April 17, 2025 • 40 mins
What happens when three Mamamia Out Loud hosts, a live audience, and a very shiny Apple store come together? Chaos. Joyful chaos.
To celebrate 10 years of Mamamia Out Loud (yes, 10!), Mia, Jessie and Holly recorded a special live episode at Apple Sydney — and now, you get to hear it.
From how Holly wheedled her way onto the show, to what really goes into choosing our daily topics, and the moments that have stayed with us the most, it’s all here.
Hosted by our fantastic friend of the pod Amelia Lester and full of behind-the-scenes tea, this is your backstage pass to a decade of strong opinions, respectful disagreements, and... shoe jewellery.
Happy public holiday, Outlouders — this one's a little treat.
Support independent women's media
Get your tickets to the Mamamia Out Loud Live 2025 All or Nothing Tour Presented By Nivea Cellular
Get your merch for Mamamia Out Loud
What to listen to next:
- Listen to the latest episode: The Exact Science To Keep On Enjoying Your Job
- Listen: A Very 2025 Diss Track. No Notes.
- Listen: Clare Stephens - We Have Questions
- Listen: A Reality TV Showdown & Coachella's Three Levels Of Cool
- Listen: I’d Like To Give My Diagnosis Back
- Listen: The Three Rules For Friendship Catch-Ups
- Connect your subscription to Apple Podcasts
Sign up to the Mamamia Out Loud Newsletter for all our recommendations and behind-the-scenes content in one place.
GET IN TOUCH:
Feedback? We’re listening. Send us an email at outloud@mamamia.com.au
Share your story, feedback, or dilemma! Send us a voice message
Join our Facebook g
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and warders
that this podcast is recorded on Hello out louders, it's
holly here and I have got a treat for you.
(00:35):
A few weeks ago, we did something really special. We
took over the Apple Store in Sydney. We've never done
anything like this before, right, Mia and Jesse and I
went into an open store where people had registered to
come and watch us record a show. We were celebrating
ten years of Mamma Mia out Loud, which is wild.
I can hardly believe that now. Obviously not everyone could
join us. Not everybody lives near the Sydney Apple Store.
(00:56):
Although wouldn't we all like to live in the Sydney
Apple Store. But we recorded the whole show and we
thought that this public holiday was a great excuse to
share it with all of you. It was packed with
familiar faces. Amelia Lester sat down and as just questions
and we talked about things like how I managed to
wheedle my.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Way on the show, and we.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Reflected on how we put the show together. We decide
what to talk about about and shared some of our
most memorable moments. We hope you enjoy this very special
recording that today at Apple ten year anniversary special of
Mama Mia Out Loud starts right now.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Hello out louders, so good to see you and thank
you for coming out to celebrate ten years of Mama
Mia out Loud. I am here in my official capacity
as a friend of the pod, but secretly I have
to tell you I am a fan of the pod.
I have been listening since day one to these ladies talking,
(01:52):
and I have to tell you, as someone who's filled
in a couple of times recently, it is so much
hotter than it looks to produce this amazing podcast every week.
So I'm excited to get into how they do it,
and I am going to ask them lots of questions
about that. But first, Miya, hello us.
Speaker 4 (02:07):
Through the outfit, well obviously shoe jewelry, let's just start there.
I've decided that I need to put accessories on my
shoes because the planet's not dying fast enough, so I'm
buying accessories for my accessories. This is just an old
vintage slip dress and this is Zadigan Voltaire and I
(02:28):
don't know.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Well backstage, I'm not going to embarrass the others by
talking us through their outfits. But backstage, Holly showed me
her lipstick wardrobe, and I do want to know, Holly,
what lipstick combo are we wearing today.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
I've got one of those Unicotto bags that are shaped
like a quassant and you can fit so many lipsticks
in it. And I was showing a Melia and they
just kept coming, kept coming, kept coming.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
I think I'm wearing three different ones.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
It's like French.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
It's like how Megan wears two different shades of nail polish.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
The affiliate links will be available later. Okay, Mia, the
very first episode of Mama Mia out loud. It went
live in October twenty fourteen, and we looked back and
found out what it was called. Do you remember, No,
it was called The Bachelor Aftermath episode. I didn't even
think you liked The Bachelor. Oh wow, I think.
Speaker 5 (03:12):
I did in the early days.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
And anyway, it's not about what I like, It's about what.
Speaker 5 (03:17):
The audience is going to respond to.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
So tell me what made you want to start a
podcast that day.
Speaker 4 (03:23):
I'd been listening to a lot of podcasts i'd originally,
I mean, I think of myself as a writer, and I,
you know, as a journalist, and I'd started in magazines
and podcasts didn't exist when.
Speaker 5 (03:33):
I started my career in media.
Speaker 4 (03:35):
I realized I'd been on holidays and I've been listening
to a lot of podcasts, and I realized that there
was a limit of time that I could look at
a screen, but I had more time available to consume
content when I was doing other things like exercising or walking,
or cooking or driving and not cooking, and.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
To be honest, and so that's when I just thought.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
Oh, well, why don't we start a podcast. So I
didn't know how to do it. I just took my phone,
my iPhone, and I sat down on the floor of
my office and grabbed somebody who wasn't these two because.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
I didn't know them yet, and we just talked.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
And I realized that what Mama Mia does is actually
make content for women, and that can be on whatever platform.
But it took years for anyone to understand what.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Podcasts were really well, Jesse was pulled into the podcast studio,
or perhaps it was more of a wardrobe or closet.
Two years later, Yeah, Jesse, do you remember what Mia
said to you? About what she wanted you to do.
Speaker 6 (04:29):
No, she never tells you what she wants you to do.
She pulls you into things and in front of a microphone.
As you know very well, Amelia, I remember because when
it first started, I was an original listener too, and
I was nannying at the time, and I would listen
to the original hosts and I felt like it was
a time when in digital media the articles were getting shorter,
(04:50):
Facebook was pushing video and it was all about thumb
stopping content. That Loud started a few years after Cereal
and Cereal had been I think literally a life changing
experience for people, which was this medium exploded onto the landscape,
and what Cereal did was show us all what was
possible because the the idea that you would drive around
(05:11):
your neighborhood because you didn't want to pull up in
the garage and have it stopped. To me, I just went,
this is going to be the most powerful medium shift
in a generation.
Speaker 5 (05:22):
I think it was very intimate, wasn't it. It was
really in someone's actually in your ears.
Speaker 6 (05:26):
It did what no one else was doing, which was
it took its time. It took its time, it was long,
it was nuanced, it changed your mind. And then when
I started listening to Mamma out loud, it made me laugh,
it made me think, it made me feel part of
a community.
Speaker 7 (05:38):
So I started at Mamma mea.
Speaker 6 (05:41):
And the reason I was asked was because you were
in your forties at the time. You're now much older,
but you were young in your forties, back, brightly fortable,
and Mons was in her thirties and I was in
my twenties, and you said, like, we want to cross
generational conversation, and so I jumped in. And I remember
Mons calling me one day with a bunch of feedback
(06:03):
that I think back, and I think you gave her
that feedback to kip.
Speaker 5 (06:06):
To me, Oh no, she's no.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
That was She was also our executive produce.
Speaker 6 (06:11):
She was executive producer, but she it was brutal and
it was fantastic and it was spot on.
Speaker 7 (06:16):
And I think I a little cry after.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
Was it about how you kept saying problem? I came
all the time, you're quite.
Speaker 6 (06:22):
Earnests exactly, guys, I've got the feedback, can it on.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
We'll get to that you later. Holy You joined a
year after that, and I have to say that your
hello Hello became instantly iconic. How did you find your
voice and your style in this podcast that had already
been around for a few years.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
I was always trying to get on that podcast, Like
I was literally like, could somebody be sick, they might
ask me to fill in. I was like trying to
barge in through the door because I could tell how
special it was. It's important to note that at this
point in Mama may as well, because, as anyone who
is a regular listener knows, Mia rarely takes holidays, and
when she does take holidays, everyone in the office is
just like, what batshit idea is she going to have
(07:04):
when she's walking on a beach or whatever she's doing.
She came back and like podcasts, and as she was saying,
people were a little bit like, what's a podcast? Oh,
this is a phase or whatever. But I was dying
to get onto that podcast. And I remember that so
Mons was leaving and we auditioned.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
Quite a few people.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
I say we because even though I was trying to
get in there, I was actually the boss of podcasts
at that time.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Yeah you were, so, I was like.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
But apparently I couldn't just make myself the new host.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
That wasn't that one so we.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Auditioned quite a lot of people and then in the
end it was like, oh, just give that northern loud mouth.
Just let her in, let her in, and it's the
best job in the world, like no question, for all
the reasons that Jesse just said about this connection that
we have with all of you guys.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
If you listen, and you know, if you don't, you're
missing out.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Although the show has changed a certain amount over that time,
the DNA of it, the actual what women are talking
about has stayed true. And Mons, who was the old
ap who we were talking about before. Her best piece
of feedback ever is just don't be boring. We used
to actually don't be boring, like written above the podcast
studio that at one time was a greenhouse from Bunnings
(08:14):
and another time was a covered and so that's the
ethos mia.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Speaking of feedback, you've created this amazing community called the
out louders. So we're here. I see there's even a
very young, gorgeous baby out. I'd like to get them.
It's a really highly engaged group. And I think it's
safe to say that you're not afraid to tell the
out loud hosts what you think, what you really think,
and you're a fan of feedback anyway, so how is
that direct feedback loop shape the show.
Speaker 4 (08:40):
It's really interesting because it is a community, and part
of it we just innately understand, and other parts out
Louders and never backwards in terms of telling us what
they think. And something that Wholly identified is that I
guess you have to be careful to not let the
tail wag the dog.
Speaker 5 (08:58):
So we always listen, but you don't.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Let your audience drive the car.
Speaker 4 (09:04):
So for example, we thought, oh we should ask in
the out Louders Facebook group with us you know, one
hundred thousand pe people of fifty thousand people. You know,
we've never gone what do you want us to talk
about this week? Because as soon as you do that,
it sort of becomes difficult. So we know sometimes when
we get it wrong, and sometimes if we over index,
like too many royals. But the thing is, when you've
got an audience that big, you'll always have one person
(09:27):
who wants more royals and someone else who wants less royals,
or someone who wants more politics and someone who wants
less and.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
There's no such thing as too much royals.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
So it's like, because the three of us are editors,
and so is our executive producer, Ruth Devine. We all
think about it like editing a magazine in terms of
you've got to have a bit of this, you've got
to have a bit of that, you've got to have.
Speaker 5 (09:47):
A bit of the other thing.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
And it's the if you're making a meal, it's all
the different ingredients and the balancing of it that makes
the meal tasty.
Speaker 6 (09:54):
And I think the best thing about The out Louder
is is that we had a meeting years ago with
someone who was coming from television and they talked about
their viewer and spoke about this viewer the punter in
a discourage punter mean. I think they called her Irene
or something and they were like, yeah, anything, drinking her tea,
(10:15):
having her scotch finger.
Speaker 7 (10:16):
And I was like, yeah, don't mean about Irene.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Wotch fingers are.
Speaker 6 (10:20):
I was like, she sounds fabulous, and I feel like
you're being mean to her. And I think we genuinely
like the out Louder like I think the out Loud Doers,
which is a really diverse.
Speaker 7 (10:30):
Community to come from all different walks of life.
Speaker 6 (10:33):
We genuinely like them, and they will tell us when
we stuff up, which we do all the time. But
I think that they understand our values and what we
stand for better than we do. And that's I think
the greatest power is that often they'll just go, you say,
you don't do this, but you just did this and
it can hurt, but you go, oh no. They hold
(10:54):
us to account, whereas if you don't honest, if you
don't claim to stand by any set of values, then
you don't get called out at that.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
It's also just not about us.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
Like so during that time that she'll not be named,
around twenty twenty, there was a situation where all the
borders were closed and someone it was the anniversary of
they'd lost their son had died a year or two before,
and she couldn't get to the cemetery to lay flowers
on his grave because it was across the state lines.
And she just wrote about it in the out Louders group,
(11:24):
and so many Outlouders said, I live near that cemetery,
I'll go, I'll make me cry when I.
Speaker 5 (11:29):
Think about it.
Speaker 4 (11:29):
I'll go and put flowers on his grave, And they did,
and they set photos and posted it and it's.
Speaker 5 (11:34):
Like that has nothing to do with us. That's like
much bigger than us.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
That's a beautiful story. Yeah. Well, I was overseas during
that time that shall not be named, and listening to
you guys was such an important part of my routine,
and even as a peripheral member of the MUMA mea
out loud universe. I have to say, the people who
come up to me in the playground or around the
shops where I live and grab my arm and tell
me how much they love Holly Wayinwright in particular.
Speaker 6 (12:01):
Really, it's always always holy.
Speaker 5 (12:05):
People are like I really love and you're like Holly.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
But Holly. I was sticking on that community point for
a minute longer. I know that you take that responsibility
really seriously, and you've had people tell you that this
is their chance to talk to other women during the
week when they might not have that chance, or they
might not have friends around, or they might be overseas.
And I wondered if you could just talk a bit
about how that responsibility impacts what you choose to talk
(12:30):
about on the show.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
I know it must sound sometimes like because we sometimes
stuff it up, but it must sound like we just go,
let's just talk about what we think we should talk about,
and just go in and sit down, start talking. We
actually think about it really hard, and I know we
don't always get it exactly right. But because of that
community responsibility, whenever you talk to out loud as, you
usually find that they discovered the show a bit of
(12:53):
particular moment in your lives. So maybe you're on maternity
leave and you felt alone at home. Maybe you've moved
to a different city or a town and you didn't
have friends around. Maybe you were having a particularly difficult
rift with your family and you felt like you couldn't
talk to them, and so you were People say all
the time that you feel like our friends, and that's
something that sounds so like this When I say that,
(13:15):
like it's something that is to be taken seriously because
we want to honor that. Often that's the sort of
in and then people will grow with the show. And
my absolute biggest honor and thrill is that when we
do our live shows now, we often have multi generations.
I mean, I look around this audience and the age
range is really broad, and we'll have grandmomum, adult child,
(13:37):
and sometimes the adult child and their mum will say,
you help us talk about this thing in the news
or this gives me things I can talk about to
my teenage kid because it's keeping me current, and I
just think that's an absolute privilege. And so back to
how we decide what to talk about when we're sitting
down with our production meetings and doing that, and ruths
there too, is we might have a personal obsession that
(13:58):
we're spinning off on, but it's always like is that
helpful to her? Is that interesting to her? Is that
going to make her day better?
Speaker 3 (14:05):
All of those things, And that's very much the lens
we choose through.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
I've noticed that in meetings sometimes you talk about is
that in her world? And Jesse, what do you think
her world encompasses? What does that mean when you say
that in a meeting.
Speaker 6 (14:17):
I think it's about is it in her group chat?
Is it something that's occupying her conversations?
Speaker 7 (14:23):
Anyway? Sometimes we think about starting the conversation.
Speaker 6 (14:26):
It might be something new, but we don't want to
sit in this kind of media bubble where we're not
connected and in the lives of our audience. Yeah, and
I do think sometimes we don't nail it every time.
And I heard an American TV host recently say that
the way he looks at it because sometimes we do
(14:48):
a show and I walk out and go, oh, I
didn't feel like I nailed it today, or I didn't
feel like we got the mix right. And he said,
I look at my at it as I've done a
body of work. I've got a body of work, and
I know what my intention is and I'm proud of it.
Speaker 7 (15:02):
And that's how I feel about.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
What we do.
Speaker 6 (15:04):
We know what we stand for, even if every now
and then you kind of go, oh, maybe we've been
pulled in in this direction, but I think that's in
any kind of creative pursuit.
Speaker 4 (15:12):
See I walk out of the studio and I never
think about it. As soon as we stop talking, I
can't even remember what we spoke about.
Speaker 5 (15:18):
I've got a very efficient experience.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
That we were having to know the last time.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
Whereas I wake up in the night and go oh
that thing, I said, oh.
Speaker 7 (15:27):
No, and in fact on that.
Speaker 6 (15:29):
It's interesting because right now we're in a room, and
this is a very different thing to a podcast, because
it's like everyone is having this communal experience and you
can have a sense of how people are reacting. It's
a very connected experience. With podcasting. You are speaking to
tens of thousands of people, but you're speaking to one person,
and it's a really weird thing because that one person.
(15:51):
There are some topics I find really hard to navigate
that mind fields because for that one person, this topic
you're bringing up, that's just some fodder that you've had
an hour to think about. Is their whole world, is
they're living it? Like for example, it'll be a story
about teaching, like adolescents, for example, teachers, parents, these dayholders,
they're the experts. And then we're talking and there's such
(16:14):
a responsibility to carefully navigate that. And the last thing
we ever want to do is just upset someone needlessly,
which is another thing with even disagreement, We kind of
go we don't want her at the end to feel worse.
We want to improve her day, not make it worse.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
We don't want to add to the shouting exactly.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
You're always thinking about her world, but you're also bringing
her into your world, and often you cover deeply personal topics.
How do you decide what to bring in from your
life and your own experiences. That's such a great question.
Speaker 4 (16:47):
It's one that we all have been navigating in different
ways since we came into the media because you know,
Holly and I've worked in women's media our whole career
is and Jesse pretty much as well. So it's a
lot more intimate than like what you might know about
Lee Sales or Kate mcclemont or someone who's on TV
(17:08):
or It is very very intimate, and I think that
for us, our only rule is that you know that
they're our.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Stories to tell, and that's what's hard.
Speaker 4 (17:17):
Sometimes that's the hardest thing when we want to tell
a story about something that's happened to us, but it
involves someone else in our life, a child, a parent,
a friend, a partner, and that's where you've got to
be really, really careful. And I'd learned that the hard
way earlier in my career, and now I'm very careful.
And particularly you know, at the end of each week,
we do a segment on Friday show called Best and
Worst of the Week, and we're pretty transparent that we
(17:40):
can't always say what the worst of our week has
been because for that exact reason, it might include someone else.
Speaker 6 (17:47):
It almost always does, and there's something really deep and
you feel like, oh, I don't want it to come
across as frivolous that I tripped over, but like I
can't tell this particular story.
Speaker 5 (17:57):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
So I think when people say to us, I feel
like I know you, and we're always like you do
know us when you're on air that march. As much
as we are, you couldn't be fake. I mean, if
you could, you'd have to be a good actor.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Not true.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
That also, I think we can keep each other honest
with that stuff. Back to your original question about when
this cast came together, if you think about all the
podcasts you love, I mean, obviously they're all Mama Mere podcasts,
but it wouldn't be any others. But probably the thing
that you like about it the most is the chemistry
between the hosts, even if you don't really think about it,
because that's the thing that's impossible to invent, and because
(18:31):
obviously we're close, I will literally say, do you think
I can tell this story about this thing that happened
that might involve one of my kids or something. And
we've got pretty good sounding boards, we've got a really
thorough understanding of lots of things. Will be like not yet, babe,
not yet, or you'll be like, don't talk about this thing.
It's driving me crazy and we can kind of say
(18:52):
to each other, maybe not today.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
You seem a little you seem a little head up
about that. Why don't we wait till that's more of
a scar than a wold.
Speaker 4 (19:02):
A lovely think about podcasts, though, because all of us
were writers before we were podcasters, and we still are writers,
but we podcast a lot more than we write online now,
is that people hate read, they hate watch, but they
don't hate listen. And that's the lovely thing about podcasts.
Speaker 6 (19:18):
I hate listen a bit of a troll, and I'm like,
I imagine that, yeah, forty minutes, Like who's got the time?
Speaker 1 (19:25):
You know?
Speaker 4 (19:26):
And also, people don't weaponize what they hear on podcasts
because it's challenging to share a particular clip in a podcast,
which that can make it hard to grow your audience.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
But what it does allow is it gives you.
Speaker 4 (19:39):
Some space and some context to have more intimate conversations
than you ever could online.
Speaker 5 (19:45):
Otherwise.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
I think you are really close, but you also disagree,
and you regard respectful disagreement as a real pillar of
what you're doing with Mama Mia out loud, Jesse, I
wonder if I can throw to you on this one
and ask how you maintain that balance when you're talking
about topics that you feel really strongly about, but which
(20:06):
you're not on the same page with each other about.
I think it's fundamental.
Speaker 6 (20:11):
When we started seeing that that was so integral to
the DNA of the show, I don't think we realized
how important it would become. It's actually become increasingly important
culturally and socially in the last five years. I actually
think we can attribute some of the growth of our
show to that, because without getting to up ourselves, it's
(20:33):
foundational to a democracy, like the fact that you can
sit with people, whether it's a staff prim at a school,
or around dinner table or at a family Christmas and
know that people are going to think differently to you.
To have a disagreement is to have curiosity about how
other people think and understand that everyone comes from a
(20:53):
different place. I think it's what makes the podcast interesting,
and there's a tendency now to go I'm not going
to talk to someone who thinks differently to me on
this issue. I am not going to engage with anyone
who doesn't vote exactly how I do.
Speaker 7 (21:05):
And that's not how you change the world.
Speaker 6 (21:07):
It's not how you change people's minds and it's not curious.
I think that we probably reflect a lot more what
real women's lives look like. And it's often been that
if two women are having a fight, then it's a
cap fight, and that it's dramatized. But the fact that
we can have an argument and then have a laugh
a second later, again models what actual female relationships are like.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
It's interesting that that kind of evolved over time as
what was really important to the podcast Mia when you
started it was that in your mind, it's something that
was really important to you. The idea of modeling respectful disagreement.
Speaker 4 (21:39):
Well, I don't think we articulated as that, but I
know that it's never interesting to hear people violently agree
with each other.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
There's that there's.
Speaker 5 (21:47):
Everyone going, yeah, you're so right. Yeah no, but you're
so right.
Speaker 4 (21:50):
But then it seems that the other side of it
that we see so much play out online and in
the media is people just attacking each other and so polarized,
and as Jesse said, that's not how the world works.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
Like sometimes people will.
Speaker 4 (22:03):
Say to me, you know, I don't agree with everything
you say, and I'm like, I don't either, Like I
think of anyone in my life, not my children, my parents,
my best friends, certainly, not my husband, not even you.
And we're so close that I agree with everything that
they say. I mean, that would be so boring. Yeah,
and that's just what normal life is like, right, And
(22:24):
you disagree, but you don't stop loving someone.
Speaker 5 (22:26):
You don't block and report them, you don't.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Say you're out. You kind of work through it.
Speaker 6 (22:31):
I think modeling that as well, Like it's become, especially
in the online space, you disagree with someone and it
resorts to the most vicious name calling. I think we
take that responsibility very seriously to play the idea and
not the person. Like hopefully that's something that can be preserved.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
There are sometimes when we.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Get a bit too heated with each other, like when
me and I will slag off one of my recommendations,
which are always excellent, of course, and then I'll be like,
how very dare you? Ruth will have to step in
between us. I've just realized that you know that thing
that me is holding, Yeah, I thought it was one
of your fidget choice.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
It is right because maybe you're a Marvel super villain.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Because it also it's like one of those things that's
always saving the world hair on it.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
It's kind of It just helps me focus and concentrate.
You guys are saving the world one podcast at a
time in the respect that you are modeling this thing
that's really scarce, scarce in our culture. But I do
want to draw everyone's attention.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
To the fact that you were soldiers exactly making the
world a better place.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
At a time.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Did you ever think that you were going to be
doing this much singing and dance. I did not.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
It was so funny.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
Last week we spent a couple of days on set
making a video for our next live show. We're not
going to spoil anything, but there's a little bit of
this kind of action going on in different outfits, and
honest to goodness, I am in my fifties and I
have children, and apparently I'm a respected author. Well the
(24:03):
debate it's but Jesse's are respected at least, and then
I'm suddenly there I am like learning choreography and looking
ridiculous in my Beyonce costume from last year, for example.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
It's enormous fun. It's never ever boring.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
Mia. You did singing for the HSC really and.
Speaker 4 (24:24):
So I thought I would love, you know, getting to
dress up and spending two days on a shoot, and
it's like, you know, you secretly think I'd love to
be Nicole Kidman, or might go Robbie, or I'd love
to be Beyonce or maybe Tay.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
You've thought this a lot, right my whole life.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
She takes it so seriously. It's so fun when we're
practicing the choreography and the singing Ya Mea is always
like she gets cross with you because you.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
Get it wrong.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
So much fun.
Speaker 4 (24:48):
But then on the actual set, after like about half
an hour, I just started complaining and I just wanted
to go home because it is so boring.
Speaker 6 (24:57):
You don't have the patience and you don't have the
work because there's there was choreography to learn, and I
will say you hadn't learned it, but you know who had.
I can't dance, so I knew that I had to practice.
And I was like, maya step two step clap, and
I know I think, I like, no, yes. I.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
It's like in those behind the scenes on the set
documentaries where someone will say she was so professional, she
never complained.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
They're not saying that. No one's saying she didn't know
but complain.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
But the humor is really important to the show too,
and I don't want it to make it sound like
you're always talking about incredibly weighty topics.
Speaker 4 (25:27):
Silliness is really silliness, and about that. I think it's
so important to just have a laugh. You know, there
are a lot of podcasts that are news podcast or
heavy serious podcasts, and then there are podcasts that are
comedy podcast or gossip podcast and Out Loud for the
same reason that Mum and Maya is about all of
the things that women are interested in, so is out Loud.
And I think it's really important. Sometimes those gearshifts, we
(25:50):
have to be careful to go down through the gears.
But when we're planning a show, you've got to have
some laughs.
Speaker 5 (25:57):
You've got to have.
Speaker 7 (25:58):
Something, especially at the moment.
Speaker 5 (26:00):
I feel it at all the moments.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
Yeah, cod the time that shall not be named when
we went to three shows a week, because you all
have your own memories of that time, of course, but
we were suddenly everybody's going home, We're learning how to
record from home. How do you connect to mike to
your computer? Can I put a towel over my head?
Where do I hide one of my children? Because they're
screaming like we were on a steep learning curve. But
we also instinct.
Speaker 5 (26:21):
Jesse was living in my house as she was.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
We also instinctively knew that we should do more rather
than less, because everybody was going to be in the
similar situation. And it was a very tricky decision all
the time to work out how much we should talk
about what was happening and how much we should talk
about other things, and we were trying to strike a
balance of distraction.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
Distraction is really.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Hopefully an important part of what we do. As well
as holding up some things to the light, you also
sometimes just want to look at something else.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
Right. The Friday Show was great for that reason. That's
a relatively new innovation, right, And that came about why
why did you decide to divorce from the news cycle
on that day? Yeah, because the new cycle is really bleak,
and I think sometimes announcing at the beginning we're stepping
away from the news cycle, it gives people permission to go,
oh so literally exhale and just go If I want
(27:12):
to find news on this particular day, I can find
it elsewhere, including on Mum and Maya. But of course
every way you know, We're not going to give you
everything that you need. We're not that arrogant to think
that we ever would. But sometimes it's just nice to go.
You know what, We're just keeping a light today.
Speaker 7 (27:25):
And on the lightness and the silliness.
Speaker 6 (27:27):
I think we all know the experience of listening to
something or watching something and that might be the only
time you laugh that day. Or just recently, I was
on maternity leave and it was the only adult conversation
that I was a part of that day.
Speaker 7 (27:41):
And the importance of that.
Speaker 6 (27:43):
I really think that, in terms of people's moods and
connection is so.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Important your audience. We talked a little bit about the
fact that it really does fan generations, and that's evident
here today. I'm wondering how you maintain that relevance across
this incredibly broad demographic. A lot of podcasts are very
explicitly for one particular age or stage. Yeah, yours is
not like that.
Speaker 6 (28:04):
So Jesse, I'm on, I spend a lot of time
on TikTok a job. I'll be like, there's TikTok drama, Olex, Yeah,
TikTok drama. And we've started doing this all or nothing segment,
which is like when one of us knows, Like even recently,
you guys talking about the Kennedys and I was just going,
I have very little context to what you're talking about.
Speaker 7 (28:23):
But that's really interesting.
Speaker 6 (28:25):
Like some of the best relationships I have are with
women of all different ages. So I think that existing
in those different worlds. That's been interesting to navigate is
the fracturing of celebrity because when you two started in media,
it was very clear who the big celebrities were, and
now someone with ten million followers on YouTube could walk
down the street and none of us would know who
(28:45):
they were, and so navigating who the people are that
people are interested in. We did something recently on Anna
Paul and it was our most listened to episode in months.
You know, my mum would have no idea who Anna
Paul is.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
Yeah, I's see.
Speaker 5 (28:57):
I like that.
Speaker 4 (28:58):
I like it learning things about different generations and what
they're interested in.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
And I think sometimes we're a bit of a bridge
between because we're as well as whether or not you're
siloed by your age, or you're siloed by your which
or media platform you like or whatever. I think what
none of us like is being made to feel dumb
because we don't understand TikTok or we don't understand what language.
And that's where we can kind of allow ourselves to
become a bit isolated, and hopefully when we do talk
(29:24):
about these things, we triy really hard not to patronize
but also be a bit of a bridge.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
Yes, Mia One Media, Yes, this is a serious question
on your series.
Speaker 5 (29:34):
I'm going to ask you a question. So we've been.
Speaker 4 (29:38):
You've been filling in quite a bit, and I wanted
to ask you what it was like going from being
a listener to being on the show, and what was
different to what you thought it would be.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
How was it different? I hate to say nice things
to you.
Speaker 7 (29:53):
You don't look at her when you say it.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
I find that right.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
I'll look away, I'll look at that very cute baby
with those beautiful eyes.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
It's really hard, I would say, And I didn't realize
how difficult it was to speak a essentially off the cuff.
You get a little bit of prep time, but essentially
off the cuff about these wildly divergent topics three times
a week.
Speaker 5 (30:16):
It's really hard.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
I just realized, I think I said to you after
doing it once, this is so much harder than it looks.
And I think it's like, don't look at me, because
I'm going to get really nice about you. When someone
is good at something, I think they make it look easy.
That's sort of the definition of someone being good at something,
because you don't want to suffer through something where you
can tell someone's trying really hard or working really hard.
And I think that's the genius of this show is
(30:40):
that it does feel like it sees three friends talking,
but it's actually got so much scaffolding around it to
get you to that product true that you're not punching.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
I also know how hard it is to be all
of you because when Brent got that thing stuck in
his eye and I had a week off a new
three host of the.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
Show, you were so wrong about so many things.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Yeah, and I was just there listening to it, And
now I was just one shouting at the phone. I
wanted to write to someone with some plates. I recognize
how hard it is to be eyes when we're very
wrong and you're very right.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
What's the one topic I'm going to play like newly
words game. What's the onond topic that you wish that
the others would stop bringing me out. What topic do
you wish is so fun? Holly would stop bringing.
Speaker 4 (31:21):
Oh Guinness, it's been a big week in Gwinneth news
for Jesse. Jesse just is smart, so she'll be the
one that will go let's talk about the budget.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
No, the budgets all right, but I have to learn
the bichological.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
Thing about her university degree.
Speaker 7 (31:43):
Yeah, that's me.
Speaker 6 (31:44):
I could hear less about me as dogs. As dogs
could have a little rest and look, Megan.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
This is feeling very personal.
Speaker 7 (31:55):
I watched my episode.
Speaker 6 (31:57):
I've not watched another episode, and I won't be listening
to the podcast.
Speaker 7 (32:00):
And that's fine.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
I want to talk about body image every week, and.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
They so I wants to talk about bootox and body
Image EU.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
And we're just like the standards again.
Speaker 7 (32:14):
And aging.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
Yes, definitely Jersey hot again. She just sometimes she's just there.
There's this new interesting psychological paper that says and all
the studies are in and I think you'll find the
research and I'm like, oh my god, where Megan's job.
Speaker 6 (32:32):
Fun fact Maya says, You're never this is so uncaught.
You said once you were like, you can never pitch
a story that starts with there was a study.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
It's so true.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
That's one of the right you have to disguise that
we're in the third quarter.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
Go and there was the study, and yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (32:50):
Week the study came out this week. Oh wow study.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
He's very quickly bored as everybody here, right. So if
I say I was in my.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
Garden talking about how did we forget that?
Speaker 3 (33:05):
God?
Speaker 7 (33:06):
Yeah, I think people that we get feedback people like yeah.
Speaker 4 (33:10):
I thought Brent in nearly taking his eye out would
really just shut you up for a while, maybe keep
you indoors back at all.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
So as you can see, these people are impossible to corral.
And you successfully diverted from my serious questions, Yes, which
was I wanted to ask about women's media and how
you think talking to women has changed in the media
since your days in print magazines. Do you talk to
them differently? Oh, that's easy.
Speaker 4 (33:37):
So in print magazine time it used to be about
making women feel terrible about themselves and that you had
the answer to all of the things that were wrong
with them.
Speaker 5 (33:45):
There were all kinds of cover lines.
Speaker 4 (33:47):
That we used to do that would basically you know,
I used to have to write the diet book for
Cleo and it would be drop address size by Saturday
diet and it would be you know, diets and all
different kinds of things that would make women feel insecure,
like is your haircut making you look old? And I
always thought that that was just so rubbish, so I
tried to, you know, push it in a different direction
(34:10):
when I was a magazine editor. But now it's honestly
about authenticity. The word that used to get used all
the time among magazine people was aspirational, and I used
to just go, it's just.
Speaker 5 (34:21):
Another word for alienating.
Speaker 4 (34:23):
You know, if we came up here and tried to
be perfect, it would feel very cold in the room.
But the way women connect with each other is through
vulnerability and I've always understood that, and that's what Mumam
was built on, and that's what the show's built on.
Not us coming and saying we've got the answers or
that we've got it all figured out, because guess what
we don't. I know we hide it well, but it's
(34:43):
about saying we've changed our mind about this, or this
is making us feel really distressed.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
Yeah. I love those segments where you change your mind
over the course of the segment. All start arguing one
thing and then and arguing another, they're my faith, they're
my faith. Oh when you come from women's magazines too.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
I do.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
I have a dark past of.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Making celebrities look larger and smaller than they actually were
in real life, and making up t ashy gossip about
Brad Pitt that turned out to be no worse than
what was actually happening with Brad Pitt. You know, when
I was working in that world, I kind of loved
it for a while, But when after I had my kids,
not because like as a mother, I was then any
(35:25):
better than anyone else, but you know, I was, obviously,
and I suddenly got kind of jack of that world.
And I was like, I could see what Mia was
doing obviously I didn't know me, And then I could
see what Maya was doing over at Mama Mia, and
it felt so different and it felt really important might
be the wrong word, but real, and I was like,
I want some of that over there. I think if
I was going there every day, doing that kind of
(35:46):
work every day, you know, I would feel better about
leaving my kids, I'd feel better about what I was
doing with my brain.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
And it turned out to be true.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
Now it's good because I've got lots of gossip that
is embedded so deeply in my brain I can just
pull out a fact about Gwyneth.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
So it's time for some personal reflections at this point.
Oh wow, am I going to start with Jesse? What
is the most unexpected outcome in your life of hostings?
Mamma mer out loud?
Speaker 6 (36:12):
Oh my goodness, I must say there are surprising out louders.
One of my favorite things is like I got a
message one night from Missy Higgins and I wow, growing
up Missy Higgins with my person and I got a
message from her one night and I was like, miss
Higgins is an out louder.
Speaker 3 (36:26):
I forgot to tell you I should try harder.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
Virginia Trioli messaged me. Estane says that she wants to
come on and dance with us at the Melbourne Show.
She is a very serious journalist. Everybody a very serious journalist.
You know she wants to turn up and dance in
one of those outfits that.
Speaker 6 (36:44):
Last week I got a message from Julia bad agreeing.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
With me on something I will come.
Speaker 6 (36:51):
I expected you to be listening to more clever things
and maya out loud but true.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
Holy how as being the friends and people's ears changed
your life.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
Oh, I think it's changed my life in lots of ways.
I mean it's it's opened my mind in lots of ways.
Speaker 6 (37:05):
And my answer for you, please you can't yell in
came out anymore. Every time you're yelling came someone's like,
and you're trying to yell at your kids, being like
billing it off the floor.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
This is a little bit different now that video is
so prominent in podcasts, But it used to be that
people would only know your voice, right, So you'd be
in Kmar screaming at your child and someone'd be like, oh,
I know that, and you'd be like, no, so yes,
I have to be nicer to my children in public.
That's one of the ways has changed, mostly entirely for
(37:37):
the better. I mean, working at my mare full stop
has changed my life. And I don't think I would
have had the confidence to do lots of the things
I've done, certainly not wear abber costumes in public. But
also I just think it's, as I said earlier, it's
such a privilege. And whenever people come up to you
on the rare occasions that they do, they're always really
good people like ours are really good people.
Speaker 3 (37:56):
So it's as I say, I feel very lucky.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
Miya ten years strong. What excites you most looking at
the future of Mama mir out loud.
Speaker 4 (38:03):
I'm not good with future questions. Like we have a
good time when we go on tour. We're going on
tour shortly, and it's fun because like, these are two
of my best friends, and the women we work with
we're incredibly close to as well, and it's like a
girl's trip.
Speaker 6 (38:19):
We were laughing on the way here. Remember we're at
Sydney Airport. We were trying to get on a REX
Flight Regional and I somehow exited the airport, remember that
we were boarding.
Speaker 4 (38:28):
We were getting on the plane, and she went right
instead of left and was out on the street.
Speaker 6 (38:33):
And I was like on the other side of the
glass like guys, and I had to go back through
security and the plane had to wait.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
And I was warning Ruth that, because Ruth hasn't taught
with us before that these are three people who may
appear to be intelligent somehow on the surface, but are
entirely incapable.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
Of ever getting anywhere on time.
Speaker 3 (38:49):
Getting on a plane with all their bags.
Speaker 4 (38:51):
Like it's just so we've been you know, backstage at
wherever the theater is, and then it'll be like we've
been shown here's how you get from backstage to the stage,
and we will take a wrong turn and again end
up on the street in our costumes, and someone will
have to come and find.
Speaker 5 (39:06):
Girl find this.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
As usually we're just like, remember it's for us.
Speaker 4 (39:10):
It's a conversation that never ends, and it's hard to
wrangle us because we will be like in the airport,
in the uber, in the plane, we just never stopped talking.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
I'm very excited for it, and I'm sure a lot
of people here are too. But look, that's all we
have time for, is Holly might say.
Speaker 5 (39:24):
Thank you for coming everyone.
Speaker 3 (39:26):
Thank you so much people.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
I want to scatter this stage with Megan's dried flower passion.
Speaker 3 (39:33):
I still can't buy.
Speaker 5 (39:34):
Them, you know.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
I'll checked this out again this morning six am.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
Still not for sale.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
Your work has meant so much to me and I'm
sure to so many people here. Thank you for sharing
your lives for ten years with us. And thank you
everyone for coming out on this terrible day for hair.
It's a very bad, it really is. It is, and
I appreciate you for that because I have curly here.
Have a great weekend. I hope it's free of puffer
fishing and petty microaggression. Thanks again for coming out.
Speaker 3 (40:03):
Thank you, thank you, thanks you.
You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and warders
that this podcast is recorded on Hello out louders, it's
holly here and I have got a treat for you.
(00:35):
A few weeks ago, we did something really special. We
took over the Apple Store in Sydney. We've never done
anything like this before, right, Mia and Jesse and I
went into an open store where people had registered to
come and watch us record a show. We were celebrating
ten years of Mamma Mia out Loud, which is wild.
I can hardly believe that now. Obviously not everyone could
join us. Not everybody lives near the Sydney Apple Store.
(00:56):
Although wouldn't we all like to live in the Sydney
Apple Store. But we recorded the whole show and we
thought that this public holiday was a great excuse to
share it with all of you. It was packed with
familiar faces. Amelia Lester sat down and as just questions
and we talked about things like how I managed to
wheedle my.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Way on the show, and we.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Reflected on how we put the show together. We decide
what to talk about about and shared some of our
most memorable moments. We hope you enjoy this very special
recording that today at Apple ten year anniversary special of
Mama Mia Out Loud starts right now.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Hello out louders, so good to see you and thank
you for coming out to celebrate ten years of Mama
Mia out Loud. I am here in my official capacity
as a friend of the pod, but secretly I have
to tell you I am a fan of the pod.
I have been listening since day one to these ladies talking,
(01:52):
and I have to tell you, as someone who's filled
in a couple of times recently, it is so much
hotter than it looks to produce this amazing podcast every week.
So I'm excited to get into how they do it,
and I am going to ask them lots of questions
about that. But first, Miya, hello us.
Speaker 4 (02:07):
Through the outfit, well obviously shoe jewelry, let's just start there.
I've decided that I need to put accessories on my
shoes because the planet's not dying fast enough, so I'm
buying accessories for my accessories. This is just an old
vintage slip dress and this is Zadigan Voltaire and I
(02:28):
don't know.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Well backstage, I'm not going to embarrass the others by
talking us through their outfits. But backstage, Holly showed me
her lipstick wardrobe, and I do want to know, Holly,
what lipstick combo are we wearing today.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
I've got one of those Unicotto bags that are shaped
like a quassant and you can fit so many lipsticks
in it. And I was showing a Melia and they
just kept coming, kept coming, kept coming.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
I think I'm wearing three different ones.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
It's like French.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
It's like how Megan wears two different shades of nail polish.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
The affiliate links will be available later. Okay, Mia, the
very first episode of Mama Mia out loud. It went
live in October twenty fourteen, and we looked back and
found out what it was called. Do you remember, No,
it was called The Bachelor Aftermath episode. I didn't even
think you liked The Bachelor. Oh wow, I think.
Speaker 5 (03:12):
I did in the early days.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
And anyway, it's not about what I like, It's about what.
Speaker 5 (03:17):
The audience is going to respond to.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
So tell me what made you want to start a
podcast that day.
Speaker 4 (03:23):
I'd been listening to a lot of podcasts i'd originally,
I mean, I think of myself as a writer, and I,
you know, as a journalist, and I'd started in magazines
and podcasts didn't exist when.
Speaker 5 (03:33):
I started my career in media.
Speaker 4 (03:35):
I realized I'd been on holidays and I've been listening
to a lot of podcasts, and I realized that there
was a limit of time that I could look at
a screen, but I had more time available to consume
content when I was doing other things like exercising or walking,
or cooking or driving and not cooking, and.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
To be honest, and so that's when I just thought.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
Oh, well, why don't we start a podcast. So I
didn't know how to do it. I just took my phone,
my iPhone, and I sat down on the floor of
my office and grabbed somebody who wasn't these two because.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
I didn't know them yet, and we just talked.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
And I realized that what Mama Mia does is actually
make content for women, and that can be on whatever platform.
But it took years for anyone to understand what.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Podcasts were really well, Jesse was pulled into the podcast studio,
or perhaps it was more of a wardrobe or closet.
Two years later, Yeah, Jesse, do you remember what Mia
said to you? About what she wanted you to do.
Speaker 6 (04:29):
No, she never tells you what she wants you to do.
She pulls you into things and in front of a microphone.
As you know very well, Amelia, I remember because when
it first started, I was an original listener too, and
I was nannying at the time, and I would listen
to the original hosts and I felt like it was
a time when in digital media the articles were getting shorter,
(04:50):
Facebook was pushing video and it was all about thumb
stopping content. That Loud started a few years after Cereal
and Cereal had been I think literally a life changing
experience for people, which was this medium exploded onto the landscape,
and what Cereal did was show us all what was
possible because the the idea that you would drive around
(05:11):
your neighborhood because you didn't want to pull up in
the garage and have it stopped. To me, I just went,
this is going to be the most powerful medium shift
in a generation.
Speaker 5 (05:22):
I think it was very intimate, wasn't it. It was
really in someone's actually in your ears.
Speaker 6 (05:26):
It did what no one else was doing, which was
it took its time. It took its time, it was long,
it was nuanced, it changed your mind. And then when
I started listening to Mamma out loud, it made me laugh,
it made me think, it made me feel part of
a community.
Speaker 7 (05:38):
So I started at Mamma mea.
Speaker 6 (05:41):
And the reason I was asked was because you were
in your forties at the time. You're now much older,
but you were young in your forties, back, brightly fortable,
and Mons was in her thirties and I was in
my twenties, and you said, like, we want to cross
generational conversation, and so I jumped in. And I remember
Mons calling me one day with a bunch of feedback
(06:03):
that I think back, and I think you gave her
that feedback to kip.
Speaker 5 (06:06):
To me, Oh no, she's no.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
That was She was also our executive produce.
Speaker 6 (06:11):
She was executive producer, but she it was brutal and
it was fantastic and it was spot on.
Speaker 7 (06:16):
And I think I a little cry after.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
Was it about how you kept saying problem? I came
all the time, you're quite.
Speaker 6 (06:22):
Earnests exactly, guys, I've got the feedback, can it on.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
We'll get to that you later. Holy You joined a
year after that, and I have to say that your
hello Hello became instantly iconic. How did you find your
voice and your style in this podcast that had already
been around for a few years.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
I was always trying to get on that podcast, Like
I was literally like, could somebody be sick, they might
ask me to fill in. I was like trying to
barge in through the door because I could tell how
special it was. It's important to note that at this
point in Mama may as well, because, as anyone who
is a regular listener knows, Mia rarely takes holidays, and
when she does take holidays, everyone in the office is
just like, what batshit idea is she going to have
(07:04):
when she's walking on a beach or whatever she's doing.
She came back and like podcasts, and as she was saying,
people were a little bit like, what's a podcast? Oh,
this is a phase or whatever. But I was dying
to get onto that podcast. And I remember that so
Mons was leaving and we auditioned.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
Quite a few people.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
I say we because even though I was trying to
get in there, I was actually the boss of podcasts
at that time.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Yeah you were, so, I was like.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
But apparently I couldn't just make myself the new host.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
That wasn't that one so we.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Auditioned quite a lot of people and then in the
end it was like, oh, just give that northern loud mouth.
Just let her in, let her in, and it's the
best job in the world, like no question, for all
the reasons that Jesse just said about this connection that
we have with all of you guys.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
If you listen, and you know, if you don't, you're
missing out.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Although the show has changed a certain amount over that time,
the DNA of it, the actual what women are talking
about has stayed true. And Mons, who was the old
ap who we were talking about before. Her best piece
of feedback ever is just don't be boring. We used
to actually don't be boring, like written above the podcast
studio that at one time was a greenhouse from Bunnings
(08:14):
and another time was a covered and so that's the
ethos mia.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Speaking of feedback, you've created this amazing community called the
out louders. So we're here. I see there's even a
very young, gorgeous baby out. I'd like to get them.
It's a really highly engaged group. And I think it's
safe to say that you're not afraid to tell the
out loud hosts what you think, what you really think,
and you're a fan of feedback anyway, so how is
that direct feedback loop shape the show.
Speaker 4 (08:40):
It's really interesting because it is a community, and part
of it we just innately understand, and other parts out
Louders and never backwards in terms of telling us what
they think. And something that Wholly identified is that I
guess you have to be careful to not let the
tail wag the dog.
Speaker 5 (08:58):
So we always listen, but you don't.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Let your audience drive the car.
Speaker 4 (09:04):
So for example, we thought, oh we should ask in
the out Louders Facebook group with us you know, one
hundred thousand pe people of fifty thousand people. You know,
we've never gone what do you want us to talk
about this week? Because as soon as you do that,
it sort of becomes difficult. So we know sometimes when
we get it wrong, and sometimes if we over index,
like too many royals. But the thing is, when you've
got an audience that big, you'll always have one person
(09:27):
who wants more royals and someone else who wants less royals,
or someone who wants more politics and someone who wants
less and.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
There's no such thing as too much royals.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
So it's like, because the three of us are editors,
and so is our executive producer, Ruth Devine. We all
think about it like editing a magazine in terms of
you've got to have a bit of this, you've got
to have a bit of that, you've got to have.
Speaker 5 (09:47):
A bit of the other thing.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
And it's the if you're making a meal, it's all
the different ingredients and the balancing of it that makes
the meal tasty.
Speaker 6 (09:54):
And I think the best thing about The out Louder
is is that we had a meeting years ago with
someone who was coming from television and they talked about
their viewer and spoke about this viewer the punter in
a discourage punter mean. I think they called her Irene
or something and they were like, yeah, anything, drinking her tea,
(10:15):
having her scotch finger.
Speaker 7 (10:16):
And I was like, yeah, don't mean about Irene.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Wotch fingers are.
Speaker 6 (10:20):
I was like, she sounds fabulous, and I feel like
you're being mean to her. And I think we genuinely
like the out Louder like I think the out Loud Doers,
which is a really diverse.
Speaker 7 (10:30):
Community to come from all different walks of life.
Speaker 6 (10:33):
We genuinely like them, and they will tell us when
we stuff up, which we do all the time. But
I think that they understand our values and what we
stand for better than we do. And that's I think
the greatest power is that often they'll just go, you say,
you don't do this, but you just did this and
it can hurt, but you go, oh no. They hold
(10:54):
us to account, whereas if you don't honest, if you
don't claim to stand by any set of values, then
you don't get called out at that.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
It's also just not about us.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
Like so during that time that she'll not be named,
around twenty twenty, there was a situation where all the
borders were closed and someone it was the anniversary of
they'd lost their son had died a year or two before,
and she couldn't get to the cemetery to lay flowers
on his grave because it was across the state lines.
And she just wrote about it in the out Louders group,
(11:24):
and so many Outlouders said, I live near that cemetery,
I'll go, I'll make me cry when I.
Speaker 5 (11:29):
Think about it.
Speaker 4 (11:29):
I'll go and put flowers on his grave, And they did,
and they set photos and posted it and it's.
Speaker 5 (11:34):
Like that has nothing to do with us. That's like
much bigger than us.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
That's a beautiful story. Yeah. Well, I was overseas during
that time that shall not be named, and listening to
you guys was such an important part of my routine,
and even as a peripheral member of the MUMA mea
out loud universe. I have to say, the people who
come up to me in the playground or around the
shops where I live and grab my arm and tell
me how much they love Holly Wayinwright in particular.
Speaker 6 (12:01):
Really, it's always always holy.
Speaker 5 (12:05):
People are like I really love and you're like Holly.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
But Holly. I was sticking on that community point for
a minute longer. I know that you take that responsibility
really seriously, and you've had people tell you that this
is their chance to talk to other women during the
week when they might not have that chance, or they
might not have friends around, or they might be overseas.
And I wondered if you could just talk a bit
about how that responsibility impacts what you choose to talk
(12:30):
about on the show.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
I know it must sound sometimes like because we sometimes
stuff it up, but it must sound like we just go,
let's just talk about what we think we should talk about,
and just go in and sit down, start talking. We
actually think about it really hard, and I know we
don't always get it exactly right. But because of that
community responsibility, whenever you talk to out loud as, you
usually find that they discovered the show a bit of
(12:53):
particular moment in your lives. So maybe you're on maternity
leave and you felt alone at home. Maybe you've moved
to a different city or a town and you didn't
have friends around. Maybe you were having a particularly difficult
rift with your family and you felt like you couldn't
talk to them, and so you were People say all
the time that you feel like our friends, and that's
something that sounds so like this When I say that,
(13:15):
like it's something that is to be taken seriously because
we want to honor that. Often that's the sort of
in and then people will grow with the show. And
my absolute biggest honor and thrill is that when we
do our live shows now, we often have multi generations.
I mean, I look around this audience and the age
range is really broad, and we'll have grandmomum, adult child,
(13:37):
and sometimes the adult child and their mum will say,
you help us talk about this thing in the news
or this gives me things I can talk about to
my teenage kid because it's keeping me current, and I
just think that's an absolute privilege. And so back to
how we decide what to talk about when we're sitting
down with our production meetings and doing that, and ruths
there too, is we might have a personal obsession that
(13:58):
we're spinning off on, but it's always like is that
helpful to her? Is that interesting to her? Is that
going to make her day better?
Speaker 3 (14:05):
All of those things, And that's very much the lens
we choose through.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
I've noticed that in meetings sometimes you talk about is
that in her world? And Jesse, what do you think
her world encompasses? What does that mean when you say
that in a meeting.
Speaker 6 (14:17):
I think it's about is it in her group chat?
Is it something that's occupying her conversations?
Speaker 7 (14:23):
Anyway? Sometimes we think about starting the conversation.
Speaker 6 (14:26):
It might be something new, but we don't want to
sit in this kind of media bubble where we're not
connected and in the lives of our audience. Yeah, and
I do think sometimes we don't nail it every time.
And I heard an American TV host recently say that
the way he looks at it because sometimes we do
(14:48):
a show and I walk out and go, oh, I
didn't feel like I nailed it today, or I didn't
feel like we got the mix right. And he said,
I look at my at it as I've done a
body of work. I've got a body of work, and
I know what my intention is and I'm proud of it.
Speaker 7 (15:02):
And that's how I feel about.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
What we do.
Speaker 6 (15:04):
We know what we stand for, even if every now
and then you kind of go, oh, maybe we've been
pulled in in this direction, but I think that's in
any kind of creative pursuit.
Speaker 4 (15:12):
See I walk out of the studio and I never
think about it. As soon as we stop talking, I
can't even remember what we spoke about.
Speaker 5 (15:18):
I've got a very efficient experience.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
That we were having to know the last time.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
Whereas I wake up in the night and go oh
that thing, I said, oh.
Speaker 7 (15:27):
No, and in fact on that.
Speaker 6 (15:29):
It's interesting because right now we're in a room, and
this is a very different thing to a podcast, because
it's like everyone is having this communal experience and you
can have a sense of how people are reacting. It's
a very connected experience. With podcasting. You are speaking to
tens of thousands of people, but you're speaking to one person,
and it's a really weird thing because that one person.
(15:51):
There are some topics I find really hard to navigate
that mind fields because for that one person, this topic
you're bringing up, that's just some fodder that you've had
an hour to think about. Is their whole world, is
they're living it? Like for example, it'll be a story
about teaching, like adolescents, for example, teachers, parents, these dayholders,
they're the experts. And then we're talking and there's such
(16:14):
a responsibility to carefully navigate that. And the last thing
we ever want to do is just upset someone needlessly,
which is another thing with even disagreement, We kind of
go we don't want her at the end to feel worse.
We want to improve her day, not make it worse.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
We don't want to add to the shouting exactly.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
You're always thinking about her world, but you're also bringing
her into your world, and often you cover deeply personal topics.
How do you decide what to bring in from your
life and your own experiences. That's such a great question.
Speaker 4 (16:47):
It's one that we all have been navigating in different
ways since we came into the media because you know,
Holly and I've worked in women's media our whole career
is and Jesse pretty much as well. So it's a
lot more intimate than like what you might know about
Lee Sales or Kate mcclemont or someone who's on TV
(17:08):
or It is very very intimate, and I think that
for us, our only rule is that you know that
they're our.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Stories to tell, and that's what's hard.
Speaker 4 (17:17):
Sometimes that's the hardest thing when we want to tell
a story about something that's happened to us, but it
involves someone else in our life, a child, a parent,
a friend, a partner, and that's where you've got to
be really, really careful. And I'd learned that the hard
way earlier in my career, and now I'm very careful.
And particularly you know, at the end of each week,
we do a segment on Friday show called Best and
Worst of the Week, and we're pretty transparent that we
(17:40):
can't always say what the worst of our week has
been because for that exact reason, it might include someone else.
Speaker 6 (17:47):
It almost always does, and there's something really deep and
you feel like, oh, I don't want it to come
across as frivolous that I tripped over, but like I
can't tell this particular story.
Speaker 5 (17:57):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
So I think when people say to us, I feel
like I know you, and we're always like you do
know us when you're on air that march. As much
as we are, you couldn't be fake. I mean, if
you could, you'd have to be a good actor.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Not true.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
That also, I think we can keep each other honest
with that stuff. Back to your original question about when
this cast came together, if you think about all the
podcasts you love, I mean, obviously they're all Mama Mere podcasts,
but it wouldn't be any others. But probably the thing
that you like about it the most is the chemistry
between the hosts, even if you don't really think about it,
because that's the thing that's impossible to invent, and because
(18:31):
obviously we're close, I will literally say, do you think
I can tell this story about this thing that happened
that might involve one of my kids or something. And
we've got pretty good sounding boards, we've got a really
thorough understanding of lots of things. Will be like not yet, babe,
not yet, or you'll be like, don't talk about this thing.
It's driving me crazy and we can kind of say
(18:52):
to each other, maybe not today.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
You seem a little you seem a little head up
about that. Why don't we wait till that's more of
a scar than a wold.
Speaker 4 (19:02):
A lovely think about podcasts, though, because all of us
were writers before we were podcasters, and we still are writers,
but we podcast a lot more than we write online now,
is that people hate read, they hate watch, but they
don't hate listen. And that's the lovely thing about podcasts.
Speaker 6 (19:18):
I hate listen a bit of a troll, and I'm like,
I imagine that, yeah, forty minutes, Like who's got the time?
Speaker 1 (19:25):
You know?
Speaker 4 (19:26):
And also, people don't weaponize what they hear on podcasts
because it's challenging to share a particular clip in a podcast,
which that can make it hard to grow your audience.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
But what it does allow is it gives you.
Speaker 4 (19:39):
Some space and some context to have more intimate conversations
than you ever could online.
Speaker 5 (19:45):
Otherwise.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
I think you are really close, but you also disagree,
and you regard respectful disagreement as a real pillar of
what you're doing with Mama Mia out loud, Jesse, I
wonder if I can throw to you on this one
and ask how you maintain that balance when you're talking
about topics that you feel really strongly about, but which
(20:06):
you're not on the same page with each other about.
I think it's fundamental.
Speaker 6 (20:11):
When we started seeing that that was so integral to
the DNA of the show, I don't think we realized
how important it would become. It's actually become increasingly important
culturally and socially in the last five years. I actually
think we can attribute some of the growth of our
show to that, because without getting to up ourselves, it's
(20:33):
foundational to a democracy, like the fact that you can
sit with people, whether it's a staff prim at a school,
or around dinner table or at a family Christmas and
know that people are going to think differently to you.
To have a disagreement is to have curiosity about how
other people think and understand that everyone comes from a
(20:53):
different place. I think it's what makes the podcast interesting,
and there's a tendency now to go I'm not going
to talk to someone who thinks differently to me on
this issue. I am not going to engage with anyone
who doesn't vote exactly how I do.
Speaker 7 (21:05):
And that's not how you change the world.
Speaker 6 (21:07):
It's not how you change people's minds and it's not curious.
I think that we probably reflect a lot more what
real women's lives look like. And it's often been that
if two women are having a fight, then it's a
cap fight, and that it's dramatized. But the fact that
we can have an argument and then have a laugh
a second later, again models what actual female relationships are like.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
It's interesting that that kind of evolved over time as
what was really important to the podcast Mia when you
started it was that in your mind, it's something that
was really important to you. The idea of modeling respectful disagreement.
Speaker 4 (21:39):
Well, I don't think we articulated as that, but I
know that it's never interesting to hear people violently agree
with each other.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
There's that there's.
Speaker 5 (21:47):
Everyone going, yeah, you're so right. Yeah no, but you're
so right.
Speaker 4 (21:50):
But then it seems that the other side of it
that we see so much play out online and in
the media is people just attacking each other and so polarized,
and as Jesse said, that's not how the world works.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
Like sometimes people will.
Speaker 4 (22:03):
Say to me, you know, I don't agree with everything
you say, and I'm like, I don't either, Like I
think of anyone in my life, not my children, my parents,
my best friends, certainly, not my husband, not even you.
And we're so close that I agree with everything that
they say. I mean, that would be so boring. Yeah,
and that's just what normal life is like, right, And
(22:24):
you disagree, but you don't stop loving someone.
Speaker 5 (22:26):
You don't block and report them, you don't.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Say you're out. You kind of work through it.
Speaker 6 (22:31):
I think modeling that as well, Like it's become, especially
in the online space, you disagree with someone and it
resorts to the most vicious name calling. I think we
take that responsibility very seriously to play the idea and
not the person. Like hopefully that's something that can be preserved.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
There are sometimes when we.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Get a bit too heated with each other, like when
me and I will slag off one of my recommendations,
which are always excellent, of course, and then I'll be like,
how very dare you? Ruth will have to step in
between us. I've just realized that you know that thing
that me is holding, Yeah, I thought it was one
of your fidget choice.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
It is right because maybe you're a Marvel super villain.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Because it also it's like one of those things that's
always saving the world hair on it.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
It's kind of It just helps me focus and concentrate.
You guys are saving the world one podcast at a
time in the respect that you are modeling this thing
that's really scarce, scarce in our culture. But I do
want to draw everyone's attention.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
To the fact that you were soldiers exactly making the
world a better place.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
At a time.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Did you ever think that you were going to be
doing this much singing and dance. I did not.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
It was so funny.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
Last week we spent a couple of days on set
making a video for our next live show. We're not
going to spoil anything, but there's a little bit of
this kind of action going on in different outfits, and
honest to goodness, I am in my fifties and I
have children, and apparently I'm a respected author. Well the
(24:03):
debate it's but Jesse's are respected at least, and then
I'm suddenly there I am like learning choreography and looking
ridiculous in my Beyonce costume from last year, for example.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
It's enormous fun. It's never ever boring.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
Mia. You did singing for the HSC really and.
Speaker 4 (24:24):
So I thought I would love, you know, getting to
dress up and spending two days on a shoot, and
it's like, you know, you secretly think I'd love to
be Nicole Kidman, or might go Robbie, or I'd love
to be Beyonce or maybe Tay.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
You've thought this a lot, right my whole life.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
She takes it so seriously. It's so fun when we're
practicing the choreography and the singing Ya Mea is always
like she gets cross with you because you.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
Get it wrong.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
So much fun.
Speaker 4 (24:48):
But then on the actual set, after like about half
an hour, I just started complaining and I just wanted
to go home because it is so boring.
Speaker 6 (24:57):
You don't have the patience and you don't have the
work because there's there was choreography to learn, and I
will say you hadn't learned it, but you know who had.
I can't dance, so I knew that I had to practice.
And I was like, maya step two step clap, and
I know I think, I like, no, yes. I.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
It's like in those behind the scenes on the set
documentaries where someone will say she was so professional, she
never complained.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
They're not saying that. No one's saying she didn't know
but complain.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
But the humor is really important to the show too,
and I don't want it to make it sound like
you're always talking about incredibly weighty topics.
Speaker 4 (25:27):
Silliness is really silliness, and about that. I think it's
so important to just have a laugh. You know, there
are a lot of podcasts that are news podcast or
heavy serious podcasts, and then there are podcasts that are
comedy podcast or gossip podcast and Out Loud for the
same reason that Mum and Maya is about all of
the things that women are interested in, so is out Loud.
And I think it's really important. Sometimes those gearshifts, we
(25:50):
have to be careful to go down through the gears.
But when we're planning a show, you've got to have
some laughs.
Speaker 5 (25:57):
You've got to have.
Speaker 7 (25:58):
Something, especially at the moment.
Speaker 5 (26:00):
I feel it at all the moments.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
Yeah, cod the time that shall not be named when
we went to three shows a week, because you all
have your own memories of that time, of course, but
we were suddenly everybody's going home, We're learning how to
record from home. How do you connect to mike to
your computer? Can I put a towel over my head?
Where do I hide one of my children? Because they're
screaming like we were on a steep learning curve. But
we also instinct.
Speaker 5 (26:21):
Jesse was living in my house as she was.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
We also instinctively knew that we should do more rather
than less, because everybody was going to be in the
similar situation. And it was a very tricky decision all
the time to work out how much we should talk
about what was happening and how much we should talk
about other things, and we were trying to strike a
balance of distraction.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
Distraction is really.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Hopefully an important part of what we do. As well
as holding up some things to the light, you also
sometimes just want to look at something else.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
Right. The Friday Show was great for that reason. That's
a relatively new innovation, right, And that came about why
why did you decide to divorce from the news cycle
on that day? Yeah, because the new cycle is really bleak,
and I think sometimes announcing at the beginning we're stepping
away from the news cycle, it gives people permission to go,
oh so literally exhale and just go If I want
(27:12):
to find news on this particular day, I can find
it elsewhere, including on Mum and Maya. But of course
every way you know, We're not going to give you
everything that you need. We're not that arrogant to think
that we ever would. But sometimes it's just nice to go.
You know what, We're just keeping a light today.
Speaker 7 (27:25):
And on the lightness and the silliness.
Speaker 6 (27:27):
I think we all know the experience of listening to
something or watching something and that might be the only
time you laugh that day. Or just recently, I was
on maternity leave and it was the only adult conversation
that I was a part of that day.
Speaker 7 (27:41):
And the importance of that.
Speaker 6 (27:43):
I really think that, in terms of people's moods and
connection is so.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Important your audience. We talked a little bit about the
fact that it really does fan generations, and that's evident
here today. I'm wondering how you maintain that relevance across
this incredibly broad demographic. A lot of podcasts are very
explicitly for one particular age or stage. Yeah, yours is
not like that.
Speaker 6 (28:04):
So Jesse, I'm on, I spend a lot of time
on TikTok a job. I'll be like, there's TikTok drama, Olex, Yeah,
TikTok drama. And we've started doing this all or nothing segment,
which is like when one of us knows, Like even recently,
you guys talking about the Kennedys and I was just going,
I have very little context to what you're talking about.
Speaker 7 (28:23):
But that's really interesting.
Speaker 6 (28:25):
Like some of the best relationships I have are with
women of all different ages. So I think that existing
in those different worlds. That's been interesting to navigate is
the fracturing of celebrity because when you two started in media,
it was very clear who the big celebrities were, and
now someone with ten million followers on YouTube could walk
down the street and none of us would know who
(28:45):
they were, and so navigating who the people are that
people are interested in. We did something recently on Anna
Paul and it was our most listened to episode in months.
You know, my mum would have no idea who Anna
Paul is.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
Yeah, I's see.
Speaker 5 (28:57):
I like that.
Speaker 4 (28:58):
I like it learning things about different generations and what
they're interested in.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
And I think sometimes we're a bit of a bridge
between because we're as well as whether or not you're
siloed by your age, or you're siloed by your which
or media platform you like or whatever. I think what
none of us like is being made to feel dumb
because we don't understand TikTok or we don't understand what language.
And that's where we can kind of allow ourselves to
become a bit isolated, and hopefully when we do talk
(29:24):
about these things, we triy really hard not to patronize
but also be a bit of a bridge.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
Yes, Mia One Media, Yes, this is a serious question
on your series.
Speaker 5 (29:34):
I'm going to ask you a question. So we've been.
Speaker 4 (29:38):
You've been filling in quite a bit, and I wanted
to ask you what it was like going from being
a listener to being on the show, and what was
different to what you thought it would be.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
How was it different? I hate to say nice things
to you.
Speaker 7 (29:53):
You don't look at her when you say it.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
I find that right.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
I'll look away, I'll look at that very cute baby
with those beautiful eyes.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
It's really hard, I would say, And I didn't realize
how difficult it was to speak a essentially off the cuff.
You get a little bit of prep time, but essentially
off the cuff about these wildly divergent topics three times
a week.
Speaker 5 (30:16):
It's really hard.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
I just realized, I think I said to you after
doing it once, this is so much harder than it looks.
And I think it's like, don't look at me, because
I'm going to get really nice about you. When someone
is good at something, I think they make it look easy.
That's sort of the definition of someone being good at something,
because you don't want to suffer through something where you
can tell someone's trying really hard or working really hard.
And I think that's the genius of this show is
(30:40):
that it does feel like it sees three friends talking,
but it's actually got so much scaffolding around it to
get you to that product true that you're not punching.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
I also know how hard it is to be all
of you because when Brent got that thing stuck in
his eye and I had a week off a new
three host of the.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
Show, you were so wrong about so many things.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Yeah, and I was just there listening to it, And
now I was just one shouting at the phone. I
wanted to write to someone with some plates. I recognize
how hard it is to be eyes when we're very
wrong and you're very right.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
What's the one topic I'm going to play like newly
words game. What's the onond topic that you wish that
the others would stop bringing me out. What topic do
you wish is so fun? Holly would stop bringing.
Speaker 4 (31:21):
Oh Guinness, it's been a big week in Gwinneth news
for Jesse. Jesse just is smart, so she'll be the
one that will go let's talk about the budget.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
No, the budgets all right, but I have to learn
the bichological.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
Thing about her university degree.
Speaker 7 (31:43):
Yeah, that's me.
Speaker 6 (31:44):
I could hear less about me as dogs. As dogs
could have a little rest and look, Megan.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
This is feeling very personal.
Speaker 7 (31:55):
I watched my episode.
Speaker 6 (31:57):
I've not watched another episode, and I won't be listening
to the podcast.
Speaker 7 (32:00):
And that's fine.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
I want to talk about body image every week, and.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
They so I wants to talk about bootox and body
Image EU.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
And we're just like the standards again.
Speaker 7 (32:14):
And aging.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
Yes, definitely Jersey hot again. She just sometimes she's just there.
There's this new interesting psychological paper that says and all
the studies are in and I think you'll find the
research and I'm like, oh my god, where Megan's job.
Speaker 6 (32:32):
Fun fact Maya says, You're never this is so uncaught.
You said once you were like, you can never pitch
a story that starts with there was a study.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
It's so true.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
That's one of the right you have to disguise that
we're in the third quarter.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
Go and there was the study, and yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (32:50):
Week the study came out this week. Oh wow study.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
He's very quickly bored as everybody here, right. So if
I say I was in my.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
Garden talking about how did we forget that?
Speaker 3 (33:05):
God?
Speaker 7 (33:06):
Yeah, I think people that we get feedback people like yeah.
Speaker 4 (33:10):
I thought Brent in nearly taking his eye out would
really just shut you up for a while, maybe keep
you indoors back at all.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
So as you can see, these people are impossible to corral.
And you successfully diverted from my serious questions, Yes, which
was I wanted to ask about women's media and how
you think talking to women has changed in the media
since your days in print magazines. Do you talk to
them differently? Oh, that's easy.
Speaker 4 (33:37):
So in print magazine time it used to be about
making women feel terrible about themselves and that you had
the answer to all of the things that were wrong
with them.
Speaker 5 (33:45):
There were all kinds of cover lines.
Speaker 4 (33:47):
That we used to do that would basically you know,
I used to have to write the diet book for
Cleo and it would be drop address size by Saturday
diet and it would be you know, diets and all
different kinds of things that would make women feel insecure,
like is your haircut making you look old? And I
always thought that that was just so rubbish, so I
tried to, you know, push it in a different direction
(34:10):
when I was a magazine editor. But now it's honestly
about authenticity. The word that used to get used all
the time among magazine people was aspirational, and I used
to just go, it's just.
Speaker 5 (34:21):
Another word for alienating.
Speaker 4 (34:23):
You know, if we came up here and tried to
be perfect, it would feel very cold in the room.
But the way women connect with each other is through
vulnerability and I've always understood that, and that's what Mumam
was built on, and that's what the show's built on.
Not us coming and saying we've got the answers or
that we've got it all figured out, because guess what
we don't. I know we hide it well, but it's
(34:43):
about saying we've changed our mind about this, or this
is making us feel really distressed.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
Yeah. I love those segments where you change your mind
over the course of the segment. All start arguing one
thing and then and arguing another, they're my faith, they're
my faith. Oh when you come from women's magazines too.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
I do.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
I have a dark past of.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Making celebrities look larger and smaller than they actually were
in real life, and making up t ashy gossip about
Brad Pitt that turned out to be no worse than
what was actually happening with Brad Pitt. You know, when
I was working in that world, I kind of loved
it for a while, But when after I had my kids,
not because like as a mother, I was then any
(35:25):
better than anyone else, but you know, I was, obviously,
and I suddenly got kind of jack of that world.
And I was like, I could see what Mia was
doing obviously I didn't know me, And then I could
see what Maya was doing over at Mama Mia, and
it felt so different and it felt really important might
be the wrong word, but real, and I was like,
I want some of that over there. I think if
I was going there every day, doing that kind of
(35:46):
work every day, you know, I would feel better about
leaving my kids, I'd feel better about what I was
doing with my brain.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
And it turned out to be true.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
Now it's good because I've got lots of gossip that
is embedded so deeply in my brain I can just
pull out a fact about Gwyneth.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
So it's time for some personal reflections at this point.
Oh wow, am I going to start with Jesse? What
is the most unexpected outcome in your life of hostings?
Mamma mer out loud?
Speaker 6 (36:12):
Oh my goodness, I must say there are surprising out louders.
One of my favorite things is like I got a
message one night from Missy Higgins and I wow, growing
up Missy Higgins with my person and I got a
message from her one night and I was like, miss
Higgins is an out louder.
Speaker 3 (36:26):
I forgot to tell you I should try harder.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
Virginia Trioli messaged me. Estane says that she wants to
come on and dance with us at the Melbourne Show.
She is a very serious journalist. Everybody a very serious journalist.
You know she wants to turn up and dance in
one of those outfits that.
Speaker 6 (36:44):
Last week I got a message from Julia bad agreeing.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
With me on something I will come.
Speaker 6 (36:51):
I expected you to be listening to more clever things
and maya out loud but true.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
Holy how as being the friends and people's ears changed
your life.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
Oh, I think it's changed my life in lots of ways.
I mean it's it's opened my mind in lots of ways.
Speaker 6 (37:05):
And my answer for you, please you can't yell in
came out anymore. Every time you're yelling came someone's like,
and you're trying to yell at your kids, being like
billing it off the floor.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
This is a little bit different now that video is
so prominent in podcasts, But it used to be that
people would only know your voice, right, So you'd be
in Kmar screaming at your child and someone'd be like, oh,
I know that, and you'd be like, no, so yes,
I have to be nicer to my children in public.
That's one of the ways has changed, mostly entirely for
(37:37):
the better. I mean, working at my mare full stop
has changed my life. And I don't think I would
have had the confidence to do lots of the things
I've done, certainly not wear abber costumes in public. But
also I just think it's, as I said earlier, it's
such a privilege. And whenever people come up to you
on the rare occasions that they do, they're always really
good people like ours are really good people.
Speaker 3 (37:56):
So it's as I say, I feel very lucky.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
Miya ten years strong. What excites you most looking at
the future of Mama mir out loud.
Speaker 4 (38:03):
I'm not good with future questions. Like we have a
good time when we go on tour. We're going on
tour shortly, and it's fun because like, these are two
of my best friends, and the women we work with
we're incredibly close to as well, and it's like a
girl's trip.
Speaker 6 (38:19):
We were laughing on the way here. Remember we're at
Sydney Airport. We were trying to get on a REX
Flight Regional and I somehow exited the airport, remember that
we were boarding.
Speaker 4 (38:28):
We were getting on the plane, and she went right
instead of left and was out on the street.
Speaker 6 (38:33):
And I was like on the other side of the
glass like guys, and I had to go back through
security and the plane had to wait.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
And I was warning Ruth that, because Ruth hasn't taught
with us before that these are three people who may
appear to be intelligent somehow on the surface, but are
entirely incapable.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
Of ever getting anywhere on time.
Speaker 3 (38:49):
Getting on a plane with all their bags.
Speaker 4 (38:51):
Like it's just so we've been you know, backstage at
wherever the theater is, and then it'll be like we've
been shown here's how you get from backstage to the stage,
and we will take a wrong turn and again end
up on the street in our costumes, and someone will
have to come and find.
Speaker 5 (39:06):
Girl find this.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
As usually we're just like, remember it's for us.
Speaker 4 (39:10):
It's a conversation that never ends, and it's hard to
wrangle us because we will be like in the airport,
in the uber, in the plane, we just never stopped talking.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
I'm very excited for it, and I'm sure a lot
of people here are too. But look, that's all we
have time for, is Holly might say.
Speaker 5 (39:24):
Thank you for coming everyone.
Speaker 3 (39:26):
Thank you so much people.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
I want to scatter this stage with Megan's dried flower passion.
Speaker 3 (39:33):
I still can't buy.
Speaker 5 (39:34):
Them, you know.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
I'll checked this out again this morning six am.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
Still not for sale.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
Your work has meant so much to me and I'm
sure to so many people here. Thank you for sharing
your lives for ten years with us. And thank you
everyone for coming out on this terrible day for hair.
It's a very bad, it really is. It is, and
I appreciate you for that because I have curly here.
Have a great weekend. I hope it's free of puffer
fishing and petty microaggression. Thanks again for coming out.
Speaker 3 (40:03):
Thank you, thank you, thanks you.
Popular Podcasts
Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club
Welcome to Bookmarked by Reese’s Book Club — the podcast where great stories, bold women, and irresistible conversations collide! Hosted by award-winning journalist Danielle Robay, each week new episodes balance thoughtful literary insight with the fervor of buzzy book trends, pop culture and more. Bookmarked brings together celebrities, tastemakers, influencers and authors from Reese's Book Club and beyond to share stories that transcend the page. Pull up a chair. You’re not just listening — you’re part of the conversation.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com