December 12, 2025 • 31 mins
Merrill plays talkbacks about the stupid things listeners believed as children. And it seems we were all stupid kids. Australia has now enforced a nationwide law banning social media for all people aged under 16. And the kids are not alright.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
If you're joining us A conversations sort of threading through
the first hour. What is the goofy stuff you believed
when you were little? And this kind of came as
we were talking about this woman who had a big
cist in her abdomen and needed to have that removed.
And then they did testing and they went, you're pregnant,
(00:25):
and the baby was. It was an ectopic abdominal pregnancy
that was hidden behind the cyst in her in her abdomen,
and it was really remarkable. She survived, the baby survived,
the cyst did not, and so a great story. But
I made mention that when I was young, because kids
believe goofy things when we were young, right, And I
believe that the babies came out of mom's feet.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Right. Don't ask me how I came up with that.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Although one person did have a good theory, I thought
it was a great theory when she said that when
I was little, I probably heard someone say something about
the fetus and that the fetus was the baby. To me,
I probably put that together. You're probably right on that.
I mean, I have no recollection, but that certainly makes
the most sense. So we asked to talk about question.
What are the goofy things you believe when you were little?
Speaker 4 (01:12):
Hey, Chris, when I was a little boy, I used
to pick my scabs, Like when I would fall down
and get a scab, I used to pick the skin
off of it. And my mom told me that if
I picked my scabs, I was gonna get cancer. And
I believed it. So it was effective in helping me
not pick my scabs anymore. But that was something that
I believed was a direct reason you can get cancer,
(01:34):
was picking your scabs. Anyways, like your show, thank.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
You, Thank You.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Yeah, that's some parenting. I tell people I'm a terrible parent,
so I know bad parenting when.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
I see it.
Speaker 5 (01:50):
Chris, I used to think chocolate milk came from brown cars.
And not only that, also, if you swallow a see
it is going to grow a plant inside you. And
this is what I did when I was a kid,
maybe about six years old.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Yeah, man, didn't our parents all tell us that though,
if you eat a watermelon seed, you're gonna have a
watermelon grow inside you.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
I mean then it was not a thing our parents
all told us.
Speaker 6 (02:15):
Yeah, I like that guy's voice. I would like him
to narrate an audio book.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Please.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Oh what would the book be, right, I'd take anything.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Make it a Stephen King book.
Speaker 7 (02:27):
My family and other animals.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
He sounded a little bit like Gene Simmons, didn't he.
Speaker 8 (02:32):
Hmm, no Simmons, No, no.
Speaker 6 (02:36):
No, Well, Gene Simmons combined with Jeffrey Holder, the colonet
guy from the old commercials.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
See, I always rely on you to come up with
something highly relatable and recognizeble.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
It was kind of a deep cut, I admit.
Speaker 5 (02:48):
Yeah, Chris, I used to think that, like, what a
great character voice you would make? Chocolate now came from
brown cows and not only that.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Oh so like I'm imagining Charlotte's web and he's one
of the barnyard animals, right.
Speaker 5 (03:07):
If you swallow his seed, yeah, it's going to grow
a plant inside you. And this is what I did
when I was a kid, maybe about six years old.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
I think it is Jean Simmons. Actually, let's trace the
phone number, Nikki. You see if that's Geen Simmons, can
we get him to fill in his host some night?
Speaker 3 (03:26):
And his voice is like treacle? Yeah? Yeah, I like that?
All right?
Speaker 9 (03:29):
Cool there's nothing like a childhood trauma that lasts a lifetime.
When I was about seven, my cousins tell me if
I slept with my hands on top of the covers,
a man would come and cut them off. Well, so
to this day I cannot sleep unless I have my
hands underneath the covers.
Speaker 6 (03:49):
An how we're talking and the feet hanging over the
side of the bed. You don't want to do that either.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Yeah, yeah, because that's that's how the boogyman gets you. Right, huh,
that's good, all right? What's the stuff you believe when
you were a kid? Love to hear what you what
your mind came up with, or what your parents or
cousins or whatever else convinced you when you were little.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
It's great stuff. Love that.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
So Australia did just launch their social media ban for
anybody under the age of sixteen, and this is going
over teenagers.
Speaker 7 (04:20):
Noah and Macy are taking their government to court in
a fight to stay on social media, taking.
Speaker 10 (04:25):
Away how we communicate to the world. This is how
we do it. It's a modern day in social media.
Speaker 7 (04:32):
From Wednesday, Australia in force a world first law banning
children under sixteen from many of the biggest platforms, supported
by a freedom advocacy group Macy, and Noah's case asserts
a right to political communication. The High Court has agreed
to hear it next year. So what will you lose
when social media is taken away from you?
Speaker 11 (04:53):
Well, we will lose connections, but we will lose our democracy.
Speaker 12 (04:57):
This law is saying that democracy begins at sixteen, which
is condescending and it's incorrect.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Listener, M yeah, I'm not buying that argument.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
No, No, we have lots of laws that restrict your
freedoms based on age. So but I don't know, baby,
they don't have laws like that in Australia. Are babies
allowed to vote in Australia.
Speaker 8 (05:26):
No, but it is compulsory to vote in Australia. You
have to as soon as you turn at eighteen, you
have to register and vote, and if you don't vote,
you get fined, and if you don't pay your fines,
they do things like revoke your driver's license.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Okay, But do you get a driver's license when you
turn four?
Speaker 8 (05:43):
No, you get your learners permanent age sixteen.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Okay, So I mean we already there are already laws
based on age. So this notion that. Oh, they're saying
democracy doesn't start until we're sixteen. No, no, there are
plenty of laws that restrict your your rights while you're
still a minor.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Okay, back to the cut from CNN.
Speaker 10 (06:03):
Listen, there are definitely negatives on social media. I'm not
denying that. I completely agree with saying that getting rid
of the kids is not the solution. We didn't do
anything wrong.
Speaker 7 (06:14):
The government says it is active to protect children.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
From I mean, we didn't do anything wrong, right, and
that's why that's why small children should have to be
in car seats.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
They didn't do.
Speaker 7 (06:23):
Anything wrong from potentially harmful content, harmful people, and addictive algorithms.
Speaker 6 (06:30):
And there are these powerful harmful.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Oh now, addiction is something we have to address with you. Now,
what you're telling me, I can't give twelve year old
cigarettes because they're addictive.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
So taking my democracy away?
Speaker 11 (06:43):
Harmful deceptive design features that even adults are powerless to
fight against, like AutoPlay and endless scroll and snapstreams.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
So what chance do our children have?
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Yeah, I mean I understand the basis of the law.
I don't think it's a bad law. I think it's
an impractical law. I do Australian teenagers have taken to
social media for They did this on Tuesday night. They
went to social media for the last time to bid
farewell their followers and mourned the loss of the platforms
(07:15):
that shaped their lives. Right before the first the world's
first ban took effect. However, it's not even working in Australia.
We are all of well, they're a day ahead of us, right,
so we're all of two days into this. The Australian
Prime Minister, Anthony Albanize is how you say his name?
Speaker 3 (07:34):
Been? Easy?
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Okay, very good acknowledge that some young people were still
on social media after the world's first ban on under
sixteen ers went live, saying that the rollout was always
going to be bumpy but would ultimately save lives. Just
one day after the law took affect, Australian social media
feeds were flooded with comments from people claiming to be
under sixteen, including one on the Prime Minister's TikTok account
(07:56):
saying I'm still here.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
You're listening to KFI on demand.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Chris Marilyn.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
KFI am six forty more stimulating talking on demand anytime
in the iHeartRadio app or you'll also find the talk
back or question this evening is what is the goofy
thing you believed when you were a little kid, because
we all believed dumb things when we were little.
Speaker 13 (08:18):
My mom used to tell me when I started school
that if I misbehaved, the teacher will take me onside
and whip me until she gets hired.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
I remember when I was a kid, That's exactly what
would happen.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
We need to go back to the good old days.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
Hi, Michelle.
Speaker 11 (08:36):
My mom used to say, you swallowed your gum, it
would stick to your rips.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Oh yeah, I think my grandparents used to tell me
that too, or didn't They used to say that if
you swallowed your gum, it took seven years to digest.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
Yeah, I would come out of your system for like
ten years or so. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 6 (08:54):
A lot of fear based safety tips back, isn't that right? Okay,
you don't want to cross your eyes either, Oh.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Yeah, your face look at stuck that way? Yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
It is funny that we all have that, like those
shared weird threats from when we were little, like those
have become almost cultural benchmarks for raising children. Now, make
sure you scare the hell to your kid by saying this,
and make sure you scare him by saying that. Yeah,
the watermelon seeds will grow in your belly, the gum
(09:24):
will not digest.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
You'll get hair on your palms.
Speaker 6 (09:26):
Yeah, hello, oh yeah, is this thing on?
Speaker 3 (09:34):
You'll go blind? Yeah, there we go. Now we know
he's back. Hair and palm, nothing moving on, nothing.
Speaker 13 (09:42):
Nikki, my darling, how are you okay?
Speaker 3 (09:46):
Down boy?
Speaker 13 (09:47):
Anyway? The weirdest thing that I ever thought of was
when I was about five years old, I noticed that
I had these two black dots in the palm of
my hand. I thought they were antenna implanted there by
marsh and to keep track of my whereabouts. So somewhere
along the line, I grabbed a needle and I dug
one of them out. What and needless is saying I
(10:09):
haven't been bothered by Martians since?
Speaker 3 (10:11):
No? I mean, you got that going for it? What? Right?
But what were they? Was it just like moles or something?
Speaker 2 (10:19):
What was I want to know what the black spot was?
Speaker 6 (10:23):
Was he cursed by a pirate? He should have slept
with his hands outside the covers.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
Let's get call back to another one.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Oh good, all right, it's coming up after Mark's eight
thirty News how to go broke and look rich doing it.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
That is still ahead.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
In the meantime, Australia has banned social media for kids
under the age of sixteen, and now Ram Emanuel remember
Rama Manuel used to be in the Obama administration that
he was the mayor of Chicago for a while. Now
he comes out and he says, oh, no, you know what,
this is a really great idea. We should do that.
We should do that here too. When it comes to
our adolescents, it's either going to be adults or the algorithms.
(11:05):
One of them is going to raise the kids, and
I think we need to help parents. So he is
also pushing for a restriction for media access for kids
sixteen and younger. Again, I think we can all understand
why that makes sense, Like what what the what the
rationale is. It's just that listen, fuddy duddies, we don't
(11:28):
know it well enough, we don't know the tech well enough,
and kids that have grown up around the tech and
know how to tell other kids about workarounds are going
to find workarounds.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
It's just kind of like points.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
This is from uh, This from Australia. This is Reuters
talking with Australian teenagers.
Speaker 11 (11:46):
It's just kind of like pointless, Like it's just like
we're just going to create like new ways to get
on these platforms, so like what's the point, you know? Like, yeah,
I kind of see where they're coming from. But also
I think you you can get a job at fourteen.
I think you should be able to like have be
able to have social media, and I think they will
(12:06):
just use their phones on just on different apps.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
I like the pro child labor stance on that. Yeah,
that's good.
Speaker 6 (12:12):
Also without without social media in Australia, how are you
gonna let people know if the dingoes et your baby?
Speaker 3 (12:18):
You gotta have that? Do I sound like those girls?
And you do sound like those girls? Like you do
like sound like them? Like yeah, I don't say like
every second.
Speaker 11 (12:29):
Rod like like you can still watch Netflix, you can
still go on Pinterest, like you can do a lot
more different things. Yeah, similar kind of apps. But yeah,
maybe we'll make people go outside more.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
But not really.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
They actually have less of an accent than Nicky does.
I think that's true. I think that too.
Speaker 8 (12:54):
Yeah I don't have an accent. You all have an
accent right totally.
Speaker 6 (12:58):
It's really funny to hear foreigner is mock American accents.
When I lived in Scotland for about a year, hearing
them try to talk like dumb Americans was hugely entertained, like.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
Somebody with a Cockney accent. Hey, guys, what are you
doing what?
Speaker 6 (13:13):
They exaggerate everything, and they draw out their vowels and
they really make us sound like numbskulls.
Speaker 8 (13:18):
Good back to the valen There you go, Nikki, well done.
Speaker 7 (13:22):
Well, oh my god.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
So I don't think that this is ever gonna work
in the United States, And I think that it's more
than just the practicality. I think there's all There are
also forces at work here.
Speaker 11 (13:34):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Imagine that you are going to start restricting teens under
sixteen nationwide.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
How many parents are going to freak out.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
They're gonna say, we don't need big brother government telling
us how to raise our kids. I mean, that's the
first thing. It's gonna cost politicians votes if they're telling
parents you're doing it wrong, you're raising your kids wrong,
and parents are not going to be cool on that,
and parents don't agree on anything. You're gonna have half
the parents that are like, you know what, I think
this is really good. Now I feel like I got
some reinforcements. I've been trying to keep my kids off
(14:01):
social media, but now I can just tell them the
government's telling me.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
Then you have other parents that are like, don't tread
on me, man, don't tread on me.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
But maybe the most important thing, aside from enforcement being
totally impossible, which we talked about in the last segment.
Speaker 5 (14:15):
Is.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
The tech companies need it. Tech companies already have some
restrictions on kids they're not supposed to have. They're not
supposed to have what I think Facebook or Instagram accounts
under the age of twelve or TikTok is like twelve
or thirteen, something like that. But I don't think that
they work real hard to enforce it because they need
eyeballs on that. When I was programming music radio, I
(14:38):
used to talk to my DJs and and they would
they would say, you know, why are we why are
we doing this car seat drive or whatever, or why
are we doing this? Why why are we going to
the middle schools to try to you know, give away
we used to do like school drives to get to
backpacks and stuff like that. Right, And I said, look,
this is the McDonald's theory. You gotta get them young,
(15:01):
and you gotta get them hooked onto your product.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
Now, for us, it was radio. We were giving them music.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
It wasn't like we're doing something nefarious to try to
make them fat and obese so they keep eating our
French fries or something like that.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
But McDonald's used to put those ballpits in, right, And I.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Said, if we get the kids, we get the parents,
and they go the kids aren't spending money on our advertisers,
and I go, one, they're gonna grow up and they will.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Two.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
We want to be the station that the kids want
to listen to in the car. Okay, because the kids
are listening to it, the parents are listening to it.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
Right.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
So we always we wanted to do stuff for families,
and it was in our demographic that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Right.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Again, nothing unscrupulous. We were just trying to be practical
with our marketing and we were going after our demographic.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
McDonald's does the same thing. They put those.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Ballpits in the slides and those play areas in their
restaurants because they knew if the kids want to go
to McDonald's, the parents will take them to McDonald's. They
weren't making money on the on the play, the gyms
or whatever they had in there, right, that's not where
they made their money. That's how they got the kids
to tell the parents where they wanted to go. Likewise,
(16:05):
you've got these social media companies that want to get
the kids hooked young. Just like cigarette companies used to
do in the fifties and sixties, social media companies want
to get you hooked early young. They're the ones that
are gonna spend a ton of money funding political campaigns,
so don't expect them to go down without a fight. Right,
(16:26):
you're scrolling through your your feet. It's full of yachts
and handbags and rooftop cocktails and the vacations that you
can't afford, and you tell yourself that you're above all
that nonsense, and then you go and you buy something
stupid anyway, just to look like your favorite influencers. The
reason you keep flexing the money you don't have is
next going broke well looking like you're riches.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Thanks to everybody that has checked in on the app too,
and let us know what the goofiest things are that
you believe when you were a kid, some good wizard there.
Appreciate appreciate everybody telling me that they also believed goofy things,
because when I was we started the show by talking
about this. When I was young, I thought that babies
came out of mom's feet, which is it's pretty it's
(17:11):
pretty odd, and I've always thought it was just a
dumb kid. I think, guess there's yes, but I think
I think all of us were kind of dumb kids.
I think we all believed goofy things when we were little.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
The world was new. We didn't know what to believe.
Speaker 8 (17:23):
Hey, I remember another goofy thing I've thought as a child.
When you took a flight somewhere, I thought, you stay,
you sit on the airplane, and they some people they
changed the scenery outside the plane.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
They just say the plane world underneath you.
Speaker 8 (17:38):
Yeah, the plane stays where it's at, but everything else changes.
And that's why you have to be on the plane
a long time. It takes hours to change the outside world.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
That's kind of fun. That's stupid, like.
Speaker 6 (17:51):
An impossible episode, is what you're saying.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Oh that's that's very good. Yeah that's true. Yeah, no,
I actually liked that one. I think that's great. I
can see how a little kid would think, like, my
world is stationary and everything else is changing. That makes
perfect sense to me that a child would think that
that's great. Thank you, thank you for that. Gen Z
is going broke and they're looking rich doing it. A
(18:14):
new nationwide bank study shows that it's a credit. One
Bank shows that more than half of gen Z admit
to lying or exaggerating about their financial status online, all
thanks to a NonStop stream of social media luxury lifestyle content.
USA Today reporting that influencers and esthetic pages are fueling
a culture where flexing fake wealth feels normal, even when
(18:37):
it wrecks people's finances. Therapists say that the damage shows
up everywhere, from dating to weddings to every day spending,
and that I found it from a series called OMG Stories.
This is very British, by the way, you may need
a translator in this. They were talking about the dripaholics
(18:57):
off Big This show.
Speaker 14 (18:58):
That sixty nine percent of sixteen to thirty four year
olds would get into debt to buy a luxury item.
I've come shopping with Samantha, a sound confessed drip aholics
what's the drip?
Speaker 3 (19:10):
You guys are younger than me, What's what's when they
talk about the drip? What is that?
Speaker 8 (19:13):
Only you should answer this.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Outfit like a cool outfit? Okay, s spendive thing you've
ever bought?
Speaker 12 (19:22):
Probably my Chanelle bag?
Speaker 3 (19:24):
Much? How much was it?
Speaker 12 (19:25):
Five and a half grass?
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Five and a half grand? But that's pounds. What does
that translate to in US dollars? Like seven eight eight grand?
Speaker 3 (19:36):
Yeah? Maybe, man, that's a lot, that's a lot of bagh.
Speaker 15 (19:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 12 (19:45):
My mom was a chocoholic, really, and obviously the gene
passed down.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
So we go out and look at some jewelry.
Speaker 12 (19:52):
My mother got ill, so she started to spoil my
sibling and I. So that's when it was like, We're
gonna fly to the Maldives business class, and we're gonna
stay there for weeks, and I'm going to be taken
out of school for a week so we can sit
on the beach.
Speaker 14 (20:04):
In a few short years, Samantha lost her mom, grandma,
and great aunt. She received a large amount of inheritance,
but not long later it was all gone.
Speaker 12 (20:14):
I was close to them, and they were all I
had left on that side of the family, and they
passed away, and I got a little bit of inheritance.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
What do you call it? A little bit of inheritance
to have.
Speaker 12 (20:25):
To say the figure? Can I say, like, you don't
have to more than fifty grand and less than one
hundred grand?
Speaker 3 (20:32):
Oh wow? Again in US dollars. I think it's like
one hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 6 (20:36):
Right, yeah, but that I mean business class to the
mall dives.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
Yeah, that's not cheap. No, and three weeks.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
Yeah so, and staying at the nice places and everything
else like that.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
More than half of gen Z admit that they exaggerated
or lie about their financial success online. According to the survey,
more than a third have gone into debt to impress
someone on a date. That rate reaching almost half of
all men have gone into debt to impress a woman
on a date.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Gen Z is feeling rising anxiety about wages, housing costs,
and miss milestones, and that's feeling splurge spendings as a
coping mechanism. Great, that's just wonderful. Look, we all make
bad decisions when we're young, right, I mean I signed
up for a credit card that eventually got sent to
collections because when I was in college. They were giving
(21:33):
away two leaders of Mountain Dew if you signed up
for the credit card. Okay, that's not a good business
decision's serious. Yeah, not real smart from a financial standpoint.
You know, we got the Mountain Dew right, So we
all do dumb things when we're younger. But it seems
that with the rise of social media, the image, the
aura is the most important thing in so many lives now.
(21:58):
I mean, it was always like that when you're in
high school. You wanted to have the you wanted to
have the cool clothes, you wanted to have the drip.
I guess because you wanted to you wanted to appear
a certain way when you were in high school. And
I get that, but it sounds like this is happening
even beyond high school. I mean, beyond high school. You
almost it almost like reverses where you go, hey, I
went thrift shopping. Everybody's like, hey, you're you're you're you're
(22:20):
cheap chic and uh. But for some people it's like, no,
I have to I have to live up to I
have to go on these vacations and I have to
go do this, and I have to go do that. Meanwhile,
behind the scenes, everything's actually just garbage. I mean, imagine
you see a designer bag and you see a BMW
and none you see some gen z or get out
of the beamer to go start their shift at Chipotle, right,
(22:41):
And you got to wonder if anybody under thirty actually
knows where their money goes.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
The answer to that is not flattering. It's a new
trade off. And that's next.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Chris Merril k if I AM six forty more stimulating
talking on demand anytime iHeart radio app. As we were
asking what's the goofy thing you believed when you were
a kid?
Speaker 16 (23:03):
My mom would tell me she could see through the walls.
So when I played Barbies, I made sure I was
behind my bed because she couldn't see through.
Speaker 7 (23:12):
My bed, just the walls.
Speaker 16 (23:15):
And then they could be like kissing, like while they
were naked.
Speaker 9 (23:20):
That's what I thought sex was.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
I took an unexpected turn.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
I know what is it? Weren't barbies? How Like half
the neighborhood kids sort of explored human anatomy. Like I
just remember I didn't have any sisters, but I we
had girls in the neighborhood, and I remember I took
the Barbie's clothes off just to see what.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
Was under there.
Speaker 6 (23:45):
G I Joe did that half the I mean half
the time that I was like at my cousin's house,
who are all girls, they never had clothes on in
general because they was changing them.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
Yeah, so there was naked. That's so funny. And she
didn't want to get caught. I don't want. My mom's
thing is she can see through walls because our parents
always had eyes in the back of their heads.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
Right, that's great.
Speaker 17 (24:05):
Here's a weird thing I thought as a kid. I
always thought there's people, little tiny people behind my TV
or behind the wall unit of my parents TV or whatever,
acting out the whatever I was watching on TV. So
like Star Wars Punch, the little guys behind the TV
doing stuff and I would periodically check behind there and
nothing happens.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
That's funny.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
I can see that too as a little kid, because
I got I had a dog that used to watch
TV and he loved watching horses on the TV.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
And he always thought it was kind of a window, right, I.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Mean, when you're a kid, doesn't that make sense that
it looks like a window in the same way my
dog would watch horses on the TV and the dog
would get all excited.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
Then the horses would run off the screen he could
peek around behind the TV. I'm it makes perfect sense
for an undeveloped brain to think that.
Speaker 15 (24:50):
When I watched all the Star Wars growing up as
a kid, like the first six, yeah, I thought they
were all done at the same time. So when I
got the original I was just like, what is what
happened to the quality?
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Like they would have were having like slick modern consoles
and fighter jets to what you saw in there?
Speaker 3 (25:18):
And uh yeah, what happened to the quality? What they're tech?
Really took a step backwards here all of a sudden,
Like is this black and white? Like that's going on here?
I watched that series and Or, and I thought they
did a really great job. Mark you, I know this
is your your bag here to talk entertainment. Oh yeah,
and Or's terrific. I thought and Or was great.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
But I think one of the hardest things that they did,
I thought they did a pretty good job of it too,
was trying to make the technology from that series sort
of matched the original nineteen seventies technology, but also not
look quite so old, but also kind of the big
square buttons and the and you know, the screens that
were very similar in order to offer some continuity.
Speaker 6 (25:56):
It had a real cool kind of retro futuristic look.
And so like when you you get into Stellin's Scarsguard's
spy Layer and they pull out the spy drawer with
the radio in it, You're like, oh, I want that.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Yeah, yeah, I thought they did. Whoever it was that
was designing on that did such a great job. I
thought they really nailed that well.
Speaker 6 (26:17):
Tony Gilroy was the boss of the whole thing, and
I just think he did a bang up job from
start to finish. That's a smart show, especially for Star Wars.
Totally agree with you. Totally agree, so smart, so smart.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
We'll talk speaking of a you know, the films and whatnots,
a little more on the Warner Brothers deal and as
you've got more and more fallout coming from that, people
are freaking out. In the meantime, I was talking about
gen Z first of all. Gen Z and Australia is
losing their social media. Politicians in the United States are
(26:51):
saying we should do the same thing. That's not gonna work.
Especially because you've got a number of gen z ers
who are going broke to try to look rich. And
now I'm finding this is really fascinating because gen Z
is headline from Axios. Gen Z is embracing a trade
down economy. So imagine that you're trying to look like
(27:12):
you've got drip.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
I guess, did I use that right? You're dripping? You
got No, you got a nice drip ache for that.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Okay, I'm trying to keep up with it. I'm trying
younger Americans getting choose here about how they spend. They're
cutting back on things like dining out. Okay, cool, that
makes sense. Oh, look, gen Z's having trouble getting jobs.
They're not saving us quickly. They're not having you know,
gen Z's got these different challenges. School is more expensive,
this kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
Cool.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
So it says they're willing to trade down or trade
out on everyday expenses in order to afford meaningful indulgences.
According to a report from PwC, about half of gen
Z respondents said that they plan to cut back on
spending around the holidays and cut back on dining out
and cut back on home delivery. They also plan to
(28:05):
spend less on clothes and alcohol.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
So what are they doing that? Is this because they
don't have the money.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
No, it's because they want to go splash on things
like Coach handbags and other brands that they like. So
they're shifting from necessities or comfort items to luxury items.
It just does not make logical sense to me. And look,
(28:32):
I try to have this logic conversation with my wife.
She goes, oh, I really want to Louis Vuitton bag.
And I go why She goes, Oh, they're just so great.
And what's so great about him? She goes, oh, they're
just everyone knows. Okay, So the logic is everyone knows.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
All right.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
That makes no sense to me, and I go, so,
you know, I first meet my wife from you know,
how much is a Louis v tombag. She goes, oh,
it's like four thousand dollars. I'm having a heart attack.
Four thousand dollars, I thought, thank you? Does it come
with a used car?
Speaker 5 (29:09):
What?
Speaker 3 (29:10):
What is it four thousand dollars for a bag? She goes, oh, yeah,
but they last a long time.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
I said, there is no way that your four thousand
dollars Louis Vaton bag lasts longer than the number of
reasonable Walmart bags that I can buy with four thousand dollars.
Speaker 6 (29:25):
Yeah, that's their selling point, their durability.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
That's what my wife says. Yeah, she goes, oh, yeah,
that's it.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
No no no no no no no no no no
no no no no no no.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
And I realized what it was like.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
She wants She wanted to convey the image, and me,
I wanted to spoil her. And if that's what made
her happy, fine, I got her. I got her a bag,
but I saved for it, right, and I had make
some cutback, so I saved for it. She got it
for a Mother's Day one year, and she still has it.
She's still her bag, and she's paid to have it
fixed a few times. And every time something goes wrong,
she's like, oh, the strap broke, and I go, oh.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
No, strap broke on that.
Speaker 5 (30:00):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
I thought these things were indestructible. I thought that was
the big selling.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
Point, that they lasted much longer than than any other bags.
You tell me, I could have gotten you, like a
fifty dollars bag from from Walmart. I could have gotten
you eighty fifty dollars bags from Walmart and they would
have not lasted as long as your expensive Louis Vuitton.
(30:25):
She's like, you don't get it. I didn't, And now
I realized she was after the drip. She was she wanted,
she wanted drippings, she wanted to I have no idea
what this. Okay, she wanted wanted to drip. She wanted
to drip. Okay, so I did say she wanted to drip. Okay, good,
I got it right. Anyway, that's what she wanted, right, Okay, whatever.
(30:48):
I think it's a terrible expense. But also I'm a
dude who buys golf clubs, and I golf like once
every three years. So look, we all spend things on
dumb stuff, but gen Z doesn't have the money to
do it, and they're more interested in the drip than
they are you know, the savings, but really the behavior.
And it's easy to point at gen Z, but the
behavior is not new. We've been trying to keep up
with the Joneses from Lennia. What's different now, though, is
(31:10):
that we have this this easy axis.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
We've got like the.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Visual confirmation, the influencers and then the clout and all that.
The constant bombardment of the temptation of these things, and
it's so easy to click a button and buy it
on an impulse. That's what's different now, All right, streaming Warris,
we've got your wallet in their crosshairs. You thought cable
was predatory, but in this case, the strategy could backfire
(31:37):
on the big streamers when the purge begins is next
Chris Merril KFI AM six forty relive everywhere in the
iHeartRadio app, KFI A six on demand
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
If you're joining us A conversations sort of threading through
the first hour. What is the goofy stuff you believed
when you were little? And this kind of came as
we were talking about this woman who had a big
cist in her abdomen and needed to have that removed.
And then they did testing and they went, you're pregnant,
(00:25):
and the baby was. It was an ectopic abdominal pregnancy
that was hidden behind the cyst in her in her abdomen,
and it was really remarkable. She survived, the baby survived,
the cyst did not, and so a great story. But
I made mention that when I was young, because kids
believe goofy things when we were young, right, And I
believe that the babies came out of mom's feet.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Right. Don't ask me how I came up with that.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Although one person did have a good theory, I thought
it was a great theory when she said that when
I was little, I probably heard someone say something about
the fetus and that the fetus was the baby. To me,
I probably put that together. You're probably right on that.
I mean, I have no recollection, but that certainly makes
the most sense. So we asked to talk about question.
What are the goofy things you believe when you were little?
Speaker 4 (01:12):
Hey, Chris, when I was a little boy, I used
to pick my scabs, Like when I would fall down
and get a scab, I used to pick the skin
off of it. And my mom told me that if
I picked my scabs, I was gonna get cancer. And
I believed it. So it was effective in helping me
not pick my scabs anymore. But that was something that
I believed was a direct reason you can get cancer,
(01:34):
was picking your scabs. Anyways, like your show, thank.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
You, Thank You.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Yeah, that's some parenting. I tell people I'm a terrible parent,
so I know bad parenting when.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
I see it.
Speaker 5 (01:50):
Chris, I used to think chocolate milk came from brown cars.
And not only that, also, if you swallow a see
it is going to grow a plant inside you. And
this is what I did when I was a kid,
maybe about six years old.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Yeah, man, didn't our parents all tell us that though,
if you eat a watermelon seed, you're gonna have a
watermelon grow inside you.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
I mean then it was not a thing our parents
all told us.
Speaker 6 (02:15):
Yeah, I like that guy's voice. I would like him
to narrate an audio book.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Please.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Oh what would the book be, right, I'd take anything.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Make it a Stephen King book.
Speaker 7 (02:27):
My family and other animals.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
He sounded a little bit like Gene Simmons, didn't he.
Speaker 8 (02:32):
Hmm, no Simmons, No, no.
Speaker 6 (02:36):
No, Well, Gene Simmons combined with Jeffrey Holder, the colonet
guy from the old commercials.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
See, I always rely on you to come up with
something highly relatable and recognizeble.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
It was kind of a deep cut, I admit.
Speaker 5 (02:48):
Yeah, Chris, I used to think that, like, what a
great character voice you would make? Chocolate now came from
brown cows and not only that.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Oh so like I'm imagining Charlotte's web and he's one
of the barnyard animals, right.
Speaker 5 (03:07):
If you swallow his seed, yeah, it's going to grow
a plant inside you. And this is what I did
when I was a kid, maybe about six years old.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
I think it is Jean Simmons. Actually, let's trace the
phone number, Nikki. You see if that's Geen Simmons, can
we get him to fill in his host some night?
Speaker 3 (03:26):
And his voice is like treacle? Yeah? Yeah, I like that?
All right?
Speaker 9 (03:29):
Cool there's nothing like a childhood trauma that lasts a lifetime.
When I was about seven, my cousins tell me if
I slept with my hands on top of the covers,
a man would come and cut them off. Well, so
to this day I cannot sleep unless I have my
hands underneath the covers.
Speaker 6 (03:49):
An how we're talking and the feet hanging over the
side of the bed. You don't want to do that either.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Yeah, yeah, because that's that's how the boogyman gets you. Right, huh,
that's good, all right? What's the stuff you believe when
you were a kid? Love to hear what you what
your mind came up with, or what your parents or
cousins or whatever else convinced you when you were little.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
It's great stuff. Love that.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
So Australia did just launch their social media ban for
anybody under the age of sixteen, and this is going
over teenagers.
Speaker 7 (04:20):
Noah and Macy are taking their government to court in
a fight to stay on social media, taking.
Speaker 10 (04:25):
Away how we communicate to the world. This is how
we do it. It's a modern day in social media.
Speaker 7 (04:32):
From Wednesday, Australia in force a world first law banning
children under sixteen from many of the biggest platforms, supported
by a freedom advocacy group Macy, and Noah's case asserts
a right to political communication. The High Court has agreed
to hear it next year. So what will you lose
when social media is taken away from you?
Speaker 11 (04:53):
Well, we will lose connections, but we will lose our democracy.
Speaker 12 (04:57):
This law is saying that democracy begins at sixteen, which
is condescending and it's incorrect.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Listener, M yeah, I'm not buying that argument.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
No, No, we have lots of laws that restrict your
freedoms based on age. So but I don't know, baby,
they don't have laws like that in Australia. Are babies
allowed to vote in Australia.
Speaker 8 (05:26):
No, but it is compulsory to vote in Australia. You
have to as soon as you turn at eighteen, you
have to register and vote, and if you don't vote,
you get fined, and if you don't pay your fines,
they do things like revoke your driver's license.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Okay, But do you get a driver's license when you
turn four?
Speaker 8 (05:43):
No, you get your learners permanent age sixteen.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Okay, So I mean we already there are already laws
based on age. So this notion that. Oh, they're saying
democracy doesn't start until we're sixteen. No, no, there are
plenty of laws that restrict your your rights while you're
still a minor.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Okay, back to the cut from CNN.
Speaker 10 (06:03):
Listen, there are definitely negatives on social media. I'm not
denying that. I completely agree with saying that getting rid
of the kids is not the solution. We didn't do
anything wrong.
Speaker 7 (06:14):
The government says it is active to protect children.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
From I mean, we didn't do anything wrong, right, and
that's why that's why small children should have to be
in car seats.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
They didn't do.
Speaker 7 (06:23):
Anything wrong from potentially harmful content, harmful people, and addictive algorithms.
Speaker 6 (06:30):
And there are these powerful harmful.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Oh now, addiction is something we have to address with you. Now,
what you're telling me, I can't give twelve year old
cigarettes because they're addictive.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
So taking my democracy away?
Speaker 11 (06:43):
Harmful deceptive design features that even adults are powerless to
fight against, like AutoPlay and endless scroll and snapstreams.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
So what chance do our children have?
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Yeah, I mean I understand the basis of the law.
I don't think it's a bad law. I think it's
an impractical law. I do Australian teenagers have taken to
social media for They did this on Tuesday night. They
went to social media for the last time to bid
farewell their followers and mourned the loss of the platforms
(07:15):
that shaped their lives. Right before the first the world's
first ban took effect. However, it's not even working in Australia.
We are all of well, they're a day ahead of us, right,
so we're all of two days into this. The Australian
Prime Minister, Anthony Albanize is how you say his name?
Speaker 3 (07:34):
Been? Easy?
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Okay, very good acknowledge that some young people were still
on social media after the world's first ban on under
sixteen ers went live, saying that the rollout was always
going to be bumpy but would ultimately save lives. Just
one day after the law took affect, Australian social media
feeds were flooded with comments from people claiming to be
under sixteen, including one on the Prime Minister's TikTok account
(07:56):
saying I'm still here.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
You're listening to KFI on demand.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Chris Marilyn.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
KFI am six forty more stimulating talking on demand anytime
in the iHeartRadio app or you'll also find the talk
back or question this evening is what is the goofy
thing you believed when you were a little kid, because
we all believed dumb things when we were little.
Speaker 13 (08:18):
My mom used to tell me when I started school
that if I misbehaved, the teacher will take me onside
and whip me until she gets hired.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
I remember when I was a kid, That's exactly what
would happen.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
We need to go back to the good old days.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
Hi, Michelle.
Speaker 11 (08:36):
My mom used to say, you swallowed your gum, it
would stick to your rips.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Oh yeah, I think my grandparents used to tell me
that too, or didn't They used to say that if
you swallowed your gum, it took seven years to digest.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
Yeah, I would come out of your system for like
ten years or so. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 6 (08:54):
A lot of fear based safety tips back, isn't that right? Okay,
you don't want to cross your eyes either, Oh.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Yeah, your face look at stuck that way? Yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
It is funny that we all have that, like those
shared weird threats from when we were little, like those
have become almost cultural benchmarks for raising children. Now, make
sure you scare the hell to your kid by saying this,
and make sure you scare him by saying that. Yeah,
the watermelon seeds will grow in your belly, the gum
(09:24):
will not digest.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
You'll get hair on your palms.
Speaker 6 (09:26):
Yeah, hello, oh yeah, is this thing on?
Speaker 3 (09:34):
You'll go blind? Yeah, there we go. Now we know
he's back. Hair and palm, nothing moving on, nothing.
Speaker 13 (09:42):
Nikki, my darling, how are you okay?
Speaker 3 (09:46):
Down boy?
Speaker 13 (09:47):
Anyway? The weirdest thing that I ever thought of was
when I was about five years old, I noticed that
I had these two black dots in the palm of
my hand. I thought they were antenna implanted there by
marsh and to keep track of my whereabouts. So somewhere
along the line, I grabbed a needle and I dug
one of them out. What and needless is saying I
(10:09):
haven't been bothered by Martians since?
Speaker 3 (10:11):
No? I mean, you got that going for it? What? Right?
But what were they? Was it just like moles or something?
Speaker 2 (10:19):
What was I want to know what the black spot was?
Speaker 6 (10:23):
Was he cursed by a pirate? He should have slept
with his hands outside the covers.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
Let's get call back to another one.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Oh good, all right, it's coming up after Mark's eight
thirty News how to go broke and look rich doing it.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
That is still ahead.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
In the meantime, Australia has banned social media for kids
under the age of sixteen, and now Ram Emanuel remember
Rama Manuel used to be in the Obama administration that
he was the mayor of Chicago for a while. Now
he comes out and he says, oh, no, you know what,
this is a really great idea. We should do that.
We should do that here too. When it comes to
our adolescents, it's either going to be adults or the algorithms.
(11:05):
One of them is going to raise the kids, and
I think we need to help parents. So he is
also pushing for a restriction for media access for kids
sixteen and younger. Again, I think we can all understand
why that makes sense, Like what what the what the
rationale is. It's just that listen, fuddy duddies, we don't
(11:28):
know it well enough, we don't know the tech well enough,
and kids that have grown up around the tech and
know how to tell other kids about workarounds are going
to find workarounds.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
It's just kind of like points.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
This is from uh, This from Australia. This is Reuters
talking with Australian teenagers.
Speaker 11 (11:46):
It's just kind of like pointless, Like it's just like
we're just going to create like new ways to get
on these platforms, so like what's the point, you know? Like, yeah,
I kind of see where they're coming from. But also
I think you you can get a job at fourteen.
I think you should be able to like have be
able to have social media, and I think they will
(12:06):
just use their phones on just on different apps.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
I like the pro child labor stance on that. Yeah,
that's good.
Speaker 6 (12:12):
Also without without social media in Australia, how are you
gonna let people know if the dingoes et your baby?
Speaker 3 (12:18):
You gotta have that? Do I sound like those girls?
And you do sound like those girls? Like you do
like sound like them? Like yeah, I don't say like
every second.
Speaker 11 (12:29):
Rod like like you can still watch Netflix, you can
still go on Pinterest, like you can do a lot
more different things. Yeah, similar kind of apps. But yeah,
maybe we'll make people go outside more.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
But not really.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
They actually have less of an accent than Nicky does.
I think that's true. I think that too.
Speaker 8 (12:54):
Yeah I don't have an accent. You all have an
accent right totally.
Speaker 6 (12:58):
It's really funny to hear foreigner is mock American accents.
When I lived in Scotland for about a year, hearing
them try to talk like dumb Americans was hugely entertained, like.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
Somebody with a Cockney accent. Hey, guys, what are you
doing what?
Speaker 6 (13:13):
They exaggerate everything, and they draw out their vowels and
they really make us sound like numbskulls.
Speaker 8 (13:18):
Good back to the valen There you go, Nikki, well done.
Speaker 7 (13:22):
Well, oh my god.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
So I don't think that this is ever gonna work
in the United States, And I think that it's more
than just the practicality. I think there's all There are
also forces at work here.
Speaker 11 (13:34):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Imagine that you are going to start restricting teens under
sixteen nationwide.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
How many parents are going to freak out.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
They're gonna say, we don't need big brother government telling
us how to raise our kids. I mean, that's the
first thing. It's gonna cost politicians votes if they're telling
parents you're doing it wrong, you're raising your kids wrong,
and parents are not going to be cool on that,
and parents don't agree on anything. You're gonna have half
the parents that are like, you know what, I think
this is really good. Now I feel like I got
some reinforcements. I've been trying to keep my kids off
(14:01):
social media, but now I can just tell them the
government's telling me.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
Then you have other parents that are like, don't tread
on me, man, don't tread on me.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
But maybe the most important thing, aside from enforcement being
totally impossible, which we talked about in the last segment.
Speaker 5 (14:15):
Is.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
The tech companies need it. Tech companies already have some
restrictions on kids they're not supposed to have. They're not
supposed to have what I think Facebook or Instagram accounts
under the age of twelve or TikTok is like twelve
or thirteen, something like that. But I don't think that
they work real hard to enforce it because they need
eyeballs on that. When I was programming music radio, I
(14:38):
used to talk to my DJs and and they would
they would say, you know, why are we why are
we doing this car seat drive or whatever, or why
are we doing this? Why why are we going to
the middle schools to try to you know, give away
we used to do like school drives to get to
backpacks and stuff like that. Right, And I said, look,
this is the McDonald's theory. You gotta get them young,
(15:01):
and you gotta get them hooked onto your product.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
Now, for us, it was radio. We were giving them music.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
It wasn't like we're doing something nefarious to try to
make them fat and obese so they keep eating our
French fries or something like that.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
But McDonald's used to put those ballpits in, right, And I.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Said, if we get the kids, we get the parents,
and they go the kids aren't spending money on our advertisers,
and I go, one, they're gonna grow up and they will.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Two.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
We want to be the station that the kids want
to listen to in the car. Okay, because the kids
are listening to it, the parents are listening to it.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
Right.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
So we always we wanted to do stuff for families,
and it was in our demographic that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Right.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Again, nothing unscrupulous. We were just trying to be practical
with our marketing and we were going after our demographic.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
McDonald's does the same thing. They put those.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Ballpits in the slides and those play areas in their
restaurants because they knew if the kids want to go
to McDonald's, the parents will take them to McDonald's. They
weren't making money on the on the play, the gyms
or whatever they had in there, right, that's not where
they made their money. That's how they got the kids
to tell the parents where they wanted to go. Likewise,
(16:05):
you've got these social media companies that want to get
the kids hooked young. Just like cigarette companies used to
do in the fifties and sixties, social media companies want
to get you hooked early young. They're the ones that
are gonna spend a ton of money funding political campaigns,
so don't expect them to go down without a fight. Right,
(16:26):
you're scrolling through your your feet. It's full of yachts
and handbags and rooftop cocktails and the vacations that you
can't afford, and you tell yourself that you're above all
that nonsense, and then you go and you buy something
stupid anyway, just to look like your favorite influencers. The
reason you keep flexing the money you don't have is
next going broke well looking like you're riches.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Thanks to everybody that has checked in on the app too,
and let us know what the goofiest things are that
you believe when you were a kid, some good wizard there.
Appreciate appreciate everybody telling me that they also believed goofy things,
because when I was we started the show by talking
about this. When I was young, I thought that babies
came out of mom's feet, which is it's pretty it's
(17:11):
pretty odd, and I've always thought it was just a
dumb kid. I think, guess there's yes, but I think
I think all of us were kind of dumb kids.
I think we all believed goofy things when we were little.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
The world was new. We didn't know what to believe.
Speaker 8 (17:23):
Hey, I remember another goofy thing I've thought as a child.
When you took a flight somewhere, I thought, you stay,
you sit on the airplane, and they some people they
changed the scenery outside the plane.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
They just say the plane world underneath you.
Speaker 8 (17:38):
Yeah, the plane stays where it's at, but everything else changes.
And that's why you have to be on the plane
a long time. It takes hours to change the outside world.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
That's kind of fun. That's stupid, like.
Speaker 6 (17:51):
An impossible episode, is what you're saying.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Oh that's that's very good. Yeah that's true. Yeah, no,
I actually liked that one. I think that's great. I
can see how a little kid would think, like, my
world is stationary and everything else is changing. That makes
perfect sense to me that a child would think that
that's great. Thank you, thank you for that. Gen Z
is going broke and they're looking rich doing it. A
(18:14):
new nationwide bank study shows that it's a credit. One
Bank shows that more than half of gen Z admit
to lying or exaggerating about their financial status online, all
thanks to a NonStop stream of social media luxury lifestyle content.
USA Today reporting that influencers and esthetic pages are fueling
a culture where flexing fake wealth feels normal, even when
(18:37):
it wrecks people's finances. Therapists say that the damage shows
up everywhere, from dating to weddings to every day spending,
and that I found it from a series called OMG Stories.
This is very British, by the way, you may need
a translator in this. They were talking about the dripaholics
(18:57):
off Big This show.
Speaker 14 (18:58):
That sixty nine percent of sixteen to thirty four year
olds would get into debt to buy a luxury item.
I've come shopping with Samantha, a sound confessed drip aholics
what's the drip?
Speaker 3 (19:10):
You guys are younger than me, What's what's when they
talk about the drip? What is that?
Speaker 8 (19:13):
Only you should answer this.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Outfit like a cool outfit? Okay, s spendive thing you've
ever bought?
Speaker 12 (19:22):
Probably my Chanelle bag?
Speaker 3 (19:24):
Much? How much was it?
Speaker 12 (19:25):
Five and a half grass?
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Five and a half grand? But that's pounds. What does
that translate to in US dollars? Like seven eight eight grand?
Speaker 3 (19:36):
Yeah? Maybe, man, that's a lot, that's a lot of bagh.
Speaker 15 (19:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 12 (19:45):
My mom was a chocoholic, really, and obviously the gene
passed down.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
So we go out and look at some jewelry.
Speaker 12 (19:52):
My mother got ill, so she started to spoil my
sibling and I. So that's when it was like, We're
gonna fly to the Maldives business class, and we're gonna
stay there for weeks, and I'm going to be taken
out of school for a week so we can sit
on the beach.
Speaker 14 (20:04):
In a few short years, Samantha lost her mom, grandma,
and great aunt. She received a large amount of inheritance,
but not long later it was all gone.
Speaker 12 (20:14):
I was close to them, and they were all I
had left on that side of the family, and they
passed away, and I got a little bit of inheritance.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
What do you call it? A little bit of inheritance
to have.
Speaker 12 (20:25):
To say the figure? Can I say, like, you don't
have to more than fifty grand and less than one
hundred grand?
Speaker 3 (20:32):
Oh wow? Again in US dollars. I think it's like
one hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 6 (20:36):
Right, yeah, but that I mean business class to the
mall dives.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
Yeah, that's not cheap. No, and three weeks.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
Yeah so, and staying at the nice places and everything
else like that.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
More than half of gen Z admit that they exaggerated
or lie about their financial success online. According to the survey,
more than a third have gone into debt to impress
someone on a date. That rate reaching almost half of
all men have gone into debt to impress a woman
on a date.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Gen Z is feeling rising anxiety about wages, housing costs,
and miss milestones, and that's feeling splurge spendings as a
coping mechanism. Great, that's just wonderful. Look, we all make
bad decisions when we're young, right, I mean I signed
up for a credit card that eventually got sent to
collections because when I was in college. They were giving
(21:33):
away two leaders of Mountain Dew if you signed up
for the credit card. Okay, that's not a good business
decision's serious. Yeah, not real smart from a financial standpoint.
You know, we got the Mountain Dew right, So we
all do dumb things when we're younger. But it seems
that with the rise of social media, the image, the
aura is the most important thing in so many lives now.
(21:58):
I mean, it was always like that when you're in
high school. You wanted to have the you wanted to
have the cool clothes, you wanted to have the drip.
I guess because you wanted to you wanted to appear
a certain way when you were in high school. And
I get that, but it sounds like this is happening
even beyond high school. I mean, beyond high school. You
almost it almost like reverses where you go, hey, I
went thrift shopping. Everybody's like, hey, you're you're you're you're
(22:20):
cheap chic and uh. But for some people it's like, no,
I have to I have to live up to I
have to go on these vacations and I have to
go do this, and I have to go do that. Meanwhile,
behind the scenes, everything's actually just garbage. I mean, imagine
you see a designer bag and you see a BMW
and none you see some gen z or get out
of the beamer to go start their shift at Chipotle, right,
(22:41):
And you got to wonder if anybody under thirty actually
knows where their money goes.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
The answer to that is not flattering. It's a new
trade off. And that's next.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Chris Merril k if I AM six forty more stimulating
talking on demand anytime iHeart radio app. As we were
asking what's the goofy thing you believed when you were
a kid?
Speaker 16 (23:03):
My mom would tell me she could see through the walls.
So when I played Barbies, I made sure I was
behind my bed because she couldn't see through.
Speaker 7 (23:12):
My bed, just the walls.
Speaker 16 (23:15):
And then they could be like kissing, like while they
were naked.
Speaker 9 (23:20):
That's what I thought sex was.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
I took an unexpected turn.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
I know what is it? Weren't barbies? How Like half
the neighborhood kids sort of explored human anatomy. Like I
just remember I didn't have any sisters, but I we
had girls in the neighborhood, and I remember I took
the Barbie's clothes off just to see what.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
Was under there.
Speaker 6 (23:45):
G I Joe did that half the I mean half
the time that I was like at my cousin's house,
who are all girls, they never had clothes on in
general because they was changing them.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
Yeah, so there was naked. That's so funny. And she
didn't want to get caught. I don't want. My mom's
thing is she can see through walls because our parents
always had eyes in the back of their heads.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
Right, that's great.
Speaker 17 (24:05):
Here's a weird thing I thought as a kid. I
always thought there's people, little tiny people behind my TV
or behind the wall unit of my parents TV or whatever,
acting out the whatever I was watching on TV. So
like Star Wars Punch, the little guys behind the TV
doing stuff and I would periodically check behind there and
nothing happens.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
That's funny.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
I can see that too as a little kid, because
I got I had a dog that used to watch
TV and he loved watching horses on the TV.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
And he always thought it was kind of a window, right, I.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Mean, when you're a kid, doesn't that make sense that
it looks like a window in the same way my
dog would watch horses on the TV and the dog
would get all excited.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
Then the horses would run off the screen he could
peek around behind the TV. I'm it makes perfect sense
for an undeveloped brain to think that.
Speaker 15 (24:50):
When I watched all the Star Wars growing up as
a kid, like the first six, yeah, I thought they
were all done at the same time. So when I
got the original I was just like, what is what
happened to the quality?
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Like they would have were having like slick modern consoles
and fighter jets to what you saw in there?
Speaker 3 (25:18):
And uh yeah, what happened to the quality? What they're tech?
Really took a step backwards here all of a sudden,
Like is this black and white? Like that's going on here?
I watched that series and Or, and I thought they
did a really great job. Mark you, I know this
is your your bag here to talk entertainment. Oh yeah,
and Or's terrific. I thought and Or was great.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
But I think one of the hardest things that they did,
I thought they did a pretty good job of it too,
was trying to make the technology from that series sort
of matched the original nineteen seventies technology, but also not
look quite so old, but also kind of the big
square buttons and the and you know, the screens that
were very similar in order to offer some continuity.
Speaker 6 (25:56):
It had a real cool kind of retro futuristic look.
And so like when you you get into Stellin's Scarsguard's
spy Layer and they pull out the spy drawer with
the radio in it, You're like, oh, I want that.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Yeah, yeah, I thought they did. Whoever it was that
was designing on that did such a great job. I
thought they really nailed that well.
Speaker 6 (26:17):
Tony Gilroy was the boss of the whole thing, and
I just think he did a bang up job from
start to finish. That's a smart show, especially for Star Wars.
Totally agree with you. Totally agree, so smart, so smart.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
We'll talk speaking of a you know, the films and whatnots,
a little more on the Warner Brothers deal and as
you've got more and more fallout coming from that, people
are freaking out. In the meantime, I was talking about
gen Z first of all. Gen Z and Australia is
losing their social media. Politicians in the United States are
(26:51):
saying we should do the same thing. That's not gonna work.
Especially because you've got a number of gen z ers
who are going broke to try to look rich. And
now I'm finding this is really fascinating because gen Z
is headline from Axios. Gen Z is embracing a trade
down economy. So imagine that you're trying to look like
(27:12):
you've got drip.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
I guess, did I use that right? You're dripping? You
got No, you got a nice drip ache for that.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Okay, I'm trying to keep up with it. I'm trying
younger Americans getting choose here about how they spend. They're
cutting back on things like dining out. Okay, cool, that
makes sense. Oh, look, gen Z's having trouble getting jobs.
They're not saving us quickly. They're not having you know,
gen Z's got these different challenges. School is more expensive,
this kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
Cool.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
So it says they're willing to trade down or trade
out on everyday expenses in order to afford meaningful indulgences.
According to a report from PwC, about half of gen
Z respondents said that they plan to cut back on
spending around the holidays and cut back on dining out
and cut back on home delivery. They also plan to
(28:05):
spend less on clothes and alcohol.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
So what are they doing that? Is this because they
don't have the money.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
No, it's because they want to go splash on things
like Coach handbags and other brands that they like. So
they're shifting from necessities or comfort items to luxury items.
It just does not make logical sense to me. And look,
(28:32):
I try to have this logic conversation with my wife.
She goes, oh, I really want to Louis Vuitton bag.
And I go why She goes, Oh, they're just so great.
And what's so great about him? She goes, oh, they're
just everyone knows. Okay, So the logic is everyone knows.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
All right.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
That makes no sense to me, and I go, so,
you know, I first meet my wife from you know,
how much is a Louis v tombag. She goes, oh,
it's like four thousand dollars. I'm having a heart attack.
Four thousand dollars, I thought, thank you? Does it come
with a used car?
Speaker 5 (29:09):
What?
Speaker 3 (29:10):
What is it four thousand dollars for a bag? She goes, oh, yeah,
but they last a long time.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
I said, there is no way that your four thousand
dollars Louis Vaton bag lasts longer than the number of
reasonable Walmart bags that I can buy with four thousand dollars.
Speaker 6 (29:25):
Yeah, that's their selling point, their durability.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
That's what my wife says. Yeah, she goes, oh, yeah,
that's it.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
No no no no no no no no no no
no no no no no no.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
And I realized what it was like.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
She wants She wanted to convey the image, and me,
I wanted to spoil her. And if that's what made
her happy, fine, I got her. I got her a bag,
but I saved for it, right, and I had make
some cutback, so I saved for it. She got it
for a Mother's Day one year, and she still has it.
She's still her bag, and she's paid to have it
fixed a few times. And every time something goes wrong,
she's like, oh, the strap broke, and I go, oh.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
No, strap broke on that.
Speaker 5 (30:00):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
I thought these things were indestructible. I thought that was
the big selling.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
Point, that they lasted much longer than than any other bags.
You tell me, I could have gotten you, like a
fifty dollars bag from from Walmart. I could have gotten
you eighty fifty dollars bags from Walmart and they would
have not lasted as long as your expensive Louis Vuitton.
(30:25):
She's like, you don't get it. I didn't, And now
I realized she was after the drip. She was she wanted,
she wanted drippings, she wanted to I have no idea
what this. Okay, she wanted wanted to drip. She wanted
to drip. Okay, so I did say she wanted to drip. Okay, good,
I got it right. Anyway, that's what she wanted, right, Okay, whatever.
(30:48):
I think it's a terrible expense. But also I'm a
dude who buys golf clubs, and I golf like once
every three years. So look, we all spend things on
dumb stuff, but gen Z doesn't have the money to
do it, and they're more interested in the drip than
they are you know, the savings, but really the behavior.
And it's easy to point at gen Z, but the
behavior is not new. We've been trying to keep up
with the Joneses from Lennia. What's different now, though, is
(31:10):
that we have this this easy axis.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
We've got like the.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Visual confirmation, the influencers and then the clout and all that.
The constant bombardment of the temptation of these things, and
it's so easy to click a button and buy it
on an impulse. That's what's different now, All right, streaming Warris,
we've got your wallet in their crosshairs. You thought cable
was predatory, but in this case, the strategy could backfire
(31:37):
on the big streamers when the purge begins is next
Chris Merril KFI AM six forty relive everywhere in the
iHeartRadio app, KFI A six on demand
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