Flex and Frooms, Flex and Frooms. This is the Flex and Frooms catch up podcast.
Oh God, welcome guys. Listen. We love the Internet. I speak on part of myself when I say that. Make you like it too, babe?
Always always Do you.
See someone who log in and out?
Yeah, I'm pretty I can be off.
Fine, you've touched on grass in your time. Where do you see the internet in five years? It is a hypothetical question. Flexi're sharing her opinion and also we're talking about the office ten.
You'll get it when you get it. Let's go, mammae. Can I listen to Flex and Frooms? Flex and fromes Okata?
People on the internet at all in the last thirty years and your big fut of pop culture and rap music, you would have definitely seen the meme. I don't think it was intended to be a meme when it first dropped. I don't think it was intended to be a joke, but that's what it evolved into. People would pose the question, would you rather five hundred thousand dollars cash right now.
Or dinner with jay Z?
It seems like an obvious answer, but the Internet is up in arms debating about what would be better. Idea is that perhaps if you took the dinner with jay Z, you could network build connections, and that would triple your investment, could driple billionaire dripple it. I don't know if that's
how it works. But however, many years later, almost ten jay Z himself has responded to the mean He did an interview with Gail King Oprah's Besty on CBS Love, and he said that he would advise anyone if the opportunity presented itself to take the money.
You would take the money. Yeah, because you got them. You got all that in the music for ten ninety nine. That's a bad deal. I would I wouldn't tell you to cut a bad deal. I don't take the five hundred thousand. Go buy some albums and listen to the albums. It's all there if you lookay, if you piece it together and really listen to the music for the words, for what it is, it's all there. Everything that I said was gonna happen happen. Everything that I said I wanted to do, I've done.
There, you have it.
If ever, you're given a hypothetical scenario, one involves the illusion of prestige and the illusion of the connection, and the other is tangible cash.
Take the cash, the cash and run.
The Internet is a weird place right now. It's equal parts silly and very serious, and people aren't quite sure what to.
Do with it.
It's interesting to think about where the Internet and social media in particular is going to be in the next five years, because, as you said through me, none of us could have really anticipated the rise of AI and how it went from just a concept that would probably be available to the most techi tech heads of the entire world versus the rest of us. I really thought we would have time when chat GPT was announced or launched or available for regular person consumption, I definitely.
Just avoided it.
I thought it was going to have to be I thought it was like one of those things you had to access on the black market, or something you needed like a code and another code and another code, and then VPN and then all of a sudden, less than you know, two months later, it's a nationwide thing, a global thing, and people are telling you hacks on how to integrate it into your daily life and all the ways you're missing out optimization and automation if you don't
know how to use AI perfectly, and that kind of stresses me out because when I was younger, I couldn't I couldn't fathom how older people weren't across technology, you know, like you would see parents who didn't know how to use the internet or phones, and I would think, oh my god, but how much different is it really, or the transition from brick phones to smartphones? I was like, isn't it self explanatory? It's not. Everything is complicated for a reason. But I think I have a few theories
and I'm not gonna hold myself to it. But the first one I think is going to really come through is this need and rise for independent publishers. The way that people have perceived government and government structures as not really being sure, like are they for our best interest, or like not really being sure what media is good media and bad media or fake news or whatever.
The solution to.
That is not more regulation, because loopholes are created every day all day. Okay, but I'm gonna see that, Like I can imagine people are gonna keeping for information that suits what they want to believe, not what is the common thought, because the common thought hasn't protected many people. And so I think what will happen is like these Internet factions. It's not just the hypothetical good thought and
the bad thought, but all the nuance in between. And I think people will just go to their section of the Internet and they're not going to try and like cohabitate in a shared space. That's dangerous, of course, but the world is dangerous. I think social media is going to reflect the real parts of the world. I think we spoke about before, how you know being in certain parts of the Internet makes you think that your part of the Internet is a reflection of the world.
That's dangerous. It's dangerous right now.
You know, we can get a bit complacent about what needs to change because we assume off all our friends know. Then the world must be pumping and pupping. And then you literally look at the news your parents watching, you're like, whoa, if you walk outside, that's what you're doing.
Okay, this is exciting.
I guess we'll wait and see.
Flex and frilms on kedis.
We all know that curating an has always been really, really important, So why wouldn't extend to everything that you accessorize your body with. We've got the hair, you've got the skin, the body, the bag.
The shoes, But what about the books.
There's so much power and books not just for what they symbolize, but the stories, the authors, but also the perception that we have on book readers period. When somebody says they do not read, I think they kind of eat with that. Whatever it is, there's a perception with it. When someone says they read a lot, what genre they say they read for, what purpose?
Any of them can be looked at derogatorily or with heaps of praise.
So I feel like since we were kids, and even before then, everyone's told you not to judge a book by its cover, both physically and metaphorically. But what about a person that chooses books for you, Like they are simple accessories and things that you can use to make up a persona about yourself. In Hollywood right now, there are book stylists, the same way you can hire a stylist to change the way or perceived by your audience or by media broadly. I mean, look at Harry Styles
from one direction to who he is now. They turned him into some kind of like queer adjacent icon just by putting him in sequence. He was never in sequence in one direction. That was a very particular styling choice that was made, and it's like it's benefit him, It's
benefited him really beautifully. Similarly, I'm not sure if you would notice, but over the pandemic, especially when people weren't necessarily going outside because there was lockdown, people started to use different parts of their house as symbols for who they were and what they believed in. So suddenly everyone could make bread. It was wholesome. It was the wholesome
thing to Jesus, out of my face. And then you know, every now and then someone will post a little book, you know, was it the Classics, little Pride and Prejudice, a little Penguin moment? Was it a little anti racism book? Those ones were popping up? Was it a little philosophy socialism?
One oh one? It absolutely was.
It's just slightly out of frame, just slightly out of frame enough so you can tell. And you know, there's a lot of debate on the internet currently about what this means and if it's wholly a good thing a wholly a bad thing. If one of the biggest celebrities in the world is holding a book about social justice doesn't intend to read it. But the fact that they have thirty million followers and will reach even more than that.
Is that not better than the alternative? And what do you think? I'm not now I'm processing.
I mean, I see, I see the value of performative everything, but I get really resentful that people don't rise above the performance of it all. Like with any statement that can get made on social media about what you believe in, why you believe in it, what you think, what you
don't think. I feel like if you had to, like, look at anybody who posted about Coney, Sure Coney, everyone who posts about Cony, everyone who posted about BLM, everyone who posts about climate change, everyone who posted about you know, the same oligarchs owning everything in the world. Ask them about it in person and see if they could say anything about it. I would argue the first thing they
would do is reference someone else. Well, I saw that flex said, oh, I was reading an article that said, but what did you say?
You know?
And so similarly with this book styling thing, we could argue that celebrities don't have to say much. They've always been there to represent a sign of a time.
Right.
It's like you put a certain pop star in the room, you're not really talking about how amazing of a singer. She is, but this is what we want to platform as beauty and talent right now. So similarly with these books, it's like, if these celebrities are just messengers for important messages, shouldn't that just be enough? Like if the first if your first look at socialism was because you saw Grimes or Kendall Jenner holding a book about socialism.
So bit, I did love the book cover of my Year Rest and Relaxation.
Beautiful book covers.
I'm putting that on what's another one? Oh, it's a really great book. It's on my mantelpiece.
Yeah, and so never read it.
Read a little Life on the holiday?
Yeah, girls, yeah, I read not a little bit.
Tould be a year to get through.
But you read it all, I know, be shocked, folks. As per usual, we have what do you call it, traverse the internet to find a story that is equal parts important and absolutely ridiculous and totally inconsequential to life. I said that I found it, but it was actually Mickey Annie. Thank you very much to our long standing,
long suffering producer, The Cut. New York Times like affiliated little website will see and they have coined the Office ten and they are the person who'd never take a second glance at in a Patagonia vest, So why does he suddenly look so good when he asked to borrow a stapler. We've spoken about this on the show. I'm pretty sure, like when someone's in a different context, like when you're in high school, men thing, Yes, everyone at
the airport who's your age is hot. See also the one like geography teacher who is under the age of I.
Thought it was more of a pe teacher thing.
No, they're like, I don't like nah, I don't know you're talking about them.
Okay, Well, the Office ten is a real thing, Mickey. I believe that this is a consequence of trauma bonding in the workplace. We're all going through a duress type time, and therefore we need icons and people to look at in a loving way. That is where the Office team comes from. But I think as well, a part of it is like you can't really have the office ten, Like you know that you can't where you eat. Won't stop some people doing it, OBV, but we know that
there are real world implications. Micky, do you have any experienced this outside of the office, Well, I.
Think going to an old girls' school like any man ever walking through the school ever full stop was always like a circus ensued.
Literally a zoom.
Yeah, I remember we did this thing at my school, like Australian idol. We called it after my school. And for some reason the boys' school got invited to come right and then they.
They love doing the cross Colleen.
Captains from the Boys' school would like walk down the aisle and they'd be swooning.
How sickening it was when the two sexes collided in school, Like, just.
The same science is being used in the office.
Yeah, it's a real thing, right down to the Patagonia vest. Look, I'm excited that we're putting these practices into words because I think it is important to acknowledge that this is a phenomenon and therefore you should make an informed decision as to whether or not you want to go there.
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