The Flex and Rooms Daily.
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Hello Mancherie, Happy Monday. It's Flexing f Rooms the catch up podcast and I really like this podcast. The bit that we're going in depth about is influencers. Lil is a self identifying influencer. I'd say I am influencer adjacent.
Maybe you can take the content creator.
I hate content creator really so reductive. Yeah, I hope that we get to a point where we think of another name for content. I know that's a bit nitpicky, but the.
Full set producer.
Yeah, I guess it is what it is. You know, but before content was considered content, it was content that was like stuff you put in your glove box.
Yeah, the content person, which is.
What content should be? Such dime. It doesn't. But we're going to be talking about influencers that edit their photos and the intricacies of that. Apparently in Sweden there is a law, was it Norway?
Norway and the UK they're proposing a bill to have influencers who edit their images to no, not edit their images. We're called talking digitally alter your body in paid posts. I have to disclose that in writing in a clear spot for everybody to see it did an effort to tackle body dysmorphia. Because the stats are statsing and it's not looking good.
Breathorry, not at all. All right, let's get into.
It, flex and firds.
What kind of world do we live in where a billionaire doesn't want it to be known? Nicki Minaj posted a video of her getting onto this huge plane. Huge I don't even know, Like it wasn't a Boweing seven or seven, but for a private plane, private jet. It was beefy. As she's filming this private plane, she says, and I quote, this is what happens when you got a rich I'm.
Sorry, a very rich, rich, rich, rich.
Canadian friend who was the only billionaire I know that doesn't want people to know he's a billionaire.
I get it.
But all right, presumably going on to Drake's jet, he has a couple, naturally, But it makes sense that.
Drake would be a billionaire. But why would he want to hide it? Oh? You know what I mean?
Do you have a theory?
I don't know, Like, I don't think he's trying to be relatable.
I don't think it serves him negatively for that to be a fact. But I was also thinking well, of course he's a billionaire because he signed a Sony deal for two albums for four hundred million. And that's the speculation as to why he dropped him so quickly, just to get in and out of the deal, because he can do two albums easy one last year won this year eleven months in between they both bop. Secret Drake fan, but I'm hopeful. Okay, So there's that. I don't know
why he wouldn't admit it. Producer Brook thinks that Drake is hiding his wealth so he'san to pay child support, which is a possibility, but still, you know, your wealth is well documented.
It's not getting out of the alimony payments.
Yeah.
Interesting, I wonder he's very much a soft boy, isn't he. Yeah, that's gotten a bit more horny lately, like when he air dropped. That's with age though, Yeah, yes, no shame.
I don't have any theories.
Well, we don't even know if I'm assuming it was Drake, because who else could she be talking about so candidly. Canadian friend, very very rich, doesn't want you to know, and they're very good friends, right, very good friends, very good friends. When I have a good theory, I'm waiting on Reddit to peculate some stuff and I'll come back to you.
Meanwhile, Nicki Minaj be the first female rapper to make so many plays on a song as super Freaky Girl. What So? Last week, Kaita wrote super Freaky Girl owns the biggest debut for a solo female rap song in Spotify history.
WHOA.
I don't know what that means, but I'm here for it. And I have listened to her five times.
This song you really like? I love it?
Flex and every now and then and we bring you the most interesting news I think the Internet has to ofk I like to keep us informed. I want to know if you think there should be a label warning on Instagram post to let you know when influencers have digitally altered their body.
Hard yes, hard no, go hard no so.
Last year, Norway made it illegal in an effort to tackle body dysmorphia on a wide scale. So there were amendments to their two thousand and nine Marketing Acts to make it illegal for influencers to share retouched photos of their body in promotional posts on social media without acknowledging that the image had been edited.
It's like you can do it.
But you've got to say, hey, slimmed up the arm a little bit, you know, made the feet a little smaller. I know, kin kot ashition does this thing where she reduces the visibility of her traps.
It's a thing she does. Yeah, right, so that was interesting.
Now this year, a year later, the UK is following suit and they've just put forward a bill for something similar.
They said.
From April to October twenty twenty one, the NHS saw hospital of Mimisis for anorexia, bolimia and eating disorders in young people age seventeen and under rows by forty one percent.
They said, it's not a game anymore.
Like, we can't just ignore it and assume that people will build healthy habits or they'll find their way to alternative ways to manage what they're going through. And so they largely believe that the pandemic has pushed our lives and interactions too far onto social media where people can't discern between you know, they don't have time to step back or step away from what's pushing them further into this way of thinking. Broadly speaking, people are on board
with it. They say, yeah, this is good that the government is taking more initiative to understanding what's impacting young people and proposing bills that make everybody responsible for how this impacts young people. However, there is criticism. They say, first of all, yes, Norway has implemented this, but not
all Norwegians follow Norwegian people. So if your Instagram following is majority international people, then you are not going to see them disclosing when they have or have not been edited. And what are the odds that you follow predominantly Norwegian people. I know on my social media timelines it's full of Americans. Yeah, like it's very americanized.
We get the like often people from Texas say I'm listening from Texas.
You just want to be like, yeah, me too, Thank you King, and thank you. So that's a big consideration.
And then also the bill specifically focuses on paid posts. Now, of what content creators and influencers are posting, we could say that we're being generous half of its pay posts. Yeah,
let's say we're being generous. If the other half is organic reels and tiktoks and stories and snapchats and whatever, it can kind of sneak through the cracks and so it makes people question, you know, is this really the solution that they're hoping for, and will this change result in the forward progress that they're hoping for in the same way, is this change going to reach the people
it needs to? So I think the conversations are happening in a very millennial space, like oh, the Internet's changing so much, and I think like under seventeen year olds are just doing what they do normally and being like, Okay, I didn't see that on the news because I didn't read the news.
You make such a good point about the fact that a lot of people can't step back from media. I think something that maybe people don't consider is that we live in media now. Previously, media was like an offshoot of our life. For example, I studied media university as part of my course, and it was very much different to life. Yes, Facebook, you had to Instagram, which is like a little companion. Whereas now we are media. We are we are all media. We create ourselves to be consumed.
Or even or The people who are impacted the most by media is because they live on the media.
They live in it.
They are feeding on it like bacti bacteria in a kombucha.
Scoby Queen Slay Scobi Scoby deal.
I think it's unfair for these predominantly young women because most influencers that make a lot of money of women are being I guess, disadvantaged by having to put it out there because magazines don't have to and they're the original harbors of like body insecurity. I also think it proves that there is a misunderstanding of what body dysmorphia is. You can have all types of body dysmorphia. It's not
necessarily about being thin or like. It's not necessarily let's say a lot of the influencers have a single ideal that they're going for. You might have body dysmorphia that's completely unrelated to that. Like let's say you have a really small nose and you wish you out a really big nose.
All that women.
We spoke about a couple of weeks ago who had this deep insecurity of having a voice that was too high pitched.
Yes, so she got it surgically lowered.
Facts crazy like this is not something that comes out of social media. It's a mental illness. A lot of people don't understand things like body dysmorphia. It's not a vanity thing. It's not something that you get from looking at an Instagram post that's clearly edited. It's something deeper than that. I also think that we're literate about things
that are edited. I think it's quite obvious now, and especially to the younger generation who have grown up with photo editing and it being so easy to do, like face tune and stuff. You can tell it from a mile away, and I'm old, you know what I mean.
Don't disclose that. Don't do that.
We're going to talk about that in another segment about millennial Internet versus gen x Internet. And I do also wonder about you always say correlation versus causation. It's probably interesting to talk about the hospitalizations for anorexia and other eating disorders. I think the pandemic has played some sort of role that we won't be aware of until a
lot later. And just because it didn't happen in twenty twenty when it was like popping off, I know it would have exacerbated a lot of eating disorders in Australia like a crazy amount.
I always think it's interesting when and where and how big media bodies the government chooses to step in on behalf of the disenfranchised, like this feels like, oh, I know you.
Guys cared like that since when? And interestingly enough, what it takes.
You know, Scandinavian countries have been touted as being quite progressive, so it's not unusual for them, But in the UK, I'm very surprised that this is like first cap of the rank, like, this is what we're going to tackle.
I think that a lot of the legislation in the influencer community is so surface based and not actually tackling the fundamental issue of the fact that we live, Like what is being done is contrived and for the purpose of selling stuffs, and so like, let's make it not harder to sell stuff, but put more regulations on how
that's done. Because this is targeting specifically paid posts. So then where is the brand's responsibility in hiring these people or the clients all the agencies, Like, don't they have a duty of care as well? Should there be instead of having to disclose once the post has gone live? Should there be an agreement within doing the content where it's like, we don't accept images that have been altered in any capacity before you even agree to sign on.
Keeps making individuals the face of a broader problem. So the next time you see one individual person disclosed that yeah, they face you in their arm, You're like, oh, well great, that person's insecure, and now they're making me insecure, and it's like, no, no, this is a greater issue where we feel or where people feel as though they have to digitally older their bodies in order to sell you
stuff to be perceived as more appealing. I often think that you mentioned that we are literate in seeing when things are altered or not. People always think, I face you in my face.
Baby just looks like this.
It's so new.
I'm like, mm hmmm, mm hmm, it is. And they're looking for the like, oh, don't worry, it's just or like the admission. They're like, it doesn't actually look like this. I'm like, nobody does. So it goes both ways in the sense that somebody is waiting for me to say, like, don't feel insecure, this is not the real meat, and I'm like, oh, you got it wrong.
You've got the wrong way.
Doing with a princess apprentcess.
And alternatively, you have creators like Tanamojo. I'm not sure if you're familiar with her, but she is a YouTube story time teller turned TikToker celebrity. I was saying, Tanamojo. She definitely like the Charlie Demilio Addison ray before they were that version on YouTube. There we go, and so she is the queen of face tune. She says it herself, so I will not post it. Will not post an image of myself that's not face tuned. She will if
friends are posting images of her. She was like, she says, let me take it, do my little edit, send it back.
Amazing.
And she's candid about it in a way that is refreshing but also really counterintuitive. Because everything is so face tuned, you forget that she doesn't actually look like that look that way, Like I look at her and I'm like, damn, she's like looking snatched. And then you see a video of her You're like, oh, wait, no, she got me.
I should know that. Why didn't I know that? So I don't know.
I don't know if this is a solution, but I'm interested to see what becomes of this. I feel like, if we're gonna make the industry more regulated, let's start from like the girl, not the final product.
Literally, like, get public liability insurance if you're an influencer and this is going to come to Australia and throw it back on the brand. We know our parameters. Yeah, we're no our legality.
Just an influencer union, that's for sure.
For real, because the media Union is incredible. If you work in the media and you're listening to this, join not financial or.
Career advice, but just check it out.
I really like this segment. FLEXI. There's more to be said. There's always more to be said, babe, but it's cool. They're even sparking conversations. So often people spark conversations. I think often about Dove no shade but their whole like like com beautied every size eye that time they like, I'm photoshop to that chick to show like how much photoshop media companies do do. It's like twenty two thousand
and seven. It made this enormous like uproar about it because it's incredible, like showing women that are a size ten on a billboard, which actually was actually quite incredible time at the time.
This is flex and frooms on k I'm flex.
I'm into beating vampires, fantasy books, talking about abstract things and not getting to the point quickly.
I'm into baking sweet treats, cupcakes and whatnot. I'm going to bring them into the emphastics. Did savory No, I haven't cooked. I haven't cooked a savory meal in about three weeks. Damn. I've been eating prepackaged meals like a little heathen.
It's not like you.
I like rollbaiting also haven't done that in a while, and watching TV, most specifically Binge, Amazon, Yeah, etcetera. Anyway, I also have short hair right now, no currently wearing a wig because I'm like experimenting with other styles. You and I have a similar phenomenon that happened to us, which is when we are miss mischaracterized, mischaracterized as lesbians. Yeah, you're not a lesbian. No, I'm not a lesbian. No, up for discussion for now, for now.
Yeah, at this point, as of August twenty twenty two, not lesbians could change, could change.
I was reading this article on Cora, which we talked about earlier. This is like readit where you ask a question and people give you advice, but it's frequented by thirteen year olds, so you can find all kinds of questions.
Oh really, yeah, my Cora is like sixty year olds.
Mi Cora is like, how to keep your interest.
As toys or something?
Toys and entertainment, I said, philosophy, I said relationship problems. I read this question being like, what what do you find attractive in a woman?
What do you not find attractive?
Got it?
And a lot of them were like long hair, but teat body, toned, nice, sweet, laugh at my jokes. And on a lot of the no lists were women with short hair, and I said, my people. Then I went on to a woman and what a woman likes in a woman? Okay, yeah, to flip the script and see, okay, well what are women saying? And this one woman said tastes She said she likes women with short hair, and this is her quote. Refusing to date a woman with short hair is the male version of a woman refusing
to date a short man. So my question is whoa a woman with short hair disadvantage the same as short men in dating?
Do you need to call a man? Is that all we need to do?
Because when I think about like short hair, I think that's really attractive on women. I love a little short bumb I do love a bald woman me too. I wouldn't think of long hair. I think a bunch of hairstylesfo I even got to long hair.
Yeah, but I guess that's your personal style. Like you you wear long hair, but like, yeah, your personal style is quite quirky. I do sometimes think if I were a man, what would I like? And I think I'd want long hair and a woman oh, which is a bit confusing. That is confusing. I guess the only difference is if you've got short hair, you can usually grow it, whereas our short kings give my heels.
Is a short man the equivalent of a woman with short hair? No, no, because you can't do much disguise height. It's just like what height you are is what height you are, unless you're thirteen expecting a growth bert so like. But with your hair, we all knows as seen by you today, you can transform your hair in a second.
It's an afterthow do want long haired day? Short haired day?
You can present yourself in a way that is more or less attractive depending on your hair, depending on who you know's gonna vibe with that, haven't you that TikTok trend? These girls will there are a few videos, but basically these girls will talk about what kind of people they attract based on what hair style they have. It's like when I had shorter hair, I tracked this kind of guy, when I wore my hair on an afro. I tracked
this kind of guy when I was blonde. I tracked this kind of guy when I was brunette.
La la la.
Yeah.
Wow, it's fascinating.
Do you see a difference.
Yes and no, but it's not We can't get into that right now. I want to go back to this short short king, long hair, short hair paradigm. I don't think they're equally yoked. I don't think they're equally discriminated either. I think it's like short guy, fat woman, not short guy, short hair. I think it'd be long hair, short hair, long haired guy, short haired woman's that is the same.
Not everyone likes long haired.
Yeah, who I do, long hair, yahoo guy, short hair woman, same short guy, fat woman, same cool.
Yeah.
I'm glad we got to the bottom.
Though it took me a second. I had to do the chart in my head, but I got there.
That's it.
I would love to know anyone who's listening's opinion if you send it to us, reflects some frooms. If you've got any other kind of paradigms on the top of your head. I find this stuff very interesting to figure out. Ah, what do I want to attract?
As you say, I feel like there was something then this is why we allow ourselves time to unpack what the internet tells us, because on paper makes sense short, short yep, no wrong. If there's time to go back and give them our updated response, I would like to do that, but not a priority, because you know we have this platform.
This is flex and frooms on Flexie.
It's not often that I say that I have a superpower or an enormous skill.
You said it once before about what the car, being able to name any maker model of a car on an Australian road.
Well, this is adjacent to that. I have been working on a theory and a practice for at least seven years now.
Whoa even in the trenches.
It started at university. I went to a place called r MIT in Melbourne. What'd you study advertising?
Oh?
Sellout. It's in the center of the city and the way to get there from the train station you've got to walk up Swanston Street, which is this enormous long street, five blocks, five big bots.
The vibe of Swanston Street.
It's very hectic. There's trams, bikes, corporate vibes. No, it's student vibes.
Okay.
It's the very middle of the city, and given the amount of foot traffic there is, you definitely have to be cautious of running into people. Okay, And so i'd all be everyone to be standing at the lights and it's time to go. You're facing a wall of people.
What do you do?
I have a theory of how to cut through the wall and make literally every single person get out of my.
Waist, spear tackle every single person. Literally, I'm doing this barred shoulders.
What do you do?
Because I get that, and I'm not a big walker, that's no surprise. And I'm just in the car whipping left right left, right left right. If I do have to cross a busy street, I just won't. I'll wait, or I'll do the side step sideset. But I don't enjoy it.
I don't.
It lacks decorum.
See. I have quite a chiwaba type, bitey energy, and so if I see something that I want, I'm gonna go for it. Yeah, and I want to get across the street without having to move for anybody, particularly men in suits, Okay, I have a particular gripe. You know, they usually take up more of the sidewalk, But that's neither here nor there. What I do is, okay, I'm
gonna look at the camera. Let's say you're walking. People walk and they kind of look their eyes down on the ground where they're walking and just hoping to go out of the way.
That's one technique.
What you do is like, let's say the camera face, I look at the face, I look above it, and I walk with the eyesight just above the head. Yeah, and therefore they see that I know where I'm going, but I'm not acknowledging them, and therefore they get out of my way. This shoulder is so calculated it works every time. As I've gotten older, I've become a little more humble, so I don't do it as often.
When do you pickn choose not to do it?
And what is your If you're not looking above someone's head to bulldoze past them, what is your alternative?
The alternative is to get out of people's way rather than fumble through it, saying I'll make an intentional look down at the ground right or left. Great, I do this in along the beach whatnot on the bond tighter, bron tea by.
The bond tighter.
So that is my skill is looking just just look above someone's head and just forge your head, shoulders back with a purposeful gait. Yeah, and everybody gets outyway.
It really does work, though, because I've made the mistake on the rare occasion that I am on two feet of looking at someone to acknowledge that I know that you see me and I see you. Now you have to discern who's outa who's beta. Literally I I don't want to do that, not on my weekday, not on my off day.
I don't want to do that.
And it gets uncomfortable if you anticipate being in somebody's way, because I think it's a numbers thing as well. If it's a group of three and you're one person to get out of their way, it's some big deal. You don't want to break up the group. The cute people are like sing singing and having a good time, it's not cute. However, if it's a one on one I think if you do the mutual get out of each other's way, that's good. But what often happens that you start doing that are we dancing.
You gotta forge your head. There are my tips. I hope you use them and assert your dominance.
That was good. I would just say, don't walk. But if that's contruption, you're listening to flex and frooms on Kita. The time has come. I have gone back to my ruits.
What kind of roots?
The scruits of who I am. I'm a creative grow I am crafty. I am very good at turning a little into a lot, as seen by my career, but also just generally all the crafts I do them, sewing, crocheting, knitting, painting, clay work, beating, jewelry, making, all of furniture, furniture.
Dhy, all of it.
That's my thing.
Art making, TPO, digital art, collage, editing, videos, all things. But then I noticed, I would say, since COVID, I moved into a new apartment, and before that apartment, I lived in a whole house with a backyard and like room for my tools and a shed and all the things I needed to do crafting stuff. Then I downsized moved to an apartment and it just didn't feel like
the right time, space or place to start anything. And even when living in that house, I felt like I was in limbo, like I wasn't really settled and I didn't unpack everything, and I was just like, I don't know where.
To put thie.
Body knew it wasn't the right.
Yeah, it wasn't right, and I was itching to go the moment I had finally moved in. And I think because by the time I found that house, it was it felt like a mirage, like the rental market was so terrible. By the time I saw it, I was like, this is it's an oasis. I just got to get it before it disappears. And I got and I was like, it's not five Now. I moved into my new place. I'm trying to build slowly get back into like finding my furniture on Facebook, marketplace upcycling it. But that's a
really big undertaking. So I wanted to just use my hands and wean myself off TikTok and other digital stuff because this time last year I was averaging reading four books a week. But I can't go from frying my brain on TikTok just back to straight reading it and intermediary.
So I've been making a lot of jewelry, made my jewelry today and made free me this bracelet fixed Brookies Ducky earrings, and it's been really fantastic because not only is it nice to conceptualize an idea and make it come to life, it's been really nice to use my fingers and like alchemize and create things. I'm thinking, imagine
if I could spend half my time doing hobbies. I was talking to a friend I went to a party over the weekend and he had just been overseas for two months and had come back, and I was like, how do you feel? And he said, the only thing I can really recall now after being back for two weeks is how much I needed the time away to be creative. He said it he forgot that he wasn't being creative because he was surrounded by his creative things
and his creative friends and his creative industry. That he was like, I hadn't come up with a good idea in ages, and I don't think I would have had I had had space away from just the monotony of everyday life, having to do the same things and not feeling like you want to start something new because not enough time, not enough space, not enough energy, not off this, not of that. It's like just do it or figure out what it's going to take for you to get back to that spot. Wow, Like I said, you were
in a writing k hole the other day. How'd you get out of it? Yes, in a good way.
I'm a writer and if I start writing and I'm on a little roll, nothing something from doing it. I don't need to eat, I don't want to talk to anybody. I don't want to go to sleep, which is unusual. These all things that I do. Yeah, and at a drop of a hat. Really, I'm busting to do all free, particularly eat, so I know when I'm in the zone, when I'm not thinking about dinner. It's amazing. It's so the zone. Zone, in the zone.
I want to buy property in the zone.
But for example, for me, I'm going to Europe and I got a toy up, Like, am I gonna do Instagram stories and I'm next that's part of my job?
Or am I just clock clock off? You're gonna get there and start experiencing.
I think for now the beating thing is fun because I don't I've made jory before. That was one of the first businesses I had, making wire jewelry. But now you know how I don't know if you know this feeling. When you are crafty, you spend a lot of time making things that are ugly just to like learn the skill. But now I'm trying to make really beautiful things that I would wear, and that's a really fun process.
I love that.
I'm proud of you.
Thanks fame flex and Froods Flexie.
I'm a big Googler. You google everything same? Who does too many people?
Really? Yes? Google Google a posts that from So I was googling Kendall Jenner and this came off the back of a segment we did last week in which we wondered if Kendall Jenner is jacking her style from a blue TikToker. Yep, it was inconclusive research.
Here, but we like ideas, not conclusive answers anyway, so it's okay, we'll come back to it.
This is true. So I googled Kendall Jenner and what I saw was a completely different Google homepage beautiful. So things are happening in Google. I'm not sure if you guys have noticed, but if you Google like someone's name, if they have a Wikipedia, the Wikipedia doesn't come up anymore.
Abolish wiki.
What comes up is on the right, it's a green little like tab that has videos of them and facts and information, and on the left side there's photos of them and then if you scroll down, it used to have you know, like random news things that come up, or like viral pieces the word verified. Now almost every piece that's on there is verified. They're either like articles about them or profiles like if you were to go Google yourself right now.
Well, I think it looks a bit different on desktop, which is what I'm finding, because on my phone it kind of looks like the same old Google.
Yes. However, for example, I google myself, Instagram, my manager, bio and then interview like my LinkedIn.
Oh I see is different because if I type in flexmamy, it comes up with Lena Henken author hot and then like four key images.
I know where they got those from their little bio.
Okay, literally, it's quite nice, but it's also nice it's changing, and I don't like the Wikipedia is being cock blocked like that.
Yeah, that's yeah, it's unfortunate.
Do you like it when tech companies change?
I love it. Here's my big thing.
I don't think you know this about me, but I am a big gadget girl girl. I want changes at all times, The interface changes down different browsing experience into it. The font change is obsessed. I'm like, why is this happening? Because you have to imagine how many people had to green light that idea to You're like, yep, we are comfortable with changing this. Do it asap. Don't tell them, just launch it. And I'm like, is this soft launched? Is this hard launch? Is it just for mouth far better?
Literally? And then I noticed I first noticed it on Gmail, actually because I'm in Gmail quite quite frequently. I said, why am I getting so many curves? Gmail?
The browser experience is very hard, blocky angular. Suddenly we're getting curves, bubbles, rounded text. I said, okay, are you trying to make emails fun? That feels strategic? Oh, I love that.
Let's google one more person so I can see what the vibe that we're getting is. Oh, let's google. We're already talking Ron Patinson. Sorry, okay, but see this looks similar to the old one.
But I think it's because he has a wiki and mine was a reference from a website. I want to get a wiki, but apparently it's a really hard process. And if you apply for your wiki and it's not done to the standards that it should be. Basically, what happens is all the information that's put in your wiki needs to be verified by a credible source of some sorts. If you can't reference or cite the source and you can't have it in the wiki. So when you submit
you're wiki, everything needs to be cited and sourced. Otherwise you're banned from creating Wikipedia pages in future. So you can't really get it wrong. Okay, yes, I love this. So Google's like, hey, we're here for information, not fake news.
I get it. They don't want to be canceled.
Yeah, I guess we'll see how this what ramifications this has for little news sites aren't reputable. There you go.
You've been listening to the Flex and Frooms Daily podcast for more tune needs a catera on DAB or stream it on iHeartRadio.