You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast is recorded on Hello and welcome to Mamma Mia out loud. It's what women are actually talking about on Wednesday, the fifteenth of October. My name is Hollywayne Wright, my name is Amelia Luster.
And I am Jesse Stevens.
And here's what's made our agenda for today. I have a very basic question for non basic foreign policy expert Amelia. Did Donald Trump just do something that only he could?
And a comedian hurt my feelings recently and that got me thinking about what is okay and not okay to make fun of.
Plus, Selena Gomez posted a behind the scenes video from her wedding was actually filmed by Taylor Swift, and Taylor Swift accidentally revealed something but Selena didn't want us to say.
She wouldn't be happy.
The Internet is not happy with what they saw.
But first, we can't go on without discussing a little thing that broke the internet briefly overnight. Our friend Kim Kardashian, she's not your friend, she's my friend. I'm claiming her. The woman who really knows how to make money. Her brand, Skims launched something called the Ultimate Bush Song. And if you're like, what do those words mean? I think if you think about it for another second, you've probably got it in your head.
Is it a Steve Erwin inspired flip flop?
Really thick like spider proof, soul repellent in it and stuff. It's not that it's not the Ultimate bush Song in an Australian sense, although that's genius. It is a teeny tiny mesh g string that comes in seven different shades and textures that basically is a murkin. So the front part, the little triangle part has fake pubic hair on it to put no final hand washed only, and it comes in all kinds of different shades. You can have straight, you can have curly, you can have full, you can
have meat. It's absolutely nuts and although as one common to pointed out, I could grow one of these myself. In forty eight hours, they have sold out at seventy bucks a pop, proving once again that Kim and her mates Emma Green and Co. Are marketing geniuses, but also maybe that the bushes back. I don't know. Jesse wants your take on why we all went crazy for the Well we didn't. I don't know when did you buy one?
I tried, but it was all sold out and I couldn't decide between the red curly and the red straight. And I was kind of glad that it all sold out because I didn't like the image of a white head g string just hanging in a warehouse, just not knowing, going into landfill.
Like I like, nobody would have bought the white one.
There was a white straight one. That made me a bit sad.
To be completely honest, Sorry, when we keep talking about them being sold out, do we think that there were any or have they just declared this is like Meghan's jams, like where they're ten.
I think there might have been ten. I don't think that they had an abundance of stock.
Well who knows, right, because the thing that we do know about Skims because Emma Greed, who is you know, one of the geniuses behind the brand. She has talked about this openly. She said they do something called stunt releasing, and they did it with the nipple bra, where they basically will release a product that will get everybody talking for a hot minute, like we're doing now and the internet is doing right now, and really it just drives
people to the website to buy other stuff. What is particularly interesting though about the Bush song is when she was talking about the nipple bra, she said, the nipple bra was designed to sell look at me holding, well, I'm doing this is not appropriate. The nipple bra was kind of to get you to buy a T shirt, to get you to buy a baby tea, because the idea of those baby teas in Kardashian kind of style is it would look cute if your nipples were showing through and whatever.
I have seen more nipples since that nipple braw came out.
I have, So it was a leader. It was a leader to get So what is the bushy thong trying to get us to buy?
Let's not forget that twenty twenty five declared by Vogue as the year of the Bush.
It was.
There's been Runway You've forgotten, which is really are about today? Full Bush in a bikini training on TikTok has been for the US summer YEP. And then there was Runway Shows twenty four to twenty five that season where the Runway models I think they were mercans, but you could see kind of the outline of pubic hair. And what's really in at the moment is that naked dress where you can see just the underwear underneath. I can see a world in which you wear an American underneath.
I can.
And also I was thinking about, like, you know those satin bias cut skirts that everybody's wearing. Yes, the moment, yes, is that if you were wearing one of these underneath it, they'd just be like a rippling suggestion of your pubic hare go texture suggestion might be.
Hot for some people.
I can see, I can see me are doing it in five Oh my godness, she like you wonder why it's sold out? You know who bought it in every color because she doesn't know if she feels like curly Australia.
They want you to buy lots of them, even if they've only got ten. This say, match, don't match. Switch it up at midday so you can change the color of your bush throughout the day. Very helpful.
Obviously you might want to curl for the evening. We recorded a subscriber episode yesterday about wedding etiquette, Oh, which was very very juicy. But I kind of wish that before we recorded that, we knew more about Selena Gomez's wedding because we've been a little bit late to this story, but I've only just got across it this morning, and I feel as though it raises some thorny ethical questions which we like to explore on this show.
Can I ask you something? Yes, So Selena Gomez. Obviously I know all about who Selena Gomez is kinder as in, she's the most followed woman on Instagram, correct, which I don't really understand why that is. But she is a big, big, big big deal music acting being Taylor swisths best.
Yeah, and it's the evolution, right, She was a Disney star, like and that's where she got really famous. That's why she's got the young people following, and then she went into only medicin building and then that's where she is now. And she's had this incredible singing career, best mates.
With Taylor red Beauty, which is made Oh yes, yeah.
So these are some of the questions that her wedding raises. Should you vape at your wedding? Should you vape at your wedding if your friend literally donated one of her kidneys to you, and should you have invited that friend who gave you a significant organ.
To your wedding.
Should she have come right?
These I know they're really hard and Selena needs some help. So today Selena is probably texting her friend Taylor Swift, being like, was I in the wrong? Like they're definitely going back and forth, and they're texting about a woman's right to vape. But we're going to go back to the beginning. So we've established to Selena Gomez is and then a few weeks ago she gets married. She's been
drip feeding us content as every good bride does. And then I think that she was trying to do a bit of a shout out to Taylor Swift, which now means I have more wedding content to drop.
Well, because for the first week there was no Taylor any of the pictures. It's quite a good strategy. She was like, my best friend isn't gonna, you know, completely take over my day. But she was definitely there, everybody, you just haven't seen me yet. And then to coincide with the album launch.
She shared a video that Taylor Swift herself had taken, and you can see that the moment the camera pans to Selena, she tries to hide something in her hand, which is very clearly a vape.
Now I have something to interrupt with.
Yeah, an important piece of advice if you're getting married, or if you're planning on getting married sometime in the near future. Taylor Swift as videographer at your wedding is a really smart choice. And I'll tell you why. The person who is documenting your wedding, either through photos or through video, must be tall.
Think about it, and taller than you.
Taller than you, which is not hard.
Selena's not particularly tall, and Nora is her husband Benny, but Taylor is a tall woman and therefore will take the most flattering video and photos of you at your wedding.
That's why take them.
Absolutely.
Yeah, it's not kind to my friends. Now fans are pissed because vaping is not good for your kidneys. And technically her one kidney belongs to a woman named Francia what who donated it to her in twenty seventeen.
Twenty seventeen, how old Selena Gomez ish?
Thirty three? So she was that was eight years ago, let's go, she was like twenty five ish.
Wow?
And why did she need a kidney transplant? Or is that none of my business. I suspect it's none of my business, but I still need to know.
Of course, she's told you she had a loopus Fler, Her and Francier were good mates. And then what happened was she needed this kidney, Francier donated the kidney. Then in the aftermath things got a bit weird. There was unfollowing, there was tension. There was a weird TikTok video where Selena Gomez made a joke about how much alcohol she drinks and everyone was like, not good for you. One kidney and that's Franciers kidney.
So basically, by telling everyone she'd had a kidney transplant, she made her health everybody else's business, and now everybody has a lot of opinions about what she should shouldn't be doing with what's her name is kidney.
Because remember she had that documentary years ago, didn't even mention Francier who gave her her kidney. And then in it as well, she had a line where she said, I've only got one friend in the industry, and it's Taylor Swift. Francier commented on that and was like interesting, dot dot dot, and then deleted.
It is Francier as big as Taylor Swift.
No, but she is in the industry right. Actually, I need to get this on the record too. Francier, giver of the kidney, reportedly not invited. What does it take to get a wedding invite? Polly? Do we have to be more secretive about our bad habits when we're vaping into someone else's kidney.
I'm not very good at biology.
I googled it.
I'm vaping into a kidney.
You're vaping kidney something something not good for the kidney. Alcohol probably worse. But she's only got one now, and so does Francis.
This is a cautionary tale about sharing too much, you know how, in a different parallel universe, every contestant on the voice, every person, no master chef, they have to have the story right. And when you're earlier in your career, and when, certainly when you're Selena Gomez and you're like transitioning from Disney Star into lots of other things and you're going through something really serious like needing a kidney transplant, might seem like going public with it is a good idea.
And she had to postpone work things. She disappeared from Instagram for a while, so she sort of did owe her fans.
Otherwise the rumors would have been we know exactly what they would have been, drug abusere no eating disorders, all those things that we definitely think that young stars are getting up to. But the problem is is that, yeah, now she has just ignited the whole Internet, and we know that there is nothing that social media likes more
in twenty twenty five than a sleuth. Because I've watched this video several times and you have to look very closely to see the vape like that's a very because very soon she realizes and she just turns her hand to cover it in her hand.
You spotted it, they did.
Well, I didn't until they pointed it out. But everybody loves to sleuth, and then everybody loves to judge, and then here we are. That's something I think she should do. What she wants her kidney now, it's like you gave it to me, Now it's mine.
The story we really want to tell is about the entitlement of celebrities, and people quite love the idea that Selena Goman is one of the most famous women in the world. Somehow hoodwinked another woman into giving her a kidney and then dropped her the second she got it like it is the most ridiculous story that kind of does make you laugh because it brings up questions of what you owe someone and the idea that you are so entitled that you would take someone's organ and then
like pillage. It is kind of ridiculous, Amelia, what do you make of it?
Do you remember bad art friend?
Yeah?
Yes, This was an.
Internet phenomenon back in twenty twenty one which gets at the fact that we are all really weird about kidney donations. So what happened in this story? There were two people who were friends on Facebook but probably not really friends in real life, both women, both writers. One of them donated a kidney to a stranger and started posting a lot on Facebook about what a wonderful person she was for giving this kidney to a stranger. The other person,
the other woman, would never like the posts. She never commented on the post, she never said you're a wonderful person, Well done you, And in the end this led to a confrontation between the two women where the kidney donors said, why did you never acknowledge that they did this amazing thing?
And then the other woman thought that was kind of ridiculous and went on to write a very dawning story about someone who donates a kidney and then goes around asking everyone to congratulate her for doing it.
Forgot about that glorious.
There's a name for these people who do these extremely generous things, and that name is an extreme altruist, and people have identified that we all feel weird about extreme altruists. We should feel great about them because they're doing great things for other people, but they really make us feel bad.
So people who donate kidneys and do amazing things other people often receive hostility and suspicion from people, and that's because they're making us feel bad about us about the fact that we wouldn't give our kidney unless we were going to get absolute, concrete proof that that kidney was going to a lived the rest of its life in a beautiful, fancy.
Mansion and b be extremely well treated at all times green juice only.
But that is not to say that those people are always above board in how they talk about what they've done. And we don't know what went on behind the scenes here between Selena and her friend who donated the kidney a lot of the times, like for instance, with that out friend. What happened was this woman who donated her kidney became objectively insufferable.
She never stopped talking about it.
She then told The New York Times that the reason why she gave a kidney to a stranger is because she had a very isolated childhood and she wanted to build bridges and make connections in her life, and that's why she did this extraordinary thing. But the story picked up traction because there was something really needy about her, and she kept wanting approval from people for this act. And this is speculation, but I wonder if between Selena
and her friend that dynamic became unsustainable. The friend was like, you shouldn't be eating that mayonnaise covered, so you shouldn't be eating fast food. You shouldn't be drinking champagne, which there were also photos of Selena drinking champagne at her wedding too, in a coop. So maybe she just couldn't deal with this friend judging her every move.
Jesse, you know more about this story maybe than anyone. There's that track in the TikTok of this. Has the kidney donating friend been talking heaps about it.
No, she's kind of retreated a little bit, although.
But she did write interesting on that Posty.
She write interesting on that post. She unfollowed Selena Gomez and then again she said from the beginning that the doctor told her it was a donation, and when you donate a dollar, you don't walk around asking person who you gave the dollar, two for the dollar back, like
she kind of understands that. But there is some interesting tidbits that she didn't interview afterwards, where she said that she had to write a will before she did it, and a social worker said, this is really emotionally difficult because when you give someone your kidney, you watch them almost get better while your body suffers because you are really ill. Yeah, she had post surgery depression. She had to adjust to all of that. She was only in her mid twenties herself.
To Amelia's point about why, and obviously this is prejorative language, but why a Dona may become insufferable, one of those good reasons might be because no one seems to understand what you're going through. They just think, oh, that was a nice thing to do, Shut up about it.
I wonder if she just ultimately felt like she wasn't properly compensated for it. By that, I don't mean financial compensation. It is illegal to purchase organs from people, but I mean that she feels that Selena wasn't sufficiently great full true.
I think it gives way to all of these complex moral questions about what you owe someone who saves your life. Because she did save her life, and there have been moments where Selena Gomez has won an award and she stood on stage and she has said, I owe this to the woman who saved my life. But does she have to do that for the rest of her for the rest of her life and do an appreciation post scheduled every six months? Can she just kind of drop it?
I do think she should have invited her to the world. You do, I do?
I mean she didn't have to worry about the headcount and keeping it under a certain amount to stick to her budget.
So trust her.
Though, when you're a celebrity, that's a big deal, right She might think, Oh, it reminds me a little bit of watching the Kardashians once, watching a clip from them talk about their surrogates, and Chloe was asking Courtney, I think is it okay to tell the surrogate for my child, like what they should eat and that I only want them to eat organic and I want and blah blah blah. And Kin was like, yeah, absolutely, like send them the food. And then I think he said, you should tell them
what TV to watch. You don't want your unborn charpe around any trashy television like.
This because in the US you can pay someone to be your surrogate, whereas in Australia you cannot.
And it could be in the contract. No reality TV in the house. In a moment, did Donald Trump just do something no one else could do?
Andy good evening.
We begin with that major breaking news tonight, A.
New Dawn hopes rise upter Donald Trump broke as a momentous Middle East peace deal breaking news.
President Trump has just announced on social media that Israel and Hamas signed off on the first phase of a peace agreement. US President Donald Trump has hailed the ceasefire deal as a momentous breakthrough.
And I can't believe I'm saying this.
I gotta give Donald Trump some props here. I have a question for Amelia about peace in the Middle East. So it has been an extraordinary and historic week. As we're recording this, we have to acknowledge there's a very long way to go to understand if the Middle East peace agreement between Israel and Hamas is going to hold,
and what rebuilding a devastated Gaza might look like. But what is not in question right now is that US President Donald Trump is claiming responsibility for doing something that no one else has been able to do for two long years since the October seventh attacks, get all surviving hostages returned to Israel, more than two thousand Palestinian detainees released, and get a ceasefire deal signed. This leads me to
a question that is bothering liberals everywhere Amilia. Did Donald Trump do something good?
Yes?
Yes, Look, I just don't know how anyone could see the emotional scenes this week of Israeli hostages being returned to their families, Palestinians who have been in Israeli jails coming home, a ceasefire after some seven hundred and thirty days. I don't know anyone who could look at that and answer that question any other way.
Holly. He did do something good.
And as you say, there are so many issues to be resolved and which may never be resolved, and we're already seeing a lot of backsliding and complications. But this is the Trump way, make the deal and then let other people sort out the details.
So why is he the guy who could get this done? So is this a case of well, it kind of had to happen sometime and Trump with the man in the chair, or is this a case of Trump exceptionalism.
There's a thing called madman theory. Have you heard of this?
No, It comes from political science, and it was actually invented by another very polarizing US president, Richard Nixon, And basically it goes that if everyone thinks you're mad, they kind of have to go along with what you want
them to do. And this came up for Nixon because during the Cold War, when both the Soviet Union and the United States had their fingers on the nuclear button and they were threatening each other with total annihilation, the Soviet Union didn't want to do anything to upset Richard Nixon because he was just crazy enough seeming that they thought he might in fact blow up the entire world if they upset him.
So it's fear and not knowing what they're going to do next.
It's fear and the unpredictability of these people, And I think that's why Joe Biden couldn't get this done, but Donald Trump did so. When Trump said he was going to destroy Hamas unless they agreed to this deal, and when he told Netanya, who, hey, you better really follow through on this cease fire and not break it, both sides realized they kind of had to go along with it, because when Donald Trump says he's going to destroy you, he might just actually destroy you.
So he might have actually done what no other president would do and withdraw support for Israel. So Biden has congratulated Trump.
So Bill Clinton, Yeah, everyone, Yeah.
So a lot of h I mean, I can imagine that that was quite difficult for Biden to do given their history. Do you think that liberals, and when I say liberals, I mean liberals, are worried that acknowledging that he did make an audacious deal to get this done helps Trump at home? Do you think they're worried about that?
I think it absolutely helps Trump. If you read the US press this week, there's.
Been a lot of sort of American exceptionalism during the rounds, a lot of only the US could have pulled this off. A lot of pride, even coming from places that you might not expect to be celebrating Donald Trump. There's been this kind of surge of national sentiment that the US helped well made this piece happen.
So yeah, it's absolutely going to help him.
I've seen some political analysts say that Trump, while some would suggest that he's kind of this war hungry, chaotic man, that he actually likes peace. He wants peace, and he wants to follow through on that. Is that true?
It's true.
That's why he has been talking about how the award he wants more than anything is a Nobel Peace Prize. Now he didn't get it last week, but I'm sure he's going to be lobbying very aggressively for it next year. Back in the eighties, when he was this New York businessman, was known for his pension for gold toilets. Even back then he talked about his fears about nuclear war. So this has been a longstanding obsession of his with this notion of peace and being a peace maker.
Do you think he's actually a contender for that award at this point?
I think he is.
He's been able to do what no other president in recent US history has done.
Is it fair for those people who are like wrestling with the complexity of this the whole, Like, but I can't stand what he's doing at home. I can't stand the ice raids. I can't stand. It's not like admitting that Trump did pull this off means that you have to sign off and all that. Right, we can remember that, like duality exists, and I don't think that saying this was a piece of I don't know if diplomacy is the right word with him, but this was a piece
of deal making that will go down in history. And obviously, depending on as we've already said on the complexities of what happened next, it's still a historical moment. It doesn't mean you have to like suddenly wear a Maga hat.
Right, No, I didn't bring mine today. No, it absolutely doesn't mean that. But I do think that it's been a bit of an embarrassing moment for a lot of small l liberal commentators and analysts because another element of this is, remember Jared Kushna, Avanka Trump's husband, who was
very involved in foreign policy in Trump's first administration. He was working behind the scenes on this too, and so people are having to think, well, look, Trump does lean on these people who we kind of make fun of or who we don't think are up to the task, like Jared, But Jared was involved in doing this deal, as you say, And no matter what happens next now, we certainly hope that the cease fire holds.
We certainly hope that there can.
Be a plan for rebuilding Gaza, which really does as you say, Holly Lion ruins. But no matter what happens next, the achievement of getting Hamas and Netanyahu to agree on this stands alone.
It's very TRUMPI in to claim all the credit, which he is absolutely done. I think someone said this was one of the biggest things that had happened in fifty years, and he was like one hundred, like, that's very Trump. Was it actually him as an individual man, or was it a bunch of people behind the scenes and he's just standing up wanting to be the poster boy.
There were a bunch of people behind the scenes. Dearrek Kushner was one of them. Steve Wikoff, who is a deal maker from Trump's New York real estate days, was also very involved. But I think, ultimately, and it brings me no particular joy to say this. It was Trump who got the deal over the line. So Biden had tried very hard to make this happen. He had had his Secretary of State traveling around the world dozens of times trying to get these people to the negotiating table, and it didn't work.
I think that this madman.
Theory explains to us why Trump has this unique ability to get people to do.
What he wants.
And there are so many things that have to happen at this point. And of course, while this is a moment of triumph for Donald Trump and a moment of celebration for the region and the world world, we have to acknowledge that seventy thousand people or thereabouts have died in this conflict.
That's why it's so important that the ceasefire has to hold.
In a moment, I am going to share the four lines I learned this week to get you through any stressful situation.
Want unlimited out loud access, We drop episodes every Tuesday and Thursday exclusively for Mum and MAYA subscribers. Follow the link in the show notes to get us in your ears five days a week. And a huge thank you to all our current subscribers.
A comedian hurt my feelings recently. Oh can I tell you what happened?
Yes?
So my greatest fear in life is audience participation. Oh me too, greatest fear? What is it?
Because we're all happy to stand on stage, but I would never ask a question and I would never put my hand up to go. I'll go on stage and be a volunteer. The bravery involved in that.
I know who would?
Yes, friend, Oh, we love it.
He goes to any comedy show and stuff pretty much for the T shirt like pick me anyway. But I can acknowledge that most of us.
We're with you. It's why I'm scared of stand up comedy. But my partner enjoys a bit of stand up comedy. And he recently was in Los Angeles and he went to the world Famous Comedy Store in West Hollywood, which is in fact world famous and everyone who's everyone has performed there. On the night he was there, Mark Maron and Ali Wong did set no Bingie Wow, and then at the very end of the night, a man named Don Barris stood up. He is Jimmy Kimmel's warm up act on his TV show, but I'd never heard of
him before. He stood up, was doing a bit of crowd work, and he pointed at my partner and said, what was it like to wake up this morning and think I'm going to put on the ugliest shirt in the world. So I found out about this not because he called me in tears immediately, which is what.
I would have done. I found out about it weeks later when we were getting.
Dressed in the morning and he turns to me and says, what do you think of the shirt? And I said, oh, well, I like it. I gave it to you and he said, well, a comedian didn't like it, and then told me the story.
So the comedian dissed you because you chose the shirt.
This is why he had my feelings. I was devastated. I'm not going to lie. I'm still carrying it around a little bit.
Sorry. You have to explain to us what the shirt looks like. I mean, I think it's a nice show.
It's one of those like fake rugby jerseys, so it's not like got a name of a team on it, but it's.
Very commendance like. It's got a color exactly white color.
A white collar.
It's got a sort of I thought it was a very Iberian influenced color scheme of reds and vibrant yellows, which I thought would really play off my partner's olive skin very nicely.
And look, I know.
I'm not great at clothes. I don't pretend to be great at clothes. But I had bought that as an act of love, as a gesture of love, and I thought it through.
And then to have this comedian shit on my clothing choices, it's stung.
That is so funny.
Can I ask if Johnny your husbands has he worn it since?
Oh?
Absolutely.
The point of him bringing it up with me was not that it bothered him that the comedian said this. The point of him bringing it up was that it was genuinely confusing to him that a shirt that he quite liked was being described as ugly, Because to him, with the confidence of a man who enjoys crowd work, he just thought, oh, that's confusing.
I like this shirt. That comedian doesn't like it.
The thing is so great about that story, and maybe let's be generous. Maybe the comedian just does that gag every night and just picks anyone and he's not.
Really, but he's still got to pick someone.
And you don't want to be that person. But as you said, how you would react, and I would represent for most women I know, they could never They could never wear that shirt again, like that shit has now been tainted. What other people think of your clothes. It says something about your psyche or your past everything.
When he asked me what I thought of the shirt, and I said I like it, and then he told me the story.
He then proceeded to wear the shirt that day.
I think I've got a bit of Johnny. I reckon that. Yeah, I reckon. If I looked at it and went I like it, then I think I'd put on the shirt and go about my day.
Because I just tell you often that she doesn't like your clothes.
Yeah, I just go, No one's really thinking that much about me, And if it's making me feel good, then I don't really care.
Mia once told me she didn't like my shirt. It was a short sleeved linen shirt and she said that it wasn't a good look on me.
She said that with love, not like this awful comedian. But I never wore the shirt.
Again, and I drove that shirt immediately. The Vinies actually exactly what I gave it to them and said, set this free. Don't tell anyone what me a freaking said about it? Is it okay to take the piss out of people's clothes?
Like?
Well, that's what I wanted to bring to you today because there was an article that Sit Harold this morning by Chris Harrison. It was titled if you can call me bald, I can call you fat.
Okay.
He makes the point that in our very PC world, as he puts it, baldness is still deemed acceptable for ridicule. And he says, why is that Because it's not like men can control.
Whether or not they're bald.
And I wonder if that's the issue, Because you can control what clothes you put on, you cannot control what is happening on.
Your head with your hair. No bus is that the line?
That's true? However? And I know how really painful hair loss is for men and women, but more common for men and a more common side effective eating. And it can be devastating, you know, it can be absolutely devastating to confidence. But it's true that that could be a line. But then in this day and age, and he goes into this, Chris Harrison in this article, Yes, the baldness is happening, but you do have choices about what to do about it, just as you could say for all
of us. But women get this pressure more. The wrinkles are happening, but you now have a whole lot of choices about what to do about them, you know what I mean. So there makes feel so much worse. So yeah, yeah, there's still judgment attached then, because it's kind of like, oh, you don't see it because choice, buddy, you know what I mean.
And it's like, maybe I should tell you so that you know that there are treatments that would fix.
Your eye exactly like your wrinkles. You don't have to wear those on your face. Have you heard about injections?
There's this social irritation with people who So the big one of the last week or two has been Rafael Nadal, who is the tennis player who has been experiencing hair loss since his twenties. Very handsome and early in his career he had long, luscious, thick hair.
He would look lovely in the rugby shirt but oh.
My goodness, it was made for him. And just recently and images come up of him posing with a fan smiling and his hair loss. People have commented and just said, you need to get to Turkey. You need to get those hair transplants. Like people are being so mean to him. The irony is that reportedly he has had two treatments to try and salvage what hair he has left. But people's irritation is like, how can you be so rich
and not have this sorted? And if you're not going to sort it, then shave your head.
I don't want to look at it.
I don't want to look at it.
You know.
It's interesting because when I first read this article, I thought I would never take the piss out of a boarding man. I thought that's a terrible thing to do it same and then I thought about things I may have said about Princess William and Harry over the years, particularly William increasingly Harry, that are ungenerous because to the point Chris Harrison is making in this article, there is
pleasure somehow in mocking a man. Prince William has been copying shit about the fact that his hairline has been receiving for a very long time. I think if Prince Harry makes a joke about it in his book, I was that to say, yeah, I mean he should he wouldn't be laughing now because he's definitely facing some of the same stuff. But he made a joke about it in his book. Is there's something that's kind of open and a little bit suddenly, Do I want to say
I'm masculating? And I definitely, when I think about it, probably have made those jokes about Prince William or a rich and powerful man who's losing his hair, almost like and I am not proud of this, almost like ha, you've got it all, but not that, And that is ugly right in me, I mean, not in them. I don't mean that they're ugly. Oh my god.
Chris Harrison writes, people assume making fun of the ball guy is harmless, a punchline with no real victim.
That's true, by the way. I think that's absolutely true. They think baldness invites less emotional vulnerability than say a joke about weight or appearance, But such assumptions ignore the deep personal impact hair loss can have on self esteem, identity, and even perceptions of aging or viriality.
Yeah, I think that's totally a thing. However, I think that the comparison to weight is imperfect. Yeah, I think that when it comes to men, and baldness. I think most people know you wouldn't comment.
I hope that well, you know, I bet you that men get a lot of why don't you just shave it like a lot of masquerading as you know, in the same way that they might say you can do something about those wrinkles, Holly, they might say, you know, you should just shave it off. People have very strong feelings about that, don't they like, yeah, are you holding onto that hair?
I think the difference is if you looked in most boardrooms, if you looked at politicians, if you looked at who is currently leading our country, you'd find examples of men who don't have a lot of hair.
So you think it's punching off.
I think it's.
Power, and I think that that's why it feels different. That doesn't mean it's so kay. And I also thought that there are heaps of examples Vin Diesel, Andre Agassi, Joe Rogan. He's one of the most powerful masculine coded men in our culture and he doesn't have any hair. But I also do see how it can be colored. Is almost the buffoon, and that's what so Homer Simpson was like the guy with that it's like the suburban dad.
And I understand that if you have hang ups about aging, that can be really confronting to kind of look in the mirror and go, oh, my goodness, I'm looking like my father.
Well, and you're making me realize a bit of a phenomenon that I've noticed, which is when you're in a group with a man who is bald, more often than not, he will make a joke drawing attention to it. You've been in a moment like.
Death, but that's quite a female defensively where we'll do that. You know, will be like, oh, I know I look like this today.
Well, now I understand why they're doing it.
They're doing it because it is actually hurtful to have those jokes made, and yet they're expected to shrug them off. So in an effort to gain control over the situation and call it out before anyone else does, that's.
Why they do it.
What about amongst friends, We've talked about this before, that that joshing and taking the peace culture, which is enormous among certainly Australian men, I would say definitely englishmen too. The sign of love is how much shit you give each other, and it may sting but that's part of it. And we've said that women we have a slightly more complicated situation with that because we often know that it's pointed, or we know that our worth and verticomas is more
tied to our appearance, so it hurts more. But is it okay within a friend group to take the piss out of each other about aging?
I still wouldn't my closest male friends. There is no way I would make a joke about them losing their hair. It is too sensitive. I can tell from a mile away. And maybe it's my age group as well, that the men that I know are in the early stages of it. And this guy says balding is a lot harder than being bald, like, that's a really awkward process. I think any comment about someone's appearance that makes them feel conspicuous
and visible, they can joke about it. You can't. I can tell anything I want about how big I am, but I just reckon. You don't know how that person is today. You don't know how many comments they've got. I just wouldn't. I think that's a good rule. And this guy was saying he's in meetings people are joking about Oh all the lights went off, like something about his bald head and solar panels. Like in the workplace, you just go drop it.
Yeah, I wonder if the female equivalent is gray hair, because they're both like visible signs of aging on top of your head, and you would never casually point out that a woman had gray hair, even a friend of yours. I don't think. I think we kind of are agreeing that we're not talking about that. But on the punching up thing. Carolina Donna, who who hosts Sentimental Garbage that podcast.
She was talking in the context of Taylor Swift's new album, and Taylor Swift has been criticized for punching down in a song that people have interpreted as a disk track targeting Charlie XCX. She says she doesn't believe in the concept of punching down or punching up in humor. She says that the only real test of whether a joke is okay is if it lands if it's funny. So I just want to ask in this case.
I don't buy that because the question of if it's funny.
Can be fun everyone in the room except the person who.
Who was a very subjective question, you know, everyone else might think that song is hilarious about Charlie XX, or that the ball joke is great. But if he doesn't, yeah.
I guess bringing it back to the shirt incident that inspired this, yes, that's not a very funny joke.
I don't think it's funny. I really cringe at crowd work for that exact reason that I just think. I do not find anything that embarrasses someone funny. And maybe it's a female thing that I just go. I've had enough experiences where I've felt mocked or made fun of, in conspicuous or conspicuous, and I just want to be invisible.
Or the reason they do it now and obviously comedians have always done it, but the reason they do it now and it is because it's the bit you can put on social because you've got your set, and your sets the same every night mostly right. So if I go and see Mark Maron, he's worked out his hour and he can't put that on social because then you're not going to go and see him. But you can put the crowd work bit on social over and over again.
So now it's become even more important and they've got to walk that line.
We're going to pour a picture of the shirt that I purchased for Johnny on Instagram and you can tell me if I screwed up or not.
I want to leave us with a bit of wisdom today and it's not my wisdom, but I've stolen it and I am implementing it and I am handing it around like Lolly's. Would you like to hear it?
Yes?
So, Amelia, I don't know if you mind me saying this. So you had something big and important to do last night.
I did.
What did you do?
Test? I was one of the Boyer lecturers.
That's an ABC lecture series about the future of Australia.
That's no big deal, just the future of Australia with like all the really big brains.
So where was it?
It was at the ABC studios. Johnny showed up in a polo shirt, but not the I was relieved by because otherwise Julia Baird, who was hosting.
Anyway, we were in the afternoon. Melia was prepping and while I was sitting next to her, she was nervous. We talked about being nervous and I immediately had to pull out my phone to share something with it. I had one of those moment's recently when you're listening to something and I had to pull the car over to
make a note on my notes app. It was on a podcast called wild Card, which is an interview show hosted by this NPR journalist American called Rachel Martin, and basically it's like you pull random cards and you answer the questions on it. This one was with Selene Song. She is a movie director. She is amazing. She made Past Lives, which is one of my favorite films. She also made Materialists, which is not but still she's very talented. The last card that she pulled, the question was what
truth guides your life more than any other? And what Selene's song then shared was like a mantra, like these four lines that she herself had learnt from her professor at Columbia or something like another big important person. Selene's song describes them as the four rules for anything we have to do as humans, Right, Okay, I had to
immediately put them down. So you're turning up to a thing like a conversation with someone that you know is going to be difficult, a meeting that might be confrontational, something for work, boy lecture, or something more relatable in your life that makes you nervous and worried, arguing with your landlord, whatever it is.
The White Merchant.
Yes, yes, yes, Number one show up Now I think what they mean by show up we all know in common parlance now that means be present, be there right. Number two, pay attention. This is my favorite. Number three speak from the heart, and number four the hardest, Have no expectations.
So I like that.
I loved it so much because whenever you have to do anything that you're nervous about, or you've been thinking about a lot, or that activates you in any way in your mind, you always play out and this is how it's going to go, and this is the outcome I want, and all those things. And if you get that outcome, you feel like you've been successful, and if you don't get that outcome, you feel like you've failed. And in reality, it's very unlikely that you affected whether
or not you've got that outcome. A whole lot of different things will have affected that. So I love have no expectations, although it's not a question the hardest one, and I love pay attention because I think everything from sitting down to do this show every day to having
a difficult conversation with my teenager. If I'm listening and I'm really there and I'm paying attention and I'm not thinking in my head, oh that thing I just said, I shouldn't have said that thing, you know what I mean, then I always the outcome is better every single time.
But every one of these was so helpful to me because just take the first one. Show up sounds obvious, but what that speaks to is this was a very intimidating thing for me to do, and I had to work through, uncharacteristically for me, some imposter syndrome around it.
But show up says you just got to show up.
Yeah, someone's going to show up, may as well be you, And I found that really powerful as well.
Speak from the hearts quite hard because I think that that's a vulnerability, you know. I like to sort of say this is how I'm feeling, I guess or whatever it is. But that also just means be authentic, really know.
Yeah.
I got a tip once from a performance psychologist which was when you feel your brain start to wonder, which happens whether you're on stage, sometimes when you're doing a speech, sometimes when you're in an important meeting like focusing on tiny little things like if I'm speaking to you holy like even if you just have to go look at their eyebrows, look at their blood, like take yourself back into the moment in kind of like minuscule details that
should like reorient you to that moment. But little mantras they make such a difference, don't they do.
So now this is on notes up in my phone. I welcome you put on notes up in your phone if you want it.
It was really helpful.
And I'm gonna see if it's going to change my life. You know, I'm always looking for them that's going to change my life.
Has changed my life. And I say, I felt nerves the other day and I said, my mantrat, nerves went excellence over perfection. I say that all the time myself.
That's it for today's show. A massive thank you to all of you out louders for listening or maybe even watching us on YouTube. Remember you can always do that. And thank you, of course to our amazing team for putting it together. Before we go, I want to tell
you about something else on tomorrow's subset. We are doing this thing well, jesse M and I all answer the question, what did you do yesterday, and I promise you in the episode we explain why I'm asking this question, but quite a lot of you have already answered it because yesterday I jumped in the outluders Facebook group, which is where we have conversations about the show, and I asked the outlouders to tell me in three sentences is what they did yesterday? And oh my god, the outlouders are
doing such interesting things. Not all of them. I mean, some people are on holiday and they're having a great time and that's nice, but also where they are what they're doing. You have to go and look at this thread. It is so great.
That's such a great prompt.
And hey, don't forget to be listening to Parenting out Loud, which drops every week on a Saturday. This Saturday, we're going to be asking how much would you pay for the perfect baby name? And we tackle Halloween. Is it bringing a sense of community or is it just a punish for parents? Find it in its own feed by searching Parenting out Loud and tap follow so you don't miss an episode.
Jesse, you need two baby names? How much you need to pay for them?
Well, you know, I'm just going with my f one, Blando and Lewis there we go.
L goodbye, out loud eye. Shout out to any Mamma Mia subscribers listening. If you love the show and you want to support us, subscribing to Mamma Mia is the very best way to do it. There's a link in the episode description