Hey guys, and welcome back to another episode of Life Fun Card. I'm producer Keisha and I'm filling in at the moment for Britain Laura while they take a bit of a summer break. And we decided this year that we wanted to bring you some of the absolutely incredible conversations that we had from our live shows back in October when we got to fly all around the country.
We visited seven cities and we had some amazing guests joining us on stage, so we wanted to bring them to you so that you could enjoy them over this summer period. Joining us today is the weapon of a woman, Flex Marmy. Now, if you haven't met Flex, or if you haven't heard Flex speak before, she's a person that's actually quite hard to put into words because she can take these really deep, complex topics and she can just make them so light and so funny to listen to.
I find Flex such an engaging person because she's able to do that so well. In this conversation, the girls speak about where the name Flex Mammy comes from, because believe it or not, that is not her birth name.
They speak about personal branding and when that becomes a business They also spoke about the concept of performative authenticity and whether being authentic online and being openly vulnerable is always a good thing, or whether people could have different motives for why they actually act that way online, whether it could be for followers, for engagement, for a multitude
of reasons. And that led into another conversation that I found very very interesting, particularly for Flex's perspective, and that is on the idea of businesses increasing their diversity, so whether that be that they're catering for different sizes or colors or whatever it could be, and when that advertising is actually quite tokenistic. I think you're really gonna love this chat, so let's get into it with Flex mummy.
All right, everyone, this takes us to our second half of the show, where we're going to introduced to you some of our absolutely phenomenal guests that we have who have come here to be with you guys tonight.
Now, the first guest off.
The ranks is someone who so many of you might know across social media, but she is like the entrepreneur of entrepreneurs. She is a DJ, she is a podcaster, she is a radio host. She is a TV presenter, She is a jewelry designer. She is an influencer. Honestly, Flex Mammy is everything. She can do everything, jack of all trades and master of everything. This woman Flex get on out here.
Looking fine. I might say, I love it. Hi, take the hot seat. Flex.
If that is even your real name, we'll get to that.
Thanks for coming today.
We're going to kick start with and accidentally unfiltered because we make everyone do an embarrassing story.
I thought really long and hard about this, and I was tossing up between the time I was robbed at a hotel, but I thought I would do something lighter. I was thinking about, like, I don't know, it's not just me, because I'm not deranged on my own, but the kind of mental illness that happens when you're in a new relationship and all you are is like horny and excited, horny and excited to that moving to a new city extra horny, extra excited. I feel alive. So
I move into this amazing new apartment complex. It's bougie. They don't have a gym, it's a health club. What's the day? They don't have just like a space for you to go and eat. It's an outdoor area. With a habachi grill. They don't have an area for you to just do work. It's a coworking space, so you can only imagine what's going on. There's staff and everything. So I invite my new boyfriend to my apartment. I'm feeling I was gonna say Horney, but I've said it too much, so I'm like, let's go.
To the spa. There's a spa. It's gonna be amazing.
So it's like maybe eleven pm on a Friday, there's nobody there. Was I going to do anything. No, I'm a sensible woman with a public profile. I wouldn't do anything. So I get into this spa. It's PG, guys, it's almost g rated. I had thought to myself, are there cameras?
Surely not.
Surely in a place where you pay this amount of rent, they wouldn't document you without you knowing.
Boy, it was I wrong.
I don't think I did anything particularly inappropriate. But when you wake up on a Monday morning nine am with a building wide bulletin that says we respect and condone anything that adults want to do in their spare time, honeymooners, beware, there are cameras.
You are being watched.
Do what you want to the offending participants. They referred to me as, we will be directly emailing you if you make this mistake twice. Just know you were being watched. Tell me why. I was like, sure, it couldn't be me, because I didn't really say it was Friday A or whatever. I had gotten a response after I'd opened the email ten minutes later, directly to me, Hi Miss Lilian, government names, say, Hi, Miss Lilian, just letting you know that that email was
for you. In particular, I didn't do anything, though I could.
Have and I wanted to.
Also, I love the way you move, But also do you.
Think in that instance, like I was now thinking about privacy and security like that it's their fault.
Well that's what I need and exposure that they witnessed. But that's what I was saying.
But babes, I didn't actually do anything anyway, that's what they all say. I think I've been on probation because they are on to me. I come to the reception, they smiled cheekily. How's it going, they say, how's the relationship? No comment, you're in I'm but a victim and a pretty girl.
Flex I mean obviously, Lilian, I would love to know, and I think so many of the people who follow you would love to know.
Where did Flex come from. I wish it was a good story, and it's just not.
And I've thought about lying. I've had the name for ten years. I really thought about lying, but it's not a good one. I was nineteen and I was working in pr and I was really burnt out, and I thought the solution would be to get another job, but a fun job and a cool job. So I became a door girl, which was like the height of.
Excitement at nineteen.
But then through that I became a DJ, and like, I like music, but I didn't think the criteria of being a DJ was just liking music. It was that easy at the time. So I went to my friends, I'm like, I want to be a DJ. Let's do a round table, let's make a name. And so, literally, like you have to be on the internet ten years ago to know how not cool flex is.
It's like lit on sleek or whatever we used to say to it.
I literally still say that it's like yolo.
I think it's one of those words. Though that's now it's been so long it's come back around and now you've made it cool again, yea talking to.
Someone that says volcano, and so I was like, yeah, it would be flex, it would be great. So I'm like trying to buy, trying to secure the Facebook account or whatever, and naturally Flex is taken up by Chiropractice and yoga Instructure and everybody else. And I was like, guys, like quick, I've got my first gig on Friday. I need a name, and then Flexmami it became. Howd I have known it would be something that would be tied to me for this long?
I would have done it differently, But DJ Lillian was never gonna work. It was never gonna work. It doesn't Land doesn't. It doesn't like DJ Lily Lilia. Okay. The thing that I.
Find so interesting though, is is like you say you stumbled across this, but like I look at you on social media and I see someone who is so good at branding. I'm like, you are so clever at the way that you brand yourself, and you brand all the different types of things that are a part of your Flex empire. So then how if you think, oh it just kind of happened, I just across this, how intentional, then is your branding when it comes to your business?
It was a trauma rest bot. I'm telling you it was.
There's something about you have to imagine what like the music landscape was like ten years ago. You weren't just like a DJ, like a female DJ, and everybody had opinions about what your intention was.
To be a musician. You couldn't just like music.
And so the only reason why I became intentional about branding is because people would say the most deranged things. I used to write in all caps no reason. Thought it was aesthetic, thought it was fun. So tell me why I open up my browser because I had Google alerts on myself.
I do.
And so I see this article by a youth broadcaster that will not be named, that has written like a feature on me.
I'm like, this is sick. I feel like a celebrity.
Why do they lead with flex mummy right in all caps as a way to creatively express what it's like to take up space in a male dominated industry? I said, babe, shut it down, deleted, Like that's what happens. People curate and craft these really convincing ideas about who you are and why you say things and so I feel like if it seems like I'm intentional about my brand, but I'm paranoid.
I honestly like you could not have led into the conversation that we're having better and that was such an unintentional setup. But what we wanted to talk to you about is this idea of like authenticity on social media and online and verse performative, you know, and so where does that line see it? Especially in how people who have public profiles use it? And I think it's so interesting that you say so much of the brand that's being created, part of it's been intentional, but part of
it's being created around you. Yeah, So then how do you think in terms of when it comes to being authentic online?
What does that look like for you? It's really tricky.
I was thinking the other day, I like to ask people questions that aren't small talk because I think I get bought easily. But I was saying to a friend of mine, what's a misconception people make about you constantly that you use your advantage? Because I think about that so often, like we're so paranoid about like are we being perceived the right way? And do I come across well? But when we don't. What do you do about it? If someone's like, oh my gosh, you come across so gentle.
I love that you were color often you must be so bold. What are you gonna say you read me wrong?
No, you know, I mean like, thank you. That like works for me.
So when people were saying because I wrote in all caps and wore color and I'm overweight, she's a buddy positivity pritaincess, like, I was like, so, whatever you want to do, I'm just a yes.
Yeah.
And at the.
Time, especially like the Internet was like visuals first, visuals first, So whatever the visual was saying, it didn't matter that I had an alternate narrative because everyone's like, but we get it, like we know this vibe, say no more. And so now when I think about authenticity and I'm like, this we trajectory on the internet, because you know, I didn't intend to be an influencer or anything. Because I was saying to you earlier that if I reflect on who I was when I was like a high schooler,
I was so inarticulate, empty headed, ditsy, dreamy. I could never get finish's sentence out. I literally have such strong memories of trying to tell my friend's stories and watching like the light fade from their eyes?
Do you know what I'm saying? Like you're like, okay, let me start again. I'll start from the top because I can get missing my point. I start from the st that's your mind. And so then so I.
I think about, like what that felt like, and it to be articulate was a trauma response. I was like, oh my god, nobody listens to me, nobody cares. And so when I started DJing at nineteen and I suddenly had to create a brand, I was like, oh, I have to start like knowing who I am and saying what I like.
And I think now people are like, oh, this is so cool. You're so confident.
Back then, everybody was like, why are you so obnoxious? Why do you always talk about how you feel? Why do you think it's important that people know what you think?
Just shut up?
And to that, I said, I am the youngest sibling of two older brothers.
I deserve space to speak. I earned this.
So now when it comes to authenticity, I try really hard to be myself. But the older I get, the more sensitive I get, and I'm like, oh, it's really hard to be yourself and have everything about you come across as conceptual and therefore critiqued. I think people really struggle to conceptualize how hard it is for people to not only see you, but make assumptions about you and
then tell them to you. It could be little things like I remember not too long ago, I got this comment from someone that was like, I just love that every time like you wear an outfit, your stretch marks poke through, because it makes me feel so confident. I said, which ones?
I don't.
I don't know which one are you talking about. I don't think I noticed those. So in this instance, if I was being authentic, i'd say, shut up, you freak.
Like, why would you say that? That's weird?
But to perform authenticity, I have to reward that open.
Display of co vulnerability.
Yep, Because to shut you down in a moment where you felt like you were connecting something, I'm the bad guy.
It's a real balance between people wanting authenticity from the people that they follow and the people online. But then there's this balance on too much authenticity, like when the crossover to performative authenticity. When something traumatic's happening in someone's
life and the first thing they've thought of. I don't know about you, guys, but when I watch someone that's like almost died in a car accident and the first thing they've done is get their phone out to film themselves crying that they almost died, I'm like, why is that your response?
There's a part of me that's.
Like, why did you just jump online to share that? And that's where I struggle with people that I'm like, I don't believe that. And I'm sure for you you've had a lot of virtue signaling, like you're seeing a lot of people do that.
What's your view on that?
I don't think it's a fine line between authenticity and performing authenticity. I think the reason why authenticity online doesn't work is because everything about documenting yourself is contrived. Even the fact that you get a chance to decide how you want to show up on a device, where you decide the angle and the lighting and the context and the time you post it and the reason why you post it, it's all contrived. It's inauthentic in its very being.
The concept can never be authentic. So to bypass that and to pretend that everything in this moment is authentic because I'm coming across well doesn't make sense. And I also think, you know, he was authentic, Ted Bundy. He was being authentic, that's a a turn. Was being true to himself, and nobody was like, oh, I love authentic characters.
There's also this like misconception about what you're saying when you say you like authenticity, because when your feed is full of people with like really harmful views, suddenly it's not okay anymore and I'm not gonna be a country And he's like, don't say how you feel. But I think the difficulty with social media is that we're all in denial about how real and not real it is. It amplifies all the ways that we're contrived in real life, but just in a digital space. Like I think about
like fundamental social norms and politics. I can't go in a room when I'm feeling pissed off and act the way that I want to act because it's inappropriate. I'm being inauthentic every time someone says, hey, how are you going, and I'm like, I'm dead parised in my brain, but I'm like, hey, that's so fine, nic see meet it's inauthentic. I promise you. I always tell my friends. People don't
want you to be authentic. They want to be entertained, they want to be validated, or they want to be educated, and if it doesn't fit between that, suddenly you come across as inauthentic.
Do you know what I think is so interesting as this of this conversation as well, and it's something I've witnessed on social media over the years, is that as people become more and it's a very different thing between authenticity and vulnerability, right, they're different, two different conversations, but as people become more vulnerable, they can sometimes be rewarded for that vulnerability by more followers, more likes, more comments.
You know, you see the post of someone crying about something that is a touch point, and then that's when it can grow into using it as a tool, I think as well. And that is a very gray area because there's obviously and I mean we're talking about it from podcast perspective, We've done it for years, but there is definitely a gray area where it comes from a point of sharing for a purpose and sharing for a motive.
There are two.
Different aspects I think that social media can portray, and they both have different incentives behind them.
As well, I also.
Think we need to do a disclaimer that we do not support Ted Bundy.
Like you were.
On a serious note, you were such a touch point for a lot of people during the Black Lives Matter. I don't want to say movement because that's you know, it just doesn't feel right like the movement it was, but it should trend.
Yeah, it was a conversation that was and it was really in the limelight there for a moment. And it's not that it's not now, but it was really front and center on everyone's minds as the way Instagram works.
But how do you feel.
Like the landscape has changed since we all started speaking more openly about Black Lives Matter?
Have you noticed a difference?
I think it's ironic because I try to explain to people that it's as good as it is worse in the same way that you know when you give context to someone who's hurt you about the ways that they've hurt you, and they're like, can you explain it differently? Can you explain it better? Can you see it from
my perspective? And then sudden you're like, wait, I thought I was the one who was hurt at the moment, I thought I was the one who needed to be listened to that, so that conversation felt like it started in this really helpful place where it's like, oh, these all these experiences that felt really subjective are now being put in a very objective lens.
Like it's happening.
It's it's tricky, it's uncomfortable. But the way that I trickled down in conversation became really conceptual. And then I also felt like it turned out to be like kind of like the way that feminism is positioned. I think a lot of people are like, oh, no, I say I'm a feminist, so you think I'm not a bigot. Not because I'm like trying to me myself make sure that there's a quality of the sexes. That's just a bit much like I just want you know I'm not
a bad person. That's what it felt like at the time. And it's so strange because like, I don't feel like in the audience now I don't have to like respond, But how often are you actually thinking about your skin color? Whether that's like I'm tanning, I'm not tanning, I'm not burnt. But when the whole world is authorizing you for this thing, you're like, damn, I could be all these things, and then at the end of the day, someone's like, oh,
but you're black first. And then even if I am black first, I'm like, if this is the way that it comes across, everyone's like, well, don't say that.
Like they're making everyone feel weird. So I don't know. I just think.
It was an interesting time for to see the world change in that way. But I also just felt like it gave people the language to justify their behavior. So when we're having these private conversations in public, people are saying, well, I believe in anti racism.
I don't even know what that is.
Do you still experience racism now in the day to day?
I think I experienced more like microaggressions, you know, like one that comes across so well is like.
When did you get here? Like when did you were you born here? How? That's crazy? Yeah, your family must be well off. How did you do? How did you how did you? How about how'd that happen? And you're so articulate, like you can read and write.
Yeah, And so I'm like, and so I don't want to have to challenge that idea in someone that's not not hours in a day. But that's how it comes across. It's this veiled compliment in an insult, you know, like.
Oh, that's so great.
I don't usually get along with black people, but you're different.
I like you.
And because you want to take the compliment, you're like, thank you. I like my personality as well, but also don't say that, you freak.
You mentioned something really interesting when we were talking about this backstage, and you said that in terms of how things have changed in media and in your profession, that things have changed. There's there's more, there's more jobs, like brands are being more open and they're trying to book more diversity quote unquote, but it hasn't the needle hasn't shifted in terms of the preparation for that. Can you explain a little bit of what that looks like.
So what I was saying is like, I feel like people are like, well, because you're in all the campaigns and because you're booking these amazing jobs, that must mean things are changing. I'm like you would think so, but I'll still go to a shoot and like, well, we don't really have anyone who can do your hair and makeup, so so it's like, oh, I'm the talent and I'm here to represent myself, but no one can do my hair, no one can do my makeup, the clothes don't fit,
and but the whole article is about inclusivity and diversity. Geez.
But then you're in the situation where if you call that out, then you're making it uncomfortable when everyone's trying to do the right thing. So then how do you then navigate that situation?
And it's so boring in my heart of hearts, I don't want to be a nark, I really don't. But when things don't click, when are we gonna say it?
It feels strange to say while we're.
On the shoot, especially when you have people there and no one's taking responsibility because it's like, oh, the samples didn't come in that size, and you.
Know we didn't.
I didn't know, so like, you know, what, how do you normally do your makeup?
How many black people are in a showlike anyway? Like how was? I know? Like you know how it is, and we don't really have models here, and if they do get hear them, they really tell you about their hair.
And sometime I'm like, I get it, but you asked me to be I don't really know what's going on.
It's just it's a.
Strange time because also I can acknowledge that I am grateful to be able to have opportunities, but I also don't want to be the vehicle of a false narrative that only affects me poorly, because that's the other thing. Like I can recognize when I'm being tokenized, right, and I can say, if there's a check to be made, I'll take it as green. But in the same vein, I'm like, at what cost? You know what I'm saying,
Like it's what it's not. It's not just about me, Like, it's not about the individual check that I get to make or the individual isolated experience. It's all representative of a greater issue that people feel like they're doing enough of. Because but wasn't flex in Vogue how we beat racism?
We beat it? She was a page spread. What's the issue?
So do you feel like because I feel like and we shouldn't say it, we shouldn't think it. But I reckon everyone has at some point. Sometimes you see big campaigns or big brands and it's amazing that they're so inclusive, But I reckon, there's a lot of times you say to yourself, Oh, looks like they've ticked the boxes. Or there are companies that hire because they're like, well, we need a person of color because we haven't ticked that
box yet. Do you feel like you've been in that position where you've been a box to tick?
I could count on one and a half hands how many times I've gone to a makeup shoe to be the face of a makeup brand or to be a lead in the campaign shoe, get there, get really excited, and haven't been like, we're going to actually use another brand because we don't have your shade. But it won't
matter because eventually it'll be coming out. I've signed the contract, everyone like, and you know what it says in contracts you cannot bring the company's name into disrepute Otherwise you're in breach and we can sue you.
That feels like dress And I'm not a lawyer, do you know what I'm saying?
Yeah?
And again it's like as an individual, I remember I used to make it my problem. I would go and meet with the heads of these really big Australian beauty department stores and say like, Hey, what's happening what's going on, babes. If to get a social post on an Instagram page, it has to go to forty five people. You think it's not a conscious decision to exclude a whole demographic and have time.
I don't known where foundation anymore.
Some might say it was a trauma response.
Flex.
We think you are phenomenal, everything that you have achieved, everything that you do. One thing that has been said to us by someone that we interviewed in the past who I really really understood this. She said, you walk into the room as someone who's Caucasian and you represent yourself. But when you're someone of color, you walk into a room and you speak, but you also then speak on plf of everyone of your nationality or everyone that you're representing.
Do you feel feel that it is a burden? And I mean, it's a joy for us that we get to share these conversations with you. But I can only I can only imagine that it must be a constant education piece for people.
Absolutely, But I recognize I'm compensated for it. Imagine the times where I wasn't you know, it's so strange. I would remember going to like corporate job interviews when I worked in pr and I would get to these jobs, they'd be like, oh, I thought you were German. Doesn't sound like an African last time. Anyway, my friend was telling me she's from Kenya, by the way, do you know her?
Anyway, she was telling.
Me that, you guys, that's not your real hair, and I was saying, why would they put fake care in their real hair?
Anyway? I don't know how you people do it, but I was saying, you know.
And it's like, okay, So I don't understand how we've gotten to this point, and I would just like to go back to this Lilian Hankin. It's it is an African name, it's not German anyway, That's what it becomes like. And then I get really, I don't know what the
word is. I'm mindful because I have a lot of opinions and I really believe in you aren't and like, you know, a couple of years ago, I used to host a philosophy and psychology podcast with a fellow black woman, and she's South African and lives in America and I'm African like Ghani and I live in Australia. People assume we're the same because I give back, black whatever, very different.
That's a lot of what the podcast was about. But through doing that, I was like, even even the audience that we curated kept on homogenizing, up was kept on saying, but how do you guys think so differently? Why don't
you guys have the same experience? And I was like, I don't really feel like you're pushing fording that frontal lobe developed, Like I don't understand how to simplify this topic to a point where it makes sense to explain to people, Like it sounds like I would be infantilizing someone to be like, hey, just because I'm this way and this person is this way, where different people.
And we've just asked you to do it in twenty minutes.
Yeah, you're all complicit. I don't know, Like, I just like to have fun with it. I like to have a good time. But I think it's a discussion worth having because in the same vein, I'm not privy to a bunch of conversations about different ethnic experience, different sexual experience,
different socioeconomic experiences. And I would hate for someone to demean me or degrade me for not knowing what I could know if I had access to but I also feel like the world is a farked place, Like the world is such a scary place, and we have so much individual responsibility to ensure it's different, and we can't just fall back on I didn't know, because you can tell me all the people Taylor Swift as dated and all the little easter eggs in her songs and all
of these meanings you pull out of these arbitrary things. But there are real people with real life consequences, and we fall back on ignorance too often. And I'm all cool with not knowing, but I feel like we've been in a really fortunate time.
People are given a lot.
Of grace for not knowing, but the world is getting really angry and really violent and really dismissive of people who don't know. And I'm really fearful for well, what happened to those people who were coasting on ambiguity, who were kind of hoping that, like, oh, I'm going to get it in five years time.
I don't know if people are going to be that accommodating.
Flex, we could talk to you forever, but unfortunately we can't live. But we will be doing a podcast with Flex soon. She doesn't know that she knows. Now we're going to be doing a podcast on this.
Is that cool? Thank you for the consent, the false consent, in form consent.
She is such an interesting girl. I just love flex mummy. Now I know that we're taking a break and we're bringing you some episodes of our live show Conversations. But where we are not taking a break is the Life on Cut discussion group. It is the Facebook group. It's like sevy five ish thousand friends in there and we chat all day long. If you're not a part of it, I will put a link in the show notes, but if you want to search on Facebook, it is called
the Life Uncut Discussion Group. And you know the drill, Tell you mum, tell your dad, tell your dog, tell your friends, and share the love because we love love