Flex and Frooms, Flex and Frooms. This is the Flex and Frooms catch up podcast.
Sweety guys, we must discuss the Internet deciding that Emma Chamberlain is no longer the it girl, and not just deciding to be neutral about her. They are turning on her and it is unfortunate to see because we see the cycle happen like clockwork. All I'm saying is, if we're going to keep canceling people, cancel some it boys. I can name a couple off of the dome, but I won't because I'm trying to be better.
And also the dos and don'ts at the airport. Here we go Flex and Frooms on Keda.
The Internet is turning on Emma Chamberlain, who is at one point she was one of the fastest growing YouTubers in YouTube history, which was just just insane. She started out or her whole appeal is from being quite a regular person, and the reason why that is so appealing to our people is because she came to fame right at the height of the influencer and the beauty blogger and all of these quite perceivedly contrived spaces. She was a breath of fresh air. She didn't really wear makeup.
She talked a lot about her mental illness anyway. So all of a sudden, we've seen trends of you know, people loving Internet people and then hating them after a couple of days, years, or months. It's a cycle that everybody goes through. It can't be avoided. But what is also very interesting is what people choose to hate people for. In this instance, Emma Chamberlain has positioned herself as someone who is quite creative and artsy, and that creative and
artsiness has like a natural lens of curiosity. And she has a podcast called Anything Goes, in which she sits on her bed and talks into the void about stuff she's going through. It's very inoffensive, some might say tone deaf, because the stuff she's going through is being a multi millionaire deciding that she didn't want to go to a
fashion show because it was too stressful. Now a lot of fans or content consumers of Emma are flooding the Internet with critiques about how she should stop podcasting or she should start going to UNI if she wants to talk about philosophy and literature and psychology and any of these ologies, because she isn't necessarily informed, and because she isn't naturally informed or a natural critical thinker, it's making her come across as dumb.
I think this is rich.
It's very very very very very rich. The one thing I will say is whether or not you are a fan of Emma or not. We see this happen in society a lot, where people look out into the world and see people who are just like them but five years behind in their journey, and critique them so heavily it feels unfounded. I have no doubt the people critiquing Emma Chamberlain right now were Emma Chamberlain five years ago.
The same understanding of the world, the same ignorance, is the same lack of nuance, the same binary thinking.
You were that.
And that's why this irks you so much, because you see how uninformed it is, You see how much tact it lacks, and it frustrates you because you're like, damn, that's not great, and it makes you hypersensitive, and instead of looking inward, you're projecting outwards. The first five people who said, okay, Emma is like not really a great critical thinker. Eight they ate the other seven million of you.
You are distancing yourself from your people. Yeah, like there is nothing that Emma is doing that you aren't doing his thing. When I tell people that they need to read the news and they need to read books, I get called elitists. Here's a fact, you cannot understand the world around you if you do not consume information that helps you undertand the world around you. It's just there's no way to get around it. If you want to learn how to explore the world around you in a
more critical way. It has a framework, it has a format, it has a structure. You don't really need that in everyday conversation. You can use it, but you don't need it. So when someone has a natural inclination to want to learn more about the world through philosophy through his and your response to that is, well, they need to go to UNI to educate themselves on how to properly research, and how to properly do commentary, and how to properly structure an argument. Do you not hear the flaw in
that it's giving bring back free education. You're now saying that people who don't have a tertiary education don't have permission to talk about the world that they inhibit because they can't do it in an academic way.
Yeah, you're speaking for yourself. What is that cycle? There's like a psychological readon behind why people.
Turn Yeah, and if they went to college. No, But for really, you see it happen all the time. I get really really paranoid, especially when you see people on the internet like suddenly like singling out certain demographic or certain type of persons and an archetype. It's like, what is it about that that is frustrating you so much? Like what is it about that person or that behavior that's frustrating you oh much? And what you often find is they're just looking in the mirror but at a
different point in time, and that's frustrating. The questions I have is why let's spell it out together. Why should this person have to go and do study to speak?
Mm hmm. Let's just let that one simmer for a bit. I'll speak on it.
I feel like, yeah, I get the thing when it's like you see you hate something in someone and then you later, like a few years later, realize it was because they either had something you wanted or yeah it was like a beta version of you. Yeah, that hits very differently tumbling or not even.
Just a beta version of you, but I feel like a lot of us if people do it naturally, you spend a lot of time trying to conceal the parts of stuff that you don't like, right, And so you don't just do it because you're indifferent. You actually dislike those parts, and so you hide them. You hide them, you hide them, you hide them, And then it would be frustrating to look at into the world and people
validate if having those same skills. It's like everybody who has a bully story being like, oh, my goodness, my whole life I was bullied having freckles and now you all draw them on. That's so frustrating as opposed to thinking, oh, we're in a world now I no longer get bullied for having freckles and they're now beautiful, do you know
what I mean? Like, you can't bypass that healing aspect that makes you see things a little bit more objectively when you're stuck in the bubble of us and them, and instead of using this information, like, for example, when I see someone like Emma Chamberlain make this big jump from fashion content to philosophical and like that is so interesting, and look at what she's going to do for her audience, who will now have these philosophical discussions.
Amazing.
You have to be a lecturer to do it, and by that logic, then like you can't be asking any random influencer to do anything that's not within their pay grade of showing you and selling you stuff.
Careful what you wish for.
There are little things that happen in life, particularly physiologically, that I sometimes think I'm the only person that experiences one of them.
Tell me, Mickey, if you experienced this.
Also, Sometimes I drink water and it goes down my throat and it really hurts my chest.
Have you heard of that? Hope you experienced that, Mickey.
When you pitch this to me, I have to admit I didn't fully understand. Really yeah, I'm really sorry by but I think maybe it's happened once or twice, but I can't say it's like a frequent occurrence that has plagued me, you know.
Okay, So I came across because somebody posted a meme which was when I swallow my water weird and it creates the worst chest pain known to man.
This is different to interigestion. Guys, someone out there.
Someone out there listening will understand what this is. I always wondered it was on the Explain Why I'm five? Why does it hurt when you swallow? A beverage sub reddit, And it turns out that this very specific feeling is when the muscles in your esophagus push food and drink to the stomach by contracting and relaxing in waves. Think of trying to push a small piece of food through a drinking straw. You can squeeze the straw behind it and it'll move it forward a bit, Then move your
fingers forward a little bit and squeeze again. Eventually you can push all the all the way through. The muscles in your usophacas work the same way over and over again, but instead of squeezing on one spot, it squeezes lots of places all at once. There are pouches in loose spots between the squeeze spots.
The food rides.
Down in each of these pouches as a squeezy spot behind it pushes it forward, and then sometimes a piece of food or drink can get stuck in a squeezy spot. Then the usophacus muscles try to push it down, but since there's something in the way. It hurts like any strained muscle. Sometimes the food can stay stuck with that squeezy spot and it will hurt all the way down to your stomach.
How cool is that? And while we're here, I want.
To give everyone else another fun fact which some of you might know. But I was with a friend last night and she didn't know. Your stomach is like inside your ribs.
Do you know that?
Where'd you think it was down like near my belly button? But your stomach is quite high up in your body.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I think it's similar to you.
No, yeah, yeah, it's all the intestines down here. Oh, your stomach is here, like just where the ribs are.
So when we say you have stomach aches, I don't really think that's what's happening. Then, No, it's I felt like, yeah, it's a large and test dynach.
And which makes sense because there's all the stuff I'm moving around there.
Yeah, just under your ribs.
And sometimes when you've just eaten, if you're posting that bit between the rooms and say, oh, yeah, my stomach is there like there, I'll give it a try later, thank you.
Yeah. Please. You're listening to flex and rooms on kit.
Like clockwork, we are realizing that some people are smart and some people are dumb, and hopefully we spend time orbiting both sections. In order to be smart, one must admit to being dumb and then you know, gaining some information and vice versa. I've been thinking a lot about learning because I feel like, especially if you think about your friend groups, when you have a friend that doesn't know, you have to like you have responsibility to teach them
and doesn't feel that way. Like if I'm talking to a friend about Love Ireland, like, oh, I've never watched it. It's never an issue to be like, oh my god, here here's some information. Here's what it's about, Here's why I like it, here is whatever, whatever, whatever. But there's also the responsibility of the recipient to be like, Okay, I'm storing that information. I'm gonna storing it. I'm not gonna ask you again, or I'm gonna ask clarifying questions so I get it more. It's like a dance, but
that dance seems to escape when it matters. And so I have been subscribed to this newsletter from this creator called Hannah Stella, and to be honest, she's just a sociologist through and through. I first came across her on TikTok because she documented getting divorced and then went to
live on a boat. She lives, She truly lives, But she was talking about some core memories that she had around learning and recognizing that learning for her and knowing more stuff is required a level of initiative and dedication, and what I think is a level of self celebration as well. But in her newsletter she talks about when she was sixteen years old that she worked for the one hundred and tenth US Congress as a Congressional page.
What is that?
I don't know. The program's now defunct, but from what I can gather, she basically says, it's a place where her and sixty five other high schoolers applied to go and eat and drink and live together and learn about Congress. So in a daily session they would run documents between politicians, ring bells, deliver phone calls, pass on messages. But she says it was her first real experience with a multi
leveled diversity of peers socioeconomic, geographic, and racial. They're all American, of course, but a diverse group in any other sense, and in this page school it was the first place that she developed the ability to listen to someone who thinks differently than she does, with the intention of understanding their logic and their argument, and with the intention of learning something about them and by extension, about herself, rather
with the intention of immediately passionately and condescendingly spitting contradictory views.
She says, it's where she.
Learned to set preconceptions and anger aside and hear people where they are rather than where she wants them to be. And I thought that was fascinating because I doubt that when she was how old that she might have known this, But in retrospects, she can like anchor back to that point in time. And I was thinking about anchor points in my own brain of where I felt like I was truly learning and not just memorizing, because my high
school experience totally felt like a memory game. That like I would go into class and be like, Oh, what did you say last time? And then I could use that information in the context of that teacher in that classroom, but outside of the context of the teacher and the classroom, I was like, why is it relevant? I didn't get it because realistically, I felt like teachers that trained me they made me feel like my learning was a reflection
of them and not me. So like, don't talk because you're gonna make me feel really frustrated, or like I don't know why you don't understand this yet, and I was like, I don't know either, And so by the time I ended high school, my fondest memories were just like socializing as opposed to being like I really understand this and this and this and this this. It's only in retrospect where I'm like, oh, I totally understand why I never answered essay questions. I get what you're saying now.
I didn't know how to structure an argument that wasn't just based and I felt this, and so I said it. It's like, where do you get the information from? I don't know.
You told me.
I feel like my brain's gone the opposite. I feel like I was good at that. Now I'm just like I feel this.
I feel that I swear my real learning happened two pronged. First prong reading fantasy books. I don't care what anybody tells you. When you read a fantasy book, you have to do so much reconciling of what you understand to be true in order to understand what you're reasing to
what you're reading to contextualize it. In your world, yes, dragons don't exist, and therefore you could not become a dragon trainer, and therefore all the insecurities that all the insecurities that one would have about not being a dragon trainer don't apply. But in the book that you're reading, in order to truly conceptualize what the protagonist is going through, you have to consider in this world there are dragons, and therefore there are dragon trainers, and there are rules
and customs about dragons and dragon trainers. It's a skill that I feel like people think doesn't apply in the real world. Like in order to truly comprehend that somebody lives a different life than you, you have to practice, and people don't practice in their day to day because I keep gathering people who affirm their current lifestyle. Like, for example, I always found it so surprising when I was younger that people didn't have divorced parents. I was like,
how is it possible? What did two parents do in a household? I truly don't I can't comprehend because every time I saw a single mom nailing it, just nailing it, doing all the things, working mothering author. When I saw a two parent family, why was the dad always bum? I'm so sorry? Like every time, I was like, what is it? Like? What is the additional thing a dad does in a family dynamic? Didn't get it until I grew up. I saw my own brother in his household.
I was like, oh, WHOA like you definitely dad, your dad. You fully dad, like you rear, and you instill val and you encourage in a way that is separate to your wife but supports your family unit. I see it, but without that context, my conception of a family is very skewed by what I allowed myself to see. I looked for information that validated what I thought to be true, that mums were just killing it.
Dad's kind of bumps, I mean, some would argue, I mean, yet to see evidence to the contrary.
The second video essays, I don't know what people are doing on the Internet. I was watching video essays on YouTube about everything about TV shows, about conspiracy videos, about pop culture icons, and how every second thing you watch was like likely just subliminal messaging. And I was twelve, being like WHOA.
I was firmly on funny junk, only zero critical thinking, just getting out of the real world and on to have a.
Hotel as well.
So where did you learn?
I didn't, And someone say it shows at times I've definitely had to take learning into my own hands. I think, yeah, because I definitely paid attention in school. But that's more learning like facts and stuff like I've learned a lot through reading, not fantasy, but like stories where they're talking about someone who's life experience I don't have. You know, it's like the ability to put yourself in someone else's shoes. I feel like you can learn that through reading a book.
Airport etiquette, we've gone through it time and time again. Mickey has brought to us a grab, or rather a TikTok about the dos and don'ts of being at the airport. Mickey, please play the tape.
The easiest way to sell if someone is a good person in an airport is see where they put their luggage when they get on the plane. If they put their carry on luggage in the overhead compartment and they put their personal item like their backpack or their purse under their seat, they're a good person and they're like
aware of their surroundings. If they put their backpack or their purse or like that little small item, if they put that in the overhead compartment so that no one else can put their carry on luggage on and they have to check it and then they have to wait by baggage claim to get their stuff. They are the worst side person and they deserve a jail. Sense verb life.
It's giving America, is it not? Like I say, we don't do that in Australia. We have to then check it in. Yeah, but you know you do you do?
Do you?
If the overhead compartment is too full, then you will have to your carry on gets put in the stowaway.
Oh, that happens way more in America. I reckon because the flight that I talk in September there was an actual issue with like people putting stuff above.
No, it happens all the time, you really, Yeah, it depends on fourth flight.
It's like, for example, Quantus is more strict than Virgin with it, so they advise you beforehand. Once you're waiting at the gate, they say to you, here is your time to check any carry ons that you don't need. When you're on the plane, and we'll stow it away for you. If you get onto the plane and there's no space for your carry on, then it'll go onto the next plane and you'll get it when it lands. No way, Virgin is like bit more like a bit loose with it. But to be honest, I don't think
it's a good person bad person thing. I think it's a frequent flyer versus non frequent flyer thing.
I feel like.
The airport etiquette thing is just a macro conversation that we use as permission to complain about general etiquette. So in that context, you wish someone would have considered you in the grand scheme of things. Because someone didn't consider you or didn't consider the next person that or the next person. Now other people are impacted negatively. It happens all the time.
Babe's a high stress environment. Absolutely.
I think are we not used to like standing in lines with other human beings?
What are you talking about?
Like when we're all standing in the line of the airport and stuff people and it's kind of like everyone kind of has to go through the same gate. I don't think people like that. Everyone, even if you're in business, has to do the line thing. I think people don't like that feeling of having to wait in line like you're a kid, like I think the airport like triggers people.
Yeah, I am important, I have business that sur vibe.
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