September 8, 2025 • 44 mins
Outlouders, Holly has a mea culpa for your Monday. This one involves Princess Kate, her hair, and the internet theories we all wish we hadn't read. Plus, we unpack the other big royal news. This time it's about Prince Harry and yes, it's got everyone talking.
And, are you scared of small talk? You're not alone. Amelia Lester’s bringing the actually useful tips to survive awkward 8am chats at work when you have zero to say. That noise you hear? Just Jessie and Holly scribbling notes as if their social lives depend on it (because they do).
Plus… is Pete Evans mainstream now? No, seriously. We don't know either. But he might be back in your feed — and it’s giving us emotional whiplash.
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- Whatever happened to Pete Evans?
- Meghan and Harry left the royal family for their kids. This is Archie and Lilibet's life now.
- The 5 questions to ask instead of making small talk.
- 'I’m an introvert who’s made a career talking. Here are my yapping hacks that work in every social situation.'
- 'I went on a manifesting course. Here's what I learned.'
- After months of silence, Kate Middleton has released a statement regarding her cancer.
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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 waters
that this podcast is recorded on Hello and welcome to
Mamma Mia. Out loud. It's what women are actually talking
about on Monday, the sixth of September. I'm Holly Wayne right.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
I think it's the eighth.
Speaker 4 (00:30):
Shit.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
I was trying to look up now that we make
this podcast also for video, and I never know what
David is. I would be terrible in one of those
cognitive tests where people are like, what day is it, Holly?
What date is it? Holly? No idea, no idea.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Well, the only reason I know is because of something
I'm bringing to the show today. But I have looked
into the data significance. But it is, in fact the eighth.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
She's right, She's right, out louders, this is what women
are actually talking about, not two days ago, but today,
on Monday, the eighth of September. And I am Holly Wayne.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Right, I'm Jesse Stevens, and I am Amelia Last.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
And here is what has made our agenda today. I
know you knew I was going to talk about this,
the hair change that swallowed your weekend group chats, I
have a special royal roundup for you, and yes it
does include Princess Kate.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Plus Australian wellness figure Pete Evans has returned and why
does it feel like he is now a man who
has truly met his.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
Moment and you're doing small talk wrong. I've learned about
a new theory about how.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
To fix this.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
But first, in case you missed it, early this morning,
a total lunar eclipse was visible in much of the world.
Who got up to see it, ladies not. I think
it was like three point thirty. It was really I
saw the.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Moon outside last night was very impressive. Yeah, that was
the and I was like, that's enough, that's enough now.
But then I started getting texts from people saying you
must go crystals.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Out, you know.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
I was in Canada one night and they were like,
you know there's going to be the what do you
call them, the fancy lights, normal lights the middle last night.
All we have to do is at one o'clock go
and look at them. And I was like, that's too warm.
Speaker 4 (02:14):
Did you see that there's this new add out for
Tourism Australia that's been playing in China, which features the
Southern lights in Tasmania. No, the only problem is they're
basically impossible to see and had to be photoshopped in,
so they are under all sorts of criticism.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Maybe a little bit. I are interesting. Well, this moon
really happened. The moon passed through the Earth's shadow, which
produced a deep red hue, hence why it is called
the blood moon.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
I love that.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
But the real question is what does the pretty moon
say about me in my life? That's what everyone is asking.
Does it mark endings or beginnings or significant shifts? Or
should I be manifesting or reflecting?
Speaker 4 (02:54):
And what does it mean for my period? Because I
know the moon's linked to my period in some way.
So true.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Well, yeah, that sounds like a superperio. That sounds bad.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
Eclipses are cosmic plot twists in our lives. Obviously, they
accelerate change and they dissolve anything outdated. Be ready, be
prepared for some revelations, because they're coming. Be ready to
be led in a direction your soul wants you to go.
There's something about alignment with your life's truest path. But
here is some practical advice that we must follow.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Do you think that's for like this week now that
the moon has happened, So like, don't be surprised if
things get a bit weird this week.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Exactly, it's going to be a bit chaotic, a bit messy,
but in a good way.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
I don't know what.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
That's your pads, yeah, exactly right. Yeah, and your period
undeas maybe some period genes. If something is leaving your life,
don't chase it. That's if you've got someone who, like
you're in the middle of a breakup, or something's going
wrong at work and you feel like you're meant to
let something go, You're meant to let it go.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
That's so weird because I was driving in this morning
and I was like, let go, let go see and
I wasn't.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
It was the blood it was the blood moon whispering
to you. Also, if you were planning on manifesting, don't manifesting.
Our job is too surrender, which I feel is lazier
and it's just more of a vibe. The instruction is
that we're not meant to do anything. We're just meant
to sit in like this, let the universe do what
(04:21):
it's meant to do. You're also the other thing you
meant to do is look through your photos from last
September because something significant happened and there's been like a
full circle thing, so I would do it. Yeah, and
that's when I got my THERMOMX. No, yeah, it is.
It is when I got my THERMOMX. So I feel
like that was a beginning.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
And then she discovered vegetables. Yeah, and then there was
no stopping.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Us exactly exactly, and now I am basically Pete Evans.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
So that's all I wish later.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
That is all my blood moon update.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Oh no, I've immediately got to go and look at
last September's photos. Maybe we can put something on social Yeah,
exactly right, friends, I was wrong. You know, I don't
like to admit it. You know, I don't like to
admit being wrong, but I was really really wrong about
something very important that had something to do with the
royal person's hair color. Now you know I was going
to talk about this. It's my royal round up for
(05:13):
the day. A princess has changed her hair and I
have to deliver a mere culpa because just a couple
of weeks ago on the show, the first time there
was an image of Princess Catherine, Princess of Wales through
a car window a couple of weeks ago that made
it appear like her hair was sort of yellowish.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Honey honey blonde.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Yes, And it was all over the Daily Mail and everything,
and everyone was saying, oh my God. And I confidently
said on this show now, I can't really explain to
you how I know, deep in my soul she did
not dye her hair blonde. Princess Catherine is no more
allowed to dye her hair blonde than she is to
(05:49):
pick her undie's out of her bomb.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
But I saw those pictures of her in the limousine
or something, and they think that it's blonde. Is it
just light? The lighting?
Speaker 2 (05:56):
It's a pat picture right through a car window that
looks like she's gone proper blonde blonde. But a strategic
leak has already been placed with the Daily Mail that
says this is just yacht hair. She has spent the
summer in Greece and she's slowly been lightening her brown
from chestnut to more caramelli and there's just a bit
(06:19):
of summer sun on it. But Diana was blonde, yeah,
but she didn't start off brunette.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
Okay, So it's a royal rule that you can't go
from brunette.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Well, I just think it's just very unlikely to have
such a dramatic hair chakee well until now, right, So
I was very very wrong because, as everybody listening to
this knows, on Friday Thursday, their time, she and William
went to an event I think they were Oh yes,
they were looking at the newly renovated gardens outside the
Natural History Museum in London, because that's the kind of
(06:49):
fun shit that is going to do. And all anyone
wanted to talk about was the fact that she had
blonde hair, big hair, the fonty hair, and the internet
went into meltdown. Yes, what did you two think when
you first saw it? I'm going to get to in
a minute to what people were saying, But what did
you two think?
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Definitely drastic change, and there was a lot of andy
going around with the images, and a lot of people
were speculating about wig or extensions or topper all that
kind of stuff. I felt slightly uncomfortable with some of
the discourse, although I went, yeah, she probably does have
some sort of like topper, which is sort of not
a wig but additional hair.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Right, Obviously this is a sensitive topic and we're going
to put this on the table because, as we know,
in January this year, Princess Catherine said that she was
in remission from cancer and she had had chemotherapy treatment
last year, and she has spoken publicly about how She
called it a roller coaster. She said it was brutal.
She says that the adjustment to a post treatment life
has been really difficult, which is something that very many women,
(07:51):
well people can relate to. And there's no question that obviously,
the issues around hair with cancer treatment are very sensitive.
She never appeared to lose her hair, of course, but
we don't know and nor should we know, what's been
going on. So there's obviously a sensitivity around discussing this,
which feels a bit icky. But then on the other hand,
there is no question that often what a royal or
(08:12):
We've talked about this with other public figures like politicians,
with their appearance, they're often trying to have as little
commentary as possible, like I just look the same every
time you see me. I'm wearing very boring things. I'm
not doing you know, I'm not doing this, I'm not
doing that. I don't want to attract any commentary. And
this was a big shift, so Kate was not doing
that with this. Some of the commentary has obviously been
(08:34):
very icky around it because it hasn't been very complimentary.
But Amelia, do you think it's fair game for conversation?
Speaker 4 (08:41):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (08:41):
I think that was really well put, Holly.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
And a lot of the debate that was happening in
my group chats was about whether or not it was
a wig. And what I found helpful was someone who
did some actual reporting on this, and that was Caitlin Colemore,
who's a hairstylist that Laney gossip called up and this
was in Laney's newslet of The Squawk, and Caitlin Colemore's
assessment was that these were extensions, they were not a wig.
(09:05):
And the reason she said that is because there was
no lace front visible, so it was Kate's actual hair
on top, the new blonde hair color on top. And
then the issue is that the extensions that have been
clipped underneath had not been executed well, meaning they hadn't
been brushed through in a way that made them look seamless.
Now Laney asks the question, and we all know that
Laney is an expert on the signals that celebrities and
(09:28):
public figures send in terms of things like their appearance.
She makes the point that Kate is the future Queen
of England.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
She has plenty of resources, she has very skilled people
working with her.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
So the question is why did they not give their
a game on this really important occasion for someone who's
going through a lot. And my personal theory on this
is that I wonder if Kate doesn't want to remind
us that she's going through a lot behind the scenes
that we don't know about. In addition to her recovery
from cancer, there may be other things happening too, and
(09:59):
it's just a reminder that we don't always know everything
that's happening in her life, and maybe she wants to
remind us that she's got more important things to think
about right now than making sure that her hair is
executed perfectly.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
This is my theory, as much as it's in any
way okay for a grown woman to have a theory
about another grown woman's hair. A while ago, you might
remember that Kate's press office said, and then sort of backtracked,
that they weren't going to talk about her clothes anymore.
Do you remember that I said that it was always
very standard that you would release the details of what
a princess or a senior royal was wearing, like what
(10:32):
designers she's wearing, Da da, Da da, And they kind
of said, we're going to stop doing that. Then they
backtracked on it a little bit because there was an
outcry from people who were very upset about it. But
a lot of women who've gone through something as serious
and life altering as Kate has over the past year
or two come out with realigned priorities, And I sort
of wonder if Kate is just jack of being the
(10:53):
perfectly poised, quafft princess at all times and is kind
of like, all right, so the hair isn't perfect today.
I don't give a shit.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
You know.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
I haven't done a million things to my face that
people think I should be doing. I'm wearing clothes I
was wearing six months ago, which is something she's always done.
For a start, she's always reworn clothes and things. She's
kind of going, who gives a shit. I want to
be here to support causes I care about, talk about
issues that matter. But the problem is that's all we
all care about. And when I say we, I don't
necessarily mean us. But you know, that's all the public
(11:23):
cares about when it comes to a princess, so it's
kind of it must be very frustrating if she's like,
I want to send a message that who cares if
I didn't brush my hair perfectly? But then that goes
around the world.
Speaker 4 (11:34):
To extend that theory a little further, I think we
should remember that William is currently going through a kind
of renegotiation of what it means to be a royal
and how many engagements he should have each year. There
was actually some reporting in Tatler last month that Princess Anne,
who was seventy five now and who has always done
the most engagements of anyone in the royal family, is
(11:55):
annoyed at William. She says he is not doing enough
engagements and let me get the numbers right here. In
the last year she did four hundred and seventy four
engagement oh my god, which is mind boggling when you
think about it.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
And I talked about this list in his book about
how when it comes out every the list that Amilia
is talking about, the royals will get really shitty with
each other.
Speaker 4 (12:13):
And AD's always at the top. William last year did
one hundred and thirty five. Now, obviously it was a
hugely tough year for his.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Father and wife. Both were dealing with cancer diagnosis.
Speaker 4 (12:22):
Yes, but also more generally, he and Kate have talked
about for a long time about how they want to
really focus on the early years of their children's lives
and give them the kind of care and attention that
frankly William did not get. They believe that that will
set them up best for a life in the public eye.
So this is part of also a renegotiation of what
(12:43):
it means to be royal, how often should you be
seen in public? And I think you've got to see
this hair change as part of that overall renegotiation.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
I wonder if too, I've heard people talk about when
something really dramatic happens in your life, whether that's a
diagnosis or a loss that can't necessarily be seen from
the outside, sometimes you want a visual marker that you've changed.
So it's the classic getting a fringe after a breakup
in terms of I don't feel the same anymore. So
(13:11):
I can completely understand how Kate feels like a totally
different person if it has literally impacted her hair, which
I mean, it probably has even you know, that sort
of of treatment, it would make sense. I would think
that if you're in the public eye, and even for
the sake of getting ready more quickly, I would think
that having extensions or top of the pieces something you
(13:31):
do all the time. And the other thing that I've
heard a few hairdressers say is that for women over forty,
you often see them go to that exact color. And
the reason they go to that exact color is because
you don't need to cover grays as much. If you
have dark brown hair and you're starting to get little grays,
it's every two weeks you're having to cover them and exactly,
and so you go to that and you're able to
(13:52):
kind of mix it in a little bit more So
that kind of made.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Sense too out loud as prepare for much Kate hairwatch
because then on Sunday she was out watching our Wallaroos
get smashed by the English actually and the rugby and
it looked like she was brunette again. But then the
video in the change room with different lighting, Oh, look
like she was blood again. Brown blood, brown blood. We've
got whiplash. So just I think we all need a
chill PILLLP.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
I think as a culture too, there's something about wigs,
because there is this obsession with men and wigs. So
Harry styles. There have been rumors for years about his
hair loss. Yes, about his hair loss. It's all the
f one. There are certain players where it's like he
has a topper or whatever. There are like Instagram accounts
dedicated to it, and I think it's it's almost been
(14:35):
coded or read. Is this thing about honesty or transparency,
like that they're being somehow dishonest. Harry has had to
address it publicly. Yeah, there's this idea that people are
kind of fooling us, which I think is really unfair
because you go, how many ways do we all change
our appearance before we leave the house, But wigs is
just this kind of other.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
I think that's a really good point.
Speaker 4 (14:58):
And I think that's actually also changing a little bit too,
because just recently John Cena came out and said that
when he was losing hair, he got hair transplants and
then his Hollywood career took off again.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Yeah, it's big business, the hair transplants. Oh, which brings
me in a nice segway to my friend Prince Harry,
who I am convinced has had a hair transplant, but
that's just my theory. Nothing to see him move along.
And we all know I was wrong about Kate's blonde,
so you never know. Anyway, a little bit of Harry
gossip for my Royal roundup. Watch this week what happens
(15:31):
in England with Hazard because he's there right and this
is significant because this is the first time that Prince
Harry has been back to Britain since he famously lost
that court case you know where he said that he
wanted to automatically get the highest level of protection from
the British police when every time he went to Britain
and he lost that case and he was really mad
about it, and he went on the BBC and sprayed
(15:52):
basically and pretty much accused his family of not caring
whether he died when he was on their soil.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
And it cost him millions, to cost him millions.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
It was not good. He was going nuclear about it. Anyway,
he's back and what's interesting is that he's gone back
for a charity function also the anniversary of the Queen's death.
But he has gone by for a charity function tonight London,
time for a charity that his sport's called Well Child.
He went to that last year too. He's also going
to another children's charity event where he's expected to announce
(16:19):
a big donation to this charity in another part of England.
But what's interesting is all the leaks that are coming
out clearly from his people, because they're in People magazine
and everything, are saying Harry is so excited to be there,
He's going to make the most of it, He's going
to have fun. They are clearly trying to change the
tune from sad Harry feeling unloved and unwelcome to happy
(16:40):
Harry can't wait to be back. But everyone is saying
is he going to see his dad? It is generally
believed that he has not seen Charles since February twenty
twenty four.
Speaker 4 (16:48):
Well, the league's coming out on the other side too,
because in the Telegraph, which I believe is commonly referred
to as the Tory Graph because it's quite conservative and
more royal family and line establishment, there was an article
saying that he's absolutely not going to meet with Charles,
and he's certainly not going to meet with William.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
That's not Willy on.
Speaker 4 (17:06):
The Pale, but also not Charles and also make the
point that since Center Barlay, that charity that he started,
had the bullying scandal, he's really been casting about and
he wants to have a kind of royal proxy role
where he can show up at charities and he can
do the good works. But Center Barlay's kind of imploded
on him, and so there's a feeling with this visit
(17:28):
that he's kind of casting about something new.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
It'd be really sad if he doesn't go and have
a pop in with King Charle, I know.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
Especially since how much he's been expressing that he wants to.
In a moment, Australian wellness figure Pete Evans has returned
and we want to unpack what role he is playing
in the culture now. Pete Evans, the fifty two year
old former television chef he used to be on My
(17:55):
Kitchen Rolls, made a rare public appearance earlier this month
on a podcast called Get Harder. He was back on
my Instagram.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Yeah, all over my socials.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Yeah to subscribe to the Get Harder podcast.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
No.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
No, I thought that there was probably a side of
Instagram where Pete Evans still was because I knew he'd
had his account reactivated, but I hadn't seen him before
we get to any of that, just to refresh. Evans
was an acclaimed author and TV personality whose claims about
health and wellness became increasingly outlandish. So first there was
(18:28):
the Paleo Cookbook for Mothers and Babies, which he released
in twenty fifteen, and that was enormously controversial because of
a recipe which of the bone broth recipe for infants
that dietitians came out and they were like, this would
do a lot of harm to a child a baby.
Then came the Healing Lamp he tried to market in
twenty twenty as a treatment for COVID, and that landed
(18:52):
him with a fine of more than twenty five thousand
dollars from the Therapeutic Goods Administration. Look, there's much more,
but long story short. He got pulled off Instagram and Facebook,
where he was very influential and had a massive, massive platform,
and he was pulled off for deliberately spreading misinformation this year.
Earlier this year, however, he was back and he has
(19:15):
a much smaller audience, but he's there. He is being
interviewed on many podcasts about how the lockdown in Melbourne
was a disaster. How people are scared of his teachings
because they get people out of the system. By that,
he means the hospital medical system, and we all know
how lucrative that system is.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
I think what you're referring to is what he would
call the medical industrial complex. Y.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
Yes, exactly, rash exactly. He's going up against those guys.
He's wearing a t shirt that says food is Medicine,
and he's also selling a bunch of retreats. What's interesting
to me is that a lot of his beliefs now
are sounding familiar and quite in tune with a cultural
reset we've seen, particularly since the pandemic. A lot of
(20:00):
his beliefs are sort of the bedrock of the Make
America Healthy Again or MAHA movement, spearheaded by Robert F.
Kennedy Junior, the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Is
this all becoming far more mainstream and is it kind
of happening across the world.
Speaker 4 (20:17):
Yeah, And it's such a sort of strange alliance of
people because I think one of you mentioned that he's
also shilling for bitcoin at the same time, right, Yeah,
And he's appearing at a bitcoin conference in Las Vegas
as we speak, which I'm disappointed to be missing.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
But I wonder.
Speaker 4 (20:34):
Why there's this sort of overlapse between insul culture or
the manisphere. More accurately, I think cryptocurrency, health nuts. I
wonder what that coalition is all about. And we see
it most vividly in the Trump administration. Because Donald Trump
is not a man who's concerned with wellness culture. I
would say we talked about his love, but he knew
(20:59):
by inviting Robert F. Kennedy Junior, a former Democrat, into
his coalition, he knew that he was tapping into this
increasingly important, vocal group of men and women who were
interested in cryptocurrency, interested in health, and the idea of
bucking the mainstream culture in these ways. And he knew
that that was a very powerful political coalition. Of course,
(21:21):
Ourka Junior's doing all sorts of terrible things right now.
So for instance, when he was first nominated, he said, no,
I love vaccines. I'm very mainstream, I believe in science.
He appeared before a Congressional committee last week and kind
of just threw all of that out the window. He
said he thinks that the COVID vaccine should no longer
be recommended for healthy adults, and in fact, they've decided
(21:41):
not to do that in the US. He says he
doesn't know how many people died of COVID in the
US during the pandemic. It was one point two million,
and he fired an entire panel of childhood vaccine experts,
opening the door for states like Florida to say that
you do not have to get childhood vaccines to ender
school there, which is making people worried about polio. So
there are real effects of these Why do you think
(22:02):
this has such purchase right now? Because I think there's
a kernel of truth to it. There are things in
our modern lifestyle that clearly doing us damage. You only
have to look at the fact that early on set
cancers are hugely on the rise, particularly the gastro intestinal ones.
And look, doctors have speculated as to why this is,
and they've identified some things like obesity and microplastics, by
(22:24):
the way, two things that RFK Junior has been very
vocal about the fact that he wants to fight.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
But also, we still don't.
Speaker 4 (22:30):
Really know why young people are getting cancer at higher rates.
So I think there's a kernel of truth to it.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
I'm fascinated by Pete Evans, and I always have been
because when he was at his peak of influence paleo influence,
I mean, because obviously he became very famous and built
up a massive following just being a handsome guy who
was on My Kitchen Rules and was kind of charming
next to Manu, right, and everybody liked that. And then
he became really interested in this Food is Medicine movement.
(22:57):
And what was fascinating is if you watched his social
media at that time, which I did. Obviously writing on
the internet was a He had a huge community, but
it started from you know, here's some nice salads, here's
some healthy things to that all looked delicious, and then
you could watch his slide into Black Lives Matter as
a conspiracy, COVID as a conspiracy big farmers out to
(23:18):
get us all, like it's like a case study of
radicalization if you watched what was happening with him. But
one of the things that made him so powerful and effective,
and I would say still makes him quite powerful and effective,
is that the community that he built up, particularly on Facebook,
because when he got tossed off those platforms, he had
and combined following about two million, and I listened to
(23:38):
this podcast interview that you're talking about Jesse. He is
entirely unapologetic about absolutely anything, and in fact, he's not
even whinging about it. He just says, this was my journey,
and I was. He sees himself very much as a
sort of messiah in a way. But he had this
very engaged community who had followed some of his dietary
advice and found it massively helpful. And those are real people.
(23:59):
And he said that most of them were women, most
of them were over forty, and they became his evangelical
foot soldiers. And I'm not diminishing them in any way.
The stories were very real about the ways that changing
the way they ate had made them feel better and
more energized and all of these things. And if you
ever wrote anything negative about Pete Evans on the Internet
in those days, which I did, I'm afraid it's trolling,
(24:21):
Like I haven't had it on any other topic. People
would come for you because it men or women, a
lot both, but a lot of people who genuinely felt
like this information had been really really helpful to them.
And who are you to say that it's nonsense? And
I get that right. But the thing that you then
saw that's overreach is like eating healthily, cutting out lots
of processed foods, trying to eat you know, lean meat,
(24:43):
lots of organic vegetables, all of that stuff. Great, great
bit privileged, bit special, but great. But then this overstep
would be and you can cure X, and you can
cure Y. And the reason your child has this diagnosis
is because that and it's the overreach and the overreach.
It's really interesting, and I wonder if that army of
(25:04):
his is still engaged in mainstream or not, because you
can't deny that some of the things that he was
talking about that sort of got him mocked in those days,
just like Gwyneth Paltrow says this a lot too, and
now pretty mainstream. If you want to go to Pete
Evans Retreat, I looked it up. Cost you about two
grand for two nights to go to the beautiful property
(25:25):
and have a weekend of wellness. But you're looking at
you know, magnesium baths, infrared saunas, forest bathing, like this
is all stuff that lots of people are doing all
the time. You know, even the heat lamp thing that
he sold, which was obviously extreme, and he massively overstepped
by tying it to COVID. But people are in infrared
saunas at all, kinds of wellness retreats all over the
(25:47):
place at the moment, and a lot of this stuff
has become really mainstream. And so his weapon, if you like,
is saying, well, I was right, I was right.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
And never accepting for it, and never accepting the things
that he was wrong about. And the issue with a
lot of these alternative remedies is that they haven't been
put through clinical trials because a lot of them are
really difficult to do so, because these are human bodies
and it would be dangerous. And often traditional medicine doesn't
say these don't work. They just say we don't have
enough evidence. And that's the way that science works and evolves.
(26:20):
And so the criticism of science as well is that, well,
they told us this, and now it's this. Yes, science
changes its mind by virtue of running experiments and research studies.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Right.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
And I listened to this great Ezra Klein episode last
week about how make America Healthy Again is a bad
answer to a very good question, and the core of
it the idea that our diets and processed food and
maybe medicines that we're taking and all of that have
contributed to maybe more widespread ill health. The increasing kind
(26:52):
of diagnosis and stuff isn't necessarily helping. And I was
thinking about that and a lot of because, as you say, Amelia,
this rise of illnesses in young people, sort of these
random cancers in people that appear health like, it's just
it's horrific. Speaking to a friend recently, and we were saying,
people who have been diagnosed, gone through the treatment that
(27:14):
ultimately saved their lives, which is chemo or radiation or
a mixture or surgery, come out the other end with
an openness to alternative therapies and a streak of what
we call WU. And I don't mean that to denigrate
it at all. I just think it's a really interesting
data point.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
I think the other reason for that, and this is
the demographic that Pete Evans says his followers were this
over forties women. There are so many women who are
not getting the answers to the questions that they have
at their GP. And that's where most of us who
don't have the resources or the access to go to
a million different specialists and get a million test runs.
We go to our GP and we say I'm feeling
(27:52):
like this, I'm feeling like that, and they'll be like, oh,
just could be nothing, could be this, could be that,
But they're unsatisfactory answers, and so you go looking online
for more satisfactory answers. And it doesn't seem massively odd
that if you change the way you eat and change
the way you live and start exercising and blah blah
and you start feel better, that you might feel incredibly
evangelical about that because it has changed your life. The problem, though,
(28:15):
the fact that he may well have had an undeniable
positive impact on some people's health through diet advice, is
that the other part that goes hand in hand with
this that really upsets people, and for very good reason,
is that the core of it all is a kind
of well, if you're sick, it's your fault. And he
says on this podcast as well as you know, as
I say, he's just incredibly confident, incredibly apologetic, but he
(28:36):
basically says he believes that mindset can cure almost anything,
and that kind of advice is not only dangerous because
it can stop people from seeking the treatment that they need,
but also is emotionally devastating because it really puts the
what you just didn't fight hard enough, You had the
wrong mindset, you weren't willing to be disciplined enough with
your diet, and that is the toxic part of all this.
Speaker 3 (28:59):
You know what, though, Holly, it's also deeply attractive because
when people run out of options, I mean, there is
nothing that sparks fearing people like ill health and their mortality.
You would do anything, you would believe in literally anything,
And so I have such empathy for people who then
move to some of these alternative treatments or follow these
(29:20):
people like gurus, because you know, sometimes you do get
to the end of the road and all you need
is hope.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
But it would be like, you know, a populist prime
minister getting voted in in Australia and putting Pete Evans
in charge of our health system. It is not that
different to that.
Speaker 4 (29:34):
Is it. No? And I think the other thing, the
other lesson that we've learned from the pandemic is that
silencing these people or deplatforming them to use that expression
doesn't work. Because Donald Trump was kicked off Twitter too.
We really crack down on the idea of you're not
allowed to say certain things on social media platforms, and
(29:55):
social media companies got on board with that idea. Remember
there used to be those little warnings during the pandemic
about medical misinformation on Instagram.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
Some of which ended up being true.
Speaker 4 (30:05):
Yeah, so I think there was this issue of if
we don't let them speak, then they'll go away, but
they haven't.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
It's interesting too that we're now telling a story about
the pandemic, and in this as Reclined episode where he
interviews experts, they say the two things people have forgotten
is the death that it's more than one million people died,
and the second is that the only reason this pandemic
ended was because of the vaccines. And to have rewritten
that narrative by now is just a fascinating response.
Speaker 4 (30:33):
The Internet has died, and I know who killed it.
Let's step back. The Internet's gotten boring, right, You've noticed this.
Every time I want to procrastinate from work, I go
on to the Internet, which we used to call the
information super Highway, and now it's more just like a
sort of clogged side road.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
It's just sit there's nothing there.
Speaker 4 (30:50):
Yeah, yeah, okay, there's a reason why the CEO of
chat gpt. His name is Sam Altman. He has tweeted
that he now believes in this so called dead Internet theory.
This is a conspiracy theory which says that the majority
of content online now is actually generated by bots, it's
not actually by humans, and that's why the Internet has
got really boring. And Oltman said that a lot of
(31:12):
tweets now are being written by l elms, that is,
large language models, like the one that he produces called
chat GPT. Now you may wonder why someone who is
shilling chat gpt is also telling us that it's making
the Internet bad. It's because he has another company that
works out whether humans are really posting things online, Like
(31:33):
you know when it says click the boxes here that
have motorbikes in them to proof that you're human.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
That's his other company.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
Oh the amount of times I have to prove I'm
a human?
Speaker 4 (31:43):
Oh and I get it by yeah, I'm like, what
do you mean by motorbike?
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Like a little bit of a corner here? Is that
a motive that a pushbike? I have to do it
like four times.
Speaker 3 (31:51):
Same and it's like the amount of times I get tested.
I'm like, how many times are they not humans, and
couldn't you get a bot to do this? I mean,
I suppose apparently.
Speaker 4 (31:58):
This is the one thing that bots still can't do,
is they cannot recognize patterns that tell them what things
are and what things aren't. That's like the one thing
they haven't figured.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
Out what to do yet. They're threatening highest strata of
a community's jobs and all of these things, but they
can't pick a motorbike. They cannot pick a motorbikes.
Speaker 4 (32:17):
While there's in fact these like big warehouses where people
are trying to train computers to recognize objects bridges, So
there are people whose whole job it is to be like, hey, computer,
this is a bridge, this is a bridge, this is
a bridge.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
I'm hoping eventually.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
I've often thought this about Reddit, though, because I spend
a lot of time on Reddit, and they'll be a
mighty asshole. Is a famous kind of Subreddit or today
I learned or whatever. And you see trends and you
see patterns, and I've always thought not that it's a bot,
but that it's someone from Reddit. And same with Twitter. Right,
it's like someone planting no.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
It's a bot.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
A really yeah?
Speaker 1 (32:52):
And I think you can start to tell now.
Speaker 4 (32:54):
There is in fact a really interesting Wikipedia entry which
is all about the ways you can tell that something's
been written by AI and among the many signs are
an overuse of M dashes.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
Which is an M dash is like a lot.
Speaker 4 (33:09):
Really online, and also a lot of hyperbole, like, for instance,
the most interesting plant in the world is such and such,
just because the computer thinks that, because it's being asked
to write about it, it's a really important topic, which
is always the case.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
Because you always see as well at the end of articles,
now you know there's recommended articles just from around the internet,
and it'll be like, you won't believe what this nineties
pop star looks like now, and it's a one hundred
and forty year old AI generated woman from an internet
website that doesn't exist. It's like, it's just absolute slop.
Speaker 4 (33:42):
It's crap and it's everywhere. So many cures for belly
fat hah. After the break. The one tip to make
your small talk better.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
One unlimited out loud access. We dropped episodes every Tuesday
and Thursday exclusively for Mamma Mia subscribers. Follow the link
in the show notes to get us in your ears
five days a week. And a huge thank you to
all our current subscribers.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
Small talk gets a really bad rap.
Speaker 4 (34:13):
I think I think I've heard you say, Holy, you
don't even like small.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
Talk, so I can't be doing with it okay, And
I'm also really bad at it. To be honest, Well,
I haven't just a study for you.
Speaker 4 (34:24):
There's a new study that's come out that explains how
we can all get better at small talk.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Actually, I just have to do a little correction to
the record. Actually, Amelia is because I remember years ago
when I started working with some young promising journalists called
Claire and Jesse Stevens. I actually had a word with
them about small talk beauns right, because they hadn't worked
in an office before and they didn't know that like
when somebody comes into the kitchen and says to you,
(34:49):
like how should that? It was good to engage them
like smile, say hello when you walk in. And I
was actually being an advocate for small talk at that
time in my life, when I was a manager, I
was like, all be nice to each other, all ask
each other how your weekends were, smile and nod. But
now I think maybe my tolerance for it is just warm.
I don't know so much small talk in you.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
I didn't know that, like it was a learned skill
for me, that when you enter the office on a
Monday morning you vocally acknowledge those around you Like that
doesn't come naturally to me.
Speaker 4 (35:19):
I am going to wager that what you told Jesse
about how to do small talk is in fact wrong,
because you know, when we're all taught how to make conversation,
one of the key rules is that you meant to
folly back and forth. It's meant to be like a
game of tennis. I don't play tennis, but this is
my understanding. I let the tennis correspond to chime in
where some ask you a question, then you asked them
(35:41):
a question back. So here's an example of how you
might do small talk this way. How is your weekend?
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Oh good, I've binge to Netflix you.
Speaker 4 (35:49):
Yeah, I took my dog to the park. Oh nice,
what sort of dog is he? So do you see
what happened there? There was just a pinging back and forth.
It never got anywhere. You didn't ask what they were
watching on Netflix. It never got below the surface.
Speaker 3 (36:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (36:00):
Now, these psychologists say that you've got to get below
the surface because that's where human connection is. If you
stay on the surface, just pinging back and forth, you're
never going to get anywhere. And they have introduced this
concept called riffing. It's almost like flirting by another name.
It's like picking up something that someone said and rather
than just immediately volleying back a basic question to them,
making a little joke about it, or starting to sort
(36:23):
of do a little bit of imaginary play around it.
Think about kids. When little kids go to the park,
they're not engaging in small talk. They're immediately like we're
playing like shipwrecked pirates. You're the pirate, you're the you know,
the ocean coming up to the ship. But you know,
they like to just assign roles immediately.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
And not like how are your snacks? My snacks are good.
Speaker 3 (36:41):
And they understand the concept of yes, and that in
order to socialize you've got to lean in and go yes.
All of the books I read to Learna are about
like you might not want to play round and round,
but you have to in order to get along with Morton.
And I'm like, oh, really learning these lessons, I guess.
Speaker 4 (36:58):
And this is a famous improvisational technique which says you've
always got to go along with what someone else proposes.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
So here's how it might play out in small talk
role play. How is your weekend good?
Speaker 4 (37:09):
But I watched way too many tiktoks of people making
little food whoall like little food, like dollhouse sized food. Yeah,
if you want to learn how to make lasagna in
a dollhouse, let me know.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
That's hilarious.
Speaker 4 (37:21):
We can organize a tiny food poplark and put it
all on this coaster.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
And it sounds like any.
Speaker 3 (37:28):
Questions, Yeah, it sounds like we're in an episode of Friends.
Speaker 4 (37:32):
That's hilarious. Okay, here's the problem with it. I went
to the hairdresser this morning and she asked me how
my father's day was?
Speaker 1 (37:42):
And I just read this article.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
Hold on, yes, and what time do you go to
the hair in the morning because it's Monday.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
Wow, that's amazing.
Speaker 4 (37:56):
This is my dedication to the VOD format. So she said,
how was your father's Day? And I said, oh, it's good.
How's your father's Day? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (38:07):
Good? And I just thought to myself there was no
to be fair at once seven am. Are you going
to be able to incorporate riffing?
Speaker 2 (38:13):
HOI let's see if you're on your game and you're
feeling energetic, then yes, because I have a lot of
questions for you about the hairdressers. At seven, I am
not before coffee, but definitely need a coffee. But it
is true that sometimes because the problem with small talk
is sometimes you just do it to box tick obviously,
So I'm like, in the kitchen this morning, cup of tea,
(38:35):
how is your weekend good? How is your weekend good?
Awkward size, and then you're kind of like, oh, the
weather was it? Because it was? The weather was lovely,
wasn't it. And the thing is is there's a script
that we I bet there were five different versions more
of that in the kitchen this morning, where we all
said exactly the same thing. So I guess the way
we should have done that is I go, how is
(38:56):
your weekend? You say good? How was your weekend? I say, well,
I got some bad news from home. My dog vomited
on the carpet. I spent way too much time up
to my ears in horseshit, Like.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
How is The response is that's hilarious.
Speaker 4 (39:11):
We couldn't start a horse stable with all that horseshit, Jesse,
you had to learn small Yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
How could you could you incorporate this new rule? I
think so.
Speaker 3 (39:21):
I like the idea and this is something that comes
up in all the small talk advice is levity, right,
because I think some people are like, I don't like
small talk. I'm going to talk about death, and it's like, no,
not at seven am with the hairdresser people.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
You don't know.
Speaker 4 (39:35):
No.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
So I read this advice from a woman named Alison
wood Brooks and it's the talk. It's like an acronym talk.
So the first one stands for topics, and the idea
is that you know what, before you walk in on
a Monday morning, maybe have some topics. Yes, it says
people prepare way more what they're going to wear the
next day than what they're going to talk about. We
(39:56):
put so much thought into what we're going to wear,
and then we get in and we're like, like, someone's
going to ask you about your weekend. Have a think
what you're going to say?
Speaker 2 (40:03):
This is because I do this to my kids, right,
is that if I'm going to take my kids too,
now that they're older and they or you know, they
can be little kids are entertaining for everybody, but teenagers
they'll be like, oh oh, they're going to be on
a call with their grandma for a while, and they're like, oh,
I want to be doing this. I'm like, think of
one story. Think of one story you're going to tell grandma.
Or when we go to this thing today, they're all
(40:24):
going to want to know, Matilda about your grand final
and Billy how you're doing at school. Those are boring questions.
Think of a good story, just one yeah story.
Speaker 3 (40:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
So I prep them like that, And so what you're
saying is we should all be prepping like that before
we step into the arena of conversation.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
Yes, yes, I actually I ran into someone yesterday who's
like an acquaintance, and weirdly he had been on my
mind because of the last conversation we had. So as
soon as I saw him, it wasn't awkward because I
was like, oh, my goodness, I'm so glad I ran
into you. I've been meaning to tell you black Like,
so that sort of thing is meant to be really good.
Speaker 4 (40:57):
Can we role play what should I have done at
the hairdresser when she said, how is your father's day?
Speaker 2 (41:02):
I think he should have prepared like.
Speaker 4 (41:05):
You know, what's interesting. We tried a new method of
cooking steak, boiled it at the end, and does anyone
want to hear me?
Speaker 2 (41:12):
Yes, you need to think of one interesting thing that
happened on your Father's day. Give me one.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Now that was that technique. I'm sorry, steak.
Speaker 3 (41:23):
I'm going to give you the next and then you
have to do it. Okay, A is for asking, So
then you have to ask Holly a question based off
your Okay, maybe did you have steak?
Speaker 1 (41:31):
Yeah? What's your preferred method of cooking stack?
Speaker 3 (41:34):
Yes? Perfect? And then Holly say I.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
Didn't cook the steak. My friend did, but she's very
good at cooking steak, and she made garlic butter with it.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
Oh, now that's hilarious.
Speaker 3 (41:43):
And then that brings us to levity or lightness. That's
hilarious levity because then Holly is going to say I
can't cook ha haha.
Speaker 2 (41:52):
I'm going to say I probably had too much garlic butter.
Don't come too close to me this morning.
Speaker 4 (41:57):
But then tell me what is is it kissing?
Speaker 3 (41:59):
No, it's kindness, and you're going to say you don't stink.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
Exactly.
Speaker 3 (42:07):
Generosity apparently meant to come into situation and go, what
does this person you know? Sometimes you have small talk
and you go, oh, this person seems a little nervous.
It's like, oh, my job is to make this person
feel comfortable or less overwhelmed or whatever. And so it's
about like bringing generosity.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
To ask levity kindness.
Speaker 3 (42:24):
Yeah, I like that.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
You haven't told us one interesting thing about your father's day?
Speaker 3 (42:29):
Oh, one interesting thing about my father's day.
Speaker 2 (42:30):
Did you make a fuss with all the fathers in
your life?
Speaker 3 (42:33):
Yes? And I bought my dad a new T shirt.
He already had this T shirt. He wore it too
much and washed it too much that it was destroyed.
I've recommended threadheads on here before and it's a collage
of the girl's faces and lunar and it says pop
is the best on it. And so now we've decided
that he just can't wash it because the images will
come on.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
Can I riff on that?
Speaker 4 (42:53):
I got my partner some socks that have our two kids'
faces on.
Speaker 3 (43:03):
Oh, that's got just brought them online.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
Okay, very levity with that. Something new afoot in the
Melia Lester household. That was terrible cut cut, Oh dear, okay,
on that note, not that classy, classy, very neat.
Speaker 3 (43:24):
We do need to practice, We need to practice more.
Speaker 2 (43:28):
But that's all we've got time for today. The more
small talk. A massive thank you to all of you
for being with us here on today's show, and of
course to our fabulous team for putting it together. Friends,
don't forget that the reason Amelia got her head done
and the reason I got the date wrong today is
because we are making video here. And if you want
(43:48):
to watch the show instead of listening, or as well
as listening, you will find us on YouTube. We'll see
you tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (43:54):
Bye bye. Shout out to any Mum and me a
subscribers listening. If you love the show and you want
to support us, subscribing to Mom and Mia is the
very best way to do so. There's a link in
the episode description.
Speaker 4 (44:09):
They be s
Speaker 2 (44:12):
Intand they should be the SA
You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
that this podcast is recorded on Hello and welcome to
Mamma Mia. Out loud. It's what women are actually talking
about on Monday, the sixth of September. I'm Holly Wayne right.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
I think it's the eighth.
Speaker 4 (00:30):
Shit.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
I was trying to look up now that we make
this podcast also for video, and I never know what
David is. I would be terrible in one of those
cognitive tests where people are like, what day is it, Holly?
What date is it? Holly? No idea, no idea.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Well, the only reason I know is because of something
I'm bringing to the show today. But I have looked
into the data significance. But it is, in fact the eighth.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
She's right, She's right, out louders, this is what women
are actually talking about, not two days ago, but today,
on Monday, the eighth of September. And I am Holly Wayne.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Right, I'm Jesse Stevens, and I am Amelia Last.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
And here is what has made our agenda today. I
know you knew I was going to talk about this,
the hair change that swallowed your weekend group chats, I
have a special royal roundup for you, and yes it
does include Princess Kate.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Plus Australian wellness figure Pete Evans has returned and why
does it feel like he is now a man who
has truly met his.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
Moment and you're doing small talk wrong. I've learned about
a new theory about how.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
To fix this.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
But first, in case you missed it, early this morning,
a total lunar eclipse was visible in much of the world.
Who got up to see it, ladies not. I think
it was like three point thirty. It was really I
saw the.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Moon outside last night was very impressive. Yeah, that was
the and I was like, that's enough, that's enough now.
But then I started getting texts from people saying you
must go crystals.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Out, you know.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
I was in Canada one night and they were like,
you know there's going to be the what do you
call them, the fancy lights, normal lights the middle last night.
All we have to do is at one o'clock go
and look at them. And I was like, that's too warm.
Speaker 4 (02:14):
Did you see that there's this new add out for
Tourism Australia that's been playing in China, which features the
Southern lights in Tasmania. No, the only problem is they're
basically impossible to see and had to be photoshopped in,
so they are under all sorts of criticism.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Maybe a little bit. I are interesting. Well, this moon
really happened. The moon passed through the Earth's shadow, which
produced a deep red hue, hence why it is called
the blood moon.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
I love that.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
But the real question is what does the pretty moon
say about me in my life? That's what everyone is asking.
Does it mark endings or beginnings or significant shifts? Or
should I be manifesting or reflecting?
Speaker 4 (02:54):
And what does it mean for my period? Because I
know the moon's linked to my period in some way.
So true.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Well, yeah, that sounds like a superperio. That sounds bad.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
Eclipses are cosmic plot twists in our lives. Obviously, they
accelerate change and they dissolve anything outdated. Be ready, be
prepared for some revelations, because they're coming. Be ready to
be led in a direction your soul wants you to go.
There's something about alignment with your life's truest path. But
here is some practical advice that we must follow.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Do you think that's for like this week now that
the moon has happened, So like, don't be surprised if
things get a bit weird this week.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Exactly, it's going to be a bit chaotic, a bit messy,
but in a good way.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
I don't know what.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
That's your pads, yeah, exactly right. Yeah, and your period
undeas maybe some period genes. If something is leaving your life,
don't chase it. That's if you've got someone who, like
you're in the middle of a breakup, or something's going
wrong at work and you feel like you're meant to
let something go, You're meant to let it go.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
That's so weird because I was driving in this morning
and I was like, let go, let go see and
I wasn't.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
It was the blood it was the blood moon whispering
to you. Also, if you were planning on manifesting, don't manifesting.
Our job is too surrender, which I feel is lazier
and it's just more of a vibe. The instruction is
that we're not meant to do anything. We're just meant
to sit in like this, let the universe do what
(04:21):
it's meant to do. You're also the other thing you
meant to do is look through your photos from last
September because something significant happened and there's been like a
full circle thing, so I would do it. Yeah, and
that's when I got my THERMOMX. No, yeah, it is.
It is when I got my THERMOMX. So I feel
like that was a beginning.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
And then she discovered vegetables. Yeah, and then there was
no stopping.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Us exactly exactly, and now I am basically Pete Evans.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
So that's all I wish later.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
That is all my blood moon update.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Oh no, I've immediately got to go and look at
last September's photos. Maybe we can put something on social Yeah,
exactly right, friends, I was wrong. You know, I don't
like to admit it. You know, I don't like to
admit being wrong, but I was really really wrong about
something very important that had something to do with the
royal person's hair color. Now you know I was going
to talk about this. It's my royal round up for
(05:13):
the day. A princess has changed her hair and I
have to deliver a mere culpa because just a couple
of weeks ago on the show, the first time there
was an image of Princess Catherine, Princess of Wales through
a car window a couple of weeks ago that made
it appear like her hair was sort of yellowish.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Honey honey blonde.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Yes, And it was all over the Daily Mail and everything,
and everyone was saying, oh my God. And I confidently
said on this show now, I can't really explain to
you how I know, deep in my soul she did
not dye her hair blonde. Princess Catherine is no more
allowed to dye her hair blonde than she is to
(05:49):
pick her undie's out of her bomb.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
But I saw those pictures of her in the limousine
or something, and they think that it's blonde. Is it
just light? The lighting?
Speaker 2 (05:56):
It's a pat picture right through a car window that
looks like she's gone proper blonde blonde. But a strategic
leak has already been placed with the Daily Mail that
says this is just yacht hair. She has spent the
summer in Greece and she's slowly been lightening her brown
from chestnut to more caramelli and there's just a bit
(06:19):
of summer sun on it. But Diana was blonde, yeah,
but she didn't start off brunette.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
Okay, So it's a royal rule that you can't go
from brunette.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Well, I just think it's just very unlikely to have
such a dramatic hair chakee well until now, right, So
I was very very wrong because, as everybody listening to
this knows, on Friday Thursday, their time, she and William
went to an event I think they were Oh yes,
they were looking at the newly renovated gardens outside the
Natural History Museum in London, because that's the kind of
(06:49):
fun shit that is going to do. And all anyone
wanted to talk about was the fact that she had
blonde hair, big hair, the fonty hair, and the internet
went into meltdown. Yes, what did you two think when
you first saw it? I'm going to get to in
a minute to what people were saying, But what did
you two think?
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Definitely drastic change, and there was a lot of andy
going around with the images, and a lot of people
were speculating about wig or extensions or topper all that
kind of stuff. I felt slightly uncomfortable with some of
the discourse, although I went, yeah, she probably does have
some sort of like topper, which is sort of not
a wig but additional hair.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Right, Obviously this is a sensitive topic and we're going
to put this on the table because, as we know,
in January this year, Princess Catherine said that she was
in remission from cancer and she had had chemotherapy treatment
last year, and she has spoken publicly about how She
called it a roller coaster. She said it was brutal.
She says that the adjustment to a post treatment life
has been really difficult, which is something that very many women,
(07:51):
well people can relate to. And there's no question that obviously,
the issues around hair with cancer treatment are very sensitive.
She never appeared to lose her hair, of course, but
we don't know and nor should we know, what's been
going on. So there's obviously a sensitivity around discussing this,
which feels a bit icky. But then on the other hand,
there is no question that often what a royal or
(08:12):
We've talked about this with other public figures like politicians,
with their appearance, they're often trying to have as little
commentary as possible, like I just look the same every
time you see me. I'm wearing very boring things. I'm
not doing you know, I'm not doing this, I'm not
doing that. I don't want to attract any commentary. And
this was a big shift, so Kate was not doing
that with this. Some of the commentary has obviously been
(08:34):
very icky around it because it hasn't been very complimentary.
But Amelia, do you think it's fair game for conversation?
Speaker 4 (08:41):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (08:41):
I think that was really well put, Holly.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
And a lot of the debate that was happening in
my group chats was about whether or not it was
a wig. And what I found helpful was someone who
did some actual reporting on this, and that was Caitlin Colemore,
who's a hairstylist that Laney gossip called up and this
was in Laney's newslet of The Squawk, and Caitlin Colemore's
assessment was that these were extensions, they were not a wig.
(09:05):
And the reason she said that is because there was
no lace front visible, so it was Kate's actual hair
on top, the new blonde hair color on top. And
then the issue is that the extensions that have been
clipped underneath had not been executed well, meaning they hadn't
been brushed through in a way that made them look seamless.
Now Laney asks the question, and we all know that
Laney is an expert on the signals that celebrities and
(09:28):
public figures send in terms of things like their appearance.
She makes the point that Kate is the future Queen
of England.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
She has plenty of resources, she has very skilled people
working with her.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
So the question is why did they not give their
a game on this really important occasion for someone who's
going through a lot. And my personal theory on this
is that I wonder if Kate doesn't want to remind
us that she's going through a lot behind the scenes
that we don't know about. In addition to her recovery
from cancer, there may be other things happening too, and
(09:59):
it's just a reminder that we don't always know everything
that's happening in her life, and maybe she wants to
remind us that she's got more important things to think
about right now than making sure that her hair is
executed perfectly.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
This is my theory, as much as it's in any
way okay for a grown woman to have a theory
about another grown woman's hair. A while ago, you might
remember that Kate's press office said, and then sort of backtracked,
that they weren't going to talk about her clothes anymore.
Do you remember that I said that it was always
very standard that you would release the details of what
a princess or a senior royal was wearing, like what
(10:32):
designers she's wearing, Da da, Da da, And they kind
of said, we're going to stop doing that. Then they
backtracked on it a little bit because there was an
outcry from people who were very upset about it. But
a lot of women who've gone through something as serious
and life altering as Kate has over the past year
or two come out with realigned priorities, And I sort
of wonder if Kate is just jack of being the
(10:53):
perfectly poised, quafft princess at all times and is kind
of like, all right, so the hair isn't perfect today.
I don't give a shit.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
You know.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
I haven't done a million things to my face that
people think I should be doing. I'm wearing clothes I
was wearing six months ago, which is something she's always done.
For a start, she's always reworn clothes and things. She's
kind of going, who gives a shit. I want to
be here to support causes I care about, talk about
issues that matter. But the problem is that's all we
all care about. And when I say we, I don't
necessarily mean us. But you know, that's all the public
(11:23):
cares about when it comes to a princess, so it's
kind of it must be very frustrating if she's like,
I want to send a message that who cares if
I didn't brush my hair perfectly? But then that goes
around the world.
Speaker 4 (11:34):
To extend that theory a little further, I think we
should remember that William is currently going through a kind
of renegotiation of what it means to be a royal
and how many engagements he should have each year. There
was actually some reporting in Tatler last month that Princess Anne,
who was seventy five now and who has always done
the most engagements of anyone in the royal family, is
(11:55):
annoyed at William. She says he is not doing enough
engagements and let me get the numbers right here. In
the last year she did four hundred and seventy four
engagement oh my god, which is mind boggling when you
think about it.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
And I talked about this list in his book about
how when it comes out every the list that Amilia
is talking about, the royals will get really shitty with
each other.
Speaker 4 (12:13):
And AD's always at the top. William last year did
one hundred and thirty five. Now, obviously it was a
hugely tough year for his.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Father and wife. Both were dealing with cancer diagnosis.
Speaker 4 (12:22):
Yes, but also more generally, he and Kate have talked
about for a long time about how they want to
really focus on the early years of their children's lives
and give them the kind of care and attention that
frankly William did not get. They believe that that will
set them up best for a life in the public eye.
So this is part of also a renegotiation of what
(12:43):
it means to be royal, how often should you be
seen in public? And I think you've got to see
this hair change as part of that overall renegotiation.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
I wonder if too, I've heard people talk about when
something really dramatic happens in your life, whether that's a
diagnosis or a loss that can't necessarily be seen from
the outside, sometimes you want a visual marker that you've changed.
So it's the classic getting a fringe after a breakup
in terms of I don't feel the same anymore. So
(13:11):
I can completely understand how Kate feels like a totally
different person if it has literally impacted her hair, which
I mean, it probably has even you know, that sort
of of treatment, it would make sense. I would think
that if you're in the public eye, and even for
the sake of getting ready more quickly, I would think
that having extensions or top of the pieces something you
(13:31):
do all the time. And the other thing that I've
heard a few hairdressers say is that for women over forty,
you often see them go to that exact color. And
the reason they go to that exact color is because
you don't need to cover grays as much. If you
have dark brown hair and you're starting to get little grays,
it's every two weeks you're having to cover them and exactly,
and so you go to that and you're able to
(13:52):
kind of mix it in a little bit more So
that kind of made.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Sense too out loud as prepare for much Kate hairwatch
because then on Sunday she was out watching our Wallaroos
get smashed by the English actually and the rugby and
it looked like she was brunette again. But then the
video in the change room with different lighting, Oh, look
like she was blood again. Brown blood, brown blood. We've
got whiplash. So just I think we all need a
chill PILLLP.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
I think as a culture too, there's something about wigs,
because there is this obsession with men and wigs. So
Harry styles. There have been rumors for years about his
hair loss. Yes, about his hair loss. It's all the
f one. There are certain players where it's like he
has a topper or whatever. There are like Instagram accounts
dedicated to it, and I think it's it's almost been
(14:35):
coded or read. Is this thing about honesty or transparency,
like that they're being somehow dishonest. Harry has had to
address it publicly. Yeah, there's this idea that people are
kind of fooling us, which I think is really unfair
because you go, how many ways do we all change
our appearance before we leave the house, But wigs is
just this kind of other.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
I think that's a really good point.
Speaker 4 (14:58):
And I think that's actually also changing a little bit too,
because just recently John Cena came out and said that
when he was losing hair, he got hair transplants and
then his Hollywood career took off again.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Yeah, it's big business, the hair transplants. Oh, which brings
me in a nice segway to my friend Prince Harry,
who I am convinced has had a hair transplant, but
that's just my theory. Nothing to see him move along.
And we all know I was wrong about Kate's blonde,
so you never know. Anyway, a little bit of Harry
gossip for my Royal roundup. Watch this week what happens
(15:31):
in England with Hazard because he's there right and this
is significant because this is the first time that Prince
Harry has been back to Britain since he famously lost
that court case you know where he said that he
wanted to automatically get the highest level of protection from
the British police when every time he went to Britain
and he lost that case and he was really mad
about it, and he went on the BBC and sprayed
(15:52):
basically and pretty much accused his family of not caring
whether he died when he was on their soil.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
And it cost him millions, to cost him millions.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
It was not good. He was going nuclear about it. Anyway,
he's back and what's interesting is that he's gone back
for a charity function also the anniversary of the Queen's death.
But he has gone by for a charity function tonight London,
time for a charity that his sport's called Well Child.
He went to that last year too. He's also going
to another children's charity event where he's expected to announce
(16:19):
a big donation to this charity in another part of England.
But what's interesting is all the leaks that are coming
out clearly from his people, because they're in People magazine
and everything, are saying Harry is so excited to be there,
He's going to make the most of it, He's going
to have fun. They are clearly trying to change the
tune from sad Harry feeling unloved and unwelcome to happy
(16:40):
Harry can't wait to be back. But everyone is saying
is he going to see his dad? It is generally
believed that he has not seen Charles since February twenty
twenty four.
Speaker 4 (16:48):
Well, the league's coming out on the other side too,
because in the Telegraph, which I believe is commonly referred
to as the Tory Graph because it's quite conservative and
more royal family and line establishment, there was an article
saying that he's absolutely not going to meet with Charles,
and he's certainly not going to meet with William.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
That's not Willy on.
Speaker 4 (17:06):
The Pale, but also not Charles and also make the
point that since Center Barlay, that charity that he started,
had the bullying scandal, he's really been casting about and
he wants to have a kind of royal proxy role
where he can show up at charities and he can
do the good works. But Center Barlay's kind of imploded
on him, and so there's a feeling with this visit
(17:28):
that he's kind of casting about something new.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
It'd be really sad if he doesn't go and have
a pop in with King Charle, I know.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
Especially since how much he's been expressing that he wants to.
In a moment, Australian wellness figure Pete Evans has returned
and we want to unpack what role he is playing
in the culture now. Pete Evans, the fifty two year
old former television chef he used to be on My
(17:55):
Kitchen Rolls, made a rare public appearance earlier this month
on a podcast called Get Harder. He was back on
my Instagram.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Yeah, all over my socials.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Yeah to subscribe to the Get Harder podcast.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
No.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
No, I thought that there was probably a side of
Instagram where Pete Evans still was because I knew he'd
had his account reactivated, but I hadn't seen him before
we get to any of that, just to refresh. Evans
was an acclaimed author and TV personality whose claims about
health and wellness became increasingly outlandish. So first there was
(18:28):
the Paleo Cookbook for Mothers and Babies, which he released
in twenty fifteen, and that was enormously controversial because of
a recipe which of the bone broth recipe for infants
that dietitians came out and they were like, this would
do a lot of harm to a child a baby.
Then came the Healing Lamp he tried to market in
twenty twenty as a treatment for COVID, and that landed
(18:52):
him with a fine of more than twenty five thousand
dollars from the Therapeutic Goods Administration. Look, there's much more,
but long story short. He got pulled off Instagram and Facebook,
where he was very influential and had a massive, massive platform,
and he was pulled off for deliberately spreading misinformation this year.
Earlier this year, however, he was back and he has
(19:15):
a much smaller audience, but he's there. He is being
interviewed on many podcasts about how the lockdown in Melbourne
was a disaster. How people are scared of his teachings
because they get people out of the system. By that,
he means the hospital medical system, and we all know
how lucrative that system is.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
I think what you're referring to is what he would
call the medical industrial complex. Y.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
Yes, exactly, rash exactly. He's going up against those guys.
He's wearing a t shirt that says food is Medicine,
and he's also selling a bunch of retreats. What's interesting
to me is that a lot of his beliefs now
are sounding familiar and quite in tune with a cultural
reset we've seen, particularly since the pandemic. A lot of
(20:00):
his beliefs are sort of the bedrock of the Make
America Healthy Again or MAHA movement, spearheaded by Robert F.
Kennedy Junior, the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Is
this all becoming far more mainstream and is it kind
of happening across the world.
Speaker 4 (20:17):
Yeah, And it's such a sort of strange alliance of
people because I think one of you mentioned that he's
also shilling for bitcoin at the same time, right, Yeah,
And he's appearing at a bitcoin conference in Las Vegas
as we speak, which I'm disappointed to be missing.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
But I wonder.
Speaker 4 (20:34):
Why there's this sort of overlapse between insul culture or
the manisphere. More accurately, I think cryptocurrency, health nuts. I
wonder what that coalition is all about. And we see
it most vividly in the Trump administration. Because Donald Trump
is not a man who's concerned with wellness culture. I
would say we talked about his love, but he knew
(20:59):
by inviting Robert F. Kennedy Junior, a former Democrat, into
his coalition, he knew that he was tapping into this
increasingly important, vocal group of men and women who were
interested in cryptocurrency, interested in health, and the idea of
bucking the mainstream culture in these ways. And he knew
that that was a very powerful political coalition. Of course,
(21:21):
Ourka Junior's doing all sorts of terrible things right now.
So for instance, when he was first nominated, he said, no,
I love vaccines. I'm very mainstream, I believe in science.
He appeared before a Congressional committee last week and kind
of just threw all of that out the window. He
said he thinks that the COVID vaccine should no longer
be recommended for healthy adults, and in fact, they've decided
(21:41):
not to do that in the US. He says he
doesn't know how many people died of COVID in the
US during the pandemic. It was one point two million,
and he fired an entire panel of childhood vaccine experts,
opening the door for states like Florida to say that
you do not have to get childhood vaccines to ender
school there, which is making people worried about polio. So
there are real effects of these Why do you think
(22:02):
this has such purchase right now? Because I think there's
a kernel of truth to it. There are things in
our modern lifestyle that clearly doing us damage. You only
have to look at the fact that early on set
cancers are hugely on the rise, particularly the gastro intestinal ones.
And look, doctors have speculated as to why this is,
and they've identified some things like obesity and microplastics, by
(22:24):
the way, two things that RFK Junior has been very
vocal about the fact that he wants to fight.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
But also, we still don't.
Speaker 4 (22:30):
Really know why young people are getting cancer at higher rates.
So I think there's a kernel of truth to it.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
I'm fascinated by Pete Evans, and I always have been
because when he was at his peak of influence paleo influence,
I mean, because obviously he became very famous and built
up a massive following just being a handsome guy who
was on My Kitchen Rules and was kind of charming
next to Manu, right, and everybody liked that. And then
he became really interested in this Food is Medicine movement.
(22:57):
And what was fascinating is if you watched his social
media at that time, which I did. Obviously writing on
the internet was a He had a huge community, but
it started from you know, here's some nice salads, here's
some healthy things to that all looked delicious, and then
you could watch his slide into Black Lives Matter as
a conspiracy, COVID as a conspiracy big farmers out to
(23:18):
get us all, like it's like a case study of
radicalization if you watched what was happening with him. But
one of the things that made him so powerful and effective,
and I would say still makes him quite powerful and effective,
is that the community that he built up, particularly on Facebook,
because when he got tossed off those platforms, he had
and combined following about two million, and I listened to
(23:38):
this podcast interview that you're talking about Jesse. He is
entirely unapologetic about absolutely anything, and in fact, he's not
even whinging about it. He just says, this was my journey,
and I was. He sees himself very much as a
sort of messiah in a way. But he had this
very engaged community who had followed some of his dietary
advice and found it massively helpful. And those are real people.
(23:59):
And he said that most of them were women, most
of them were over forty, and they became his evangelical
foot soldiers. And I'm not diminishing them in any way.
The stories were very real about the ways that changing
the way they ate had made them feel better and
more energized and all of these things. And if you
ever wrote anything negative about Pete Evans on the Internet
in those days, which I did, I'm afraid it's trolling,
(24:21):
Like I haven't had it on any other topic. People
would come for you because it men or women, a
lot both, but a lot of people who genuinely felt
like this information had been really really helpful to them.
And who are you to say that it's nonsense? And
I get that right. But the thing that you then
saw that's overreach is like eating healthily, cutting out lots
of processed foods, trying to eat you know, lean meat,
(24:43):
lots of organic vegetables, all of that stuff. Great, great
bit privileged, bit special, but great. But then this overstep
would be and you can cure X, and you can
cure Y. And the reason your child has this diagnosis
is because that and it's the overreach and the overreach.
It's really interesting, and I wonder if that army of
(25:04):
his is still engaged in mainstream or not, because you
can't deny that some of the things that he was
talking about that sort of got him mocked in those days,
just like Gwyneth Paltrow says this a lot too, and
now pretty mainstream. If you want to go to Pete
Evans Retreat, I looked it up. Cost you about two
grand for two nights to go to the beautiful property
(25:25):
and have a weekend of wellness. But you're looking at
you know, magnesium baths, infrared saunas, forest bathing, like this
is all stuff that lots of people are doing all
the time. You know, even the heat lamp thing that
he sold, which was obviously extreme, and he massively overstepped
by tying it to COVID. But people are in infrared
saunas at all, kinds of wellness retreats all over the
(25:47):
place at the moment, and a lot of this stuff
has become really mainstream. And so his weapon, if you like,
is saying, well, I was right, I was right.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
And never accepting for it, and never accepting the things
that he was wrong about. And the issue with a
lot of these alternative remedies is that they haven't been
put through clinical trials because a lot of them are
really difficult to do so, because these are human bodies
and it would be dangerous. And often traditional medicine doesn't
say these don't work. They just say we don't have
enough evidence. And that's the way that science works and evolves.
(26:20):
And so the criticism of science as well is that, well,
they told us this, and now it's this. Yes, science
changes its mind by virtue of running experiments and research studies.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Right.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
And I listened to this great Ezra Klein episode last
week about how make America Healthy Again is a bad
answer to a very good question, and the core of
it the idea that our diets and processed food and
maybe medicines that we're taking and all of that have
contributed to maybe more widespread ill health. The increasing kind
(26:52):
of diagnosis and stuff isn't necessarily helping. And I was
thinking about that and a lot of because, as you say, Amelia,
this rise of illnesses in young people, sort of these
random cancers in people that appear health like, it's just
it's horrific. Speaking to a friend recently, and we were saying,
people who have been diagnosed, gone through the treatment that
(27:14):
ultimately saved their lives, which is chemo or radiation or
a mixture or surgery, come out the other end with
an openness to alternative therapies and a streak of what
we call WU. And I don't mean that to denigrate
it at all. I just think it's a really interesting
data point.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
I think the other reason for that, and this is
the demographic that Pete Evans says his followers were this
over forties women. There are so many women who are
not getting the answers to the questions that they have
at their GP. And that's where most of us who
don't have the resources or the access to go to
a million different specialists and get a million test runs.
We go to our GP and we say I'm feeling
(27:52):
like this, I'm feeling like that, and they'll be like, oh,
just could be nothing, could be this, could be that,
But they're unsatisfactory answers, and so you go looking online
for more satisfactory answers. And it doesn't seem massively odd
that if you change the way you eat and change
the way you live and start exercising and blah blah
and you start feel better, that you might feel incredibly
evangelical about that because it has changed your life. The problem, though,
(28:15):
the fact that he may well have had an undeniable
positive impact on some people's health through diet advice, is
that the other part that goes hand in hand with
this that really upsets people, and for very good reason,
is that the core of it all is a kind
of well, if you're sick, it's your fault. And he
says on this podcast as well as you know, as
I say, he's just incredibly confident, incredibly apologetic, but he
(28:36):
basically says he believes that mindset can cure almost anything,
and that kind of advice is not only dangerous because
it can stop people from seeking the treatment that they need,
but also is emotionally devastating because it really puts the
what you just didn't fight hard enough, You had the
wrong mindset, you weren't willing to be disciplined enough with
your diet, and that is the toxic part of all this.
Speaker 3 (28:59):
You know what, though, Holly, it's also deeply attractive because
when people run out of options, I mean, there is
nothing that sparks fearing people like ill health and their mortality.
You would do anything, you would believe in literally anything,
And so I have such empathy for people who then
move to some of these alternative treatments or follow these
(29:20):
people like gurus, because you know, sometimes you do get
to the end of the road and all you need
is hope.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
But it would be like, you know, a populist prime
minister getting voted in in Australia and putting Pete Evans
in charge of our health system. It is not that
different to that.
Speaker 4 (29:34):
Is it. No? And I think the other thing, the
other lesson that we've learned from the pandemic is that
silencing these people or deplatforming them to use that expression
doesn't work. Because Donald Trump was kicked off Twitter too.
We really crack down on the idea of you're not
allowed to say certain things on social media platforms, and
(29:55):
social media companies got on board with that idea. Remember
there used to be those little warnings during the pandemic
about medical misinformation on Instagram.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
Some of which ended up being true.
Speaker 4 (30:05):
Yeah, so I think there was this issue of if
we don't let them speak, then they'll go away, but
they haven't.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
It's interesting too that we're now telling a story about
the pandemic, and in this as Reclined episode where he
interviews experts, they say the two things people have forgotten
is the death that it's more than one million people died,
and the second is that the only reason this pandemic
ended was because of the vaccines. And to have rewritten
that narrative by now is just a fascinating response.
Speaker 4 (30:33):
The Internet has died, and I know who killed it.
Let's step back. The Internet's gotten boring, right, You've noticed this.
Every time I want to procrastinate from work, I go
on to the Internet, which we used to call the
information super Highway, and now it's more just like a
sort of clogged side road.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
It's just sit there's nothing there.
Speaker 4 (30:50):
Yeah, yeah, okay, there's a reason why the CEO of
chat gpt. His name is Sam Altman. He has tweeted
that he now believes in this so called dead Internet theory.
This is a conspiracy theory which says that the majority
of content online now is actually generated by bots, it's
not actually by humans, and that's why the Internet has
got really boring. And Oltman said that a lot of
(31:12):
tweets now are being written by l elms, that is,
large language models, like the one that he produces called
chat GPT. Now you may wonder why someone who is
shilling chat gpt is also telling us that it's making
the Internet bad. It's because he has another company that
works out whether humans are really posting things online, Like
(31:33):
you know when it says click the boxes here that
have motorbikes in them to proof that you're human.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
That's his other company.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
Oh the amount of times I have to prove I'm
a human?
Speaker 4 (31:43):
Oh and I get it by yeah, I'm like, what
do you mean by motorbike?
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Like a little bit of a corner here? Is that
a motive that a pushbike? I have to do it
like four times.
Speaker 3 (31:51):
Same and it's like the amount of times I get tested.
I'm like, how many times are they not humans, and
couldn't you get a bot to do this? I mean,
I suppose apparently.
Speaker 4 (31:58):
This is the one thing that bots still can't do,
is they cannot recognize patterns that tell them what things
are and what things aren't. That's like the one thing
they haven't figured.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
Out what to do yet. They're threatening highest strata of
a community's jobs and all of these things, but they
can't pick a motorbike. They cannot pick a motorbikes.
Speaker 4 (32:17):
While there's in fact these like big warehouses where people
are trying to train computers to recognize objects bridges, So
there are people whose whole job it is to be like, hey, computer,
this is a bridge, this is a bridge, this is
a bridge.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
I'm hoping eventually.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
I've often thought this about Reddit, though, because I spend
a lot of time on Reddit, and they'll be a
mighty asshole. Is a famous kind of Subreddit or today
I learned or whatever. And you see trends and you
see patterns, and I've always thought not that it's a bot,
but that it's someone from Reddit. And same with Twitter. Right,
it's like someone planting no.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
It's a bot.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
A really yeah?
Speaker 1 (32:52):
And I think you can start to tell now.
Speaker 4 (32:54):
There is in fact a really interesting Wikipedia entry which
is all about the ways you can tell that something's
been written by AI and among the many signs are
an overuse of M dashes.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
Which is an M dash is like a lot.
Speaker 4 (33:09):
Really online, and also a lot of hyperbole, like, for instance,
the most interesting plant in the world is such and such,
just because the computer thinks that, because it's being asked
to write about it, it's a really important topic, which
is always the case.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
Because you always see as well at the end of articles,
now you know there's recommended articles just from around the internet,
and it'll be like, you won't believe what this nineties
pop star looks like now, and it's a one hundred
and forty year old AI generated woman from an internet
website that doesn't exist. It's like, it's just absolute slop.
Speaker 4 (33:42):
It's crap and it's everywhere. So many cures for belly
fat hah. After the break. The one tip to make
your small talk better.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
One unlimited out loud access. We dropped episodes every Tuesday
and Thursday exclusively for Mamma Mia subscribers. Follow the link
in the show notes to get us in your ears
five days a week. And a huge thank you to
all our current subscribers.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
Small talk gets a really bad rap.
Speaker 4 (34:13):
I think I think I've heard you say, Holy, you
don't even like small.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
Talk, so I can't be doing with it okay, And
I'm also really bad at it. To be honest, Well,
I haven't just a study for you.
Speaker 4 (34:24):
There's a new study that's come out that explains how
we can all get better at small talk.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Actually, I just have to do a little correction to
the record. Actually, Amelia is because I remember years ago
when I started working with some young promising journalists called
Claire and Jesse Stevens. I actually had a word with
them about small talk beauns right, because they hadn't worked
in an office before and they didn't know that like
when somebody comes into the kitchen and says to you,
(34:49):
like how should that? It was good to engage them
like smile, say hello when you walk in. And I
was actually being an advocate for small talk at that
time in my life, when I was a manager, I
was like, all be nice to each other, all ask
each other how your weekends were, smile and nod. But
now I think maybe my tolerance for it is just warm.
I don't know so much small talk in you.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
I didn't know that, like it was a learned skill
for me, that when you enter the office on a
Monday morning you vocally acknowledge those around you Like that
doesn't come naturally to me.
Speaker 4 (35:19):
I am going to wager that what you told Jesse
about how to do small talk is in fact wrong,
because you know, when we're all taught how to make conversation,
one of the key rules is that you meant to
folly back and forth. It's meant to be like a
game of tennis. I don't play tennis, but this is
my understanding. I let the tennis correspond to chime in
where some ask you a question, then you asked them
(35:41):
a question back. So here's an example of how you
might do small talk this way. How is your weekend?
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Oh good, I've binge to Netflix you.
Speaker 4 (35:49):
Yeah, I took my dog to the park. Oh nice,
what sort of dog is he? So do you see
what happened there? There was just a pinging back and forth.
It never got anywhere. You didn't ask what they were
watching on Netflix. It never got below the surface.
Speaker 3 (36:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (36:00):
Now, these psychologists say that you've got to get below
the surface because that's where human connection is. If you
stay on the surface, just pinging back and forth, you're
never going to get anywhere. And they have introduced this
concept called riffing. It's almost like flirting by another name.
It's like picking up something that someone said and rather
than just immediately volleying back a basic question to them,
making a little joke about it, or starting to sort
(36:23):
of do a little bit of imaginary play around it.
Think about kids. When little kids go to the park,
they're not engaging in small talk. They're immediately like we're
playing like shipwrecked pirates. You're the pirate, you're the you know,
the ocean coming up to the ship. But you know,
they like to just assign roles immediately.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
And not like how are your snacks? My snacks are good.
Speaker 3 (36:41):
And they understand the concept of yes, and that in
order to socialize you've got to lean in and go yes.
All of the books I read to Learna are about
like you might not want to play round and round,
but you have to in order to get along with Morton.
And I'm like, oh, really learning these lessons, I guess.
Speaker 4 (36:58):
And this is a famous improvisational technique which says you've
always got to go along with what someone else proposes.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
So here's how it might play out in small talk
role play. How is your weekend good?
Speaker 4 (37:09):
But I watched way too many tiktoks of people making
little food whoall like little food, like dollhouse sized food. Yeah,
if you want to learn how to make lasagna in
a dollhouse, let me know.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
That's hilarious.
Speaker 4 (37:21):
We can organize a tiny food poplark and put it
all on this coaster.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
And it sounds like any.
Speaker 3 (37:28):
Questions, Yeah, it sounds like we're in an episode of Friends.
Speaker 4 (37:32):
That's hilarious. Okay, here's the problem with it. I went
to the hairdresser this morning and she asked me how
my father's day was?
Speaker 1 (37:42):
And I just read this article.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
Hold on, yes, and what time do you go to
the hair in the morning because it's Monday.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
Wow, that's amazing.
Speaker 4 (37:56):
This is my dedication to the VOD format. So she said,
how was your father's Day? And I said, oh, it's good.
How's your father's Day? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (38:07):
Good? And I just thought to myself there was no
to be fair at once seven am. Are you going
to be able to incorporate riffing?
Speaker 2 (38:13):
HOI let's see if you're on your game and you're
feeling energetic, then yes, because I have a lot of
questions for you about the hairdressers. At seven, I am
not before coffee, but definitely need a coffee. But it
is true that sometimes because the problem with small talk
is sometimes you just do it to box tick obviously,
So I'm like, in the kitchen this morning, cup of tea,
(38:35):
how is your weekend good? How is your weekend good?
Awkward size, and then you're kind of like, oh, the
weather was it? Because it was? The weather was lovely,
wasn't it. And the thing is is there's a script
that we I bet there were five different versions more
of that in the kitchen this morning, where we all
said exactly the same thing. So I guess the way
we should have done that is I go, how is
(38:56):
your weekend? You say good? How was your weekend? I say, well,
I got some bad news from home. My dog vomited
on the carpet. I spent way too much time up
to my ears in horseshit, Like.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
How is The response is that's hilarious.
Speaker 4 (39:11):
We couldn't start a horse stable with all that horseshit, Jesse,
you had to learn small Yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
How could you could you incorporate this new rule? I
think so.
Speaker 3 (39:21):
I like the idea and this is something that comes
up in all the small talk advice is levity, right,
because I think some people are like, I don't like
small talk. I'm going to talk about death, and it's like, no,
not at seven am with the hairdresser people.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
You don't know.
Speaker 4 (39:35):
No.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
So I read this advice from a woman named Alison
wood Brooks and it's the talk. It's like an acronym talk.
So the first one stands for topics, and the idea
is that you know what, before you walk in on
a Monday morning, maybe have some topics. Yes, it says
people prepare way more what they're going to wear the
next day than what they're going to talk about. We
(39:56):
put so much thought into what we're going to wear,
and then we get in and we're like, like, someone's
going to ask you about your weekend. Have a think
what you're going to say?
Speaker 2 (40:03):
This is because I do this to my kids, right,
is that if I'm going to take my kids too,
now that they're older and they or you know, they
can be little kids are entertaining for everybody, but teenagers
they'll be like, oh oh, they're going to be on
a call with their grandma for a while, and they're like, oh,
I want to be doing this. I'm like, think of
one story. Think of one story you're going to tell grandma.
Or when we go to this thing today, they're all
(40:24):
going to want to know, Matilda about your grand final
and Billy how you're doing at school. Those are boring questions.
Think of a good story, just one yeah story.
Speaker 3 (40:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
So I prep them like that, And so what you're
saying is we should all be prepping like that before
we step into the arena of conversation.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
Yes, yes, I actually I ran into someone yesterday who's
like an acquaintance, and weirdly he had been on my
mind because of the last conversation we had. So as
soon as I saw him, it wasn't awkward because I
was like, oh, my goodness, I'm so glad I ran
into you. I've been meaning to tell you black Like,
so that sort of thing is meant to be really good.
Speaker 4 (40:57):
Can we role play what should I have done at
the hairdresser when she said, how is your father's day?
Speaker 2 (41:02):
I think he should have prepared like.
Speaker 4 (41:05):
You know, what's interesting. We tried a new method of
cooking steak, boiled it at the end, and does anyone
want to hear me?
Speaker 2 (41:12):
Yes, you need to think of one interesting thing that
happened on your Father's day. Give me one.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Now that was that technique. I'm sorry, steak.
Speaker 3 (41:23):
I'm going to give you the next and then you
have to do it. Okay, A is for asking, So
then you have to ask Holly a question based off
your Okay, maybe did you have steak?
Speaker 1 (41:31):
Yeah? What's your preferred method of cooking stack?
Speaker 3 (41:34):
Yes? Perfect? And then Holly say I.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
Didn't cook the steak. My friend did, but she's very
good at cooking steak, and she made garlic butter with it.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
Oh, now that's hilarious.
Speaker 3 (41:43):
And then that brings us to levity or lightness. That's
hilarious levity because then Holly is going to say I
can't cook ha haha.
Speaker 2 (41:52):
I'm going to say I probably had too much garlic butter.
Don't come too close to me this morning.
Speaker 4 (41:57):
But then tell me what is is it kissing?
Speaker 3 (41:59):
No, it's kindness, and you're going to say you don't stink.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
Exactly.
Speaker 3 (42:07):
Generosity apparently meant to come into situation and go, what
does this person you know? Sometimes you have small talk
and you go, oh, this person seems a little nervous.
It's like, oh, my job is to make this person
feel comfortable or less overwhelmed or whatever. And so it's
about like bringing generosity.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
To ask levity kindness.
Speaker 3 (42:24):
Yeah, I like that.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
You haven't told us one interesting thing about your father's day?
Speaker 3 (42:29):
Oh, one interesting thing about my father's day.
Speaker 2 (42:30):
Did you make a fuss with all the fathers in
your life?
Speaker 3 (42:33):
Yes? And I bought my dad a new T shirt.
He already had this T shirt. He wore it too
much and washed it too much that it was destroyed.
I've recommended threadheads on here before and it's a collage
of the girl's faces and lunar and it says pop
is the best on it. And so now we've decided
that he just can't wash it because the images will
come on.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
Can I riff on that?
Speaker 4 (42:53):
I got my partner some socks that have our two kids'
faces on.
Speaker 3 (43:03):
Oh, that's got just brought them online.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
Okay, very levity with that. Something new afoot in the
Melia Lester household. That was terrible cut cut, Oh dear, okay,
on that note, not that classy, classy, very neat.
Speaker 3 (43:24):
We do need to practice, We need to practice more.
Speaker 2 (43:28):
But that's all we've got time for today. The more
small talk. A massive thank you to all of you
for being with us here on today's show, and of
course to our fabulous team for putting it together. Friends,
don't forget that the reason Amelia got her head done
and the reason I got the date wrong today is
because we are making video here. And if you want
(43:48):
to watch the show instead of listening, or as well
as listening, you will find us on YouTube. We'll see
you tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (43:54):
Bye bye. Shout out to any Mum and me a
subscribers listening. If you love the show and you want
to support us, subscribing to Mom and Mia is the
very best way to do so. There's a link in
the episode description.
Speaker 4 (44:09):
They be s
Speaker 2 (44:12):
Intand they should be the SA
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