The Flex and Rooms Daily Podcast brought.
Welcome to the podcast, and I'm currently standing up. I'm wearing a Cruiser Vodka Cruzer branded tracksuit in a Morone colourway free press.
Always that is raspberry, not Morone.
It's giving morone.
What about you, No way, that is raspberry.
It's giving a dark magenta to me. Yes, that was gonna even next. You know, my uniform in school was dark magenta. It was the biggest sleigh. We had a kilt with little pink hearts all over it.
That's cute. It was just it was some pickies. Oh I will I never. I wasn't very cute though, So it's not about that. I was just looking. Even if you google the school.
And we can have a look at it, Okay, we'll rank it anyway. Today we're talking about influencers, which is very pertinent to this current tracksuit because I am an ambassador of vodka Cruser. We're talking about influencers. We're just going to get to it and hopefully we can learn. I mean you to learn.
I wish. What I want to start doing is when we have conversations about influencers. Where we differ from the general podcast space is by giving everyone access to behind the scenes. Yes, I don't want to talk about influencers. I want to talk about the bits of the job that people wouldn't have access to because it's a very closed circuit circle.
We want to talk about being influencers. Yeah, but in a way that's not self congratulatory, but also is because the ego is enormous. Anyway, enough chet chat, let's go chat flex and frooms.
I experienced unbridled, unparalleled joy a couple of days ago, and I was not expecting it, which that's why I hit the spot in a brand new way. I got told about this initiative by fun Lab. It's called the Day of Fun. So basically, fun Lab are the people who own like Holy Moly Darts, Lardie Darts and all those other venues and on the I think it's September sixth, everything, all the activities get reduced to five dollars for some
kind of fundraiser for youth mental health. So I was, I want to try these darts things, because like, playing Holy Moly not my thing. I'm I don't have a really good hand eye coordination. But I was like, yeah, we'll go play darts. That'll be fun.
So we get there.
First thing, I saw a friend and I was like, hold on, I feel like these are the same people who are like these places are lame. I pull up and you're already here, very odd. So we go and they're like, okay, so you can play darts. You can set up at like this station. It's fully electronic, which is not what I expected. What when I played darts before. It's been twice. One has been on a corkboard of
some sort with like a needle, a flying needle. And the second time was definitely at like this cool high tech Korean bar where it was like digital everything. This was somewhere in the middle. I don't understand how it works, but basically I was like a computer screen where you like, pick what dark game you want to choose. They've developed games that use the function of throwing the dart as the mechanic, but different types of games. Here's my thing.
I haven't played a game in a long time because I'm an adult. But not only that, I do PlayStation right, and that's a very different type of gaming. It's simulating life in some way, Like yes, you don't shoot and attack people in life, but you're playing a person and you have to go on adventures and it's very draining because you have to think. This was just like figure out what your skill is. Throw it on the board,
get a point, move on. And there was something about I felt like it was like Caveman enjoyment, where it's like I'm not even having to try very hard. I'm just throwing something on a board, getting it, enjoying and leaving. When I got my first bulls eye, oh, I was shaking.
Heaven on Earth. Wait a minute, So when you say that digital, do you hold something in your hand?
Okay, so the best this is like a hybrid. So when I definitely ruined the magic, I got too close to the board just to see how it works. So it's a foam board and in the center is a real dart board, and projected onto the whole thing is the game. So like from far away, it looks like it's just an LCD screen led screen, but it's actually a dart board. Okay, Anyway, I don't even know how. So you are throwing a physical needle, but I don't know how the needle in the board what, I don't
know how it's I don't know. I don't know it's a hybrid. It's not fully electronic. It just manages to capture your scores electronically.
So it's not like you're throwing it like you're in we sports.
No no, no, you're throwing a physical dart and it's hitting a physical board. I don't know. Anyway, it was just so sick, and I was with my best friend selling. We were like, why have we done the sinner? I was thinking as well, because I really want to host dinner parties this year, because I'm like, we need to be the girlies need to be social in a way that isn't just like oh there's an influencer event, we're all invited. Let's all go, like planning time out outside
of work just to do something entertaining. And I would do darts.
For sure, Let's do it.
It was like competitive, hot, sexy, and you know how like you didn't have to like I want to play pool, My hand eye coordination won't let me.
See it just goes on too long, does it really? Yeah? Yeah, Like it's fun if you want to do to flirt with someone, you're like, oh we're both yeah, and it goes places. I'm telling you what. Lots of solid relationships have started around billiard tables.
Mate, I need to get involved.
Pool tables really good for chats, but boring. If you want a fun time that has no sexual chemistry.
Okay, and if not, I vote darts. Also, what I think would be really enjoyable is physical board games. Let's just get back into it.
Okay.
I don't know if Monopoly is the right thing for us, but something with cards boards.
Yes, okay, really quickly. I've got a game called Carbo c aabo. Me and my girlfriends play it. We've had things in the week planned for the last three weeks. Every Thursday night gets to Thursday, we're just having dinner, no Carbo. But it's like everybody gets four cards and you've got to remember what your cards are, and like steal cards off other people.
It's just see, this is what I'm talking about. This is what I want to Yes, you would love this. We play dates between our friends, meet up, play a game, go home to our window. That's it.
Go anyway.
I really enjoyed that. I really wish I could bottle up that feeling of enjoyment because I never I haven't felt this in a while. I was smiling. I'm cackling, smiling, no Geran public.
This is flex and frooms on Kita.
We have more news about the fate of the world. Did you know that single use plastics were banned on the first of June twenty twenty two in New South Wales. At the time, businesses were not able to give customers lightweight plastic bags or to have them in stock.
Wow.
Now I'm thinking I'm not really out and about shopping as much to notice and anywhere that I would be shopping IRL is offering, you know, like a recycled plastic bag, a little thick one or something. I did notice that one of my favorite chicken shops in Sydney they started offering these real weighty usable bags and I was like, oh, it's the branding exercise. I like, yes, but no it's illegal.
Okay, two things.
I'm not done, babe, there's more news. There's more news in addition to that, in New South Wales in November, single use plastics will be banned. So we've moved from lightweight being banned and now single use banned, so much so that the finds for an individual using buying single use plastic would be eleven k and the findes for a company fifty five k. Now, with all these topics, people like, well, how they're going to enforce it? How they're going to enforce it? Reminds you of COVID when
businesses couldn't operate. Everyone's like, how are they going to enforce it? Not everyone's going to get fined, but just hope it's not. You do the right thing, but please, as you were.
So, Woolies and Coals, When you get those plastic bags, the twenty cent ones, yeah, are they considered single use? No?
Because they are made from recycled bags and they have this whole system by the way, so when you get those recycled thick plastic bags, they're made from previously recycled bags, and you can bring the old bags to the stores to get them re recycled, and they're made thix. They can be reused and reused again.
Okay woolli's op.
I don't I think it's coals?
Actually? Okay, coals op curdistone's side piece getting on that Coal's money.
Whatever it takes, babe. Some of us are serious. Some people don't want to work. Not me.
This is flex and frooms.
I was on Reddit the other day. We are big Reddit hotties here at the Flex and Froom Show. And it came across this best of redditor updates. So it's basically it's his thread on Reddit where some of the best threads get put into a thread few to reap.
Which is helpful because there's a lot of fodder on Reddit. If I was introducing someone to the platform for the first time, I would warn them to say, you kind of do have to work to get good posts. Not everything on there is worth consuming.
Not at all, And it's just the ads. Like the whole platform is quite ugly. There are a lot of ads, but cool, Like I'm getting the knowledge that I want from this. I'm never feeling bad about being shit. It's very much a community bibe. Anyway, I came across this one and I want to do thoughts on it. The title is I got a fridge lock box and it's destroying my relationship.
I don't even know what that means.
Some backgrounds. My boyfriend twenty eight and I twenty five have been together for five years and we've lived together for three. Our relationship is great, truly. We have a joint account we contribute to monthly and handle joint expenses such as rent, groceries, etc. Everything is split. My boyfriend is six foot three, two hundred lbs pounds.
Yeah, so like what ninety killers yeah.
Ninety killers yeah, and works out daily. He eats a lot to keep up his coloric intake, which is fine except for this one issue. We buy snacks and he always eats my healf before I can even get to it.
Hungry growing boy, normal.
Friden ingredients he's fine with, but it is quickly accessible and I never get any. We argue, He apologizes, rinse, and repeat. This is literally the only bad thing he's done. Seriously, all other aspects of our relationship are respectful and considerate. Snacks away, all bets are off. Wow. Anyways, last week I lost it after he finished an expensive cheese we'd gotten that I was really looking forward to eating. It
was gone after an hour. I lost my shit. I didn't speak to him all day and ended up ordering a fridge lockbox and our next snack run. A couple of days later, I divided each snack in half and locked mine in a lockbox.
Oh my gosh.
From his reaction, you think I was murdering. He said, it's disrespectful. And controlling and how dare I keep food from him? Whoa that I paid for? Four days later, I broke and asked him to please talk about it, and he just said he's completely appalled by the reaction. But I said, I'm not getting rid of the lockbox. Who's the wrong?
This is controversial. I feel like off the dome. This is not where I thought it was going to go. And his reaction is surprising me because up until the snack issues, like you have a perfect relationship, there's nothing wrong. Ever, what is the real issue here? I think, Look, you gave him a chance to show you that he can exercise some restraint when it comes to snacks, and he couldn't.
I relate to this man. I'm not gonna lie. I feel him. Yeah, I mean what he has to do, sorry, what she has to do. Something that I did in a prior life was collect all your little snacks, get a little box, hide the snacks under your bed or in my room. I had like a Paul frank backpack. I just stash all my little single serve snacks in the eggs.
I didn't want to share the single serve?
Are we doing? Single serves? A snack based little snacky. So I think she's totally to come to that.
In your own house, you paid your own money, now you have to hide food. I think the lock box in a fridge is a really beautifully passive aggressive way to say, hey, because you can't manage yourself, this is what we have to do. You know, it's very childlike and jobbless for us to be doing this, and yet he we are. I would say, if the lock box in the fridge is causing too much tension in a couple of weeks, I would definitely say up the snack budget.
You no get more than you think you need, and there's more to go around and then less to lose that you just say more because these people work. Because you have mentioned that he is six foot three, almost one hundred kilos, works out every day, needs a lot to sustain him, and you are not that So buying snacks and sharing them fifty to fifty doesn't really seem realistic.
So maybe he needs his own box of snacks and you need your own box, and then if you can, you can come to your side pick a little extra. But going half and half on a six pack of musley bars isn't sane.
What about those lcms, damn, or.
Start getting family sizes. Get yourself to Costco. Get those family sized bulk packs, you know, the forty packs lcms, the forty packs of whatever, the big packs of you know, snacky chips. Don't go to your local grocery store. You don't have the budget for that. Go to bulk buy cool.
I've never been to a Costco. I've always been.
Curious about Really, Yeah, we must go. A membership has expired, though, so you have to get one.
You're listening to flex and frooms on cats.
Don't think it's so funny that the traditional media has such an obsession with influencers. Yeah, for some reason, it's quite impossible to bridge the gap between talking about influencers and the actuality of influencers themselves and what they do.
Yeah, I think influencers very rarely control their own narrative. It's a lot of like mystical information about like what they do and how much do they get paid, what it's really like coming from someone who hasn't even stepped foot in the shoes of an influencer as well.
I think it's because traditional media outlets and the people that work at traditional media outlets essentially were influencers in the olden times, they're choosing what gets published, they're like figures, whereas now they're seeing all these other people creating their own platforms. And it's difficult to talk about influencers because you never know again the like Internet literacy of the
people that are reading it. So you've got someone who's sixty reading about influencers, like with all these preconceived notions. That's a total generalization of age. Apologies, but you know what I mean.
Yeah, But the other thing I find really interesting as well is that talking about influencers, public figures, celebrities, whatever, there was a point in time where all those people were in cahoots with the media, write planting stories, selling information,
really making sure they were co creating the narrative. And it feels like modern day journalists are so almost like gate kept from the reality of influencers stuff that they have to kind of talk around it or create value of their perspective talking about it because they don't have access like they used to.
Curious, I know a few that have good inns. I can't remember the guys in the.
Same way that, like, you know, if I wanted to pitch a story about me and my new boyfriend.
Right.
I could easily work with a publication twenty years ago and say, hey, like, should do a cover story, should we do a little feature, should we do whatever it might be, It's not the way it would work with the traditional influencer who wants to plug something. You can't be like I've got a new apparel line dropping and DM your favorite journalist because you probably hate them all because they've talked shit about you.
That's really know you've made it. I came across this article in the os which is like an offshoot of the Australian newspaper. I've never been in a reader of the Australian. Doesn't quite align with me not saying I wouldn't in the.
Future any morning, Harold go on, you through went through?
Yeah, there's no deviation. And they wrote this article that apparently more than half of gen Z Australians that's fifty five percent say they would leave their job to become an influencer if they had the chance. And this is research to come out of the Behavioral Architects, which was commissioned by the os SO. Just to make that clear, the ODS have commissioned to study to figure out about influencers. So is this study valid? Throwing my hands in the air,
but they say that. They also said that gen Z females fifty six percent in particular would say they would ditch their current career for that, as opposed to thirty nine percent of millennial women. Overall, men are pulled to a career of content creation fifty three percent more than women forty four percent. Wow, And I think.
Isn't that very interesting? Because when people observe the influencer content creation landscape, it's overly feminized. Everyone's like, oh, those those influencers, jobless people. But look at that more men pulled to content creation than women. Can we see how many people actually surveyed for this?
So apparently they interviewed or surveyed two thousand Australians.
Now we have to be mindful which two thousand did you survey? The two thousand living in Sydney's like Sydney City, two thousand across the whole of Australia. For context, I'll do a smash or pass my Instagram story on Monday, get eight thousand people weigh in say it's just being realistic.
But the stats are stats in either way. Of two thousand people, half are saying that they would willingly quit their jobs to become an influencer, which I think is fascinating considering all the contempt for the industry and people who make up the industry as well.
It's what are your initial thoughts.
My initial thoughts is that it's really unsurprising. I feel as though whether or not you respect what influencers do, something about being able to presumably get paid, to be yourself, get given free things, take pretty pictures, not really quote unquote work for a living. Why would that not be enticing. I think it's really hard to see the reality of what running an actual influencer business is like, as in, this is your business, you'ret an ABN, you're incorporated, or
you're a company. You pay your bass, you pay your tax, you pay that's a little bit different, and nobody's seeing that. So it's not it's not not enticing people, But I think of what it looks like, it would be better than I don't know, working in insert career path here. What do you reckon when you're surprised by that?
Not at all. I think the tide is turning where influencer isn't become a dirty word. And now the next generation, which is the generation that media sites and stuff, always fascinated with media, so that's always fascinated with the next generation, and in my opinion, they don't think influences are a dirty word. They've grown up with it, and yeah, see it as a viable career path because it is.
One hundred percent is. But I also feel as though, not that not that the career path is dead or that there's not enough space for everyone, but you know, when you have the Kardashians and people of that stature talking about how these platforms are even hard for them to exist on because they can't monetize it like they usually did, or they're posts aren't reaching people in the
way they usually would. It's becoming a much harder landscape to exist on algorithmically, not even just culturally, socially creatively, just algorithmically. Too many people get to be publishers totally.
Covid was the big boom. Yeah, seeing us little creators doing something different, I think not cis.
We will have the jobs now want to come around. Also in terms of that though, I think that the marketplace is so saturated in a way that isn't to the benefit of new people trying to enter. Because it's a saturated marketplace, it's very unclear what an influencer actually does. It's very unclear how to make consistent money from doing
the job as well. And also it's very competitive because you're not just competing against your peers right of other influencers, it's every single person who publishes stuff on the internet totally.
And it's something that clicks that I've been thinking about this a lot lately is in terms of money and brands paying you. Often, I'm like, wait, why are people doing TVCs, Like you should just be throwing all that money behind influencers, because I've seen brands that do it. A great example is go to skincare. I'm not sure
if they do traditional advertising. I know I got served on the other day, I think on YouTube that was like this girl gamer and how she uses Mecca, No you're not making sorry, how she uses go to And I was like, that's so genius. I see all the research in this one ad because I can't relate to gamers, but I see what you get here.
That's what you're doing, and I appreciate it.
But then I was thinking, of course, still in the traditional landscape, the people that are making the decisions. You have budgets that go to radio, that go to this, to go to that, and often the influencer is the afterthought. And whether or not that's for better or for worse, I'm not sure. Another example would be Frank Body created a multimillion dollar business to soft coffee scrubs and women posting themselves nude in the shower, like we've seen this.
We've seen this happen for like ten years. It's pretty incredible how it's only just now kind of being fully understood of how powerful it is.
One hundred percent I mean. And when I talk about influencers, let's just say caveat good influences, whatever that means to you, whether it means they're really engaging greater community building, make great content that too. We're speaking about not the person you're thinking about in your head that you hate.
Okay, distinction because even I like I have, I have so many preconceived ideas about lots of different people, particularly people that I'm in the same cohort as, like these are my people.
As you're looking in the mirror pointing at yourself.
That's disgusting, you know what I mean? And I even get that with influences, I'm like, oh, I still in the back of my mind have that little grimace, like wait a minute, these are our peers, just like me.
While I think that people are still aspiring to be an influencer, I think that not even influencers are aspiring to maintain having influence, because you'll come to this, and I when I quiz my peers, I recognize everyone comes to this point where they say, what kind of money is enough to sell my likeness, to sell my face, to sell my thoughts, to sell my culture, to my identity. And if that's the case, then there's a price that
can be allocated. Why would that Why would you not just sell it for your own benefit, not for some random corporation. He's like, we just want a bitter you bit of flavor. So I was gonna use your likeness to make your own thing exactly a podcast whatever that looks like. Is it an only fans? Is it, you know, a clothing line? Is it a course? Something that is
made by you for you to your audience? And that is like the circular economy there not letting any other brand extract value from you so much so that you don't have a quiet time to be creative and figure out how to use your own skills for your own benefit.
But we'll leave it there. Mine is a book exactly it's going to be coming out eighteen months. I'm going to put a time on it. Havn't started putting it out there.
Believe in you, flex and.
The apocalypse is coming. Oh, if you listen to this show, you'll agree. I say that in jest because I don't believe the apocalypse. Believe it.
My propaganda's working.
The thing is like, when I think of the apocalypse, I'm thinking of that movie where the like massive tsunami roages through the city and there's bedlam, and it goes on every day too, and then it's over. That's how I'm seeing the apocalypse, when in reality, it's creeping up all around us. The latest victim of the apocalypse that we are currently living in is chicken. Yeah. Apparently I was reading in Citny Morning, how Old as I Do. Woolies is working to balance prices as consumers start to
trade down. Apparently people are getting beef over chicken. Ha.
Well, we did talk last week about the Ingham family. I don't know if their actual ingoms involved in the Ingham.
Yeah, the family very well.
But they said that last financial year it cost them forty six million dollars to feed the chickens, and that is far too expensive what it usually costs. Now, what is usually cost? I don't know, haven't done their profit and lost statement, but they've disclosed that generally they would cover the cost or subsidize it. They're not doing that this year. It said fend for yourselves.
I mean, yeah, they clearly obviously they're trying to like make the balance sheet look better.
So everyone's eating beef.
Apparently everyone is eating beef. I read this article and I was like, I don't know how I'm going to incorporate this on the show. So I asked our producer Brook and she said, apparently in the apocalypse, the people that are going to come up on top are the vegans hundred percent. Explain this, Brook, Well, it's just a lot easier to have, like you can forage for like mushrooms, you can cook like I guess the veggies in your garden. Where are you gonna have to run out and chase a cow?
Yeah, And it's the lifestyle as well. Like, I think what a lot of meat eaters will struggle with in the apocalypse is the fact that your lifestyle isn't accommodating for the food you want to eat. Like you said, meat eaters aren't gonna be chasing cows and chickens to eat that meat. They need the grocery stores and the abatis to provide, whereas a vegan can actually be self sufficient and self sustaining.
Yeah, damn well, chout out to vegans.
Shout out to vegans.
You are steering the ship. Meanwhile, I reckon after this, I want to be at Macas for dinner. I'm also wearing a Maca's hat no spoon.
If I become a vegan before you do, how hilarious I feel it coming. Like thirty five minutes you've.
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