 1 (43:19):
Totally, they would do it too. It was a real
feature for a while there.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
Every time Zoe Foster Blake stepped out of the house,
they would do it to Zoe, but never once to Hamish.
Speaker 6 (43:26):
It's true, and it's like, why do we have this
instinctive reaction towards a woman who has had success? And
then we talk about wanting pay equality, We talk about
the fact that bloody venture capitalis like women get no
funding for their businesses, women are underrepresented in terms of
extreme wealth.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
With all of this and knowing how deep you've gone
in cancel culture. What is the antidote to it?
Speaker 6 (43:50):
I think the antidote is Oh I hate saying this
because I don't practice it, but I.
Speaker 3 (43:57):
Think we need to spend less time on our phones.
Speaker 6 (44:00):
I really really think that the amount of time we're
spending is what is resulting in the dehumanization and the
language and the anger. I think it's really we're just
totally oblivious to the nuances of real life because we're
not living it as much anymore. So I think that,
(44:21):
But I also think trying to engage with people in
your life more than you're engaging with people online. Like
I think you everybody goes to their family Christmas and
you see the uncle who doesn't believe in climate change
and who is a Trump supporter, and you sit down
(44:42):
and you respect him, and you have a conversation with him.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
You don't stand up and scream at him, don't.
Speaker 3 (44:46):
Tell him to get out.
Speaker 6 (44:47):
Some people I know and those people probably don't have
very long lasting relationships because that's what life's about. And
so I think we just need to interact day to
day with people we don't agree with. And I think
we need to learn relearn the art of debate.
Speaker 5 (45:04):
It's also at the end of the day, we're not
going to spend less time online. It's a beautiful thought.
Speaker 3 (45:09):
I really can someone's I know it.
Speaker 5 (45:13):
Someone can TikTok, But I think it's really important to
just start to try to understand someone's perspective. You don't
have to agree with it, but understand why, why they
might think like that, what might have happened to them
in their life to put them in that position, why
they're doing what they're doing. Again, you can have an
educate debate, you can talk through it. You can hate
(45:33):
them and dislike them, but you don't have to attack
them for it. And I think the understanding is going
to bring us a long way with being more human
in our interactions.
Speaker 6 (45:41):
I remember hearing somebody say a little while ago, like,
how would you behave if you just assumed everyone was
doing their best? Like with what they have, everyone's doing
their best? And I was like, people aren't doing their best.
Everyone's freaking annoying. And since having a child, and I
think the experience of birthing a child, having a newborn
innocence and you're like, oh, everybody was born like this,
(46:05):
and like everybody everybody started innocent, and maybe everybody is
just doing their best with what they have, and that's
what's so complicated about being a human being.
Speaker 1 (46:14):
Well by by a Claire's book. Yes, the worst thing
I've ever done. Claire, You're amazing.
Speaker 2 (46:20):
We love having you here, wedore you. Congratulations on the book.
Speaker 3 (46:23):
Everyone go by it.
Speaker 1 (46:24):
We're gonna put all the links in the show notes
as well.
Speaker 5 (46:26):
And also the pre sales, like the waiting lists and
everything are really important. So like, if you do have
an interest in buying this and you're like, oh, one
day I'll do it, go and jump online, because it
does show the publisher like yeah, yeah, that it could
need this many copies instead and have this much interest.
Speaker 4 (46:40):
So it is important for our little indie.
Speaker 3 (46:42):
I'll get it for sixteen dollars bargain. That's so cheap.
That's like two or maybe two and a.
Speaker 1 (46:48):
Half if you have soy milk.
Speaker 3 (46:51):
That's to.
Speaker 1 (46:53):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (46:54):
Junny kabaaa baaaa
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