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Hello and welcome.
To MoMA Mia out loud. It's what women are actually talking about on Wednesday, the thirty first of July, third first of I'm not going to do that. It's boring.
I'm Holly way right, I'm mea Friedman, and I'm Jesse Stevens. Can you please leave in the bit where Holly just realized her thought was boring, I think that's a bit of bts. Is every time we see the date, we should go, oh.
I'm already stop it, Holly, Like every time you see a child, it's grown so much. When I saw you this hard, gosh, the year's flying.
It's blown anyway, Okay, moving off on the show today, Hey Boomer. Olympic vibes today are settling on the bottoms of beach volleyballers and how much of them we can see, and on the question of whether we've really stopped valuing soldiering on Also, we're unpacking the unexpected tale of a woman who wants to charge another woman for hosting her kid for a playdate. And is hiring a professional bridesmaid sad as Hell or a feminist act, but first Mia Friedman.
In case you missed it.
In news from Paris, the Americans have their own version of girl math for tallying Olympic medals and it's working very well for them, but the Internet in other countries.
Is not happy.
The current Paris Olympic Game medal tally stands with Japan leading the gold, which is unexpected.
Did Japan usually win?
Like?
Yeah, they usually everything changes in week two because then it's track and field, right, So Australia often goes well in week one because it's swimming and we're like, look at us punching so far above our way. So at the moment, it's Japan, followed by China, and guess who's third Australia. Australia, which is pretty impressive, and the United States is down at number six.
Must be after France and South Korea had for them. But if you look at the way that the.
New York Times is keeping track, America is on top, coming fast because the US Italian total.
Medals as opposed to gold gold, gold, Okay, because they which feel convenient for them.
The same thing at a recent swimming championship and the Australians got very annoyed. I respect and appreciate what they are doing working the numbers. They're working the numbers and what the US does, which I love, and they did this during the Tokyo Olympics, is that they actually switch how they count the medals based on where America will sit on the tally. So last time they counted it like that because they were on top, but then they won the other way and they went back to that
at the end. So they're just like, we'll just fiddle with the numbers so that we're always on top.
Because like it, like it total metal, because I'm a snowflake and I believe that all medals are like you've tried really hard.
Well, so sweet.
The total medals is United States on the top, France, China, Japan, Britain, Australia then is number I can't count, but like seven.
The thing is, I like it better when we're higher.
Every country in the world as well as like you know, the Olympic, they don't have an official way of doing it, so the US have founded a loophole, but every single country in the world counts it. One way is by basically how many.
Gold you know how Holly would like to count by how hard people try.
I would. That's exactly how I rate my kids' school reports. They get all the credit for the effort score. That's who I am.
Good way they go for possibly.
Why I'm not an Olympian one of the many, many reasons why I'm not an Olympian. Just a disclaimer out louders with our Olympic vibes segments that I'm sure we're going to do a few times over the next couple of weeks.
We're not sports reporters.
And this is not the place to come if you want a rundown of the metal tally or even you know, lots of results about all our brilliant Australian athletes. That's not what we're here for.
We're here for vibes and feelings.
We're here for vibes and feelings, and I hope it goes without saying that we don't know anything so we'll probably get the terminology wrong and like you on the couch at home, we're just going with our vibes. We obviously support all the Olympians with one things, and the ones who haven't they're your favorites the way they're my favorites. I like the tryers.
I like the ones with the metals.
I'm here for the tryers. Oh good vibes, great vibe, what a great time.
We have more Olympic vibes to bring. We had so many things we're desperate to talk about today.
Still can't work out how to watch it, but we can discuss that later.
I have and I'm going to show.
We got massively called boomers for that. Today we were in our meeting. We brought back that we're finding it hard to watch it. I'm like, I don't know. I haven't seen the single gymnastic event. I can't find it anywhere. Our ahead of content Lisa just looked at us and said, you know, the whole editorial team is laughing at you.
Do you know what it feels like to me?
It feels like news eve where you're sure that there's a better party going on somewhere, you just don't know where, and you're always at the wrong party.
I just feel like I'm always watching the wrong No, I understand. Anyway, back to vibes.
Look, I want to talk about this headline I saw this morning is competing with a raptured ligament an active bravery? Is it something we should celebrate or something we should critique. So the headline I saw this morning was on news dot com and it read Mexican gymnast Natalia Escalera's incredible active bravery at Paras Olympics, and it went on to report how she had a raptured ligament in her foot
but still competed in the uneven bars. Afterwards, she broke down in tears of pain and her coach needed to carry her to a nearby chair. The Mexican Olympic Committee praised her on their social media pages. They posted applause for Natalia Escalera despite having a tear, the Mexican makes her presentation on the uneven bars of the all around.
The reason I find this interesting is that I watched the Simone Bios documentary over the weekend which looked back on gymnasts who had competed with sprained ankles or torn ligaments. Their pain was visible on their faces, and a lot of commons in that documentary said, gymnastics is changing. This takes a toll. We're putting the humanity of our athletes. First. Biles famously pulled out of the Tokyo Olympics, but then even Biles in this Olympics, she has a torn calf
ligament and she secured a gold medal overnight. What do we think? Is this bravery or is there something more sinister at play?
This is how we all become experts while we're watching TV, right every four years. When you said that and you said the torn ligament in her foot, I was like ow. But then when you said on even bars, I'm like, well, hang on a second, you don't that's not a weight beun How does she land exercise except for the land that part, which is awkward. You're right, but like most of it, it's not like a floor routine or a beam or even a vault where you've got to like run.
So her medical team said she couldn't compete in the others and they did clear her for this, but there was still controversy because she has to land.
And you know that when she does land, hopefully on two feet, it's not going to be good for whatever the injury is.
It wasn't good looking at her face.
By then, her routine's pretty finished. So I would.
Say these are athletes with free will, right, so are they well hopefully, I.
Know they feel a lot of pressure.
But imagine training something all your life and would you be like I could sit it out or I could just try. Well, but it's the way that sounds like I'm criticizing Simone Bars and I'm not, because Simone Bars knew that she could die, like in that vole, if you've got the twisties and you lose where you are, Like, vaulting is incredibly dangerous. I mean all gymnastics is, but vaulting particularly, and she knew that she.
Could risk her life if she were to do that.
This is typical of all sport. Right. You will see players playing their rugby league grum final with a broken jaw. You will see them being sent off because they've got a gash in their head and begging to be sent back on. And it is seen as weak to let your team down and inverted because you've had a bit of a k nook. Right, So this is very common in all sports. These gymnasts are representing themselves but also
their countries. As you've said, they have trained so hard for years and years and years, so everything is about this moment and if you injure yourself in that moment and then you're like, the pressure to go on is enormous.
I think the pressure do you mean external and internal pressure?
So I think one of the reasons why what Siman Biles did was so extraordinary is it was seen in some quarters as letting the country down, Like I don't think that, but you know, it was seen as we know now that the US aren't going to do as well or will they do as well without her? She was letting the country down, and that pressure can't be underestimated. But resilience is something that athletes know a lot about. We bandy around the world resilience all the time as
a good thing. Right, We're trying to make our children more resilient. We're trying to make ourselves more resilient. We've got it very high up our value medal table. It's
winning gold, right, it's top of the leader. Yeah, And so athletes know about resilience in a way that lots of us don't because nearly everything they do, Like if you've trained for a fun run, which I have, you'll do your knee and then you have to decide am I going to sit out now because I've done my knee when I've been training for three months, or am I going to strap it up and pump the neurofen? You know, run that thing? What did you do? I ran,
I pumped the neurofen. Run that thing? Hurt my knee. Me and Simone Biles have a great deal in common. I think that we have to give them the credit and the autonomy to know whether or not they want to do it.
I agree, I reckon that the added layer, of course, is pressure from coaches, pressure from.
Sponsors, not necessarily in this context, but generally.
Yeah, because it's also I've heard people talk about the money thing. It's like a nation has invested an enormous amount in an athlete, and if they choose the question of choice is interesting because agency we have to take into account the amount of pressure that they feel.
I get why you have medical team, Like you mentioned the Mexican gym Maston. Her medical team cleared her for this but said she couldn't. So it almost needs to be taken out of your hands, right, Yeah, to an extent, because you're not necessarily the best judge of what you're capable of.
Yes, but most athletes, and this is why I find watching sports so interesting are in a lot of pain doing what they're doing for us, So I always think of.
Ratha doing it for us, though, good question.
Grafe on Theadal, for example, plays in chronic pain and has for most of his career. He's got tendinitis, he's got like these foot conditions with ligaments and everything.
And so you're saying that's altruism.
No, no, no, no, no, I'm not. I'm just saying that how much pain you are willing to grit your teeth and bear is obviously a choice for you to make. But I struggle with our framing of it as bravery. I thought it was an interesting choice for news and for the Mexican Olympic Committee and for other people watching to rain this person is brave because I think it says a lot about what we value and a lot about us culturally, which.
Is that so bravery is suffering.
Bravery is suffering. And that is why when Simone Biles pulled out, there was this pushback, because it was this sense of like, even in an Australian Olympian in the last twenty four hours is pulled out because she has COVID and she can't do the fifteen hundred meters and I thought, I wonder how it feels if you're an athlete who is injured, who is sick, and has gone I can't do this, and then you see that framed as bravery, if that compounds your own sense of letting the team down.
It's also interesting because just bringing this back to the Dallas cowboy cheery, as everything does as relate the jump splits, meant that they all went on to have hit well, not all, but many of them went on to have serious health implications and hip operations. We know that American footballers have a very high rate of brain injury. It's something that is being looked into, and it's put a sort of cloud over the sport. Boxing's a same. Various
forms of football are the same. Is that being your all for your team and country, which as Jesse is possibly framing as altruism, will come at a significant personal cost to you health wise, possibly ongoing? And again, who are you paying that for? Is that like the mark of a hero, like a wounded warrior, or is that like a lacks duty of care on the side of the organization that you're playing for.
Well, I want to change gears and talk about some other vibes, and that is volleyball, and also some bottoms and some crotches.
Is that all you can find to watch? Because you don't know what you're meant to be watching, so you just my TV isn't going anywhere else.
Gymnastic last night. But I only like to watch the women's gymnastics. I don't really like to watch the men's gymnastics. Although the guy on the pummel horse, who looks like Clark Kenton, has a little snooze and then just whips his glasses off, gets up, does the pummel.
He's a bit of an Internet here right now. Anyway.
Olympic camera operators have been issued of formal warning over the way they film female athletes this week, as the Olympic Broadcasting Service boss admits stereotypes and sexism remain now.
The head of the Olympic Broadcasting Services has actually called for an update in its guidelines for camera operators who are mostly men, to combat these stereotypes, and he's told reporters in Paris, unfortunately, in some events, the women are still being filmed in a way that you can identify that stereotypes and sexism remain even from the way in which some camera operators are framing differently men and women athletes. Women athletes are not there because they are more attractive
or sexy or whatever. They are there because they are elite athletes. Now, I happen to be watching the volleyball beach volleyball last night, as I said, and I was really struck by a couple of things, two of which I want to unpack with you all. The first is the camera angles, because there's a lot of you know, when you're preparing to take a shot whatever it's called, receiver, someone serving to you, you do a bit of a squat, like you sort of squat, you lean over on your horn.
And because some of the beach volleyball uniforms I was watching last night, the Italians versus the Egyptians, and I'll get to the uniforms in a second, but there are some very close up shots of the bums of Do.
You think they're breaking these regulations?
Yes, I think they might be, although I suppose they could pull back, like they don't have to go on a close up. So what they're talking about is close ups of female athletes body parts, so you could do a more respectful I don't think you have to go like right up the bum to capture what's going on.
I think it is. It did feel fairly gratuitous.
But what I wanted to actually talk about was the uniforms because in this match it was so interesting, and of course the Olympics, and we're talking about what women are wearing. We're not talking about what any men are wearing. But such is life.
The Egyptian beach.
Volleyball players wearing black leggings, they were covered ankle to wrist, and they also had huebs on, and then they had loose t shirts on over their leggings and long sleeve tops. And then the Italian players had teeny little low cut, low rise bikini bottoms and little.
Tops with very sort of cutout in the back. And I just thought, isn't that interesting.
There's a whole lot of conversations and a whole lot of subtext here about women's choices, women's bodies, sport, what it all means.
I wanted to unpack it.
Well, beach volleyball. It's interesting because playing beach volleyball in a bikini is true to the origins of the sport, right it was invented that game on the beaches of Hawaii, southern California, Rio like, it's a game you play on a beach in your swimmers and then you get in the ocean. Men typically play it topless. Right that the Olympics. Men aren't allowed to be topless. That's why they're wearing board shorts and a vest right, and women traditionally have
still basically been wearing bikinis two pieces. In twenty twelve, they changed that rule because obviously the bikini issue was a to a lot of people playing that sport religious reasons, social reasons, or I just don't want to be in my bikini there. And so now there's a choice. And you will see if you watch a lot of beach volleyball that some nations are wearing leggings. You're allowed to wear leggings, and so they'll wear little crop tops and leggings.
And there has been pushback from a lot of gross sexist men who are like, oh, I came to the beach volleyball to see.
Us on that isn't enough ass quite a lot of us on my TV.
Oh my goodness. But then on the other hand, now that it's a choice, there's a bit of pressure on the athletes who want to still wear their bikinis, and you'll see an enormous amount of variety in the cut of the briefs and all those things from nation to nation. But there is a choice, right. I did a bit of a deep dive into why they have to be like that. A lot of the athletes say, if you're
wearing a two piece, you get a lot of sand. Right, so you're diving, as you know, he meats volleyball, You're diving into the sand all the time, it gets down your top. It's deeply uncomfortable, all of that stuff. So you basically want as little they would say, as little as possible between you. And so that's what.
Because you would say, why do they need to wear a bikini? Why wouldn't they wear a one piece like the swimmers do, And that's the reason I hadn't thought of that, And so from getting distrapped in so if you were in a one piece, you do a dive, suddenly you've got half a beach down there. Imagine trying to get that out.
But I was reading that up until very recently, even the bikini bottoms that you wore could not be more than seven centimeters on the sides. You look at that role and you go and it isn't about sand because even gymnastics, and this is all around the world, you get up to one point deduction if you've got a
brass strap or you've got your undie showing underneath. And you'll remember that in the Tokyo Olympics, the German gymnasts wore full long leer tides that went down to their ankles and they were making a statement which was we feel really objectified. We see a lot of women drop out of the sport because they don't want to wear these outfits, and we can perform just as well with this on. But I must say there's been a lot of discussion about the discussion about bodies, right yes, from
swimming to beach volleyball to gymnastics. Whether or not it's ever okay to remark on a woman's body.
Well I did, and my daughter was so poored she left the room. Yeah, because I slay you over in bex But I wasn't being mean. I was just like marveling at these extraordinary bodies and I was wondering out loud, as I do because I don't have a lot of inside thoughts. Inside my head thoughts. The hair removal is quite something to behold. I mean that whoever's the hair removal is like, that's amazing. And my daughter is just like, she wasn't happy, No, she wasn't.
What's amazing, Like the hair removal.
It was just such a great point.
Man.
Is also that there's not an ingrown hair. That's what I'm amazed at is I want.
To go I think laser.
I just make the point that these athletes are the most prepared people in the world. Do you think they're going to have an ingrown hair distracting from them?
To me remarking on their bodies, like their bodies are strawdinary when you see them in the air, and like the muscles and the I find that in itself really interesting.
But that's not what a lot of people are commenting on, right. So, I think one of the things that's interesting when we talk about sexualizing athletes is who we choose to talk about being sexualized Because athletes their instrument is their body. And when track and field starts happening next week, there are always like a glamour portion of track and field, right,
I was seeing it today. You know, there's a very very glamorous sprinter from Poland or somewhere right, who's a model and all these things, and the world will go mad for her for five days. They don't necessarily about swimmers, for example, swimmers bodies because in our very narrow cultural ideas when I say our, I guess I mean dominant culture ideas of what a sexy body is, that's not necessarily a female swimmer's body, right, That is a weapon
in a different way, Simone Biles. There isn't a lot of talk about her being sexualized because she is an absolute weapon too, But that doesn't fit some kind of narrow view of like is she tall with long legs and does she have boob in a waiste? As soon as an athlete looks like what we consider to be a ideal, like a feminine ideal, we start bitching about them being sexualized.
So wait, my commentary on bodies is not about sexualization at all. It's pure aesthetics and the and the wondery of the human form.
And you're not going to put some clothes. I was getting that vibe.
I found that.
Interesting, and I'm so glad you've explained a lot of those things to me today. I was more thinking, isn't it interesting how comfortable they are in their bodies that they're fine with that. I think now with the sand, it makes more sense that you want your costume to be.
As tight and as small as possible.
Well, definitely as tight, because also you wouldn't get sandstuck if you're wearing like a neck to knee situation, you wouldn't get so.
If you've it's professional beach volleyballs.
And the men are getting sand stuck in their shorts, they're fine.
It is interesting why the men aren't allowed to be topless.
I reckon that that's a I need to see what country you're from thing, like, Yeah, but it's interesting if I'm a beach volleyballer and I've watched everyone above me wear a certain uniform. Uniform is so critical to psychology in terms of performance, like we feel something different depending on what we've put on. So I just reckon that, whoever you are, whatever sport you're doing, you've just got to wear something that makes you perform as well as
you can. I agree that watching gymnastics, in particular, marveling at the strength and what that level of training does to the human body is amazing for any athlete, like looking at men's swimmers, female swimmers, whatever. I love the
visual element of that. But it's worth noting that the Matildas dress exactly like the male soccer players, and in terms of broadcasting, because the argument will be will people watch the beach volleyball because they lack what they see, which is kind of what I've say talking about, Yeah, the Matildas. We loved watching the Matildas.
This is really interesting too, because one of the reasons why female soccer players where what the men do is because they were never given uniforms. There's a whole world there about how female football players have to wear male football shorts. Until very recently, they weren't making football shorts that worked for women's bodies, right, So that is true
to the origins of that sport. As it develops and escalates and becomes more professional, hopefully we'll see not I don't mean more tight flash, but what I mean is uniforms that better support female athletes. So I think that we bring our very particular lens to whether we think that's all too sexy or not. We're not thinking about the athlete, We're thinking about ourselves, you know.
I really liked actually when I was watching the volleyball because I was like, if you're a believer in choice feminism, there are options now. And the Australians actually wear bikini briefs but with long sleeve rashes. I saw some of them with long sleeves chezzies. Yeah, because that's the other thing. Surely it's not very sun safe if you're not slip slopping and slapping, or if you're not slapping. I thought it was really interesting and we will always have views
on what women should and shouldn't wear. And I don't mean we, but like as a culture, it will always be discussed in a way that men's outfits and men's bodies aren't discussed.
True. But final point on that, where you started with the camera guidelines, they've also been given camera guidelines about the men because particularly in track and field, you see other jiggle shots, a lot of jiggle shots, and a lot of sprinters, male sprinters who wear those types and they hate that. They hate the jiggle shots. So that it's all of it. It's like, obviously it's there and you make a choice whether you're looking at it or not.
But the camera angles are a whole different world, and they're just being told don't stop follow.
You know, stop it.
I wonder what sport me as television will get stuck on next and we'll have a discussion about that next episode. She'll get very into the synchronized.
I had a lot to say about the synchronized diving. I found that amazing, amazing, and how they went into the water. But the men's like, the speedos didn't fall down, So I'm like, they must be so small and so tight because imagine hitting the water at that velocity.
Great.
Yeah, may Or, I haven't even found the diving yet.
About the diving, the diving, damn it, it's finished. Damnit.
Hell out, friends, there's a woman on the internet charging another woman for a playdate. You might have heard about it. Here is what happened.
Can we normalize sending the other family money for playdates? So recently, my daughter had a friend of her and I asked her mom for money. So after the playdate, I text her mom and I said, thanks for letting Jamie play today, Please help out with your share of the expenses for the playdate, totaling fifteen dollars via vemo. Let's do it again. Sometime because I can't keep doing these playdates if it's so expensive. And she said expenses, and I said, yeah, she used supplies and food while
she was here. In this way, we can do this more often without a monetary obligation on just one party. Right, makes sense. No, she didn't say much, but she did say what supplies, and of course I wrote them down. There was chalk, apple, sauce, fruit, she sat on the couch, that's where, and tear. She actually broke a toy. She had three juice boxes, she went to the bathroom, she had yogurt. Then she actually sent the money and I
sent her a message thanking her for it. Of course she didn't say anything else, but I said, you know, this will make it easier for us to do more playdates in the future. So what do you guys think now?
That woman on TikTok is called Shane Nanigan's eighty seven and that video got four point one million views and a storm of comments and shares, which is not that surprising really, because playdate politics are wild, But who knew they were that wild? Maya Have you ever heard of someone charging for a playdate?
I haven't, but I've noticed that playdates. My kids are too old for them now, but I noticed that between my oldest and my youngest having playdates, it seemed to change in that suddenly some of the kids their moms would send over snacks the play date, like muffins or you know, chocolates or whatever, occasionally like a hostess.
Gift, which I really look I liked.
Eating this stuff and I appreciated it because I never had any food to my house, but I was very alarmed at the potential escalation of what was required, because to me, a playdate should be about offloading your child for a period of time, and then there are things that are understood, like you offload them, but then you have to have that child back to your place.
There are politics involved.
I think recently I've made a rule for myself in line with my Kindness word of the year. And when I say recently, I mean in the last week that I must if I go to someone's house, I have to bring something, which sounds really basic, but it's just something I haven't really been doing. You know, I'd just like a nice dessert or like some food or wine or something like that.
Well, then also, if you're taking someone else's child, somewhere, like to a trampoline part or to a movie.
Yeah, that can be expensive.
What I would do?
So why your kidd have money on them?
Right? Well, it depends how old they are, right. So the thing about playdates is when your kids are really little, and it sounds like these ones are with the apple sauce and the chalk and stuff, it's hard work hosting other kids at your house. So it's very much a reciprocal agreement. When they get older and the kids can entertain themselves more, it actually makes parenting easier to have two kids over and they can all play together whatever.
But in those hard playdate years, I think it's a nice gesture to send things and all the rest of it, But I can't say I've ever come across it anyway. What happened next was our friend Shane Nan as I'm going to call her, posted another video, this time explaining that the playdate video was a perfect example of rage bait. Now, rage bait is when you create content that purposefully in rages or shocks people so that they will interact with
it. It causes people to think something is real when it's not. So she made up this story to gain followers, even ones who thought she was crazy or annoying. And then she actually also did it to make a bit of money because she created a payment account for that imaginary mom who supposedly gave her money. And some people were so incensed by the idea of Shane Nan charging her that they sent the imaginary mom money to compensate.
Isn't that fraudulent?
Here's Shane Nan explaining how she uses it.
He that I charged fifteen dollars for the playdate. So many people are sending her money. What if? And I'm just saying, what if that is a fake account that I set up in a different name that goes to.
My Venmo account. I am dead.
A lesson in rage bait, A lesson in freaking rage bait. Guys, you have to figure out how to make money off of it, and this worked Chef's kiss. First of all, rage bait is not a joke. A joke is meant to make you laugh. Rage bait is more filed under fake news, so it's there for engagement and you have to make money off of it. Or it's not even that she's just stupid and you're there for just the drama.
I knew I was gonna make money off TikTok, but I didn't think that people would be sending money to the person Melissa that they think that I charged money for her daughter to come over.
Rage baiting engagement can be as simple as misspelling a word, purposefully mispronouncing something which we do all the time, but not on purpose. But maybe she was doing it there when she kept saying niche and I was like, say niche, but maybe she was rage baiting or even doing your makeup wrong, all of these things and to get people to engage, correct you and then hang around. It's marketing and it's a very meta, very organic progression. I guess
of influencer culture. Is rage baiting fair game? Miya?
Well, it's clearly then you're click baiting, and it's about playing the algorithm, and an algorithm that rewards anger is absolutely designed for this. So this is people just being opportunistic and for them it's smart business.
Is it ethical? Is it good for the world? No, but it's good for them.
So you know, the term clickbait, which I think has become really misused. Sometimes people use the term clickbait where they just mean it was a good headline that made you want.
To click on it.
What clickbait actually means is deceptive headline that makes you click, and that click can be monetized, and actually when you get there, it's like, haha, that's not really the truth.
And it's not just the Internet that does this. Women's magazines, gossip magazines used to do this all the time, where it would be like Fife boxes baby Joy and it would be a picture of her on the cover of Woman's Day, and then you'd open it and it would be a picture of her walk past a baby in the street and she waved at her co host has had a baby, yeah, or her sister's pregnant or something yeah.
And the reason that rage baiting is new ish is because the algorithm has changed. So the algorithm used to reward likes, like that was how it originally started, but now on every platform, the thing that it rewards more than any thing is engagement through comments. So it almost doesn't matter how many likes you've got. And the thing that we'll get people commenting, because it's the strongest human emotion is anger. So you rile people up and then
they all argue, but you one because it's engagement. That's one thing, and that woman can do whatever she likes. The other thing is the phenomenon of the media picking it up. And this is why everyone has lost trust in media because what they do is they pick this up and then they put it on a TV show. I think you should say, well, this is what we've done exactly right. We pick it up and we throw it in this show. Why do we throw it in
this show? Because it's content and because it serves as the springboard for a conversation we want to have that would be totally irrelevant if we didn't have a hook, So you often go, oh, that needs a news hook or whatever.
If we do it, well, let's take out loud as behind the scenes and say, what was our thought process in including this? Was it that we're completely cynical and we're just trying to trick people into liss If.
We had just done that right the way that we thought, maybe we were going to do it this morning before it became very obviously that was fake. Although to me it looked fake immediately. Right is we'd use it as the hook for a discussion about playdate politics, and we'd be like, look, people are charging for playdates now?
Yeah, with charging parts not relevant, but the politics is right.
But what we did instead when it became clear that it was rage baiting is instead to bring people behind the scenes of that. So that, to me is a useful and valid conversation because particularly if you're not hiper literate, most people are not hiper literal in social media, right and in TikTok very very online, most people are not. So this is explaining a phenomena to them that is helpful, and to me that is helpful to always be able
to look at things online and go. Is that rage bait is really useful because the reason why rage bait is bad for the world, like it's bad for the world in big ways, we all know that in terms of what it's doing to our democratic systems, but it's also bad for the world in small ways because it makes you genuinely believe that the world is full of dickheads, right, and of course the world has its fair share of dickheads, But you watch videos like this and you walk around
going like, for god's sake, now people are even charging for playdates, what's happened to everybody? Da da da da da, When an actual fact, the world is full of very ordinary people who are just sending their kids in and out of people's houses, maybe with an apple.
It makes people think that everyone's lost their mind, and it plays with people emotions because rage is not a pleasant emotion and if you're constantly spiking it by being on social media, then no wonder we get into a car and someone with their shit.
So I just want to also draw attention to the rage bait that some let's call them commentators online public figures.
They do a different type of rage baiting, which is not necessarily making something up like this Shane Lanigan's did, but picking fights with other people or putting out deliberately in sindiary opinions because they know it will go viral and a lot of people will push back and be angry, but they'll get attention because we live in an attention economy and the best way to milk that attention economy is with rage and with anger.
Well, the filter has changed. It used to be anything news. It was about informing people, and I think newsrooms have as much to answer for as individuals, which is will this get people talking? That's what it's all.
But it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy because if you're an influencer and you say Jesse Stevens is a dumb.
Blah blah blah blah.
Then suddenly, oh, that's a story.
You know, drag them in.
Yeah, an engagement, a story for Daily Mail picks it up, and it's like this influencer and these two women are in the fight, and it's like I would like to be taken out of this narrative, like you are just trying to use me to build your own profile and your own following.
I know this isn't a visual medium, but throughout the recording of this podcast, Maya's buttons have been coming undone, and now her at her brand, your left breast is out, and I think we do have cameras, so I would like that.
I was just thinking, like me, it's very sexy today because I'm trying to get some attention.
I'm becoming invisible, and I know that sexualizing myself during a podcast.
Is the only way.
Really.
You know one thing about rage bait that I did not know until today, and so I'm this is the public service. Friends. Sometimes brands use it deliberately, where so say there was a famous lip gloss, for example, and a whole lot of influencers used it incorrectly and like broke the lid of it and like basically made a mess with this lip gloss. It was a deliberate strategy for engagement where a whole lot of people would then
want to talk about that. It spreads the word about the lip gloss, and it was a deliberate strategy to raise the profile of a product. So that's interesting too, Right is to think that when you see people scrowing things up on the Internet that seem really obvious, it might not be.
Right unless it's us, in which case.
We always just screw things up. If you're worried about the way that Mia says premier, that is not ritebaiting. That's just the way she is.
Every Tuesday and Thursday we drop new segments if Mama May are out Loud just for Mamma May As subscribers follow the link in the show notes to get your daily dose of out Loud and a big thank you to everyone who is already subscribed.
Oftentimes, I will do everything that the real bridesmat will do. So we'll have our initial phone calls where we'll get to know each other. I'll go on the brill Shower, the bachelorette party. I'll help with the rehearsal dinner. I'll show up for that, I'll walk down the aisle at the wedding, I'll give this speech. So really, all of those main points that a friend would do, or a brides meeat would do, I do exactly that.
This week on No Filter, I interviewed a professional bridesmaid. And by professional, I don't mean in the colloquial sense that she's done it a lot, or that she's really good at it, although she is and she has. I mean it's her business and she gets paid to be a bridesmaid. Her name is Jen Glance. She's the founder of a business called Bridesmaid for Hire, and she's been a bridesmaid over one hundred and twenty five times. It all began in her twenties. You know, your phase of
your life. I don't know if it happened to you guys. I only got asked twice. Maybe because I'm a terrible bridesmaid. I didn't get asked any more times. But you go through a phase where a lot of your friends are getting married and you might be a bridesmaid a lot of times.
And she started thinking.
This is a lot of work. I am good at it, but it is a lot of work. And so she put an ad on Craigslist saying that she was for hire, and she got inundated.
So have a listen. Here's a little bit of our interview.
You know, some people reach out and they say, I want to hire you, but I want to make sure that nobody ever finds out. And I respect that. You know, they want this as a service that is completely undercover, and in most instances that's how it works. I'll have a fake name, a fake backstory for how I know the person, and I will just pretend to be part of their life from some area of their life, whether it's yoga class, or grade school or study abroad. I
will just blend into their life. And sometimes they don't even tell the person that they're marrying that they hired me.
Hollywood, did you.
Think I loved this interview? I knew I wanted to listen to it immediately, But while I was listening to it, I had two very different opinions about it, which is why I really wanted to talk about it on the show. First of all, Jen says that one of the reasons why her service is needed and has done quite well. Is that a lot of women do not have the kind of friends or family that you could ask to
be a bridesmaid. And I think when you hear the surface of that, it feels like something really sad, and it speaks to like perhaps loneliness and disconnection and social isolation. And I was like, yeah, that's sad. And then I thought about it a bit more and I thought, oh, is it that, like a lot of things, we've elevated the status of these kind of jobs, like bridesmaid has become.
Rather than just being your mate turning up and wearing a dress and standing next to you, we now expect and you go into this a lot on the show Kitchen Tees, engagement parties, hens nights, Da da da da da, like basically dedicating your life to this person for six months. And I know that's a stereotype and not everybody does it, but we've made the job much harder than it used
to be. Add on top of that, the fact that women's work in inverted commas, whether it's organizing the office birthday parties and leaving cupcakes or you know, all the volunteer things that women do at schools and all of those kind of things has always been women's work, and maybe once that was literally women's work, at least in some quarters. They weren't doing paid work, so that was
literally the things that filled their day. And I don't think that world ever really existed, but certainly it doesn't anymore. So women are doing paid work and all the unpaid work, and you hear people all the time saying pay women for their labor, and so I was like, maybe this is just a very good example of paying women for their labor rather than expecting people to do it for free.
Or is this a symptom of a capitalist structure where we have started to commodify any exchange of service, any exchange of service, it's like, oh, I'm going to charge you for that, which is what the playdate thing was all about as well.
But this is real, to be clear, It is not pretend. It's not rage bait. This is an actual business. We established this.
I had to go really deep on the website to understand what was being promised and what the service was because it's not just turning up in address. It is phone calls, you know, being someone to talk to, and like it's a lot of emotional support a lot of emotional.
It's not a wedding planner. That's different. No, it's not actually about the wedding, it's about the bride.
At first, I was like, wait, why aren't you just paying a wedding planner. If you can afford this, just pay a wedding planner to organize it. And also, if when you are someone to be your bride'smaid with that is coming a list of keeper form, it's indicators and expectations, then there's something very wrong with that arrangement and that's not fair. We shouldn't be doing that to each other. But looking at what she was promising, I was also like, well, these are also just features of friendship.
Right, Like, well, I think Hole nailed it in that they used to be when being a bride'smaid was just kind of hold my handbag while I'm walking down the eye.
Should a bridesmaid be any different to a groomsman? I understand that it has been because.
Brides are very different to grooms and have a lot more needs. Have you ever met a bride?
Well, I was a bride and I had bridesmaids, and they do well, this is the thing I didn't expect a single thing from them if I'm having a wedding, I don't think it's on them. They work full time. One of them has a baby like I didn't expect.
See, I've been a bridesmaid, and I know that I let down the brides. I wasn't was I matro, I don't know what I was. And this was a long time ago before things got out of control with bridesmaids. But I think now it's that you're very much responsible for making it her day of days emotionally. I don't mean again like the flowers and the catering, it's not your job, but helping a bride navigate the emotions of
a wedding day is a lot of work. I don't just mean the be there when she called, but if it's like come to all my fittings and do this and do that, and I need you to organize this, it is a huge amount of work. And if you'd have been a bride'smaid, and I know you have been a couple of times for brides who perhaps had demanded
more of you than you were capable of giving. Isn't it just better for everybody to acknowledge their either their limitations as a bridesmaid or their needs as a bride and commodify it and it's just an expense, just like everything else in a wedding.
I think you're absolutely right, Jesse, if you've got reasonable expectations, as you did. But because maybe I'm sure that Instagram and everything has a very large part to play in this. If you are expected to give up large portions of your life and time to basically become somebody's sort of de facto fixer for months and months and months, that is work.
That's a paid position. Absolutely. I don't think it's one of bride'smaid and I think if you are, is it decepting people? Like if there's deception at your wedding, that's a bit unusual. Like if you're paying someone, you can also just have them as your assistant or whatever and they don't have to be in the bridal party pretending that you do. Yogashi get such.
An interesting point because I was going to say that, as Whole pointed out, Instagram and everything has just changed. I mean, like boomers wouldn't have had wedding planners, right unless you are super super rich. That's a relatively new think. Gene's the first generation that have and not everyone has a wedding planner. You just used to organize it yourself.
So the idea of paying someone to organize your wedding in the same way that paying someone to walk your dog, like, we have commodified a whole lot of shit.
That we used to do. It's the outsource culture.
But I think that you made a great point, Jesse in the part about the deception, and it goes back to what you say whole about it being lonely, because it's not just that you need the emotional support, but that you need the kind of friend that can just be completely selfless. So it's about your expectations of your friends as well as what you practically need from a bridesmaid.
And I've seen this online even like money being exchanged and someone's offering to basically have a conversation with you or go for a walk with you, and that stuff makes me feel sad. I understand, I understand people's loneliness and they don't know where to start, but I just kept looking at it going you don't need a bridesmaid. You could have one less bridesmaid. In fact, you don't need a wedding.
But you're right, But it's about.
That artifice that I've got someone who loves me so much that they will do this for free. Yeah, it's the hiding part. It's the hiding part.
And that's a flex that's right, right.
But also, I mean, you're right, of course that it is sad to have to ask for that, but also you know, and we're probably guilty of this. I am amazed at the amount of negative And I'm not a wedding person, as you know, I'm not married and whatever, but I'm amazed at the amount of bitching everybody does about weddings constantly.
Right.
There are whole Facebook groups on this. I didn't like the food, and they asked me to do too much and I had to travel and I had to pay, and like now, I would feel almost if I was in this position being a bride, like I don't want to ask my friend because she's going to think I'm going to turn her into a slave, and I'm not going to turn her into a slave. And you will.
And that's the thing.
Brides have a very particular view generally until they become brides, you change. So I think that brides still think that asking someone to be your bride'smaid is a huge honor, and I think.
It's honored when I've been asked to be a bridesmade it. It was an honor, and I don't think that we should normalize. I was honored to normalize this thing. I understand people saying talking about the money, but I also think this is just about the erosion of friendship and again how everything kind of comes back to money. Like
I do kind of get it. I get saying I've been asked to be a bridesmaid and I have to organize his hands and it's going to cost me this much, and da da da da da, Like if they're your mate, can you not talk about that?
But I just think maybe that hiring a bridesmaid to do all the actual work that's involved is actually a really generous gift to your friends because then they can just enjoy being bridesmaids because they don't have to do any of the work, you know what I mean.
Yeah, I don't think that it's a job. I don't think it's a role. I think bridesmaids show up on the date. You need to get address and some shoes and walk down an aisle or not.
I'll put a link in the show notes to that episode of No Filter.
How A listen to Jen.
She has some funny stories about times that she's been fired and times that she's had to.
Fire brides Mia. Do you have any superstitions?
You do have superstitions because you.
Like touching me.
Yeah.
I had to actually wean myself off touch would I've got a little bit unhealthy about touching wood in that I had to travel with a stick for a while in my car, in my pocket. Everywhere I went, I had to have a stick. I had to sometimes if I was thinking something, I'd have to stop the car and find some wood if I didn't have a stick in the car.
Okay, because we talked on yesterday's subscriber episode Holly and I and m Vernham about superstitions. We were talking about Olympic athletes and some of the more unusual superstitions they have. Sarna Williams famously has some the things.
You see them do before they yeah compete.
Yeah, exactly, And we talked about kind of the definition of a superstition if we have any, if we think they actually do work. It was such an interesting episode. A link to that will be in the show notes.
Massive Thank you to all of you out louders for being with us on this Wednesday, and of course to our fabulous team for putting it together. We're going to be back in your ears tomorrow.
Bye, goodbye.
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