Flex and Frooms.
Flex and Fromes. This is the Flex and Frooms catch up podcast.
It is Flexing Frooms com Cat. We must discuss I think we might be overdue for this discussion anyway. Why do Australians hate successful people? You might feel a little bit taken aback by that statement. I say it one more time so it really hits. Why do Australians hate successful people? You might say, no, we don't. We love successful people. Then what is tall poppy syndrome? Please? I didn't make that up? Frooms. Did you make that up?
No? But I've definitely all across.
It, heard of it one too many times. It factors into one too many conversations For those of you who aren aware what tall poppy syndrome is. It's a social phenomenon in Australia, specifically to describe someone who stands out from the crowd due to their success. Tall poppy syndrome, however, is involves when we attack, scrutinize, discredit, or criticize, or generally dislike someone in the public eye who is experiencing
any level of success above our own. And in other words, to participate in tall poppy syndrome is to cut down the tall poppy the person who is standing out from the crowd. Now, if you look at a field of
poppy flowers, a tall poppy, you know. So if you look at a field of poppy flowers, they're usually growing to like the same height until they look beautiful and red and everything's uniform, and every now and then there'd be a couple of poppies that are higher than the rest, and so you have to cut them down so they don't ruin the landscape. That's where that comes from. Cool now, cool. We love when things make sense. Now you might be
the victim of tall poppy syndromes. I feel like a lot of people don't really know if they're being sensitive. What if they call it sensitive snowflake, or if you actually are experiencing an exceptional level of critique or disrepute for just being good at something right. So, if you're not sure if you've experienced it, I'm going to for instances. Article from Refinery twenty nine by Vanna O'Brien unpacking everything
about tall poppy syndrome. But part of the characteristics of a victim of this syndrome is hesitating to hesitating to or feeling embarrassed in sharing your success, for example, the news of a promotion at work with your colleagues or at pay rise, or telling a friend you know who is in the same level of success you are about what you're doing, Feeling ashamed to promote your achievements achievements online, feeling the need to downplay your skills or hide them away,
socially monitoring yourself out of fear of being perceived as arrogant. Now, I didn't think I had tall Poppy syndrome, I said, not me, not me. I don't have that. However, up until very recently, I was having a conversation with Rooms a couple of weeks ago, and I said, I don't like to use my Instagram as promotional channel as much as I should, because it feels embarrassing to say, Hey, everyone, Reminder, I'm a best selling author. Reminder I wrote a really
amazing book. Reminder of an amazing business. It just doesn't feel appropriate. That's the way they kept coming up. Oh, like, it just feels a bit weird considering the state of the world. Lah la lah, But the Instagram is my place of business. Would I go into a butcher and if the butcher's it feels weird to talk about what meets we have on sale right now, considering the state of the world. No, tell me what you have going on so I can know whether or not to participate whatever, whatever,
whatever Now. Coming up after the break, I want to discuss podcasts. No sorry, Coming up on the podcast, I want to discuss on the adverse, how to stop being a perpetrator of top poppy syndrome. This is one of those things where you'd be like, no, not me. I would never cut somebody down. I want us all to win.
Rahh.
You've definitely done it before, and what better time than the present to really catch us catch ourselves up on being you know, people who sometimes do bad things. So, still referencing that Refinery twenty nine article, you might be the perpetrator of tall poppy syndrome if you find yourself being jealous of a friend after they announce a milestone. You go out of your way to ignore a colleague
who has earned a promotion or a pay increase. You frequently gossip about how unimpressed you are with a certain celebrity or someone. When you found fame, you exclude someone socially who you don't want to be compared to you feel inadequate when you hear about someone's success. The question I post is why do Australians hate successful people?
I have some ideas, yes, okay, when it comes to the media industry in Australia, I believe that like unlike America and the UK, there are less opportunities, right Like, I think that is an actual fact. So therefore, I think the tall poppy thing because we are a small we have like small dog syndrome. We're like Chihuahua Nation,
where we're like, well, don't get too big. You're still from Australia, and our whole culture is like down, like it's built into our DNA in white Australia is to be like oh nah nah, like oh yeah nah, Like even that phrase yeah nah is just so like downplay
downplay down by predictions, contradictions absolutely. So I also think there's like this, I'm sure this is the same in a lot of countries, but this like needing to all be uniform and like to not speak out, not be not be annoying, like just go with the status quo, be chill. I feel like we're very like let's be
chill Nation. And I think we also find pride, like I've heard all the time through my whole life, being like Americans like motor bot, not motor boat, Americans like show boat, like they always want to talk about that their success at sickening. We find it sickening. But then yeah, I also think that it happens to more women than men because I also see it in my own experience. Well, that's because I'm being more threatened by women because there's
less opportunities for us as well. Does that make sense?
It makes sense, so.
I completely it completely makes sense why this is the thing in Australia, and I have seen it in myself and something that I had to work on is when I feel jealous of someone, my instinct is to want to talk to someone about it, to try and think, oh, but you think they're annoying too, right, or you think this,
or you think that. And being on the receiving end of like working in the media, it's and worrying that, Like it's hard to know if someone being tall poppy, if I'm being criticized or am I actually being X y Z. Does that make sense?
Yeah, it does makes it of sense. How do you think tall poppy syndrome manifests like not in a work.
Context, yes, or like socially yeah, probably like saying someone, why does it happen socially? Because I think socially is the same as work in terms of wanting to see where you are on the pecking order. That's actually what work is about as well. I think is this order situation? So you want to think, oh, well there, I think I remember, Like it's like if someone is not naturally blonde, you want to say, oh, no, like they're not naturally blond.
Are they're only hot because they've got fake natural blonde hair? Does that make sense?
This one's a bit too rare for me. I don't really know this culture.
We've spoken about it for like the blonde hair thing where people want to say they've.
Spoken about like blonde supremacy, blonde hierarchies. But I was when I spoke about it was because I was I was seeing it for the first time. I was like, oh, this is It's not a joke. It's a real thing between blondes and brunettes and redheads and where they sit in the hierarchy and what it means for them. But in the sense I don't know this tall poppy thing. It feels like a self fulfilling prophecy because the same people who would say it's an issue, I'm sure keep
it sutors of it as well, the weird thing. And I get what you were saying, this idea of like there's only space for a few, there's only space for a few, there's only space for a few. And I think the reason why, and because we've had conversations about professional jealousy as well, and I think the reason why I don't feel is jealous because don't feel like I
should be here anyway. I don't feel like I'm in competition with a lot of people because Australian media is so white, so I feel like if I'm in these spaces, I'm not compared in a lot of ways. So I don't feel like the next person is coming to get
what's mine, because there is no next person. And so that's why in the past I've had peas to be like, oh my god, you're so free with your information, like you're not afraid to say like what you get paid and what you're doing here, and what you're doing here. And I'm like, yeah, because you're not gonna come and steal my job by virtue of me feeling really unique to be in this particular position. I think that if I was, yeah, I don't. It feels like a self
fulfilling prophecy. It feels like a double edged sword, and it feel feels like a trap that people want you to fall into, like imposter syndrome. Yes, they want you to feel like you don't belong here. They want you to doubt yourself. They want you to feel like something's incorrect, so you'll take yourself out of the race. Do you know what I'm saying?
Major, Yeah, because you do worry about Yeah. If you're worried about it, it's harder to make decisions and you do is this feeling like, oh, well, I don't want to be I don't want to be targeted, so I'm just not.
And nobody can validate if it's real or not real. If you went to a group of people and said, am I the victim of tall poppy syndrome? It'd be like the invisible monster just being paranoid. There's no real monster, hear, You just don't feel inadequate. Therefore take yourself out of the game. You don't feel like you fit in this conversation, then take yourself out you don't feel like you fit in the friend group, then reveal yourself. You know what
I mean? It feels like this really insidious way for people to self adjust, for you, to put yourself on the hierarchy a few rungs lower to create space for those who recognize the game that's being played.
So it's like self destructive, do you mean?
Or it's I think it's like any system that was built to be self regulating, like capitalism, like racism, like sexism, it's not often someone doing it to you, it's you
keeping yourself in that position as well. Not that racism is something you do to yourself, but in the sense of, like I get really frustrated, like, for example, I don't like talking about oppressive narratives about blackness, especially online or in spaces, but anyone can take that narrative because it reaffirms I don't want out there, you know, like people were like, you never talk about your failures exactly, max fact exactly because what's that doing for me? You know?
So?
I think the thing about self poppy self poppy tall poppy syndrome is that it makes you choose where you fit on the ladder, and it's always going to be lower than you think it's going to be for fear of getting higher and someone taking you off.
Now it's making sense. Now, it's making sense. You know, I never thought of it like that.
You are the monster afraid of Oh no, you are the person with the cheese keeping everybody in line.
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