Flex and Frooms, Flex and Frooms. This is the Flex and Frooms catch up podcast, Happy Monday Freaks. Today we chat about high school maths. Don't worry, it's not totally triggering. It turns out we healed some inner child stuff and realize we actually can do maths in real time.
We've also talked about this new concept called light gassing. It's kind of like the opposite or like sister cousin of gas lighting. I would put money on it, and we don't gamble here from my frequent casino, but I put money on it that you have done this in the last week.
Well, Keeter, Flex and Froomes, Flex and Firms.
We all know what the term gas lighting means, right, and if you don't, It's when someone uses psychological methods into making you question your own sanity or your powers of reasoning.
It's not the same as lying.
It's when someone is creating narrative and side stories and cameos and characters to make you really believe that the thing that you've experienced is not true. And what that does is it erodes at your ability to trust yourself, and then you end up abandoning yourself in favor of this person who has a dominant narrative in your life. Well, this TikTok creator Ted not Lasso, put me onto this Twitter creator called Spencer Greenberg who's come up with a
similar concept. But it's called light gassing. And initially, because we know gassing is like a colloquial term which means to kind of like support someone, to big the marp, to ge the mark, to make them feel validated and empowered.
To what is the light version of that?
So light gassing, according to Spencer, is when a person agrees with or validates another person's false beliefs and misconceptions in order to be supportive. Unlike gas lighting, which can be a tactic of jerks and abuses, light gassing is
an unintentionally harmful tactic of friends and supporters. Wow, and the way that I just this one changed everything for me because you know, we talk a lot about friendship and the roles and responsibilities we have as friends to each other and to other people, and what often comes up, you know, let's say free and now I are discussing another friend that we have is trying to figure out what's the appropriate level of support or what's the appropriate
level of intervention, what's the appropriate level of reprimand for a thing that they're doing, because we recognize it's not our lives and we might not want that outcome, and so we might do it differently. And you know, we don't want to replicate high school and we're ostracizing people because they don't want to live the way that we live.
And we can also recognize that a big corner zone of friendship is being able to put your own things aside, to create a safe space for your people to come to you with whatever they need and not feel as though you're going to turn it on them or reject them or make them feel silly or dumb or embarrassed. But what is the line? Because unfortunately, I think it's quite fine.
It's definitely very fun. Initially when you said this, I thought instantly of like when someone is texting a romantic interest and it's like quite obvious that the person's not interested, but you're saying, oh, you know, like they could be busy, or like maybe they're just like x Y sad, which we're all guilty of because it's like, do I want
to let you down? Because I actually also don't know for sure, but we see the signs, and then it's only till a few months later that you can say yeah, yeah, yeah, like there.
Was a little something there. Yeah, But then what if there's not?
You know, like what if? Because I don't know if we as people are self aware enough to know when our baggage is clouding our ability to make good judgment on behalf of our friends. Do you know what I'm saying? Like we are all going through our own things that if you catch someone at the wrong time, everything they say to you could be positively good or negatively gired or judgmentally gird because they're just going through their own stuff.
And so, you know, I guess the question that was posed at the end of this thread was what is worse? You know, like we we are doing this thing in society now where we are viewing most people as gas lighters where we look around and we feel like, oh, everybody's made me feel like what I'm experiencing is false in the worst way possible. But what about all the people who have made you feel like your experience is
real when it's not. And I don't know what the answer is, but I think it's a good term to have under the belt.
Always I do, okay, you know, I always get a bit like funny enough terms, not the TikTok terms. But you know, we see it like a lot, a lot in the German language, like showed him for it or whatever, like they kind ate with that, So.
We see a lot in the German languages.
Wedding culture. Has it gone too far? I feel like weddings got really lavish in the eighties for some reason I don't recall. I feel, you know me Princess Diana vibes. Perhaps she heralded in this very.
As a woman of the monarchy. It is what it is.
It is what it is, the poofy dresses, the long trains and whatnot. But in twenty twenty three, I believe everyone is taking it one step further. We've got the professional view, We've got the satine robes with a little miss on the back. The opportunities to spend money on
weddings is are endless. And what I find most interesting is the social dynamics around bachelorette parties, Because why are people telling me that they're spending thousands of dollars pre wedding and their time and their money on bachelorette parties. Apparently there's potentially a cultural reason, a sociocultural economic race then, and it's to do with loneliness. So we have a grab from the TikTok Celebrity Memoir book Club podcast and Mickey please play it.
I was just reading an article about how bachelorette party culture has gotten out of control. I think that the explosion of bachelorette party and wedding culture and the loneliness epidemic, which is not just a male loneliness epidemic, there is like a big friendship problem right now, are directly linked.
Maybe it would make sense that people are putting so much effort into creating these big bachelorette parties and feeling like they need to show that they've got heaps of
friends stuff like that because of the loneliness epidemic. Like also, I was talking to someone and they were like, oh, like, what happens if you're let's say you're in the same ahead a relationship And it's like, what if a guy has a whole friendship group and wants like six whatever they're called groomsmen groomsmen, but then you've only got one bride'smaid, Like, are we who's culling, who's adding.
One hundred percent.
I think a lot of the way that life is now is very symptomatic of a problem that people won't address. So, you know, when we talk about excess culture, convenience culture, performative authenticity, not feeling safe to express your self, cancel culture, it all comes back to this fundamental issue that people don't feel like they have anyone to rely on.
They feel lonely.
And so we can cultivate or synthesize these environments and give us an outlet to have connection by any means necessary. So if I got a cant it's all a celebrity on the internet. To feel close to ten thousand people in this moment, it's a worthy trade off.
True.
You know, if I get this one moment on my birthday to feel like everything's about me and you don't reshare me on your story.
Cut, why would you not do that?
And I feel as though and it goes it's even you know, all these conversations we're having online about red flags and dating and ix if they're all symptoms of a greater issue. And I think that in order to address the issue, it requires too much extracurricular time. You know and too much self responsibility. And so when you
find these outlets that cost you in other ways. They cost you emotionally, they cost you financially, they cost you physically for a little hit, for a little moment of closeness, for a lot of people, it's worth it.
I never thought of it that way.
Yeah, it's quite sad, But I also feel like if we were living in different communities where we all felt really responsible for one another. Like we spoke about a couple of weeks ago, how in Amish communities, when you get married, the whole community builds your house on the
day of your marriage. So they've got twenty four hours to build you a house, and they're not going to paint it or put in furniture, but they build you the structure and they move it to wherever you need so you know that you truly have the support of your community in a physical, tangible way, and they're like letting you go. You're still in the same suburb, but they're letting you go knowing that we helped you do
the thing you needed to do. And I think the byproduct of this hyperindividualist thing we have going on is that people feel as though they're solely responsible for the issue and therefore solely responsible for the solution, and to seek any additional help would be to put extra shame onto themselves and say, well I did this. You know.
So if you know, you're someone who can be a little bit depressiana no depression of anxiety, and that causes you to isolate from your friends, and five years later you feel as though you don't have really strong friendships groups, friendship groups. It takes a lot of It takes a lot of gumption to be like it was my fault but also was the victim.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's hard like to be both.
Yeah, it's a lot.
But you know, if you're doing a little bachelorette party or any kind of wedding, because a lot of my friends are getting married right now, and I you know, we've talked about telling a line between being a supportive friend by any means necessary and also throwing in your values and letting them know how you really feel. And I'm struggling because I'm seeing how much they're reaching for a marriage ideal that doesn't even align with them on the surface.
Well, they're going deep.
They're going deep.
They're trying to invite all these people so they look like they have a lot of friends, or they're trying to, you know, not get the dress they really want because they don't want to seem like they're begging for the spotlight, and they want to come across as casual on this big day. It's been one hundred k. It's ridiculous, God, but it is a byproduct of living. And we're not judging you. We're just using your experience as a talking point.
Tech Time, tech Time, tech Time.
It's tech time with flexi frooms on cater We're about to get it.
I regret to inform you the horrors are nalyst and if you were scared about AI last week when I told you, I spoke to an AI influencer and we had a conversation that even me, a person who knows that it was fake, felt convinced by the end of a five minute conversation, I regret to inform you that it's going to be harder and harder and harder to
discern between what is real and what is fake. You thought it was hard because your parents couldn't tell that they were getting scammed at their OZ post text message. Wait until you scroll Instagram and you see a picture of a celebrity like Kendall Jenna and you go onto the profile and it looks just like her because there are selfies there and you can see her with other
friends and she's out for dinner. But then the profile name says You're sis Billy and it has millions of followers, and you're thinking, would Kendall Jenna not just shut this down? Like somebody is impersonating her, someone is pretending to be her, racking up all these followers, and she's not gonna do
anything about it. Well, turns out, Miss Kendall Jenna sold her likeness, her face, her voice, and her name to Facebook aka Meta so they can use her face to create an AI friend and AI chatbot that you can ask Facebook and Meta related questions to. Because that is the world that we're living in. So a year ago when chat gpt comes to be and we think, what use is this? What even is AI? Like? We don't need to talk to robots to answer questions whether or
not you feel ready for that evolution or change. Accelerationism is real and things are happening at such a rapid pace that if you don't keep yourself informed, you end up confused, misaligned, and let astray. So when I'm googling, what is going on? And who else has metapaid to do this? Because it can't just be Kendall, It's Tom Brady, Okay, it's Brody Jenner.
Who's the other the Jenda that didn't really get the clout.
They got a little bit of a tooth one deal. Yeah, sure they surely did. And so the whole ethos of what Meta is trying to do, And to be clear, Meta is Facebook, instat Graham, It's WhatsApp, It's a predominant amount of social media and a messaging platforms they're using. Or they've launched this personal assistant which is available for all their users to engage in conversations, pose inquiries, and seek assistance.
For a wide variety of needs. Why are you helping us in that way? Just make the algorithm pretty. In addition to this, Meta also introduced a generative AI experience, empowering users to create inventive photos with metas AI powered image editing tool and explore the fun of personalized AI stickers. So when I go on this fake Kendall Jenner's page and I see that she's out to dinner and I see that she's, you know, shopping.
Those are fake pictures. Those pictures aren't real.
I'm scared of this. Let's call your friend Billy, your cis, Billy, not the cis.
Yeah, they're not what they were doing.
Charlie Emilio's on it, the most followed TikToker in the world Snoop Dogg is on it.
It's just in.
In addition to that, they've launched these AI characters who are animals and robots and all these other things. And I guess to present to you this new found, potentially scary thing in a way that feels comfortable and safe because a lot of us do look to celebrities and we think, oh, they're just like us. I recognize Kendall, I know her from a show, I know her sisters. I feel comfortable that this information is coming to me through her.
This is so weird.
These are things and topics that we thought were so far in the future that wouldn't affect us. And so don't be surprised if there was any time to understand contracts, to understand terms and conditions, to really recognize what you were opting in and opting out. Of now it'd be in and if you don't really care about privacy, that's also cool as well. The one thing I would advise is don't get left behind. Is things are changing because
we did. We've had ten fifteen years to get used to the iPhone, and some of you people are still confused.
Oh yeah, you know.
Me realizing you can like press down and create a sticker.
Yeah, that's a new update that's within the last year. So that's okay. But you know, people are still confused on how to use an iPhone. What smartphone technology is, how you can really leverage it to make your life easier. And now we're post We're almost post smartphone.
Damn, hook it up to my brain. I say, I'm ready for that.
And if you also thought, you know, I've gotten dumber since getting an iPhone because I don't know how to do basic math without a calculator, or I don't I don't commit directions to memory because I'll just use GPS. Imagine where you can have an AI generative chatbot who can think for you. Bring it, babes, you were going to be a vegetable, not derogatory.
Very recently, the year twelves went and did their final exams the HSC, if you will. One of the subjects was maths, and allegedly some of the questions were very, very difficult, and they involved some tricky wording to trick up the students, to trip.
Them up, which is unnecessary.
They've been through enough. As far as I'm concerned, I personally quit Maths in a hurry in year ten. I didn't even do the final little test because I found it that disturbing and upsetting. Did you finish maths? FLEXI?
I'm pretty sure I dropped out in year ten as well.
Yeah, bit of us. Well, I have some of the questions in the test, and I want to see if we can answer them. Growing off, an amount of two thousand, five hundred is invested in a simple interest rate of three percent per annum. How much interest is earned in the first two years A seventy five dollars B one fifty C two five seven five or two six five two. Okay, let me just try it. Oh okay, great, bro I could not do maths if I tried.
Okay.
So the way that I'm answering this is, an amount of twenty five hundred dollars is invested at a simple interest rate of three percent per atom. So three percent per anim is three percent per year. What's one percent of twenty five hundred dollars twenty five dollars two times three seventy five dollars.
And then for two years, it's then one hundred and fifty correct.
Come on, teamwork. Okay, okay, so it's wrong, but now I tried number two. A delivery truck was valued at sixty five thousand dollars when new, the value of the truck depreciates at a rate of twenty two cents per kilometer traveled. What is the value of the truck after it has traveled a total distance of one hundred and thirty two thousand, six hundred kilometers.
All right, let's see who gets it first. Sixty five zero zero? Wait twenty nine?
Okay, the answer is a okay, so we do the maths I had twenty two thousand. If a truck is sixty five thousand dollars when it's new, then the value of the truck depreciates at a rate of twenty two cents per kilometer. What is the value of the truck after it's traveled a total distance of one hundred and thirty two thousand, six hundred kilometers. So what you do is, what's twenty two cents zero point two two times one
hundred and thirty two thousand, six hundred kilometers. Then you get twenty nine thousand, one hundred and seventy two.
That's what I got.
So you take twenty nine thousand, one hundred and seventy two away from sixty five thousand dollars because twenty nine thousand this emount is depreciated from the value of the truck, which is sixty five thousand.
And is that what I said?
Twenty seven or twenty two or something?
Okay, So what was the answer flex of number two?
Eight?
Yeah? Damn. The last question. A bag contains one hundred and fifty jelly beans. Some of them are red and the rest of blue. It's giving the matrix. The ratio of red to blue jelly beans is two to three. Sophie eats ten of each color. What is the new ratio of red to blue jelly beans?
Wait?
Wait, the ratio of red to blue jelly beans is two to three if she she eats ten of each color.
Please, you're distracting me. One fifty divided by five equals thirty.
Why are you now talking out? Oh five eight.
Five eight, I guess it at the same time.
Was that the same time, Yeah, babe, it was Was that the same time? Hands up? If it was the same time, well, I can't.
Believe I would have actually got that question without your interruption.
Well we we are.
We are ten years post. It's not more than this. We don't have the capacity to answer these questions. Oh, there's something so so beautiful nostalgia using a little pen to do it's nice.
We need to get back on the pen to paper.
I do it all the time every time we're here.
Yeah, making and it shows. Yeah, phenomenal. Thank you so much for that. I really enjoyed it.
My pleasure Scissors Paper Rock. We had quite what I would say is quite a heated discussion, FLEXI about what our preferred method was for playing the game. I said, it's paper, scissor is rock and like shake shake, shake, not paper Scius's rock with.
Yeah, you had like it was more of a percussion. How do you do it? Paper says rock?
No? I did paper scissors.
Rock papers rock. It's like a rhythmic.
No, what are you saying? Paper scissors rock papers rock?
And so I'm saying, when you do scissors paper rock, there's a crescendo and a speed.
And a build. It's climactic.
It starts to low, it goes hi scissars, paper rock, scissars, paper rock.
It could be the same paper scissors, right, but it's not.
That's the thing. But it's not.
Okay, So we came to concluding that this is a cross cultural barrier moment. Yes, I'm from Victoria, you're from New South Wales, so our dms are actually out of control. I'd say this is probably the most feedback we've ever gotten because we really which is.
Good to know, because why would we waste our time discussing things of a complex nature if we can get to the root of humanity, which is these things that are such core cornerstones of our development that we assume are exactly the same and yet are wildly different, so different that it's creating a chasm between how we understand each.
Other, vastly, vastly. So in the US, someone said, we say rock paper scissors. Someone says paperciss is rock because p becomes four s in the alphabet. Oh, that's a bit to a stretch. But she's agreeing with me in TASMITI it's rock paper scissors, See, we all have these very Yeah. Is diametric Is that the word? I think? So diametrically opposing experience where this is. This is a very exciting talking point. I say, on your next date
or your next friend. Hag gets the bottom of their personality by asking, how do you play paper scissors?
Rock?
Do you shaking hand? How many shakes we are doing on it?
Yeah?
And what I think the rhythm. What we discovered is the rhythm is more important than you think. And that's why I was making the emphasis because if you are not on the same rhythm, then one of you has a false start and reveals your symbol too early or too late.
And then you can start taking from that symbol, even if they do it different. When next time, you know where their brain exactly he guys, show you play for.
Me is very good at this game, and I keep losing to her for me very good at games generally. Yeah, this is where her analytical brain really starts to like show off because she in the I think we played now maybe eight or nine times, and every time it feels as though she knows the move. I'm gonna make before I make it, and every time I feel like I'm.
Being slick, she knows, all right, let's go. Okay, Siss's paper rock. She started again. I did rock. She did paper scissors, paper rock.
Gotcha?
I did paper, she did scissors.
Well, more like this is I can't do this rock rock, paper scissors. We both did rock, rock, paper scissors. I did rock, shitted paper. Guys, what She's a genius. I don't know what she's doing.
I didn't.
I had to ask her about her strategy. I said, do you think when you play she's it? Of course, I'm like, I'm not thinking. I'm honestly just trying to sing a song and move my hand at the same time. And this is where I really you really started to see the flaws in my persona.
I do. I feel like the mentalist. You guys, we're gonna have to do a poll on the Instagram, so please go to Flex and Frooms all word flex and Froom's a n D and please vote. We need to get to the bottom of the boys. You've been listening to the Flex and Frooms Daily podcast. For more, tune in de cater on DAB or stream it on iHeartRadio,