November 24, 2025 • 45 mins
So, the man who invented "vibe shifts" has announced another one. We're all living through it and it's why you're doing way more lurking and way less posting these days.
And, a new profile of Meghan Duchess (or Duchess Meghan, if you insist) has attracted a whole lot of attention for a very specific social moment. But can the woman just do no right?
Also, leggings are over but are we really exercising in wide-leg pants now? And where does that leave the camel toe? Asking for a friend (Jessie).
Plus, Holly, Jessie and Amelia on the new pregnancy test that might just put an end to weeing-on-a-stick, what to wear on planes and what has Jessie got against tote bags?
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- Listen: Get My Boss Out Of My Bed & The Last Relationship Taboo
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What to read:
- We've compiled the 12 biggest revelations from Meghan Markle's new profile.
- 32 kilometres from home, Hannah Neeleman started the 'Ballerina Farm effect'. And locals hate it.
- Apparently you need to put your leggings in the bin and get these instead.
- A custom gown and a surprise venue change: The details from inside Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez’s wedding.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
You're listening to a Mom with Mere podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Well, everyone liked Claire, didn't there was a big friend
in the out louders.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
This is the problem with taking any time off Jesse.
I know, ever just take it as a warning and
I'm having twins and stuff. But like he lets someone
sitne your seat. Everybody likes him be than you.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Oh Claire so funny, Claire so fun I really enjoyed
that episode. Well, I'll tell you a thing or two
about Claire. You can be really annoying. I have some criticisms,
but people were just obsessed with her. They were like
one hundred and eighty likes. I wanted to anonymously be like,
I find Claire not as good as Jesse. I could,
but not as good as good.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
I know I was feeling defensive for you, but I
also wanted to support Claire, so I just stay.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Yeah, yeah, I saw you didn't like it, and Amelia's
not on Facebook. I don't think so she didn't either.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
I decided to abstain from joining that conversation.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Bet m like, I'm going to.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Hello and welcome to mom and Mia out Loud. It's
what women actually talking about. On Monday the twenty fourth
of November. I'm Holly Wayne.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Wright, I'm Emelia Lester, and I'm Jesse Stephen.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Not Clare Steve. No, here's what's made our agenda for
today's show. My friend, the Duchess of Megan has done
in the press a lot. Is the last couple of weeks,
she's done a big glossy shoot with Harper's Bizarre. But
all anyone's talking about is one little detail.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Jesse man and barricades.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
The millennial uniform is under attack and it's up to
us to save it.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
And have you guys been sensing the vibe shift? Because
the man who invented the word vibe shift has invented
another word and apparently it sums up how we're all
going to be approaching to me, is.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
That a job like just making up the words for.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
The vibe Impressed that he made up vibe shift? Imagine
Lane claimed.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
To that I want to do That's not fair, But first,
Jesse Stevens.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
In case you missed it, hold on to your Wii. Wait,
the new pregnancy test doesn't require you to dart to
the bathroom.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
No pan on a stick.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
No, it is called the Sally stick. It can detect
pregnancy with ninety six percent accuracy from one day after
a missed period if you follow your instructions for use.
It's the first saliva based pregnancy self test to be
approved for use in Australia.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Does this suck it?
Speaker 2 (02:35):
It's a swab situation. Follow the instructions a bit covid.
I think you do like a bit of a in
your cheeks while your salivee.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
So you don't shove it up your head.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
You don't know, I mean you could. I just don't
think it would work. But each to their own. Apparently
it takes three minutes, so you do a thing in
three minutes. I want to know what we all think
because I read this and when I don't know if
the WE test needs a reinvention of all the things
in women's health that it's time to look at and evolve.
(03:04):
I don't mind a little way on a stick.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
But this, this is a little more like you could
do it in public, whereas you can't really do your
WEI test in public? Could you? For your mom, for
your partner, for your doctor, your medical practitioner, Like no
one's really being in public. Whereas this, particularly for the
moment where we're filming everything for reactions you could do
in front of everybody.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Okay, so how do we feel about that though? Because
it could.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
It's made for Instagram.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Yeah, it could change the experience of learning its positive
or negative. For women, it has been like, I don't
know about you too, but each time I've been on
my own inner bathroom and there's this sacred moment.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
That is such a good point, Like this is taking
away that one bit of privacy you want it and
potentially making it something that.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
You do with your point somewhere in the whole world.
Even I don't know how I feel about that.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
I feel good about that. I think, you know, like
we've got to remember that all the emotions caught up
in the pe that goes on that step. Sometimes you
really want it to be negative. Sometimes you really want
it to be positive. But sometimes you really want it
to be negative, and it's lonely, like it's lonely carrying
all that axelent. I mean, I agree with you, Jesse
that of all the things that we could fix, I'm
(04:20):
not sure that this was one that needed fixing, but
I can see the value in like dragging it out
of the toilet cubicle.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Yeah, and I suppose as well it might be slightly
more hygienic, because I was thinking about how, for some
reason I've kept my positive pregnancy so beside my bed.
In my bedside draw is a now more than three
year old stick of urine that I plan I'm keeping forever.
And the way you wave it in people's face. Look
(04:48):
at this, I like held Claires when she gave it
to me, like you do, and you take photos of it,
and it's just passing around you urine. Like maybe it's
a little bit more diff We're not as.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Precious with spit. Yeah, we're spitting at each other all day.
Question if someone was going to announce you every time
you walk into a room, what would you want them
to say, you know, like in the olden days, and
they'd be like, this is missus Jesse of Stevens, you know,
fine purveyor of articles and opinions on the internet.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
I'm feeling like twin pregnancy more than half way. I
feel like I'm walking in going fee fi fi file everywhere.
I just walked through my house doing like some big
stops that how I'm introducing myself.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
Well, the story that is going around about our good
friend Megan Duchess of Sussex at the moment is that
she has herself announced when she walks into a room
as the Duchess of Sussex.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Can you explain this to me because I refused. Actually
I read a few little bits of the profile, but
I just saw the headline that she demands this is
what I do, man, that she demands that before she
walks into a room, they say welcome, introducing Meghan, the
Duchess of Sussex.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Is this true.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
Well, we don't know if that's true, but what we
do know is true is that when she sat down
with a journalist called Caitlin Greenridge for Harper's Bizarre, that
did happen. So a bit of context, right, This has
been Megs's big year of kind of shaking off the
shackles of having to be a very private person. And
obviously she's had her TV show and as ever is
(06:25):
alleged well depending on who you listen to, either going
great guns or going really badly. It's got a seasonal
launch at the Minute's all mulled wine and hot cider
and candles for Christmas, and she's got a special Christmas
show coming out on Netflix. So she's on the PR trail.
Speaker 4 (06:40):
Can I just say about mold wine? Yeah, gives you
the worst hangovers in your life.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Really, it's not even nice.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
I don't like, well, it feels cozy, but it smells
better than it tastes like candles, like one of her candles,
and I don't want to drink those either. But anyway,
one of the things that she's done is she sat
down for a big cover feature for Harper's Bizarre. It's
very classy. If you seen the shoot, you would have
seen the show. Yeah, very black and white, very stripped.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
Back, really interesting choices made about where she's taking your image.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
But we'll get into it.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
Yeah, Like there's very little makeup, there's very little color,
which is very on vibe for her. She's always in
tasteful neutrals and kitten heels. There's a lot of that.
But the journo, so Caitlin Greenridge as who says she
is also pretty standard for such a high profile, big
celebrity get. She does three different events with MEGS for
this profile. She goes and watches her work. When she
(07:30):
turns up at sort of a museum in la and
there as a group of STEM students girls who Megan's
talking to and so she gets to watch her interact
with them. Then they sit down for lunch at the
Polo Lounge in Hollywood, which, Amelia, you speak American better
than I do. But it's a very fancy restaurant where
the writer says, you go to be seen.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Yes, that is true.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
So they sit at a very conspicuous table and have lunch.
And then for the third part of the interview, they
meet in New York City over on the other side
of the country, and they meet in a very fancy
brownstone on the Upper east Side. Again coded, but I
guess that just means posho, really posh. The writer says,
we're in a grand brownstone on the Upper east Side
(08:11):
that belongs to one of Meghan's friends, brownstones in Brooklyn.
Wouldn't it be good if Harry and Meg's bought the
Lily Allen House. I don't think they're living in Brooklyn.
We're in the grand brownstone. When I enter, the house,
manager announces Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, even though we appear
(08:34):
to be the only other two people in the house.
Speaker 4 (08:36):
I just heard the words house manager, and I just
thought about all the things that I would delegate to
my house manager of my two bedroom flats.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Yes, I agree.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
Now, so that little nugget has traveled around the world,
as these things do, right, and said, this is proof
of her largess, of her pretentiousness, of the fact that
she loves this title. She clearly does love this title.
If you go and look at the jam Meghan Duchess
of Sussex is everywhere.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
On her luggage, on her luggage.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
Stationary podcast credits everywhere, and so that's traveled around the
world pretty quickly. The other narrative that's happening is people
in America in particular saying that after several years of
trying to bed into this high flutint American society, she
keeps kind of stuffing it up. That's the narrative. And
I wanted to play you this little clip from an
(09:30):
interview that Bethany Frankl did. Now Bethany Frankel is put
her in some context. She was a real HOUSEWIFEI person,
it's a celebrity.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
Kind of like a celebrity celebrity like she's become a
bit of a commentator on celebrity recently. She's also a
philanthropist of some note. But she's really become known for
her sort of looking in on celebrity culture and explaining
it to people.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
And she knows a lot of fancy people, including Lauren
Sanchez who's married to Jeff Bezos. And she compares Megan
and Lauren and said the following.
Speaker 5 (10:00):
I have always said, Lauren Sanchez is Megan Markle with
no rules, honey badger, don't give a she doesn't have.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
To answer to anyone.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
She can do what she wants.
Speaker 5 (10:10):
She can have her doubt, they could donate money how
they want. And she and Jeff, who I know, are great.
I don't care what anyone says.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
They're great.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
So obviously Bethan he's a big fan of Lauren and Jeff.
But I think this is a really interesting comparison, right
is what she's basically saying is marry yourself a very
rich man. And the narrative will go in different directions.
What do you think.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
I think that there is something very wise about what
she's saying, and it's that the announcing someone as the
Duchess of Sussex is incongruous with American culture. It is
Americans are sort of allergic to that, I think, and
the fact that she's moving now into a celebrity world.
(10:54):
She's at the Chris Jenna's seventieth. You know, she has
to pretend that she was, although she has to pretend
that she wasn't. It's the curation of that image I
think is really confusing for people. And what was interesting
to me about that detail was that it said she
was announce blah blah blah, full stop, and it moved on.
(11:15):
And I thought, if you were Megan, you would want
to say, oh, none of that, you know, you would
want to kind of.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Just call me Megs, Just call me Megs.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Like that's more the vibe. But the fact she let
it stand was an incredibly telling detail, and it was
the one thing that in that profile seemed to not
be prrified.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
Do you think she would have given permission for that
to stay in the article, Amelia, given what a prestigious
magazine that is, how how it would be raid production
values on that shoot, three different sit down interviews, do
you think she would have said, you can leave that in.
Speaker 4 (11:51):
I don't think she would have been in a position
to ask them to take it out.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Let's put it that way.
Speaker 4 (11:55):
Green Ridge is a well known journalist. She was on
the cover of Harper's Bizarre. I don't think she was
in a position to dictate the terms. What that reminded
me of that detail and the incriminating nature of it
in an otherwise film neutral to positive profile was remember
her cut cover story, never forget it. And there was
one very key detail there that was also written by
(12:16):
a prominent journalist as well, certainly not a puff piece,
And that one detail that stuck with everyone was the
way that Megan narrated herself talking to the reporter, and
the reporter compared it to a bachelor producer in her ear.
Why people recoiled from that was because the key component
of her and Harry's appeal to the US market is authenticity.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Their key selling.
Speaker 4 (12:39):
Point is we left this stuffy, anachronistic, old fashioned royal
family to come to America and to be ourselves. But
in both this case of the Harper's Bizarre cover, with
the announcement coming into the room and with the cut
detail of being a producer in the ear, they're both
saying she's trying too hard and that she's not being
her true, authentic self, and that's a problem for her.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
Do you think she can do no right? Though there's
a large portion of the mediaticular who's very invested in
disliking Megan and Harry, but more Megan than Harry, even
though really it's Harry who's always trying to soothe them
and everything, and no matter what she does, it seems
that it's always a misstep. And what I'm interested in
is is it a misstep or is that just the
(13:25):
narrative we're all invested in that it has to have
been a mistake on some level, them leaving the royal family,
them moving to Oprah World, all those things, that it
has to have been a mistake, and we're just very
invested to holding on to her skirts and pulling her down,
you know what I mean, Whereas she hasn't done anything terrible.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
I think she's traumatized by the treatment of the press.
The press made her like this and then they punish
her for being like this. There's no way she can
just show up as her authentic self and behave like
who she is. Look at what the press in the
UK did to her. She's been torn to shreds.
Speaker 4 (14:01):
I think that's all true, but I think that there's
some evidence that they really have alienated high society on
both sides.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
Of the Atlantic.
Speaker 4 (14:08):
Look at the fact that they started off friends with
the Cloonies, they started off being friendly with the Obamas,
and these were the sorts of friends that they should
have kept and cultivated in the United States because these
are the true A List, and the Cloonies and Obamas
are nowhere to be seen. And now they've alienated the Kardashians.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Because oh, I see so like the Obamas and the
Cloonies are like the blue bloods. And they probably wouldn't
go to Christiana's birthday party, although Oprah did. An Oprah
is also possibly part of that, and so they wanted
to be in that moving in that world and it
hasn't worked out. They're trapped between two worlds, right. The
other thing that fascinates me a bit about the title is,
(14:51):
as we've just seen in Britain play out in confronting details,
we've seen a prince be stripped of his title for
abhorrent behavior. I've always thought that it would be so
cool of Harry and Meghan to step away from those titles,
would say so much to say I'm not going to
use them anymore. Like it doesn't mean you have to
(15:12):
renounce them entirely, but just say I'm not going to
use them. You're not going to read here about them
in my podcast credits, you're not going to read them
on my personal stationary. Same for him and say I
don't want to be part of that. This is a
new start for me. Why won't they do that?
Speaker 2 (15:26):
Yeah, I don't think they get that about American culture.
It's all about the American dream. There's something inherently egalitarian
in the striving, unashamed ambition.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
Of which why I guess Franco was making that comparison
to Lauren Sanchez because although she gets mocked for being
a gold digger inverted commas, she doesn't care.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
She plays to it in a way like she's self
made Lauren Sanchez like she actually is in terms of
career and the way she's lived her life.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
I wouldn't go that far.
Speaker 4 (15:55):
Well, I think she was a well known and acclaimed
journey journalist, but I don't think she is entirely self made.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
Yeah, I suppose what I think rub played her myth.
Speaker 4 (16:07):
We wouldn't be talking about her if she wasn't married
to Jeff Bezos.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
You're right, I reckon that what Rubs people about Duchess
of Sussex and that being the introduction. Is that implicit
in that is do you think you're better than me?
Do you think you're of a different class, a different stature?
And that's never going to sit well in the ear.
Speaker 4 (16:24):
You'll remember when she said to Gloria Stein and they
didn't interview together, and she said to Gloria Stein and
we are all linked. There's no such thing as a hierarchy,
which a lot of people took as a rebuke of
the royal family.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
But you can't say that and then also want the title.
Speaker 4 (16:39):
Another great analysis of what's gone wrong for Meghan and
Harry in America came from Tina Brown last week. Tina
Brown is the famed magazine editor who was interviewed by
The New York Times, and here is what she had
to say to Lulu Garcia Navarro, who's asking the question.
Speaker 6 (16:54):
Harry and Meghan are also trying to make their own
way in the world.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Do you think they have anything to offer anymore? I
think it's very sad what's happened to them, Actually, I
really do.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
I mean, they've just made so many mistakes.
Speaker 5 (17:05):
I have never seen any body in professional life make
as many mistakes.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
Certainly as Megan has.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
It's an interesting I think Tina, that is an overstatement. Also,
there is something funny about the idea that, like, I
feel sorry for them. It's sad they live in They.
Speaker 6 (17:26):
Live in an enormous mansion on the coast of California.
They have servants, beautiful children, the privacy that Harry always
longed for to a point. They have business empires that have,
you know, probably doing better than most of us are.
They've still got to deal with Netflix no matter what
we talk about. So it is kind of funny that
sometimes I think we just see what we want to see.
(17:46):
We want to believe that this was a failure, so
all the narrative has to point that way, you know.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
What I mean?
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Yeah, after the break, trend forecasters say the next cultural
moment will be something called slopdomism. So what does that
actually mean?
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Sloptimism?
Speaker 2 (18:07):
We have an early contender for the word of twenty
twenty six.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
Apparently I need a word for twenty six.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Oh, I've got your word. We're on the precipice of
a vibe shift, and trend forecasters say that it is
something called slopdimism. According to an article published in GQ
last week. After nearly a decade of moral spectacle, people
are rebelling against the demand to care publicly at all times.
(18:36):
So the kind of earnest, politically motivated, highly curated world
of social media to be countercultural. And this is what
the writer Catherine D says is to refuse that spectacle.
It is choosing not to turn your life into fuel
for various platforms. It is opting out without announcing to
(18:56):
your followers that you're opting out. Apparently this is a
bit of a reaction or a pendulum swing from the
tradwife movement. So Ballerina Farm has been copying a bunch
of criticism lately that we'll get to. But more broadly,
this echoes a sub stack article that was published last week,
which was called the New Call is not needing to
(19:17):
be seen.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
Okay, I feel personally attacked because on the weekend I
harvested some potatoes. Yeah, Holly, and I immediately put my
potatoes on a meta grant because I was proud of them. Yes,
I am, I very uncool.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Well, this is my philosophical question, Holly, is if we
do something cool and no one is around to see it,
did we really do something cool?
Speaker 3 (19:38):
Did my potatoes exist. I didn't they live in my
tummy now? But did they exist if I didn't put
them on Instagram?
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Okay, one of the three of us is cooler than
the rest. That's true because they knew to opt out early.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
Amelia, maybe she never even opted in.
Speaker 4 (19:54):
I joined Facebook in two thousand and four, the night
it started, and then I left in twenty twelve after
I'd had a very bad breakup.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Okay, so, Amelia, you're not announcing everything on social You
are not going here's latest episode about loud. You are
not performing content for various different algorithms. Are you.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
The question somebody poker?
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Well, you before your time?
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Was I before my time?
Speaker 4 (20:23):
No? I don't think so. I think I'm just very insecure,
and social media always really fueled that insecure, competitive side
of me.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
It makes you look secure.
Speaker 4 (20:32):
I went through a really difficult breakup and I just
felt like putting myself out there just felt too hard
because I felt that I was behind in my life.
I felt bad about myself, and it just really accentuated
that for me.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Doesn't it do that for everyone? Though?
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (20:58):
But it also can work the other way when you're
happy about things around your life. And you're like, look
at my beautiful baby.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
We're looking at her potatoes on the wakend going I'm.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Miss the one that got away. I look at it
being in the dirt fighting off worms for those funds.
Speaker 4 (21:15):
But I think what we all know intuitively is that
when we spend time away from our phone, so broadening
this out from to social media to your phone, you
feel better about stuff.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
So on Friday night I did something.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
I went camping for the first time, just a night
of camping, and my phone died because of course we
didn't have any electricity, And so I woke up the
next morning and my phone was dead, and I was
without a phone for a few hours. And at first
I was anxious, like I sort of tried to track
my emotions. At first, I felt very worried that a
(21:48):
lot of things had happened in the world and that
I didn't know about them. Maybe someone was trying to
reach me about something amazing and.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
I didn't know.
Speaker 4 (21:55):
And there really was at first this wave of anxiety
about not being connected.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
But then after that I noticed a sense of calm.
Speaker 4 (22:02):
Took over because I realized that anyone who actually really
needed to contact me it could.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Wait all of this could wait.
Speaker 4 (22:10):
And this is actually a phenomenon that has been labeled.
It's been called the dark forest, and this is referring
to the parts of the culture that are now avoiding
algorithmic exposure. Stuff that you don't post online is dark forest.
And the dark forest is where you gain all the
serenity and peace of walking through an actual forest.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Okay, because you actually have your finger on the pulse here.
There was an article in the fin Review last month
that said, basically, we have passed peak social media. It
said that it's gone largely unnoticed, but it peaked in
twenty twenty two, and it is going right down.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
To the dark forest.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Yeah, people have just had enough. What was once like
engaging and posting is now basically we go on there
to scroll. But I think it said North America is
a one place where it hasn't gone down, but everywhere
else Europe, Australia usage is declining, and so has the
bubble burst. I keep seeing articles as well saying that
(23:14):
twenty twenty six is going to be the year we
go analogue, like the year we put our phones down.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
Do we think that's fay? I have a couple of
theories about this, And one of them is that I
know lots of people who aren't on social media, but
they're still on social media, do you know what I mean.
They don't post, but they partake. So they might not
be on Instagram, but they still Instagram is still their entertainment.
They might not ever post to TikTok, but TikTok is
still their TV feed, you know, all of those things.
(23:39):
So I think there's that right as part of it.
I think that a generous read is that we've worked
out what part we want that to play in our lives,
and if we don't want it to have anything to
do with us personally, as you say, Melia, like I
don't want to be feeling bad about my potatoes or whatever.
You don't have to do that, but you can still
observe other people and absorb your entertainment and news that way.
(24:00):
So that's a mature way.
Speaker 4 (24:01):
We don't call them lurkers, right, And I think that
the percentage of lurkers has increased very much.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
And I also don't think there's any shade about that.
I think there used to be a little bit of
an idea that lurkers were somehow free loading, like what
you're just there like taking and not giving. But I
think that you know, we've been living a decade in
this world now, and I think that people are figuring
out because we all know that what you're saying is true, Amelia,
that phones are making us sick in lots of ways.
(24:28):
So a lot of people are trying to are figuring
out what role they wanted to play if I have
a problem, and I don't have any problem with people
making smart choices about their mental health, but there are
a lot of articles at the minute saying how uncool
it is to share, And I think that that is
because now everybody does it, it can't possibly be cool, do
you know what I mean? As in, more and more
people make a living from social media, whether they are
(24:50):
content creators or whether they're just promoting their work, their
headdressing salon, their catering business there, whatever they're doing, Like
everybody's doing that, so how could it possibly be cool?
Speaker 4 (25:00):
You know?
Speaker 3 (25:00):
And I saw this headline on a subsetet the other
day that was like, the new call is not needing
to be seen, but it's also the new call is
kind of being rich enough to not have to flog
yourself on social media, because if you're selling whatever it
is you make or you're in or yourself on social media,
you clearly need the money. And that's never been cool,
(25:21):
you know what I mean. So I think there's almost
a little bit of snobbery about it. There's a status
in you know, the coolest writers are not on Instagram
because it's a swing to say I don't need this
to sell my books. The rest of us are all
there hustling away.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
There's one exception's jk Rowling social media.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
She's not trying to sell books on their she trying
to sell something entirely.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Because I was wondering if the bubble has burst in
terms of we've followed people's lives. We thought it was
authentic and real and parasocial. I think, isn't that the
word of something, the connections that we have with people
we follow. The bubble has burst in terms of people going, oh,
(26:10):
everyone's trying to sell me something. So that's what I
think has happened with Ballerina Farm. Who is Hannah Nielman,
the Utah tried wife with ten kids, and she kind
of went, here's my life. I live on a farm.
It was this almost appealing, simpler slower existence that people
leaned into, only to discover that her husband is worth
(26:32):
allegedly hundreds of millions of dollars because of his father
owns Jet Blue.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
The airs hard.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
She's hustling hard and she recently she has this storefront
where she's selling a shopping board that retails for about
four hundred Australian dollars. And everyone's kind of going whether
they feel like it's greed or they're always being asked
for something, like every time they now open a various
social media app you are always being asked to pay,
(27:00):
and that's because people need to make a living.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
Yeah, it's become a promotional platform exactly, but I think
that in a way, as we've become savvier about that,
it's less disingenuous. You know, some of the most popular
content creators on the Internet, when you go to their feeds,
it used to be this assumption that you have to
share some of yourself and then do an ad, and
then share some of yourself and then do an AD.
And I think that the savvy creators have just done
(27:25):
away with that and it's just all acts there. You know,
you'll go to their feeds and it'll be nearly all
sponkn but it's entertaining interesting spon con and I think
people get it.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
They're like, is it though, or are people going, I
don't want to spend my spare time watching ads.
Speaker 4 (27:38):
I heard on the weekend that Ezra Kleine said that
he's stopped calling it social media. He started calling it
algorithmic media. And this is basically summarizing the shift you're
talking about, Holly. It's moved from a place where people
shared themselves and their lives to being an advertising platform.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
Yeah, definitely. I think a lot of people who are
still on it, and lots of ordinary people are still
all over social media. We've just got savvier, I think,
at understanding what to share and what not. And this
is why, you know all the discussion that's going on
around whether or not children should be there. I think
in ten years time we will be absolutely astounded we
ever let children on there. And I think that now
(28:16):
people are kind of like, well, I like it, I
enjoy it. I see things there that I like. I
watch the funny videos. I'm on TikTok whatever, But I
know I would never share my potatoes, do you know
what I mean? I think our own Little World.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
In response to that though, and rather than it being
this social media engagement platform, it is now as you say,
tech companies going all right, how can we harness attention
for a particular period of time. I read over the
weekend that fifty percent of what exists on the Internet
is they called it bot stew, So it's not real,
(28:49):
it's not actual people, it's AI generated, it's just slot. Yeah,
and I wonder if that is leading towards We've talked
on the show months ago about in shitification and how
everything is just getting.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Shit out and it is dying.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
Yeah, the Internet is dying. It's like the experience of
being on these apps is objectively getting shitter. At some
point people will just go, this isn't fun anymore and
just put it down. My friends who don't have social media,
who I still think are the coolest of all my friends,
all left after a breakup. I think it was meant
to be a temporary thing, and they just never went back.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
Why do you think that that happens.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
I think because it was the only way to draw
boundaries around themselves and the other person. It was the
constant prospect of surveillance that they were not comfortable with,
and then they realized that it was fine. This guy
didn't fall in They could exist without it, and in
fact that emits it.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
But also not only the person that you broke up with,
but everybody else who's speculating about your breakup. How is
she doing? How does she look? Is she with somebody else?
He's with somebody else? Is she like? It's just that
constant chatter about your life that you just don't need.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
You know how after a breakup you kind of just
want to take to your bed for like weeks, if
not months. It's that it's the Internet version of that
want to close my bedroom door and lick my wounds.
Speaker 4 (30:09):
Not take to your bed, but take to the forest
after the break a leggings dead?
Speaker 1 (30:15):
Or is this an Emperor's New Clothes situation?
Speaker 3 (30:18):
One unlimited out loud access. We drop 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 4 (30:37):
If you are listening to this on a Hot Girl walk,
as I like to listen to podcasts, stop and look
down at what you're wearing, and if it's leggings, I
have some really bad news for you. The millennial uniform
of leggings is under attack from all sides. Let me
share a few data points with you. The first comes
to us from the Trump administration. They've decided that leggings
(30:58):
are no good. Trump's Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy unveiled a
campaign last week about returning to the golden age of
air travel, and he said that the reason why flying
sucks now is because everyone's wearing their trackie decks and
their leggings on the plane, and that they have to
start dressing up.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
That's point number one. Point number two.
Speaker 4 (31:17):
In July, Business of Fashion, very important publication for the
fashion industry, declared that the rain of leggings is over.
It's said that millennials helped crown leggings as the ultimate
do everything uniform. And you will not be surprised by this.
Jen Z has decided that leggings are uncool and they
are gravitating towards oversized, slouchier workout clothes.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
A couple of other.
Speaker 4 (31:41):
Quick points, and then I want to see what you think.
Millie Bobby Brown has a ath leisure line, which I
did not know, but the twenty two year old Death
Leisure line. There's no leggings. There's track pants, there's miniskirts,
there's cotton boxes, but.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
Not a legging insight.
Speaker 4 (31:54):
And finally, Lululemon, the people who made leggings, what they
are Their stock is tanking, so they're moving towards big,
baggy silhouettes.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
And that's a real sign of the times.
Speaker 4 (32:04):
Wow, Jesse, fellow millennial, are you going to invest in
cotton trousers and marino wool shorts to work out in?
As per the Sydney Morning Herald advising us recently, you
know it's.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Bad when even I've been feeling it, I've been feeling
the attack. What I'm actually going to invest in is
a parachute pant. Have you seen those with the elastic.
Speaker 3 (32:29):
We bought a pair of those last week. You're so right, Jesse,
because I was thinking about how I have only just
embraced what Mia was wearing two years, you know, which
is what I'm seeing every which is kind of like
the tracking pants with the stripes down the side.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
Sport.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
Yeah, they feel kind of like a bit more elevated
than just trackie pants. But they're still tracky pants. And
then last week I went to a shop and added
US shop and I bought a pair of pants that
I didn't realize are parachute pants. And if I'm doing
that when everyone else was doing it, when the very
cool people were doing it two years ago with pit mainstream.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
They remind me of being in year three in its
sports day. And I've got my parachute pants on.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
But Jesse, are you exercising in those? I mean, I
know you're struggling to excise a bit at the minute,
but like, I don't think that just because you've got
sort of stuff, But like I'm wearing those, but not
to exercise in. I couldn't imagine exercising in anything other
than leggings. Is that because I've been indoctrinated?
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Yes it is, Yeah it is.
Speaker 4 (33:29):
And in fact so sky Ting, which is like the
trendiest yoga studio in America, Like in nobody wants this.
There was a sky Ting sweatshirt to give you an idea.
The founder of that yoga company said, you don't need
technical apparel. You are not running a marathon where you
need things to compress your legs. You need to feel weightless.
And unbound, weightless and unbound, that's what we need.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
I've been wearing my flares. I got in a few
different colors, and I've been wearing them.
Speaker 4 (33:57):
Apparently they're okay for the moment. Leggings, You're okay.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
Yeah, I wear my flare leggings.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
So that still got what Maya would refer to as
a cameltoe situation.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Yes, yes they are. I haven't let go of that,
but I.
Speaker 3 (34:10):
Otherwise very much needs to have I'm not from my
cold dead.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Nowhere in the research did it say that we were
getting rid of the cameltoe. I read it very very
and that was fine. I've also been wearing like a
baggie a short. My only issue with a baggie is
short is that if you do anything like abs or
like tabletop, everyone can see up into your underpants, and
same with like pilates or right.
Speaker 4 (34:39):
Never not wear shorts and feel like Steve Berl won't like.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
It's just not attractive on me. I'm sorry they are.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
They look I don't think they're attractive, but I wonder if,
to be clear, they don't look good. It's like this
body neutrality thing. Is this about going? This is my
optimistic view on it going. There was something about the
like leggings with the matching sports buh, with the blood.
(35:08):
It was all this status symbol and it was all
figure hugging, and it was like the gym was a
performance and male gayzy or whatever. I wonder if this
is a big middle finger to that.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
If we can get so charitable, that is so charitable.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
Yeah, I don't know that i've yet. I'm still seeing
body con when you're out at night right in fact time,
that's when I'm seeing it more. You know, it's like
people wearing that sort of Kim kardashiany very tight things. Yeah,
out at night. There's no question that, say, the cool
girls in our office, they all wear baggy, shapeless clothes
nearly all the time. There's no judgment in that, yeah,
(35:45):
which is really noticeable in terms of I think that's
the look. It's androgynous. It's cool to be quite covered up, right.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
Yeah, or to pare baggy with tight That's what I
read in many that you do kind of a baggy
pant and then you wear a sports bra or something.
But I reckon that this is also about the death
of the sports. Probably your parachute, no absolutely not, but
I've seen it on could website. I wonder if this
is also about the death of active weear right, because
I've started to feel very uncomfortable. If I go to
(36:13):
the gym and then I go and run my errands,
I'm feeling very out of place. I don't think we're
wearing our gym clothes to Westfield.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
Anywhere, which we definitely were. Well, I wasn't. I only
wear leggings to exercise all around the house. But if
you were, yeah, I was all the time.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
It was the uniform of mum.
Speaker 4 (36:30):
I do think we've come full circle on that, because
remember when leggings first appeared on the scene, a lot
of people.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
Maintained that they weren't pants.
Speaker 4 (36:39):
In fact, won Mere Freedman had a really defiant point
of view that they were not pants. And then we
all decided that in fact they were pants, and in
fact they were the only pants. And now what I'm
hearing from gen Z in particular is this kind of
disingenuous line where they say leggings aren't comfortable and that's
why they're not wearing them, and I'm like, no, they're
not fashionable, that's why you're not worried.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
No, Amelia, something's happened to my brain because suddenly they're
not comfortable, Suddenly they're itchy.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
It's like this, you're going to wear your marino walls short.
Speaker 4 (37:09):
I know.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
It's like the culture has buried its way into my
brain and I've started to go, I'm itchy and I'm
going to get a yeast infection, like I haven't had
a wearing the case.
Speaker 3 (37:20):
I have a slight conspiracy theory with the reason why
the top us bloke is telling us all to dress
up for planes. Okay, right, because he also said, he said,
the golden age of travel starts with you. But as
you said, that's the campaign, dress up to go to
the airport, help a stranger out, be in a good mood. Now,
that's the kind of thing you say when all your
air traffic controllers are quitting on that and the planes
(37:41):
are grounded, which is what I hear is happening in
the US. So it's like, it's not us, it's you
put yourself in a good mood. And it's true that
people don't make an effort anymore getting on planes.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
I certainly do because the airlines aren't making enough.
Speaker 3 (37:54):
That's true. Right, Like, now you're checking yourself in, you're
paying extra for your bags. The machines never work. It's
like no one's in a good mood getting on a plane.
And so that generation of my parents who would still
and still do put on a collar shirt and a
and some proper shoes to get on a plane because
it was an event. Now I kind of feel like
the intification of the travel experience is reflected in how
(38:17):
much effort we're putting into dress.
Speaker 4 (38:19):
It's almost like you're saying that having air traffic controls
is important to air travel, maybe more more important than
whether Jesse has cameltoe or not.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
I think that's ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
Seans are not going to make me feel better about
having my six am flight canceled and being sent home
and I'm still picked.
Speaker 4 (38:39):
But I do have a question for the two of you,
which is, so can I not wear leggings anymore?
Speaker 1 (38:43):
Like?
Speaker 4 (38:43):
Are we back to the fact that they're not pants? Like,
is it somehow I'm scene to wear leggings?
Speaker 3 (38:48):
You were showing off, Amilia. If you're wearing your leggings
out in public, you're flaunting your pins. Just double check
I am meant to be exercising now in back pants.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
Yeah, it is ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (39:05):
The cool like, how did as track is? I thought
they were going out? No, no, no, no no, they were
going to the gym.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
Yes, and even like cotton tracks, don't get caught in stuff.
Speaker 3 (39:14):
Get drag in the mamund when I go for a war.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
This is what the fashion people are saying is hang
on like, I'm sorry, but you're not professional ballerinus. Okay,
you know what you can wear slightly baggy pants.
Speaker 4 (39:26):
This reminds me of an article I read last week
by one plum Sike. Oh no, I'm sorry for the
pea popping just there, but it's a very hard name
to say without popping. I won't say her first name again.
Sykes is a British aristocrat.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
She is in a fashion guru on a.
Speaker 4 (39:40):
Fashion group and she wrote this fascinating piece on substack
about what to wear if you were invited to an
English country manner for the weekend happens.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
I'm always batting off those invites.
Speaker 4 (39:51):
And she had some really counterintuitive advice from the English
opera class for us, and she said that Americans always
show up in jeans, and she says that's a disaster,
because if you're going out in the fields on your
fox hunts or whatever in jeans, and jeans get wet
like wet denim is obviously a nightmare.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
So Jennim is a Nogo. She said that the reason
why the Queen.
Speaker 4 (40:11):
Always wore tweed skirt suits is because that's just tremendously
practical for the great outdoors because tweed dries really quickly.
It's kind of like weirdly water repellent, as I've discovered
in the past when I've worn tweed in rain.
Speaker 3 (40:23):
And also worn tweet in rain.
Speaker 4 (40:26):
I have a tweed coat that I bought at a
Brooklyn flea market for twenty dollars and it's amazing and
it really is great in rain. And also the skirt
is good because it doesn't drag on the ground.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
So what I'm saying is maybe we should all be
wearing a tweed.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
Stirt case to watch out it. Who do I wear
with my tweed skirt?
Speaker 6 (40:44):
You, I'm gonna wear a tweet skirt with.
Speaker 3 (40:53):
You with your leal.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
Now check back with guys.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
I need on the subject of fashion. I need a
quick round because, as we all know, Black Friday is
either approaching imminem, which just happened.
Speaker 3 (41:11):
Living through it every time, it wasn't like whatever a
time I wanting to put my phone down, just like.
Speaker 2 (41:19):
Well, I think that the world's telling me that I
need to buy something, and the thing that's on my
mind is I need a new back. So I've been
looking and I've been doing my secondhand thing. But I
did walk around the shops on the weekend to look
for a new bag, to see what kind of bag
I wanted. And this is because I have come to
the conclusion that tote bags are a patriarchal conspiracy. I
(41:43):
found myself in a car park on the weekend looking
for my car keys for the thousandth millionth time. Takes
me three four minutes every time to try and find
that and my phone and my blood.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
Were you wearing leggings you No, I.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
Was my fled leggings and I was searching through and
I went women. All the time we are spending sifting
through our what I'm going to refer to as a
bucket of shit that we carry around with us. Men
are making disagree they've gone by by by cell cell cell.
What when did we all agree that a tote bag
(42:25):
was a functional item.
Speaker 4 (42:27):
Can I tell you that what men have is not better.
Their version of a tote bag is putting things in pockets,
and then they always fall out, and they always lose things,
and they never have the right things in.
Speaker 3 (42:37):
Their pockets, and they have bulky lines.
Speaker 4 (42:39):
We have a better option than they do. They got
bulky lines, and this is.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
The biggest issue with you know what. That's why I
like my parachute pants is because it'll have a bloody pocket,
whereas all my other things I'm going I can't find anything.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
You know what else has pockets?
Speaker 3 (42:54):
A tweet skirt suit all ro to tweet skirts.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
We never saw the queen and the tote bag.
Speaker 3 (43:03):
Didn't she would ever need to carry keys.
Speaker 1 (43:06):
Jesse, I wanted to. I want to throw another thing
at you, which is going to blow your mind. Cross
body bag. I'm sorry, you're not going to go back.
Speaker 4 (43:13):
Once you go to cross body Bag, you do feel
like a mom, and it's because you are a mom, yes,
but it is very profist.
Speaker 3 (43:19):
I think I read some headline that they're out as well, Amelia.
That's right, they're getting rid of that as well. No,
I'm cross body I can't.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
I was looking around going Okay, I need to find
a bag with compartments? Is that so hard to find?
And it's like, would you like one that's the size
of a suitcase but with no compartments? No, this is
not something women ever asked for. I am just furious
at them. We all need to burn.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
Bags are either really big now or really.
Speaker 2 (43:43):
Really really tiny, and it's like, I need something functional.
I am not.
Speaker 3 (43:48):
Before we go, we've got a new mom and Mere
podcast to tell you about called Pivot Club, where host
former lawyer and entrepreneur Sarah Davidson sits down with people
who spent years building their lives and then one day
have a professional plot twist.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
This is one of my favorite.
Speaker 3 (44:05):
Types of look.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
Before we do, need to listen. I've heard some of
the guests that they've got coming up and they're perfect.
But in this week's episode the reason why out louders
will love this particularly in this week's episode, there is
Lies Ratliffe, who used to be the executive producer, the
head of podcasts at MMA MEA and then she she.
Speaker 1 (44:30):
Was the original no Filter producer.
Speaker 2 (44:32):
She was exactly top of her game, top of her industry,
and she has retrained. I'm not going to tell you
what she's retrained in. I'm not going to tell you
what the pivot was, but she has totally changed what
her day to day, what her next five ten years
are going to look like. It's really inspiring and I
just love hearing people talk about how at any stage,
(44:53):
at any age, you can just go, I'm going to
do something entirely different.
Speaker 3 (44:57):
Friends, this has been fun, but we are done for
our Monday. We are going to be back in everybody's
ears tomorrow because we never sleep. She never sleeps.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
Bye bye, Mamma.
Speaker 3 (45:14):
Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of the land on which
we've recorded this podcast.
You're listening to a Mom with Mere podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Well, everyone liked Claire, didn't there was a big friend
in the out louders.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
This is the problem with taking any time off Jesse.
I know, ever just take it as a warning and
I'm having twins and stuff. But like he lets someone
sitne your seat. Everybody likes him be than you.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Oh Claire so funny, Claire so fun I really enjoyed
that episode. Well, I'll tell you a thing or two
about Claire. You can be really annoying. I have some criticisms,
but people were just obsessed with her. They were like
one hundred and eighty likes. I wanted to anonymously be like,
I find Claire not as good as Jesse. I could,
but not as good as good.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
I know I was feeling defensive for you, but I
also wanted to support Claire, so I just stay.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Yeah, yeah, I saw you didn't like it, and Amelia's
not on Facebook. I don't think so she didn't either.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
I decided to abstain from joining that conversation.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Bet m like, I'm going to.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Hello and welcome to mom and Mia out Loud. It's
what women actually talking about. On Monday the twenty fourth
of November. I'm Holly Wayne.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Wright, I'm Emelia Lester, and I'm Jesse Stephen.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Not Clare Steve. No, here's what's made our agenda for
today's show. My friend, the Duchess of Megan has done
in the press a lot. Is the last couple of weeks,
she's done a big glossy shoot with Harper's Bizarre. But
all anyone's talking about is one little detail.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Jesse man and barricades.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
The millennial uniform is under attack and it's up to
us to save it.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
And have you guys been sensing the vibe shift? Because
the man who invented the word vibe shift has invented
another word and apparently it sums up how we're all
going to be approaching to me, is.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
That a job like just making up the words for.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
The vibe Impressed that he made up vibe shift? Imagine
Lane claimed.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
To that I want to do That's not fair, But first,
Jesse Stevens.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
In case you missed it, hold on to your Wii. Wait,
the new pregnancy test doesn't require you to dart to
the bathroom.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
No pan on a stick.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
No, it is called the Sally stick. It can detect
pregnancy with ninety six percent accuracy from one day after
a missed period if you follow your instructions for use.
It's the first saliva based pregnancy self test to be
approved for use in Australia.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Does this suck it?
Speaker 2 (02:35):
It's a swab situation. Follow the instructions a bit covid.
I think you do like a bit of a in
your cheeks while your salivee.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
So you don't shove it up your head.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
You don't know, I mean you could. I just don't
think it would work. But each to their own. Apparently
it takes three minutes, so you do a thing in
three minutes. I want to know what we all think
because I read this and when I don't know if
the WE test needs a reinvention of all the things
in women's health that it's time to look at and evolve.
(03:04):
I don't mind a little way on a stick.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
But this, this is a little more like you could
do it in public, whereas you can't really do your
WEI test in public? Could you? For your mom, for
your partner, for your doctor, your medical practitioner, Like no
one's really being in public. Whereas this, particularly for the
moment where we're filming everything for reactions you could do
in front of everybody.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Okay, so how do we feel about that though? Because
it could.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
It's made for Instagram.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Yeah, it could change the experience of learning its positive
or negative. For women, it has been like, I don't
know about you too, but each time I've been on
my own inner bathroom and there's this sacred moment.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
That is such a good point, Like this is taking
away that one bit of privacy you want it and
potentially making it something that.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
You do with your point somewhere in the whole world.
Even I don't know how I feel about that.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
I feel good about that. I think, you know, like
we've got to remember that all the emotions caught up
in the pe that goes on that step. Sometimes you
really want it to be negative. Sometimes you really want
it to be positive. But sometimes you really want it
to be negative, and it's lonely, like it's lonely carrying
all that axelent. I mean, I agree with you, Jesse
that of all the things that we could fix, I'm
(04:20):
not sure that this was one that needed fixing, but
I can see the value in like dragging it out
of the toilet cubicle.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Yeah, and I suppose as well it might be slightly
more hygienic, because I was thinking about how, for some
reason I've kept my positive pregnancy so beside my bed.
In my bedside draw is a now more than three
year old stick of urine that I plan I'm keeping forever.
And the way you wave it in people's face. Look
(04:48):
at this, I like held Claires when she gave it
to me, like you do, and you take photos of it,
and it's just passing around you urine. Like maybe it's
a little bit more diff We're not as.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Precious with spit. Yeah, we're spitting at each other all day.
Question if someone was going to announce you every time
you walk into a room, what would you want them
to say, you know, like in the olden days, and
they'd be like, this is missus Jesse of Stevens, you know,
fine purveyor of articles and opinions on the internet.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
I'm feeling like twin pregnancy more than half way. I
feel like I'm walking in going fee fi fi file everywhere.
I just walked through my house doing like some big
stops that how I'm introducing myself.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
Well, the story that is going around about our good
friend Megan Duchess of Sussex at the moment is that
she has herself announced when she walks into a room
as the Duchess of Sussex.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Can you explain this to me because I refused. Actually
I read a few little bits of the profile, but
I just saw the headline that she demands this is
what I do, man, that she demands that before she
walks into a room, they say welcome, introducing Meghan, the
Duchess of Sussex.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Is this true.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
Well, we don't know if that's true, but what we
do know is true is that when she sat down
with a journalist called Caitlin Greenridge for Harper's Bizarre, that
did happen. So a bit of context, right, This has
been Megs's big year of kind of shaking off the
shackles of having to be a very private person. And
obviously she's had her TV show and as ever is
(06:25):
alleged well depending on who you listen to, either going
great guns or going really badly. It's got a seasonal
launch at the Minute's all mulled wine and hot cider
and candles for Christmas, and she's got a special Christmas
show coming out on Netflix. So she's on the PR trail.
Speaker 4 (06:40):
Can I just say about mold wine? Yeah, gives you
the worst hangovers in your life.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Really, it's not even nice.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
I don't like, well, it feels cozy, but it smells
better than it tastes like candles, like one of her candles,
and I don't want to drink those either. But anyway,
one of the things that she's done is she sat
down for a big cover feature for Harper's Bizarre. It's
very classy. If you seen the shoot, you would have
seen the show. Yeah, very black and white, very stripped.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
Back, really interesting choices made about where she's taking your image.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
But we'll get into it.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
Yeah, Like there's very little makeup, there's very little color,
which is very on vibe for her. She's always in
tasteful neutrals and kitten heels. There's a lot of that.
But the journo, so Caitlin Greenridge as who says she
is also pretty standard for such a high profile, big
celebrity get. She does three different events with MEGS for
this profile. She goes and watches her work. When she
(07:30):
turns up at sort of a museum in la and
there as a group of STEM students girls who Megan's
talking to and so she gets to watch her interact
with them. Then they sit down for lunch at the
Polo Lounge in Hollywood, which, Amelia, you speak American better
than I do. But it's a very fancy restaurant where
the writer says, you go to be seen.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Yes, that is true.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
So they sit at a very conspicuous table and have lunch.
And then for the third part of the interview, they
meet in New York City over on the other side
of the country, and they meet in a very fancy
brownstone on the Upper east Side. Again coded, but I
guess that just means posho, really posh. The writer says,
we're in a grand brownstone on the Upper east Side
(08:11):
that belongs to one of Meghan's friends, brownstones in Brooklyn.
Wouldn't it be good if Harry and Meg's bought the
Lily Allen House. I don't think they're living in Brooklyn.
We're in the grand brownstone. When I enter, the house,
manager announces Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, even though we appear
(08:34):
to be the only other two people in the house.
Speaker 4 (08:36):
I just heard the words house manager, and I just
thought about all the things that I would delegate to
my house manager of my two bedroom flats.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Yes, I agree.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
Now, so that little nugget has traveled around the world,
as these things do, right, and said, this is proof
of her largess, of her pretentiousness, of the fact that
she loves this title. She clearly does love this title.
If you go and look at the jam Meghan Duchess
of Sussex is everywhere.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
On her luggage, on her luggage.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
Stationary podcast credits everywhere, and so that's traveled around the
world pretty quickly. The other narrative that's happening is people
in America in particular saying that after several years of
trying to bed into this high flutint American society, she
keeps kind of stuffing it up. That's the narrative. And
I wanted to play you this little clip from an
(09:30):
interview that Bethany Frankl did. Now Bethany Frankel is put
her in some context. She was a real HOUSEWIFEI person,
it's a celebrity.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
Kind of like a celebrity celebrity like she's become a
bit of a commentator on celebrity recently. She's also a
philanthropist of some note. But she's really become known for
her sort of looking in on celebrity culture and explaining
it to people.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
And she knows a lot of fancy people, including Lauren
Sanchez who's married to Jeff Bezos. And she compares Megan
and Lauren and said the following.
Speaker 5 (10:00):
I have always said, Lauren Sanchez is Megan Markle with
no rules, honey badger, don't give a she doesn't have.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
To answer to anyone.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
She can do what she wants.
Speaker 5 (10:10):
She can have her doubt, they could donate money how
they want. And she and Jeff, who I know, are great.
I don't care what anyone says.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
They're great.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
So obviously Bethan he's a big fan of Lauren and Jeff.
But I think this is a really interesting comparison, right
is what she's basically saying is marry yourself a very
rich man. And the narrative will go in different directions.
What do you think.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
I think that there is something very wise about what
she's saying, and it's that the announcing someone as the
Duchess of Sussex is incongruous with American culture. It is
Americans are sort of allergic to that, I think, and
the fact that she's moving now into a celebrity world.
(10:54):
She's at the Chris Jenna's seventieth. You know, she has
to pretend that she was, although she has to pretend
that she wasn't. It's the curation of that image I
think is really confusing for people. And what was interesting
to me about that detail was that it said she
was announce blah blah blah, full stop, and it moved on.
(11:15):
And I thought, if you were Megan, you would want
to say, oh, none of that, you know, you would
want to kind of.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Just call me Megs, Just call me Megs.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Like that's more the vibe. But the fact she let
it stand was an incredibly telling detail, and it was
the one thing that in that profile seemed to not
be prrified.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
Do you think she would have given permission for that
to stay in the article, Amelia, given what a prestigious
magazine that is, how how it would be raid production
values on that shoot, three different sit down interviews, do
you think she would have said, you can leave that in.
Speaker 4 (11:51):
I don't think she would have been in a position
to ask them to take it out.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Let's put it that way.
Speaker 4 (11:55):
Green Ridge is a well known journalist. She was on
the cover of Harper's Bizarre. I don't think she was
in a position to dictate the terms. What that reminded
me of that detail and the incriminating nature of it
in an otherwise film neutral to positive profile was remember
her cut cover story, never forget it. And there was
one very key detail there that was also written by
(12:16):
a prominent journalist as well, certainly not a puff piece,
And that one detail that stuck with everyone was the
way that Megan narrated herself talking to the reporter, and
the reporter compared it to a bachelor producer in her ear.
Why people recoiled from that was because the key component
of her and Harry's appeal to the US market is authenticity.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Their key selling.
Speaker 4 (12:39):
Point is we left this stuffy, anachronistic, old fashioned royal
family to come to America and to be ourselves. But
in both this case of the Harper's Bizarre cover, with
the announcement coming into the room and with the cut
detail of being a producer in the ear, they're both
saying she's trying too hard and that she's not being
her true, authentic self, and that's a problem for her.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
Do you think she can do no right? Though there's
a large portion of the mediaticular who's very invested in
disliking Megan and Harry, but more Megan than Harry, even
though really it's Harry who's always trying to soothe them
and everything, and no matter what she does, it seems
that it's always a misstep. And what I'm interested in
is is it a misstep or is that just the
(13:25):
narrative we're all invested in that it has to have
been a mistake on some level, them leaving the royal family,
them moving to Oprah World, all those things, that it
has to have been a mistake, and we're just very
invested to holding on to her skirts and pulling her down,
you know what I mean, Whereas she hasn't done anything terrible.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
I think she's traumatized by the treatment of the press.
The press made her like this and then they punish
her for being like this. There's no way she can
just show up as her authentic self and behave like
who she is. Look at what the press in the
UK did to her. She's been torn to shreds.
Speaker 4 (14:01):
I think that's all true, but I think that there's
some evidence that they really have alienated high society on
both sides.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
Of the Atlantic.
Speaker 4 (14:08):
Look at the fact that they started off friends with
the Cloonies, they started off being friendly with the Obamas,
and these were the sorts of friends that they should
have kept and cultivated in the United States because these
are the true A List, and the Cloonies and Obamas
are nowhere to be seen. And now they've alienated the Kardashians.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Because oh, I see so like the Obamas and the
Cloonies are like the blue bloods. And they probably wouldn't
go to Christiana's birthday party, although Oprah did. An Oprah
is also possibly part of that, and so they wanted
to be in that moving in that world and it
hasn't worked out. They're trapped between two worlds, right. The
other thing that fascinates me a bit about the title is,
(14:51):
as we've just seen in Britain play out in confronting details,
we've seen a prince be stripped of his title for
abhorrent behavior. I've always thought that it would be so
cool of Harry and Meghan to step away from those titles,
would say so much to say I'm not going to
use them anymore. Like it doesn't mean you have to
(15:12):
renounce them entirely, but just say I'm not going to
use them. You're not going to read here about them
in my podcast credits, you're not going to read them
on my personal stationary. Same for him and say I
don't want to be part of that. This is a
new start for me. Why won't they do that?
Speaker 2 (15:26):
Yeah, I don't think they get that about American culture.
It's all about the American dream. There's something inherently egalitarian
in the striving, unashamed ambition.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
Of which why I guess Franco was making that comparison
to Lauren Sanchez because although she gets mocked for being
a gold digger inverted commas, she doesn't care.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
She plays to it in a way like she's self
made Lauren Sanchez like she actually is in terms of
career and the way she's lived her life.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
I wouldn't go that far.
Speaker 4 (15:55):
Well, I think she was a well known and acclaimed
journey journalist, but I don't think she is entirely self made.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
Yeah, I suppose what I think rub played her myth.
Speaker 4 (16:07):
We wouldn't be talking about her if she wasn't married
to Jeff Bezos.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
You're right, I reckon that what Rubs people about Duchess
of Sussex and that being the introduction. Is that implicit
in that is do you think you're better than me?
Do you think you're of a different class, a different stature?
And that's never going to sit well in the ear.
Speaker 4 (16:24):
You'll remember when she said to Gloria Stein and they
didn't interview together, and she said to Gloria Stein and
we are all linked. There's no such thing as a hierarchy,
which a lot of people took as a rebuke of
the royal family.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
But you can't say that and then also want the title.
Speaker 4 (16:39):
Another great analysis of what's gone wrong for Meghan and
Harry in America came from Tina Brown last week. Tina
Brown is the famed magazine editor who was interviewed by
The New York Times, and here is what she had
to say to Lulu Garcia Navarro, who's asking the question.
Speaker 6 (16:54):
Harry and Meghan are also trying to make their own
way in the world.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Do you think they have anything to offer anymore? I
think it's very sad what's happened to them, Actually, I
really do.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
I mean, they've just made so many mistakes.
Speaker 5 (17:05):
I have never seen any body in professional life make
as many mistakes.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
Certainly as Megan has.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
It's an interesting I think Tina, that is an overstatement. Also,
there is something funny about the idea that, like, I
feel sorry for them. It's sad they live in They.
Speaker 6 (17:26):
Live in an enormous mansion on the coast of California.
They have servants, beautiful children, the privacy that Harry always
longed for to a point. They have business empires that have,
you know, probably doing better than most of us are.
They've still got to deal with Netflix no matter what
we talk about. So it is kind of funny that
sometimes I think we just see what we want to see.
(17:46):
We want to believe that this was a failure, so
all the narrative has to point that way, you know.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
What I mean?
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Yeah, after the break, trend forecasters say the next cultural
moment will be something called slopdomism. So what does that
actually mean?
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Sloptimism?
Speaker 2 (18:07):
We have an early contender for the word of twenty
twenty six.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
Apparently I need a word for twenty six.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Oh, I've got your word. We're on the precipice of
a vibe shift, and trend forecasters say that it is
something called slopdimism. According to an article published in GQ
last week. After nearly a decade of moral spectacle, people
are rebelling against the demand to care publicly at all times.
(18:36):
So the kind of earnest, politically motivated, highly curated world
of social media to be countercultural. And this is what
the writer Catherine D says is to refuse that spectacle.
It is choosing not to turn your life into fuel
for various platforms. It is opting out without announcing to
(18:56):
your followers that you're opting out. Apparently this is a
bit of a reaction or a pendulum swing from the
tradwife movement. So Ballerina Farm has been copying a bunch
of criticism lately that we'll get to. But more broadly,
this echoes a sub stack article that was published last week,
which was called the New Call is not needing to
(19:17):
be seen.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
Okay, I feel personally attacked because on the weekend I
harvested some potatoes. Yeah, Holly, and I immediately put my
potatoes on a meta grant because I was proud of them. Yes,
I am, I very uncool.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Well, this is my philosophical question, Holly, is if we
do something cool and no one is around to see it,
did we really do something cool?
Speaker 3 (19:38):
Did my potatoes exist. I didn't they live in my
tummy now? But did they exist if I didn't put
them on Instagram?
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Okay, one of the three of us is cooler than
the rest. That's true because they knew to opt out early.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
Amelia, maybe she never even opted in.
Speaker 4 (19:54):
I joined Facebook in two thousand and four, the night
it started, and then I left in twenty twelve after
I'd had a very bad breakup.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Okay, so, Amelia, you're not announcing everything on social You
are not going here's latest episode about loud. You are
not performing content for various different algorithms. Are you.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
The question somebody poker?
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Well, you before your time?
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Was I before my time?
Speaker 4 (20:23):
No? I don't think so. I think I'm just very insecure,
and social media always really fueled that insecure, competitive side
of me.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
It makes you look secure.
Speaker 4 (20:32):
I went through a really difficult breakup and I just
felt like putting myself out there just felt too hard
because I felt that I was behind in my life.
I felt bad about myself, and it just really accentuated
that for me.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Doesn't it do that for everyone? Though?
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (20:58):
But it also can work the other way when you're
happy about things around your life. And you're like, look
at my beautiful baby.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
We're looking at her potatoes on the wakend going I'm.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Miss the one that got away. I look at it
being in the dirt fighting off worms for those funds.
Speaker 4 (21:15):
But I think what we all know intuitively is that
when we spend time away from our phone, so broadening
this out from to social media to your phone, you
feel better about stuff.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
So on Friday night I did something.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
I went camping for the first time, just a night
of camping, and my phone died because of course we
didn't have any electricity, And so I woke up the
next morning and my phone was dead, and I was
without a phone for a few hours. And at first
I was anxious, like I sort of tried to track
my emotions. At first, I felt very worried that a
(21:48):
lot of things had happened in the world and that
I didn't know about them. Maybe someone was trying to
reach me about something amazing and.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
I didn't know.
Speaker 4 (21:55):
And there really was at first this wave of anxiety
about not being connected.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
But then after that I noticed a sense of calm.
Speaker 4 (22:02):
Took over because I realized that anyone who actually really
needed to contact me it could.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Wait all of this could wait.
Speaker 4 (22:10):
And this is actually a phenomenon that has been labeled.
It's been called the dark forest, and this is referring
to the parts of the culture that are now avoiding
algorithmic exposure. Stuff that you don't post online is dark forest.
And the dark forest is where you gain all the
serenity and peace of walking through an actual forest.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Okay, because you actually have your finger on the pulse here.
There was an article in the fin Review last month
that said, basically, we have passed peak social media. It
said that it's gone largely unnoticed, but it peaked in
twenty twenty two, and it is going right down.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
To the dark forest.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Yeah, people have just had enough. What was once like
engaging and posting is now basically we go on there
to scroll. But I think it said North America is
a one place where it hasn't gone down, but everywhere
else Europe, Australia usage is declining, and so has the
bubble burst. I keep seeing articles as well saying that
(23:14):
twenty twenty six is going to be the year we
go analogue, like the year we put our phones down.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
Do we think that's fay? I have a couple of
theories about this, And one of them is that I
know lots of people who aren't on social media, but
they're still on social media, do you know what I mean.
They don't post, but they partake. So they might not
be on Instagram, but they still Instagram is still their entertainment.
They might not ever post to TikTok, but TikTok is
still their TV feed, you know, all of those things.
(23:39):
So I think there's that right as part of it.
I think that a generous read is that we've worked
out what part we want that to play in our lives,
and if we don't want it to have anything to
do with us personally, as you say, Melia, like I
don't want to be feeling bad about my potatoes or whatever.
You don't have to do that, but you can still
observe other people and absorb your entertainment and news that way.
(24:00):
So that's a mature way.
Speaker 4 (24:01):
We don't call them lurkers, right, And I think that
the percentage of lurkers has increased very much.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
And I also don't think there's any shade about that.
I think there used to be a little bit of
an idea that lurkers were somehow free loading, like what
you're just there like taking and not giving. But I
think that you know, we've been living a decade in
this world now, and I think that people are figuring
out because we all know that what you're saying is true, Amelia,
that phones are making us sick in lots of ways.
(24:28):
So a lot of people are trying to are figuring
out what role they wanted to play if I have
a problem, and I don't have any problem with people
making smart choices about their mental health, but there are
a lot of articles at the minute saying how uncool
it is to share, And I think that that is
because now everybody does it, it can't possibly be cool, do
you know what I mean? As in, more and more
people make a living from social media, whether they are
(24:50):
content creators or whether they're just promoting their work, their
headdressing salon, their catering business there, whatever they're doing, Like
everybody's doing that, so how could it possibly be cool?
Speaker 4 (25:00):
You know?
Speaker 3 (25:00):
And I saw this headline on a subsetet the other
day that was like, the new call is not needing
to be seen, but it's also the new call is
kind of being rich enough to not have to flog
yourself on social media, because if you're selling whatever it
is you make or you're in or yourself on social media,
you clearly need the money. And that's never been cool,
(25:21):
you know what I mean. So I think there's almost
a little bit of snobbery about it. There's a status
in you know, the coolest writers are not on Instagram
because it's a swing to say I don't need this
to sell my books. The rest of us are all
there hustling away.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
There's one exception's jk Rowling social media.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
She's not trying to sell books on their she trying
to sell something entirely.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Because I was wondering if the bubble has burst in
terms of we've followed people's lives. We thought it was
authentic and real and parasocial. I think, isn't that the
word of something, the connections that we have with people
we follow. The bubble has burst in terms of people going, oh,
(26:10):
everyone's trying to sell me something. So that's what I
think has happened with Ballerina Farm. Who is Hannah Nielman,
the Utah tried wife with ten kids, and she kind
of went, here's my life. I live on a farm.
It was this almost appealing, simpler slower existence that people
leaned into, only to discover that her husband is worth
(26:32):
allegedly hundreds of millions of dollars because of his father
owns Jet Blue.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
The airs hard.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
She's hustling hard and she recently she has this storefront
where she's selling a shopping board that retails for about
four hundred Australian dollars. And everyone's kind of going whether
they feel like it's greed or they're always being asked
for something, like every time they now open a various
social media app you are always being asked to pay,
(27:00):
and that's because people need to make a living.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
Yeah, it's become a promotional platform exactly, but I think
that in a way, as we've become savvier about that,
it's less disingenuous. You know, some of the most popular
content creators on the Internet, when you go to their feeds,
it used to be this assumption that you have to
share some of yourself and then do an ad, and
then share some of yourself and then do an AD.
And I think that the savvy creators have just done
(27:25):
away with that and it's just all acts there. You know,
you'll go to their feeds and it'll be nearly all
sponkn but it's entertaining interesting spon con and I think
people get it.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
They're like, is it though, or are people going, I
don't want to spend my spare time watching ads.
Speaker 4 (27:38):
I heard on the weekend that Ezra Kleine said that
he's stopped calling it social media. He started calling it
algorithmic media. And this is basically summarizing the shift you're
talking about, Holly. It's moved from a place where people
shared themselves and their lives to being an advertising platform.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
Yeah, definitely. I think a lot of people who are
still on it, and lots of ordinary people are still
all over social media. We've just got savvier, I think,
at understanding what to share and what not. And this
is why, you know all the discussion that's going on
around whether or not children should be there. I think
in ten years time we will be absolutely astounded we
ever let children on there. And I think that now
(28:16):
people are kind of like, well, I like it, I
enjoy it. I see things there that I like. I
watch the funny videos. I'm on TikTok whatever, But I
know I would never share my potatoes, do you know
what I mean? I think our own Little World.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
In response to that though, and rather than it being
this social media engagement platform, it is now as you say,
tech companies going all right, how can we harness attention
for a particular period of time. I read over the
weekend that fifty percent of what exists on the Internet
is they called it bot stew, So it's not real,
(28:49):
it's not actual people, it's AI generated, it's just slot. Yeah,
and I wonder if that is leading towards We've talked
on the show months ago about in shitification and how
everything is just getting.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Shit out and it is dying.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
Yeah, the Internet is dying. It's like the experience of
being on these apps is objectively getting shitter. At some
point people will just go, this isn't fun anymore and
just put it down. My friends who don't have social media,
who I still think are the coolest of all my friends,
all left after a breakup. I think it was meant
to be a temporary thing, and they just never went back.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
Why do you think that that happens.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
I think because it was the only way to draw
boundaries around themselves and the other person. It was the
constant prospect of surveillance that they were not comfortable with,
and then they realized that it was fine. This guy
didn't fall in They could exist without it, and in
fact that emits it.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
But also not only the person that you broke up with,
but everybody else who's speculating about your breakup. How is
she doing? How does she look? Is she with somebody else?
He's with somebody else? Is she like? It's just that
constant chatter about your life that you just don't need.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
You know how after a breakup you kind of just
want to take to your bed for like weeks, if
not months. It's that it's the Internet version of that
want to close my bedroom door and lick my wounds.
Speaker 4 (30:09):
Not take to your bed, but take to the forest
after the break a leggings dead?
Speaker 1 (30:15):
Or is this an Emperor's New Clothes situation?
Speaker 3 (30:18):
One unlimited out loud access. We drop 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 4 (30:37):
If you are listening to this on a Hot Girl walk,
as I like to listen to podcasts, stop and look
down at what you're wearing, and if it's leggings, I
have some really bad news for you. The millennial uniform
of leggings is under attack from all sides. Let me
share a few data points with you. The first comes
to us from the Trump administration. They've decided that leggings
(30:58):
are no good. Trump's Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy unveiled a
campaign last week about returning to the golden age of
air travel, and he said that the reason why flying
sucks now is because everyone's wearing their trackie decks and
their leggings on the plane, and that they have to
start dressing up.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
That's point number one. Point number two.
Speaker 4 (31:17):
In July, Business of Fashion, very important publication for the
fashion industry, declared that the rain of leggings is over.
It's said that millennials helped crown leggings as the ultimate
do everything uniform. And you will not be surprised by this.
Jen Z has decided that leggings are uncool and they
are gravitating towards oversized, slouchier workout clothes.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
A couple of other.
Speaker 4 (31:41):
Quick points, and then I want to see what you think.
Millie Bobby Brown has a ath leisure line, which I
did not know, but the twenty two year old Death
Leisure line. There's no leggings. There's track pants, there's miniskirts,
there's cotton boxes, but.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
Not a legging insight.
Speaker 4 (31:54):
And finally, Lululemon, the people who made leggings, what they
are Their stock is tanking, so they're moving towards big,
baggy silhouettes.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
And that's a real sign of the times.
Speaker 4 (32:04):
Wow, Jesse, fellow millennial, are you going to invest in
cotton trousers and marino wool shorts to work out in?
As per the Sydney Morning Herald advising us recently, you
know it's.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Bad when even I've been feeling it, I've been feeling
the attack. What I'm actually going to invest in is
a parachute pant. Have you seen those with the elastic.
Speaker 3 (32:29):
We bought a pair of those last week. You're so right, Jesse,
because I was thinking about how I have only just
embraced what Mia was wearing two years, you know, which
is what I'm seeing every which is kind of like
the tracking pants with the stripes down the side.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
Sport.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
Yeah, they feel kind of like a bit more elevated
than just trackie pants. But they're still tracky pants. And
then last week I went to a shop and added
US shop and I bought a pair of pants that
I didn't realize are parachute pants. And if I'm doing
that when everyone else was doing it, when the very
cool people were doing it two years ago with pit mainstream.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
They remind me of being in year three in its
sports day. And I've got my parachute pants on.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
But Jesse, are you exercising in those? I mean, I
know you're struggling to excise a bit at the minute,
but like, I don't think that just because you've got
sort of stuff, But like I'm wearing those, but not
to exercise in. I couldn't imagine exercising in anything other
than leggings. Is that because I've been indoctrinated?
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Yes it is, Yeah it is.
Speaker 4 (33:29):
And in fact so sky Ting, which is like the
trendiest yoga studio in America, Like in nobody wants this.
There was a sky Ting sweatshirt to give you an idea.
The founder of that yoga company said, you don't need
technical apparel. You are not running a marathon where you
need things to compress your legs. You need to feel weightless.
And unbound, weightless and unbound, that's what we need.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
I've been wearing my flares. I got in a few
different colors, and I've been wearing them.
Speaker 4 (33:57):
Apparently they're okay for the moment. Leggings, You're okay.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
Yeah, I wear my flare leggings.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
So that still got what Maya would refer to as
a cameltoe situation.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Yes, yes they are. I haven't let go of that,
but I.
Speaker 3 (34:10):
Otherwise very much needs to have I'm not from my
cold dead.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Nowhere in the research did it say that we were
getting rid of the cameltoe. I read it very very
and that was fine. I've also been wearing like a
baggie a short. My only issue with a baggie is
short is that if you do anything like abs or
like tabletop, everyone can see up into your underpants, and
same with like pilates or right.
Speaker 4 (34:39):
Never not wear shorts and feel like Steve Berl won't like.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
It's just not attractive on me. I'm sorry they are.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
They look I don't think they're attractive, but I wonder if,
to be clear, they don't look good. It's like this
body neutrality thing. Is this about going? This is my
optimistic view on it going. There was something about the
like leggings with the matching sports buh, with the blood.
(35:08):
It was all this status symbol and it was all
figure hugging, and it was like the gym was a
performance and male gayzy or whatever. I wonder if this
is a big middle finger to that.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
If we can get so charitable, that is so charitable.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
Yeah, I don't know that i've yet. I'm still seeing
body con when you're out at night right in fact time,
that's when I'm seeing it more. You know, it's like
people wearing that sort of Kim kardashiany very tight things. Yeah,
out at night. There's no question that, say, the cool
girls in our office, they all wear baggy, shapeless clothes
nearly all the time. There's no judgment in that, yeah,
(35:45):
which is really noticeable in terms of I think that's
the look. It's androgynous. It's cool to be quite covered up, right.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
Yeah, or to pare baggy with tight That's what I
read in many that you do kind of a baggy
pant and then you wear a sports bra or something.
But I reckon that this is also about the death
of the sports. Probably your parachute, no absolutely not, but
I've seen it on could website. I wonder if this
is also about the death of active weear right, because
I've started to feel very uncomfortable. If I go to
(36:13):
the gym and then I go and run my errands,
I'm feeling very out of place. I don't think we're
wearing our gym clothes to Westfield.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
Anywhere, which we definitely were. Well, I wasn't. I only
wear leggings to exercise all around the house. But if
you were, yeah, I was all the time.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
It was the uniform of mum.
Speaker 4 (36:30):
I do think we've come full circle on that, because
remember when leggings first appeared on the scene, a lot
of people.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
Maintained that they weren't pants.
Speaker 4 (36:39):
In fact, won Mere Freedman had a really defiant point
of view that they were not pants. And then we
all decided that in fact they were pants, and in
fact they were the only pants. And now what I'm
hearing from gen Z in particular is this kind of
disingenuous line where they say leggings aren't comfortable and that's
why they're not wearing them, and I'm like, no, they're
not fashionable, that's why you're not worried.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
No, Amelia, something's happened to my brain because suddenly they're
not comfortable, Suddenly they're itchy.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
It's like this, you're going to wear your marino walls short.
Speaker 4 (37:09):
I know.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
It's like the culture has buried its way into my
brain and I've started to go, I'm itchy and I'm
going to get a yeast infection, like I haven't had
a wearing the case.
Speaker 3 (37:20):
I have a slight conspiracy theory with the reason why
the top us bloke is telling us all to dress
up for planes. Okay, right, because he also said, he said,
the golden age of travel starts with you. But as
you said, that's the campaign, dress up to go to
the airport, help a stranger out, be in a good mood. Now,
that's the kind of thing you say when all your
air traffic controllers are quitting on that and the planes
(37:41):
are grounded, which is what I hear is happening in
the US. So it's like, it's not us, it's you
put yourself in a good mood. And it's true that
people don't make an effort anymore getting on planes.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
I certainly do because the airlines aren't making enough.
Speaker 3 (37:54):
That's true. Right, Like, now you're checking yourself in, you're
paying extra for your bags. The machines never work. It's
like no one's in a good mood getting on a plane.
And so that generation of my parents who would still
and still do put on a collar shirt and a
and some proper shoes to get on a plane because
it was an event. Now I kind of feel like
the intification of the travel experience is reflected in how
(38:17):
much effort we're putting into dress.
Speaker 4 (38:19):
It's almost like you're saying that having air traffic controls
is important to air travel, maybe more more important than
whether Jesse has cameltoe or not.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
I think that's ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
Seans are not going to make me feel better about
having my six am flight canceled and being sent home
and I'm still picked.
Speaker 4 (38:39):
But I do have a question for the two of you,
which is, so can I not wear leggings anymore?
Speaker 1 (38:43):
Like?
Speaker 4 (38:43):
Are we back to the fact that they're not pants? Like,
is it somehow I'm scene to wear leggings?
Speaker 3 (38:48):
You were showing off, Amilia. If you're wearing your leggings
out in public, you're flaunting your pins. Just double check
I am meant to be exercising now in back pants.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
Yeah, it is ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (39:05):
The cool like, how did as track is? I thought
they were going out? No, no, no, no no, they were
going to the gym.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
Yes, and even like cotton tracks, don't get caught in stuff.
Speaker 3 (39:14):
Get drag in the mamund when I go for a war.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
This is what the fashion people are saying is hang
on like, I'm sorry, but you're not professional ballerinus. Okay,
you know what you can wear slightly baggy pants.
Speaker 4 (39:26):
This reminds me of an article I read last week
by one plum Sike. Oh no, I'm sorry for the
pea popping just there, but it's a very hard name
to say without popping. I won't say her first name again.
Sykes is a British aristocrat.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
She is in a fashion guru on a.
Speaker 4 (39:40):
Fashion group and she wrote this fascinating piece on substack
about what to wear if you were invited to an
English country manner for the weekend happens.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
I'm always batting off those invites.
Speaker 4 (39:51):
And she had some really counterintuitive advice from the English
opera class for us, and she said that Americans always
show up in jeans, and she says that's a disaster,
because if you're going out in the fields on your
fox hunts or whatever in jeans, and jeans get wet
like wet denim is obviously a nightmare.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
So Jennim is a Nogo. She said that the reason
why the Queen.
Speaker 4 (40:11):
Always wore tweed skirt suits is because that's just tremendously
practical for the great outdoors because tweed dries really quickly.
It's kind of like weirdly water repellent, as I've discovered
in the past when I've worn tweed in rain.
Speaker 3 (40:23):
And also worn tweet in rain.
Speaker 4 (40:26):
I have a tweed coat that I bought at a
Brooklyn flea market for twenty dollars and it's amazing and
it really is great in rain. And also the skirt
is good because it doesn't drag on the ground.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
So what I'm saying is maybe we should all be
wearing a tweed.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
Stirt case to watch out it. Who do I wear
with my tweed skirt?
Speaker 6 (40:44):
You, I'm gonna wear a tweet skirt with.
Speaker 3 (40:53):
You with your leal.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
Now check back with guys.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
I need on the subject of fashion. I need a
quick round because, as we all know, Black Friday is
either approaching imminem, which just happened.
Speaker 3 (41:11):
Living through it every time, it wasn't like whatever a
time I wanting to put my phone down, just like.
Speaker 2 (41:19):
Well, I think that the world's telling me that I
need to buy something, and the thing that's on my
mind is I need a new back. So I've been
looking and I've been doing my secondhand thing. But I
did walk around the shops on the weekend to look
for a new bag, to see what kind of bag
I wanted. And this is because I have come to
the conclusion that tote bags are a patriarchal conspiracy. I
(41:43):
found myself in a car park on the weekend looking
for my car keys for the thousandth millionth time. Takes
me three four minutes every time to try and find
that and my phone and my blood.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
Were you wearing leggings you No, I.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
Was my fled leggings and I was searching through and
I went women. All the time we are spending sifting
through our what I'm going to refer to as a
bucket of shit that we carry around with us. Men
are making disagree they've gone by by by cell cell cell.
What when did we all agree that a tote bag
(42:25):
was a functional item.
Speaker 4 (42:27):
Can I tell you that what men have is not better.
Their version of a tote bag is putting things in pockets,
and then they always fall out, and they always lose things,
and they never have the right things in.
Speaker 3 (42:37):
Their pockets, and they have bulky lines.
Speaker 4 (42:39):
We have a better option than they do. They got
bulky lines, and this is.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
The biggest issue with you know what. That's why I
like my parachute pants is because it'll have a bloody pocket,
whereas all my other things I'm going I can't find anything.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
You know what else has pockets?
Speaker 3 (42:54):
A tweet skirt suit all ro to tweet skirts.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
We never saw the queen and the tote bag.
Speaker 3 (43:03):
Didn't she would ever need to carry keys.
Speaker 1 (43:06):
Jesse, I wanted to. I want to throw another thing
at you, which is going to blow your mind. Cross
body bag. I'm sorry, you're not going to go back.
Speaker 4 (43:13):
Once you go to cross body Bag, you do feel
like a mom, and it's because you are a mom, yes,
but it is very profist.
Speaker 3 (43:19):
I think I read some headline that they're out as well, Amelia.
That's right, they're getting rid of that as well. No,
I'm cross body I can't.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
I was looking around going Okay, I need to find
a bag with compartments? Is that so hard to find?
And it's like, would you like one that's the size
of a suitcase but with no compartments? No, this is
not something women ever asked for. I am just furious
at them. We all need to burn.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
Bags are either really big now or really.
Speaker 2 (43:43):
Really really tiny, and it's like, I need something functional.
I am not.
Speaker 3 (43:48):
Before we go, we've got a new mom and Mere
podcast to tell you about called Pivot Club, where host
former lawyer and entrepreneur Sarah Davidson sits down with people
who spent years building their lives and then one day
have a professional plot twist.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
This is one of my favorite.
Speaker 3 (44:05):
Types of look.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
Before we do, need to listen. I've heard some of
the guests that they've got coming up and they're perfect.
But in this week's episode the reason why out louders
will love this particularly in this week's episode, there is
Lies Ratliffe, who used to be the executive producer, the
head of podcasts at MMA MEA and then she she.
Speaker 1 (44:30):
Was the original no Filter producer.
Speaker 2 (44:32):
She was exactly top of her game, top of her industry,
and she has retrained. I'm not going to tell you
what she's retrained in. I'm not going to tell you
what the pivot was, but she has totally changed what
her day to day, what her next five ten years
are going to look like. It's really inspiring and I
just love hearing people talk about how at any stage,
(44:53):
at any age, you can just go, I'm going to
do something entirely different.
Speaker 3 (44:57):
Friends, this has been fun, but we are done for
our Monday. We are going to be back in everybody's
ears tomorrow because we never sleep. She never sleeps.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
Bye bye, Mamma.
Speaker 3 (45:14):
Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of the land on which
we've recorded this podcast.
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