You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Hello, and welcome to MoMA Mia out Loud. It's what women are actually talking about on Monday, the twenty second of September. I'm Holly Waynwright and I am back from a sick bed where I have been laid up with the flu for a little while, dying to be back talking to you.
I'm Jesse Stevens.
I'm very excited that Holly is back and Maya has officially gone on holiday.
She has, she's actually left the country.
She did tell me she downloaded the entire three seasons of the Summer Return Pretty to watch on the plane, so prepare for that. When she returns, we'll fly. I should probably introduce myself. Hello, I'm Claire Murphy. You can usually hear me on Momma MIA's twice daily news podcast, The Quickie and on Well for all your women's health information and funny and gross stuff that our bodies do.
Funny and gross stuff. My body's been doing some very funny and gross Murphy. We'll talk offline about that later. Anyway, Here's what's made our agenda for today.
Jimmy Kimmel's late night show was pulled off the air last week. There's been a lot of conversation around it, politically, morally, constitutionally, but what does that all mean?
Does it matter? And should we be freaking out?
I don't want to alarm you out louders, but we know that you always have a little cry on your birthday and.
We know why you do.
And the wife guy is back, but this time without his wife. I'm going to explain one of the most ambitious comebacks in all of Internet history.
But first, Jesse, in case you missed it.
This morning Australian Time, a memorial service was held for conservative activist Charlie Kirk at a stadium in Phoenix, Arizona, and estimated two hundred thousand people gathered in and around the stadium and all the speakers were shielded by bullet proof glass on the stage, which is something we haven't seen before. Attendees were also encouraged to wear red, white or.
Blue to the service.
Speakers included Robert F. Kennedy, Charlie Kirk's wife Erica Kirk, Donald Trump Junior, who was very close to Kirk, and of course President Donald Trump, who spoke last. Erica Kirk declared that she had forgiven the man who allegedly killed her husband, and her address had this real focus on love, which was in stark contrast to Donald Trump's speech which followed. The President said I hate my opponents, and I don't
want what's best for them. He referred to networks of radical left maniacs who were to blame for Kirk's murder. He also repeated the words fight, fight, fight, which you might remember from after his attempted assassination last year. He also referred to Kirk as a martyr, a patriot. He is awarding Kirk posthumously with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which is a higher civilian honor. Many speakers cited this battle between good and evil and said that there was
this struggle going on. Donald Trump Junior asked the crowd, will you surrender? Will you back down? Will you give up in fear? And Look, the headline is that Kirk was used as a symbol for all that is great about America. I think even with the colors that people were encouraged to wear, it was about patriotism and this, you know, almost a suggestion of some sort of civil war that's going on in the US at the moment.
It's interesting though, because as you've said, that's not what Erica Kirk was talking about. And the parts of it that I've watched this morning, and obviously we're recording, you know, at eleven thirty, it's sort of just finished. It was like a show, and there was a very distinct difference between Erica Kirk, who was very clearly incredibly emotional, incredibly devastated, incredibly gracious, you have to say in saying what she said about her incredibly immoving, and she said.
The answer to he is not hate. The answer we know from the Gospel is love and always love.
And then, as you've said, Jesse, there's that beautiful, gracious message that I wonder if people can actually hear. And then you had like Donald Trump Junior treating it like a stand up show. He was throwing out some jokes. He made some Kamala jokes, some Hillary jokes, you know, all the old hits from the MAGA, right, Trump preaching how much he hates everybody. It just seemed like such
a stark contrast. Like I think so much of this conversation is between the very human loss of a person and then this huge existential war that seems to have been very much fanned by this assassination.
Which isn't about Kirk at all, really, you know, and there's a lot to be said for the left and the way that they've discussed, the rhetoric that they've used, the vitriol that's come in the aftermath. But it reminded me that while the left has dehumanized Kirk, so is a right like they've used Kirk as a symbol, and they very much did. And when Trump got up, he was at a rally. He was at a rally, and he talked about twenty twenty and how that election was stolen from him and Joe Biden.
He made some kind of policy announcement too, in the middle of all of that, apparently.
Exactly some medical announcement. And there are reports that people left, which I found really interesting when he started to speak, because it did feel really disrespectful.
You know what's really crazy about looking at this memorial today is that until September ten, I had never even heard of Charlie Kirk. I have no idea who he was, except in real vague passing. I'd seen videos on my social media feed of him doing those debates with people, but it was most often positioned from the person who was debating him, rather than him.
And his debate.
But now, not only do I know who Charlie Kirk is. I watched that man die almost in real time, which was horrific to witness, and then not long after that, I was given conflicting stories as to who his alleged shooter was, his political allegiances, who he's chose to spend.
His time with.
This whole situation from the very get go, felt very dirty and awful, and we all have participated in it, whether it's from watching the videos, whether it's making a comment about Charlie Kirk or his rhetoric, whether it's about celebrating his death, which some have done, whether it's those right wing factions who've now collectively got together to bring down anyone who even mentions Charlie Kirk's name, to the politicians who are speaking at these particular events trying to
muster up that same kind of energy that we heard for January six, it all feels very performative. It all feels like everyone is in it for themselves, and it feels like this is where we absolutely expected to be at this point in time.
I'm really not shocked by any of it.
Well, it's very hard to be shocked by anything now to be I'd suggest that Erica Kirk doesn't seem like she's in it for herself. I mean, she did say in her speech about Charlie, she said that she's going to take on his work and she's going to become the CEO of Turning Point USA and absolutely going to keep moving with that, which is deeply understandable given the kind of person Charlie Kirk was and the mission that she says their family shared. But it's just that juxtaposition
between a very human grief and then this intense politicization. Anyway, what we're going to talk about next is kind of adjacent, right, Murphy.
Yeah, because obviously the fallout, as I mentioned, there's been a lot of collective movements coming together to stop any conversation about Charlie Kirk's murder from anyone who's considered vaguely left of center. So obviously one of those big fallouts is Jimmy Kimmel. So, if you have not heard, late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel is currently off the air. He's been indefinitely suspended by the ABC after making this comment about the Charlie Kirk assassination.
New rose over.
Then with the Magga Gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and do everything they can to score political points from it. In between the finger pointing, there was grieving. On Friday, the White House flew the flags at half staff, which got some criticism, but on a human level, you can see how hard the President is taking this half.
Indulghos on the low finger friend Charlie Kirk asked, sir personally, how are you holding up over the last day and a half served?
I think very good. And by the way, right there you see all the trucks.
They've just started construction of.
The new Baurold to the White House, which is something they've been trying to get.
As you know, for about one hundred and fifty years.
And it's going to be a beauty.
Yes, he's at the fourth stage of grief construction. There's demolition.
Construction.
This is not how an adult griefs the murderer of someone he called a friend. This is how a four year old morns a goldfish.
Okay, can I just jump in and ask you about Kimmel, because if you're not massively conversant in American late night culture, we know that there are these big shows that have dominated, or they certainly used to dominate American political discourse in the late nights. But I always get my Jimmy's mixed. Ye, So there's Jimmy fallon. Yes, it was much as a little bit more like he always seems a bit more
mischievous he used to be on Saturday Night. Like Kimmel is the one who's hosted the Oscars a couple of times, right, right, and Trump has always kind of hated him. I remembered alive on stage at the Oscars, Trump was tweeting about him, and he was reading out the quotes, right, And kim OL's been a big force there for a long time too.
Yes.
Also, after it was announced that Stephen Colbert, who's another one of these late night hosts, that his show was being canceled in twenty twenty six, Trump put out on his social media that Kimmel would be next, which and indeed indeed he is. So After those comments were made on Kimmel's show, conservative commentators came down really hard. One had said that he's painted all of the MAGA movement with the same brush, essentially calling all of them collectively murderers.
Elon Musk then weighed in he was at the memorial today. Elon Musk was called Kimmel disgusting. X then was lit up with conservative voices, and that echo chamber spread out far and wide across the Internet. The ABC then received pressure from the Federal Communications Commission, which is a government department that oversees media in the US. The chairman warned the ABC that they would pull their broadcast license and
calling Kimmel's comments truly sick. Now, there are also major broadcast companies that take Jimmy Kimmel Show and broadcast it to stations across America. So they came together and said that they would pull Kimmel's show. Advertisers were being targeted. Some employees were also receiving threatening messages. So they bowed to the pressure and ABC stood Kimmel down. There is, of course, a lot which we do not have time to fully deconstruct here today going on up and down
that chain. So these big companies like the ABC, they need government approval for acquisitions because they've got many fingers in many pies, and they won't get that if they, for example, from himmat with them, if Trump is angry with them over Jimmy Kimmel.
It's also worth pointing out that when we say the ABC, we don't mean the Australian Broadcasting Corporations. Yes, even though the Australian ABC says they've been getting a lot of.
Complaints about they have hundreds and hundreds which they put up on their social media just yesterday, and they also put an email address for who to actually complain to if they.
Were like, this is not us.
Guys, Yes, it's not us.
We did not do anything.
Has he been fired forever Murphy or has he been like, has anyone given an indication of how long Kimmel is sitting on the bench for and he hasn't spoken about it.
Has he has not? Sobly sitting with his lawyer?
Yes, so he is currently in talks with his lawyers. The reports are is that he is very concerned about his staff because apparently reportedly he said that he's very worried about them. They're still financially recovering from the writers' strike that happened a year or two ago, so he's in talks, but obviously there is one of the those
broadcast companies that I talked about pulling Kimmel show. They have asked for him to apologize formally to also pay Charlie Kirk's family money and pay Kirk's foundation money as well his nonprofit. So they said that will pave the path for his return to the airwaves. But of course, the conversation here is now, how do the late night show hosts respond to this, because they under threat of also being kicked off the air if they make jokes about this situation.
Well, and also the conversation seems to have gone to Jesse. This is the beginning of the end of free speech, right, because when this happened on Thursday, my feeds were suddenly flooded by lots of well known American leftist comedians. When I say leftist, I just meant, you know, to be honest, Until very recently, almost everybody in Hollywood was an outspoken leftist. Yeah, and so lots of people saying it's happening. We said
authoritarianism was coming. This is the first real sign of that, is that where this conversation is now, is it about the death of free speech, which is, let's be clear, something that the right side of politics, as in the megaside of politics, free speech was the thing that supposedly radicalized and evangelized the Elon Musks of the world, the Joe Rogan's of the world, the Mark Zuckerberg's of the world.
Charlie Kirk himself as a free speech advocate, of course, And they're like, but they're saying that it was the left that we're trying to silence debate and that's what pushed them to the Trump side. Is this the first step in authoritarianism?
To be clear, Trump campaigned on free speech. He talked in his inaugural address earlier this year. He said, after years and years of illegal and unconstitutional federal efforts to restrict free expression, I will sign an executive order to immediately stop all government censorship and bring back free speech to America. There his words months ago. And so I think everyone is going, hang on, this is absolute hypocrisy.
It is a double standard. There are fractures within the party that are going this is what we fought for. As you say, Holly, it is something that has been pinned on the left in terms of cancel culture and workism and you know, political correctness gone mad. But the thing about that, and I would argue, we've talked about
cancel culture on this show. There are definitely instances where there's been overreach, but that's often self censorship, a board maybe trying to be really really careful and not offend people. The difference here is that it's hard power, not soft power. That's why I think it feels so scary.
When I spoke to John Barron about this and the Quickie, he said, the big difference is these directives are coming from the president down, which has not been the case. It's normally like a public opinion or is a business level decision, but this is very much coming from the White House itself.
Often it's within the interests of like, for example, they don't want to lose advertisers. This happens in Australia. Someone says something offensive, they don't want to lose advertisers. Yeah, that's a soft power that it can be troubling. But this is a directive coming from within the White House. And that's why it feels like communist China. Like it feels as though you're living under a government who gets
to decide what you can and cannot say. And the profound paradox in all of this is, of course they're going, even at the memorial, look at this bastion of free speech. You will look his opponents in the eye and speak to them. And now you're going, you can't disagree with what Kirk said, the man who got killed for saying things that like, that's where it leads. Suppression of free speech leads to something like a bullet because you say, I do not want that person to speak anymore. I
do not think that person deserves a platform. It is where you go in terms of an authoritarian regime. This has played out throughout history, and I think that's why people My first reaction upon seeing this story was, this is really scary shit.
It is scary shit. I think it comes from a basic place because, as has been widely what Jimmy Kimmel said there was not that shocking, right. And also on the day of Charlie Kirk's assassination, Jimmy Kimmel, like most mainstream democratic figures, said exactly what they should have said, which is, my heart goes out to his family. This is inexcusable. Like he did all of those things right, What this is actually about is that President Trump hates
to be mocked. Let's face it, most of us do, right. But from all the way back before he was seriously standing for politics, the Jimmy Kimmels of the world, in Trump's view, people that he would broadly call the Hollywood elite, the leftist Hollywood elite, have taunted him, not taken him seriously, taken the piss out of him. It goes all the way back to President Obama at the White House correspondence dinner in twenty eleven, who stood up and roasted him,
and he was in the room at the time. Trump he was a guest of Newsweek, and Seth Meyers stood up and said, Donald Trump says he's going to run for a president as a Republican, which is surprising since I just assumed he was running as a joke, and everybody just took the piss out of him. And many Trump insiders say that was the moment when Trump went,
I'm coming for you lot, and look what's happened. He did, and he won, and he didn't need any of these guys who have been, let's be honest, trashing him for decades. He didn't need any of them to get him to power. He doesn't really need their approval, but he hates their derision and he's been waiting for this. As Murphy said, Colbert is going off air. He said that Jimmy Kimmel was next. Now he says that Falon's next, seth Myers
is next. All these guys are going to go. It's interesting because their power is reduced in lots of ways since nobody watches network TV anymore. But they will all go, and as they lose their jobs from their networks, they will all go to YouTube, to podcast, to all the different tech platforms, and they will speak there and whether or not they really have clout anymore. I think it's that classic thing in a way that what may lead to this authoritarianism is like a man's bruised ego.
You know.
There's also some reports going around that people like Colbert and a bunch of others in the background are starting a.
Rogue news network, which will.
I'm guessing be Internet based in some way, shape or form.
Which is what lots of the right guys have done. It's what Toker Carlson's done and not. You know, like this is where all these people are talking now.
Yeah, exactly right.
So it looks like it might create a whole new network of sort of left wing ideology there. But just before we stop talking about this, like do we need to check ourselves and just look at this from the other perspective for a minute.
I've been thinking about this because I don't think that free speech is unlimited.
It never has been.
I think that there are things that Jimmy Kimmel could have got up and said that are so offensive that actually maybe would have warranted a little bit of censorship. So if he had come up and incited violence, excused violence, said I'm glad he died, he had it coming, who's next?
Yep.
Absolutely, I think that there would be a really important national conversation because there is a standard of speech that exists. But he didn't say any of those things. And my first response to this story was, oh, well, I'm going to look really closely at what Jimmy Kimmel said, because some left wing commentators have feared into that, and if that were on the other side, we would be just as horrified. But to me, it's the banality of what he said. His crime was being imprecise, Like what he
said was actually factually wrong. It was early days. He didn't know it was wrong yet, and so that's something that you know. Inaccuracy, you can definitely charge him with that, But inaccuracy doesn't get anyone else pulled off the air. And then some people said, well, the ratings were shit, so they were just looking for an excuse. That's okay, but you don't pull people off immediately for bad ratings.
You wind him up.
You're right, Murphy in lots of ways. And I think that one of the things about this is is that when I looked at all the responses from the other late night guys, and they were all very clever, because these are very clever people, and they've got huge staffs of writing people who are also very clever people, and they are exactly as I said before, the kind of people that Trump would dismiss as Hollywood at least, and they're thinking of the cleverest, funniest ways to go viral
by mocking the president. I would suggest that one of the things we learned last year is that you can have every famous, powerful Hollywood person on your side, from Taylor Swift to Bad Bunny to every single Hollywood starter. George Clooney and you're still not going to win the election because nobody likes being mocked and dismissed and taking the piss out of And that goes for Donald Trump, but it also goes for Donald Trump's supporters.
Yeah, it does.
But I would say that parody and comedy and sending things up. In the world of comedy, the rules are that kind of nothing is untouchable, and so of course these shows were going to touch it in the same way, whether you were right or left, you were going.
To touch it.
South Park they didn't have an episode go live last week, and they put it down to they left it too late and didn't get it finished.
Thirty years and they always managed to get it finished.
I think that was a smart move on their part because of they've been all over the headlines lately. For I was just saying how Donald Trump doesn't like to be mocked. They have been mocking him on an extreme scandal more than anyone from the micro penis down exactly, So those guys would have to be worried. And I think if they made a call to not go to air the week of Charlie Kirk's murder because they knew what they had was inflammatory. I would say that was
probably a smart choice. I think that's exactly what happened. Not to defend censorship in any way. In a moment, do you cry on your birthday? So do we and now we know why. Jesse Claire, do you cry on your birthdays?
Yes?
Okay, I need to know more details about both these things. At what point on your birthday do you normally cry? Jesse Stevens normally more than once.
But I've identified yeah, And I've identified the moment where I cry, and it's when I am doing something mundane. So I find myself mopping the floor, scraping a dish, putting on the dishwasher, and I think it's my fucking bird and why am I doing this task? And I also get that feeling on Christmas.
So basically, a birthday should be a day off from boring activities.
It should free path only be extraordinary.
Murphy, do you like Do you like birthdays or not like birthdays?
Oh?
I love my birthday. I also share my birthday with the spookiest.
Holiday of the year. Oh, so Halloween.
I get to go trick or treating with my child, which has not always been my favorite thing to do.
But now I've kind of come around to it, but I do not cry on my birthday.
I've made it very clear to my family that I will not be doing any mondane work on that day, and that is purely up to them to do all of that shit and also wait on me hand and foot. My husband has been well trained to provide cups of teas in bed if it is a weekend. He's been very well trained to cook me dinner or take me somewhere. This has been well established in my household. Plus, I am the youngest child in my family by a long way, so like there's a big gap between my brother and sister and I.
I have been spoy yelled like.
Okay, So Murphy is the queen of the birthday boundaries. That's why I've discovered, now, how you, Holly, I have been known to cry on my birthday. But the reason I'm asking you this is because we ran a piece on Mamma Mia this week which a lot of women have related to, right, which was about why women cry on the birthday because apparently it's very common, very common,
and there are a number of reasons. But back day in this piece, she wrote, for example, there was somebody who she spoke to who said the biggest fight she's ever had with her partner was over his failure to post a public display of birthday love on Instagram, even though the last time he'd posted was in two thousand
and sixty. So very reasonable things here. Some people said, maybe it's just an echo of the day that you first entered the world, scrunched faced and crying and trying to figure out all this shit.
It does feel overwhelming in the same way being born.
Mike, yes, exactly, and counselor Julie Sweet said, the reason that a lot of women cry is because disappointment and conflicting emotions often present when the pressure to appear happy doesn't match in a feeling. So, no matter what's going on in your life, maybe your relationship is falling apart, maybe you're sick, maybe your kid's being a shit, maybe your boss is being a shit, whatever's happening on your birthday, it's still happening, but you have to kind of pretend
that it isn't and that can be overwhelming. So she said, Julie Sweet, that this creates a double whammy of overwhelm and internalized blame, and we end up wondering why we're not happier, all the while berating ourselves for not feeling grateful enough.
I know what that's like.
Yeah, and I wonder too if it's my expectations are unsaid because they are unacknowledged within myself, Like I couldn't if I tried to journal what I wanted my birthday to look like. I don't necessarily have a vision or the words, but some part of me clearly has a standard for the day that is never realized.
Well, it's complicate, more complicated for you because you share your birthday. You're a twin right, so through your life, was it important for your family to make a fuss of Jesse, make a fuss of Claire? And we also have the added thing you and I have being Christmas babies. Yep, so one of the things you'll got ripped.
Oh we do.
One of the things that I often used to happen, not anymore, but I used to struggle with on my birthday when I was younger, is I was like, nobody cares because everybody's focused on Christmas and I'm only going to get joint presents and nobody wants to celebrate d And there would be that kind of sulky la laugh thing about.
It, which is all true. But I think that whether we want to admit it or not, we do build it up. As like even when we look at a calendar year, right, if you were going to put the first things in, you'd go, well, that's Christmas and that's my birthday. Like it is, it exists in my head all year round. The trick I have started to adopt is I must have a plan. And I resisted that for a while because I thought that plans inevitably bring with them expectations and I don't want to be disappointed.
And was there an expectation that someone else make those plans because it's your birthday? Maybe maybe I expect to wake up and just be take him through a day of joy. And that's never happened.
Like my mum was always just pissed off because it was nearly Christmas.
Like, so your mom popped out like twins after twins, like she had a lot on her plate.
Yeah, like she did not care and no, she didn't care about making it special for each of us.
She was tired.
So I now A'm like, it's the existing in those moments of in between that I really really don't like. And I've found that with Christmas too, that I wake up, I have this excitement that I kind of didn't even expect to have.
I still have it.
And you have a plan, and sometimes you'll go and do the plan, but then I don't like when the plan's done, I'm just at home, and at six o'clock on Christmas night, I feel sick because I'm just like, this is just like any other night. What am I meant to have leftovers? This is Christmas like?
And I'm horrified by that.
This is the thing, said the experts say. And I'm going to get to your excellent birthday boundaries in a minute, Claire Murphy, because you have got the right idea, you'll be surprised to hear the experts say that managing expectations is the absolute key to this right, but also for the people around you to understand what's required of them.
Now.
There was a brilliant piece online about a man who's trying to opt out of his wife's unrealistic birthday expectations. He said, they've been married for years, and they've got kids, and she really wants a big, big, big fuss on the birthday, and he's worked out over the years that no matter what he does, it isn't enough. So one year he'd planned her she wanted to go skydiving, she wanted a picnic in a hot air balloon, whatever, and he did it all, and she still ended up in tears at the end.
Of her Oh my god.
Okay. And so he had written online and he'd said, I've decided to set a boundary that I'm just out of the birthday business because I can't win, and we just have a big fight every year. I told her calmly, and she responded with shrug shoulders that she knew I'd changed my mind. He told her that he's not going to plan anything. He's not going to do anything right. Her birthday is now two months away, he writes, and she's been coy, silly, persistent in hints that she's excited
to see what I've got planned. And he's said, I'm planning a nice dinner at home with our kids and anything else you need to plan yourself. His wife now thinks that this is a strategy to hide reverse psychology. Really, so, Murphy, what's going to happen to this poor man? And are we sometimes unrealistic in our birthday boundary demands.
Yeah we are, and we're unrealistic about a lot of these things. We're unrealistic about what marriage looks, like, we're unrealistic about our relationship with our boss. Like we're unrealistic about so many things. And like that could be for many reasons. Maybe your mum and dad had the most wonderful relationship in the world, and Dad's spoiled mum and now you are ruined for every other man that comes after, or like maybe it's because you've watched too many rom coms.
I don't know whatever it came from. But like, it's not that I have low expectations. It's just that I don't expect everyone to I don't know, like stop their entire lives for one day, Like I don't know. I just I want people to acknowledge that is my birthday, by me gifts.
I love.
My kid creates the most ridiculous artwork for my birthday and I love that.
So, like, there's lots of things that I do expect.
But if my husband was to get up and go, I have got an emergency at work. I can't do your birthday thing today?
Is that Okay.
I'd be like, yeah, cool, get on with my day, Like I'm not so let down by it.
At the end of it all, Jesse, you're going to hate one of the suggestions that the expert had, because we've talked about this on the show before. Instead of making it your birthday day, make it a birthday week because you spread your expectations out across the week.
Oh, I don't think so.
Do you think that is why people have started doing birthday weeks.
That's a good point.
But then it's like, it's a Monday morning, and I'm indignant because the Monday mornings aren't meant to happen during my birthday week. Like I have the pleasure of never nearly never having to work on my birthday because.
It's very often sometimes, but it's very often almost holidays, isn't it.
Yeah, which maybe puts more pressure on it.
Like it was always also school holidays, so it was like the sitting around waiting for a fuss to be made was just always so so unmeat. It was Luca's birthday over the weekend, and he was just like not interested in doing and I kept trying to push something because I was like, you'll be disappointed. You'll be disappointed, and we sat.
There realistically, you'll be disappointed.
Yeah, well he was fine.
On Saturday night we watched TVA and a Mexican. I was like, this is the saddest thing ever, and he was absolutely found it very joyful.
You need to have your rules, so as you've got Murphy, You're like, I expect these things to happen. I expect the people who live in my house to do these things. They're not extravagant things, but they're things that matter. And I'm the same. I'm like, whoever's birthday is in our house gets breakfast in bed. Whatever they want for their birthday, Yeah, breakfast. So if it's one of the kids' birthdays and they want chocolate for breakfast on their birthday, they can have it, fabulo.
That's no problem. I expect to be able to be eating what I want for dinner that night, whether it's out or in, and I expect, as previously discussed, to not have to empty the dishwasher. Those are the can I ask.
A question quickly?
I keep saying to people around me, it's the big thirty five this year. I want to do something special for my thirty fifth.
I'm sorry the what Okay, No, this is good.
People have started to react, like Uclaire, where they're like, thirty five ain't a big birthday and I'm like, guys, I think we should go away for my birthday and they're like, thirty five isn't a mile.
So no it's not.
You get eighteen, you get twenty one, and then it's ten year increments from that.
Note, you're on trend. My brother so he had he was fifty five this year. Yes, we're ancient, and he had a massive party. He didn't have a massive party even for his fiftieth, but he had a massive party. Apparently in Europe, the five years there we go europaid turn is becoming more and more popular as the one because the Zeros are so confronting zero.
It's like I confront you that halfway through.
So you are on trend.
Jesse Stevens, Okay, see I've got to do something big for my master birth Can I tell you what I'm doing for my birthday this year? I'm turning forty seven, so it's not at anything birthday, but my best friend and I are going up to the Gold Coast and we're recreating our childhood experiences by going to all the worlds because we used to go to the Lord Kids.
That's so fine.
And the beauty of working at mamamir As you get your birthday day off. I know that sucks for you guys because often a public call it. Anyway, you get your birthday day off and then you get to go and have fun, which is really cool. So yeah, I'm going to like dream World and wet and wild and stuff. Oh that's so fun.
Do you think that man's marriage is going to survive? The one who's often birthdays and his wife thinks he's planning.
That's going to be the biggest fight of their entire lives.
The advice was you need to write her a letter to warn her, And I'm like, no, she'll just think this is part of the elaborate prank. Like she's just going to go, Wow, you've really lowered my expectations.
It's not gonna end well. It's not going to end well.
After the break a man named ned, some secret photographs sent to his wife and the explosion of an internet career. You either know nothing about this story or every little detail, and I'm here to explain.
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There was a story that went viral over the weekend back in my hometown of Adelaide. I don't know if you caught this, but a lady went to donate some goods to her local second hand store and did something that if you've ever given.
Birth to a child, we are all at risk of doing. She went, dropped off the goods, all is well and good, went back to the car. She's got a toddler and a baby. She's strapping them all in.
She drives away, leaves behind her seven hundred dollar Bugaboo pram And for anyone who's ever had babies, you know what a status symbol a Bugaboo pram is. Anyhow, of course, the thrift stall looks at it and goes, oh, someone's just left this not where it's supposed to be. They sold it to someone for twelve bucks, and then this lady went on the internet.
She's like, I'm so sorry I left my pram behind.
Someone bought it for twelve bucks, desperately tried to like get it back again. Apparently the woman who bought it for twelve bucks, who thought she had the investment of the century for moms, then came back and said, yeah, look it was me.
I will give it back to you.
But then apparently Bugaboo has come back to the original mum who lost your prem and s that here have another one.
The other lady.
Okay, wait, I have a big question that I keep wondering with this story, because if I left my Pram outside of Salvos, no one would touch.
You're thinking the same thing, because you know how before you donate anything to the salvo that you meant to clean it and you meant to have it all nice and well crapped beautiful.
Must have Pram have been so my pre tailed it.
People would not detailed it like that.
Maybe she detailed for fear of infection, like it has mandarin pills, half a banana, dirty wipes, toys like spills of smoothie and juice all on the white thing, like the fact that it was in such condition that it was sellable. But I reckon I have thought this with prams because I'm in my parme Era. Love it the places I leave the pram because I feel as though like it's got this.
Stench, yes, stench that's like no one will ever.
Take active stench.
But also like a security aur about prams. Yeah, like I see prams outside of places all the time. You don't touch them, you don't steal them. They're for babies, leave exactly. So I leave mine.
I will go I'm sure you're not meant to do this, but like into my local. It's not a shopping center, but it's like a little mall thing, right, And I will leave it out the front because Luna's at the age where she likes going up and down the escalator. That's our excursion. So I will leave it sometimes for thirty minutes with just whatever in it, thinking that no one will touch it.
No one ever does touch it.
That's the rule.
So I if I were her, I would not be expecting anyone to sell my buck a book.
I also feel for this woman because we all know that to get the hand me downs to the Salvos, she would have been driving around with them in the back of her car for at least six months. We all do that where you're like I'm definitely donating this, I'm not throwing it out. But then you don't remember she was driving around and she thought she had the
PRAM in the back of the car. The bit of this story, she goes home, she opens the boot, it's not there and the bags have gone, and she's like, maybe I've had some kind of breakdown.
Yeah, I.
Really feel for her. I understand it on a deep level. And the fact that someone out there scored a dirty bugaboo pram for twelve bucks, oh my god.
Applause, amazing And just finally, could we maybe normalize using prams when you no longer have a baby?
Like, just thinking about this, I'm like, God.
I wish I still had a pram, Like the amount of stuff you can fit.
In it, don't have to carry anything.
So Claire, I have not used a plastic bag for more than two.
Years because I'm a mental warrant shark.
I just have like banana whatever I've bought, just in the bottom of the pram. But the thing is, if I see you walking down the street with a PRAM and no baby, I just assume you drop the baby off somewhere. I think that you can absolutely go for pram.
Your kid's ten, but.
Then eventually you could maybe convert into like a dog pram, like you know, I'd.
See a lot of those around.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Also the amount of stuff I've accidentally shoplifted because I've put it in the bottom of the pram and then walked out without paying for it. I apologize. I promise not to do that anymore because it's not baby brain. But like, can we just if we all had a pram, we'd just be a much happier place.
I think, where's my midlife pram?
I've got a lot of shit.
To hurry around? Have you seen my skincare bag?
I want to introduce you both to an all or nothing on a man named Ned former. If that rings a bell, then you might be a rusted on out louder who remembers our show from September twenty twenty two.
Who doesn't. Yes, I've committed exactly, yeah, every single one.
And that was three years ago, right, and our friend Ned came up. Let's start at the beginning. Ned was part of a group called the Try Guys. They were all over BuzzFeed and then they went to YouTube and you won't believe it, but they tried things.
They tried like a comedy kind of thing.
Yes, and they started like one of their most viral videos was simulating labor paint. Well, they would try being pregnant and put on like a pregnancy suit.
Or they saw one where they got waxed.
Yes, exactly right, just like try being a poker champion, all that kind of stuff. And their videos had billions of views, like they were totally, totally viral, and there were four of them, and Ned Fulmer was known as the wife guy. The reason he was kind of known as that was that he had two little kids at the time and his wife Ariel, who appeared in a lot of the content as well. People really leaned into that.
Life guy became kind of like we've thrown it around a lot, like I always say, David Beckham's a wife guy. There are certain celebrities who are always like being really in love with their wife is part of their brand.
And that started with Ned.
Ned.
It was the first time we heard he's the og wife guy. He's the og wife guy.
And look that was until fans photographed Ned having an affair with the producer of the show.
This is one of the problems with being a wife, guy, is that if it turns out that you're not so great to your wife. What happened?
So the fan was out and about and he was like, he must have been kissing us.
It was very, very obvious.
But they took photos of Ned and this woman and then sent them directly to Ariel He's white, directly to the wife y outed by a fan, and then some video photo thing went absolutely viral and ultimately Ned was booted from the group. And this story to give you a sense of how big it was at the time. It was parodied on Saturday Night Life, it was in newspapers, it was everywhere. It made it to us even though we'd never heard of the Try guys before this moment.
Three years past, both of them disappeared. You've not heard anything from them. It was one of the biggest cancelations ever.
Did they get divorced like we presumed that they split.
Up, We didn't know.
Lost his job. Basically they booted him from the crew because he was bringing them into disrepute. Ye wow.
And there had been sightings those of the two sort of around where they lived, and they were like, oh, maybe they're still together, maybe they're not. We don't really know, but Ned is back. He has a podcast called rock Bottom where he interviews people who have made big mistakes and he asked them how they came back. And the first guest, which doesn't actually quite fulfill that promise of a podcast, but anyway, his first guest is his wife Aeriel.
And here's a little taste of the conversation they had.
People ask me like, do you forgive Ned for what he did? And I mean the answer is no, absolutely not. How can you forgive somebody for like, for lying to you, for cheating on you?
No?
Fuck no, fuck no.
I think I like Ariel.
I like Ariel a.
Lot, though she obviously has forgiven him, to the point where when I was reading a little bit about this, they talk about how they are kind of still together, like they're not together, but they're together, like as in, they're together as a family unit, they do things together
as a family. They're not explicit in whether or not they've moved on or really got divorced, but clearly she wants everybody to know that she did not stick with that idiot who was so silly that he was cheating in public as a famous person who was a.
Wife guy exactly. Interestingly, he isn't resentful about being canceled. He says it was justified. And then he totally gets it and that what the internet wants is a one dimensional character, which he played into, which was his wife guy thing. And in Good News, Ariel is setting up a pottery business. I hope it was a link in the show notes and we all that for her go by a pottery.
So he's coming back and she's coming back in different ways exactly now what he's been doing for money for three years.
Here's my question, right, is because there has been an enormous amount of resistance, people say, oh interesting. In the podcast, she calls it the affair, he calls it the scandal. Right, there's a lot of eye rolling. Three is a long time.
Does he go into any detail about the affair? I think he says it's someone at work, right, But he doesn't give you any context in how long was it going on?
No, and then he says something that I didn't like about how their marriage was kind of a fantasy and the dream was starting to break. I really hate it when an affair like this happens and they're kind of like, well, you know, there was a problem with.
The marriage, even if that's true.
Yeah, just like it attempts to place blame on the other person in a way that I think is really unhelpful.
Like life can get hard, you don't have to cheat on your partner. You can have open discussions with them and act like an adult.
And in the relationship that's allowed.
But is there a good way to be a amous person or a public person and to come back from a cheating scandal without looking like a dick. Because I'm thinking about I mentioned before wife Guy Trademarke, wife Guy David Beckham very famously there was a big cheating scandal with Heat and Posh in the noughties. Their strategy has always been don't talk about it. Just don't talk about it, just don't go there, just don't give it oxygen. Even in their documentary, the Beckham Documentary, it was kind of
referenced as we went through a hard time. Some of the headlines even about that story were a bit edited. So they've never given it fuel. Now this guy is giving it a lot of fuel in a way, but he's still kind of talking around it. As you say, Jesse, he's calling it a scandal, a problem in my marriage, he's not. Is there a way for a cheater, particularly a male cheater, although maybe we don't see female cheaters talking about publicly to win back a female audience, do you reckon?
So that's a good point about the female audience.
That I should say as well is that eighty percent of the Try guy's audience was young women. And I think that's the other, the other important factor, and that I don't think his crime was in fidelity. I think his crime was being inauthentic. Yes, people felt as though I was sold this version of you, and now I saw someone in an article compare him to someone that was a literal criminal, and I went, no, No, he's not a criminal. He did something bad that a lot of
people do. I mean, even the word bad, like it's very moralizing, like who or any of us to judge.
But she says she felt betrayed, So yeah, so we know that for her, cheating was a line. Like we talked about this when it was the Coldplay couple. You don't always know what's going on in people's marriages. You don't always know where they're up to and whether or not they're separating or not. You don't always know. Maybe they're open. Maybe they're not, but she has clearly said here like this devastated me and I will never forgive you.
But I think what you said, Jesse then is so true in that the audience that he was catering to, being majority women, are going to be a lot harder to win back than if your audience is majority men. Like Donald Trump, for example, has famously cheated on his wives and and so on and said awful things about women, and yet it doesn't really matter for him that much
because the majority of his supporters are men. And I think if you are catering to women, women are so much more judgmental of you if you have hurt another woman, unless for whatever reason, the Internet hates that woman, which could be for various reasons. So we don't hate Ariel. We like Ariel. So that's why it's going to be really tough for him to come back unless he takes full responsibility, which it sounds like he is definitely not done well.
It's funny, right because even the name of the podcast being rock bottom, Like if he went to the best crisis PR team in the world, which I reckon he has, and he said, what's a move? I think This is exactly what they would tell him to do. I think they'd say, laylo, try and repair things to some extent. You don't have to get back together, but show that she can tolerate you. That's a good start. Willing enough
to come on your podcast is enough? Yes, Yes, platform her because the big thing is always like, well you got your say, she didn't get hers, So give her her say.
There's someone else, though, isn't there who isn't getting a say? The other woman in this situation, which is why these things are so thorny to discuss because we always talk about like you can tell your truth, but your truth nearly always involves someone else and their truth. So maybe also wherever that woman is, the woman who was in the photos that got sent to Ariel, this will blow all this up for her as well. Like if I was you know, we're all done our time as internet journalists.
Whatever happened to the woman that ned Fulmer was passing in that restaurant, like, it also blows that back up for her. So there's another strategy here, which is that ned Fulmer came back to make an interesting and original podcast about something that had nothing to do with his personal life.
See, I don't think that was ever an option. I reckon that he's brand now is rock bottom, Like that's his brand and he needs white wife guy, and he needs to own it and go I'm the guy that was spat out by the internet ruthlessly. I'm going to explore that in a series with like bear All, and I think that we've seen a lot of men, even like the Louis c ks is like they've got to be the canceled dude.
They have to kind.
Of wear that for a while, right, even all their specials are like corns anything.
You're so right, But as Murphy's just said, that works okay for your brand if your brand was never squeaky clean in the first place. Like the reason why you're Donald Trump's and your Charlie Sheen's. You were talking about that doco the other day, Like everybody knows that they are not morally, you know, untouchable when it comes to the cheating on their wives. Is probably good for their
brand in some twisted way. They're not pretending. You hit the nail on the head before Jesse when he said it's about the inauthenticity, which is why some people get canceled for things that other people can say freely. It's because they're like, well, I thought you were somebody different. I didn't think you were that person.
Ellen DeGeneres her not being kind.
Because everyone was like, but she's the nice lady who dances on the show. But it's interesting because your point about this is a great strategy to come back into viewing people at the bottom of pylons. Is that it because he can't put himself in company of genuine victims,
do you know what I mean? Like people who have genuinely been misrepresented bleed, Like he can't really put himself in the company of that when he was having an affair with a co worker and just was not smart enough to be private about it.
Be interesting to see who his next guest lineup is, because you're right, it would be pretty difficult for him to connect with someone who's been canceled for other reasons. But if his list of candidates is like other men who've done things like that, might be interesting to hear how men speak to.
Other men about these moments.
But I think trotting out Ariel forp one, I think I could see what they were trying to do with that. They want to blow open all the cobwebs. They don't want anyone to ask any more questions. They want that out of the way upfront, like, stop talking about it, let's move on with this.
Now new podcast idea.
But I'm really interested to see who these next guests are going to be, because I think that will then mark what kind of guy this guy is.
I also think you nailed it in there. There's lots of enthusiasm for Ariel because very often when a public man is cheating and then his wife comes out and says that she stood by him in whatever capacity, she usually does say that she forgave him. She usually says I knew he wasn't being himself. I knew he was going through a hard time. I know there's a lot of love here. And so to hear Ariel say quite so clearly no fuck no about this, I think there'd probably be a lot of women cheering.
And the question is whether this relaunch is gonna work. Because he has every right to come back. He can lost whatever show he wants.
You could argue that losing your job for a private you know, is not really fair, but as we've already unpacked, a's largely because he was being fraudulent in his representation exactly.
But we don't have any obligation to listen, or to enjoy or to consume the content.
And I can't.
Really see it being because he's his role was. He described himself as a comede before, and this all has to get very serious in order for him to wear it and try and build back his reputation, and I don't see it working.
I hobby, I hope her pottery businesses a lot of cops that say fuck no at the bottom of it.
Yeah, I love it out loud as a massive thank you to all of you for being with us here today, and to you Claire Murphy of course for filling from Melia Lester, and to everybody for putting up with my slightly wobbly voice.
Friends, don't forget that if you want to see our glorious faces. This is what Need got wrong is he didn't realize he was Internet famous at a level that we know. This is why you can't scream at your daughter in public. No, you see, I can't choke passion pop at at his school function.
No.
The rule is, Claire, you can't cheat in public. It's got to be behind closed doors. That's the number one role of having your face on the internet.
Look, I'm glad you told me that because I would never have worked that out on my own without you killing me in.
If you want to be able to recognize us causing misdemeanors in public, you need to go over on YouTube how over to YouTube watch.
Please don't judge me for my middle aged pram, which will be in some kind of condition by the time you see.
It, and we will be back in your ears tomorrow.
Out loud as before we go, Parenting out Loud, your favorite news show is in its own feed, so you need to go and follow it At Parenting out Loud. There are new apps every Saturday and it is hosted by Monic Bowley, Amelia Lester and Stacy Hicks. And in the latest episode, they talk about the rise of something called stealth mum and why more and more women are choosing not to share that they're parents. Plus they also have a chat about the new rule book around praise and.
Why millennial parents are overthinking things no I do.
What's It's a great episode.
There's a link in our show notes.
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