You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Mama and Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast is recorded on.
I think she's read let them. I reckon she read her over the holidays, because I know that Oprah, who I believe you know they're in a group. Chap Sure, Oprah read it. Oprah loved it. I think she said Michelle, not passive aggressively, but just said, I think you'd get a lot out of this.
Yeah, let them have their party.
Yes, let them have their party, but let me not.
Come hello and welcome to Mom and Mia out loud. It's what women are actually talking about. On Monday, the twentieth of January.
I'm Holly Wainwright, I'm Mea Friedman.
And I'm Jesse Stevens, and we are in a new studio today. We are making the pivot to video.
Yeah.
It makes her sound really up with the times.
And I just keep shouting, change is exciting.
She does because you know that Holly and I and Nately resist change. We're not sure about it, but we are in a new studio. We've got like a fancy backdrop and everything.
This isn't actually going to be our final home. This is our temporary studio while we build a new studio for ourselves. We're actually borrowing in studio to sort of get ready to go into our newstube.
It's really cool where we are. It's got like hand and chairs, it's got like that.
The office fancy. So I'm going to make a complaint.
We fit right in anyway, There are some men around two.
There are also I should note if you follow us on Instagram, if you don't, should our videos are going to look slightly different. So give us your feedback. We don't need to ask for it. They'll give it to us. Oh, let us know what they think.
Indeed, they'll tell us.
Anyway, It's a massive news week this week, with a tentative ceasefire coming into effecting Gaza Trump's inauguration in the early hours of tomorrow morning, and as we're about to jump into on today's show, many TikTok creators melting down about what's going on with their platform in the US. So is the TikTok band still in place? Might it come here? And why does it matter? Also, I'm not the only one having a year of nupe. Michelle Obama has rejected her invite to the Trump Party, and we
think it's big. Letson Energy and Vanity Fair ran a full blown cover story about Megan and Harry, along with an eight thousand word piece We read it so you don't have to let's go.
We want to hop on here and say goodbye to all fourteen million of you guys.
It's just an app, but it's our whole life.
No, because anyone else just been crying on this app all mate, because it feels like we're losing like community.
It's just like, why would they take this app from the girls? Like if you wanted to take it, take it from the boys, not the girls.
Not the girls.
I cannot stop crying.
It's emotional and it's sad.
I feel so sad. I wonder how you actually would go about taking it away from just the boys. I quite like that idea. It's a possible solution.
Late on Saturday, US time, TikTok users in a America found their app had stopped working. This was a few hours before a federal ban on the app was due to take effect. So when they opened TikTok, as some of them do every two to three minutes, they were presented with the following message, Sorry, TikTok is an available right now. A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the US. Unfortunately, this means you can't use TikTok for now.
We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office. Please stay tuned because you wouldn't want TikTok to be full of propaganda.
Would you.
No, not at all exactly.
Let's take forty five steps backwards because for years, lawmakers in Congress in the US have been worried about TikTok's Chinese ownership. This is for a lot of reasons. TikTok is owned by the Chinese company Byteedance, and US officials are worried that Chinese laws China is of course run by the Chinese Communist Party, could compel them to share information about their users sensitive data. They could monitor users, They could influence public opinion or elections. It could be
used to gather intelligence on US citizens. So Jessee is.
The heart of this that because China is a communist country, yep that Bite Downs is essentially controlled by the Chinese government. Is that the subtext.
Correct and that we know that TikTok in terms of their settings, they can get details about your location, your browsing history. That's one element of it. The other element of it is if it is run by the Chinese Communist Party, then how about things like propaganda spreading misinformation? They have control in that way, which the US has been really really apprehensive about.
And the TikTok algorithm is widely acknowledged as a whole other level from every other social media algorithm. So nobody knows exactly how that works, and that is proprietary information that a lot of people would like to get their hands on.
Holders have said youth, mental health, economic concerns. Obviously, this isn't a US owned company, so that worries them as well. Whereas Twitter, a US owned blocking TikTok, we should also say it wasn't going to be unprecedented. India has blocked the app, as has Pakistan, and interestingly it has no presence in China. You might remember, oh, yeah, they don't use it there, they use different app.
That's worrying.
It is worry That's a bit like how the Silicon Valley tech bros don't let their kids have phones.
Yeah, so we're going to put this in the US. We're going to spread misinformation, propaganda. We're going to turn you all on each other and see what happens.
So an example of how it could be used I was reading is so, for example, one country invades another country. Yeah, suddenly your TikTok feed could be full of people in the country that was being invaded very happy about the invasion, and you could be led to believe, via an algorithm and via propaganda, that maybe that invasion was actually very cool.
Yeah, exactly right. So you might remember all the way back in twenty twenty, President Donald Trump signed executive orders to ban TikTok. He said it was a national security risk. They wanted to force TikTok to sell US operations to an American company, So basically have an arm where the American side gets to do its own thing, it's got some independence. And Byte Dance said absolutely, we will not
do that. Then in April twenty twenty four, US Congress passed a law saying either Byte Dance sells TikTok to a non Chinese owner, or we're shutting you down. And they chose the latter. So boom, one hundred and seventy million Americans who use the app suddenly couldn't until they could. Less than twenty four hours later, TikTok was restored. In a statement, TikTok said, we thank President Trump for providing
the necessary clarity and assurance to our service providers. They basically said, we don't want to penalize the Americans using it, allowing over seven million small businesses to thrive. They and for the First Amendment right and against arbitrary censorship.
Our business is thriving on TikTok. Small businesses I don't.
Know, some do when some came out. I've seen a lot of business owners say that they've they've built their businesses off the back of TikTok.
They did in ads made by TikTok.
Yeah, but think about the economic impact. Think of say the tween's skincare craze right, almost entirely fed by TikTok. Right, that has entirely changed the beauty industry. So imagine if you.
Take that out for some small business industry, like a cupcake shop on the corner. If you could leverage you know, TikTok properly, you can get your message out to a lot of people in a very free way.
It's have you met an algorithm? And are you actually kidding? What we know about TikTok is that it's different to every other social media app in that followers don't really matter, and there's also no real rhyme nor reason to what goes viral. So I agree that, as you said, holy TikTok globally has a massive cultural in making trends.
And then that has a commercial impact in selling stuff.
It can, but you don't have any control over that because it's so random. So you can make a video that goes absolutely viral, and then you can make a hundred other videos that just don't and you don't know why because it's about this algorithm. And of course the other platforms are going the same way now because everybody's trying to be like TikTok, which an idea that it's helping small business is just not true.
I think it is. I would argue with you on that. I think especially in like the travel space or whatever. You'll notice it. You'll go traveling and everyone is going to this cliff top bar. Yeah, why they're going to that clifftop bar because they've seen it. That's how travel has been things like that.
It's curated, but it's accidental, Like you can't manufacture that unless guess what you pay for advertising on TikTok. You can't say, oh, I've got a million followers, I'm going to put out this thing and a million people will see it. Maybe there are a.
Lot of businesses in the US which would have a TikTok department, and that's what I'm kind of interested about. But for context, Trump took a liking to the app last year because he used it a lot for his presidential campaign. He was kind of good at it, and it's unclear whether he actually has the power at this point to overrule the TikTok ban. My question is, Maya, what do you think happens now?
We know that over the last or since Trump won the election, it's just been a procession of tech billionaires and CEOs making their way to Mari Lago, where he's been camped out, to kiss the ring and to curry favor with him because ironically, yes, he was the one that started all of this by saying TikTok should be banned.
And then he's a savior.
I can't.
But of course that the beginning of the story.
But that is such a great plot point, you know, and nobody remembers the beginning of anything. Everybody's just about what's happening right now. And also, he used to be at war with lots of the tech bros. He said Zuckerberg should be a jail. He was at war with lots of them, and now they're all onside. So he's very much positioning himself as the hero of free speech social media.
Those guys no reck elation. So it's very on brand for him at the moment that he would be the savior.
So we're about to enter the new phase of this reality show and Trump. You know, when it was very chaotic last time, and it was all about resistance and it was this you know, combative situation between Trump and everybody. Now it's completely different this second term, and it's a lot more about deference. There's no defiance, it's just deference.
So what Trump would want is for it to be banned, because it's much more interesting if it's banned, and then he brings it back versus him stepping in before it's banned, do you know what I mean? So everyone's experienced it. It's a lot more more interesting, a lot more drama, more attention for him.
The reason it came back, Biden has sort of said, I'm going to leave it to Trump.
Yeah, because he's out. He literally has about six more hours.
And there are all kinds of rumors about the sort of coalitions that are being put together that might be palatable for the US government to be able to say, look, now it's part American owned and all those things, and the CEO of TikTok is going to be at the inauguration sitting right next to all the other right on the stage, So it's going to be.
Literally just they'll sell some of it to you because of that algorithm. So some people are like, oh, he's just setting it up so he can sell it to Elon Musk, who is Vice President in waiting. Why that won't happen is that this algorithm, this algorithm is so some say dodgy, some say incredibly powerful. It's probably both. No one wants that ip to get out to competitors, and Twitter is a competitor. So even though Elon would love it and Trump would probably like Elon to have it,
Trump's all about the deal. Actually, his favorite thing is when people are fighting with each other. So he's now got the CEO of TikTok, he's got Mark Zuckerberg, he's got Elon, he's got Jeff Bezos. They're all just competing with each other, Sam Altman from Open Aie, They're all just competing with each other to see who can do whatever Trump wants.
My kids confidently told me that mister Beast is buying it, so that actually, and they're like, don't worry, he's going to save it. And I'm like, Sam, legit. Anyway, I want to talk about the response. Because we started this segment by playing all the sound of all the TikTok creators crying. Now it's easy to mock that. I can understand it. I mean, the thing we were just arguing about whether or not people make money from TikTok. Of
course they do in different ways. You know, if Instagram has suddenly disappeared tomorrow, I would take a financial hit, like I literally would.
I mark in my books.
Through that, we promote our podcasts through that, we make
content through that. So for some people it's about livelihood, but for many, many, many more, it's just about It's really interesting in the way we've completely changed our view of what media is and how we now see the social platforms that we check, as you said, Jesse every two or three minutes, not as private companies or media organizations, but like air and water, line rights, basic service, basic services, human rights, things we can't do without, but our lives
are there. How could you take that? It's really hard not to sound a bit boomery to say this, but that's kind of really sad. It's really sad addiction, isn't it. It's literal addiction. I think it's really interesting to see that. You know, we love it. It's constant distraction, it's our particular choice of entertainment and all these things. But it isn't air or water, it isn't real human connection, and it's really difficult to, i think, for people to get
their heads around the attachment people have. So you probably might have seen a lot of headlines over the weekend saying Americans are now logging onto other Chinese owned social media platforms, laugh particularly one called red Note, because they would rather almost anything than to not have their version of TikTok when they open their phone.
It's one the headline. The headline on the drum was TikTok evacuees would rather learn Mandarin for red note than use meta, Which is funny because you might have noticed in the last week Meta changed how your grid looks. Have you noticed this? They've changed it into the TikTok dimensions exactly. Look, as you were saying with content creators, I understand crying as a content creator. Eighty five percent of those content creators are women, and they're making a
decent living. There's a creative fund.
I don't know how many. No, the creative fund gives almost nothing, So I think some people are making money. Most people are not making money. So I think what they dangle is the prospect of making money. You know, oh, you could go viral this video you just post again, you could go viral. You could go viral. But even the people who go viral can they then monetize that virality because it's so random. It's really hard. It is.
But I think it would be wrong to suggest that no one's making money off it like they are. Some people have a real, real livelihood.
Also, it makes them famous and they can speak it off to other things. Yeah, I think it's more branding.
And everyone has said TikTok. I'm like any other social media app ever created will make you go faster. It will make you go viral faster than anything. In that way, it's easier.
I think it's interesting what you said whole. If someone said I'm taking your phone away tomorrow, I would be because I'm addicted to it, and also because I assume having a phone and having connection to the Internet is a human right, Like I get that this idea of what do you mean I can't have it?
And for a generation, this isn't only an entertainment app. It's news, it's Google.
There also be nits. But used to being told no.
Well yeah, but I'm trying to think of a comparison. I mean, think about you in the eighties or whatever, if someone tried to take your TV, Like it's a similar comparison. But I think that if it is something, if it's the way that you search anything, it's like, how do I even live now? It's not like any other product.
It's interesting though, because without wanting to go to weeedy, what me is saying about the way the algorithm owns us all is true. But also this trend and we've talked about it all the tech guys who are going to be sitting very front and center on that stage tomorrow. Is In Zuckerberg's interview with Joe Rogan, he very much paints himself and the other tech companies as massive victims
of government overreach. Right, so he very much says, you know, government's all over the world, and I assume when he says that, he is also partly referencing Australia and our upcoming social media band are trying to limit our business, trying to take your information away from you, trying to take away your free speech. And so it's very on brand at the moment, very popular because they don't want to be regulated. Yet they don't want to be regulated,
they want to make more and more money. But happily they've also made their users, including all of us, believe that their services are so essential and they're trying to
be taken away. And so that's why it's so genius in a way that when an Americans opened TikTok yesterday and saw that it was gone, the President Trump of it all in that message was immediately like, but Daddy Trump is going to come along and he's going to give all you kids back your TikTok, and all those people, young people, many of whom probably are not sympathetic to President Trump in general, are going to be like, thanks, Dad.
He saved us. Those companies have so far been stifled by government overreach.
Can you imagine what will happen?
You imagine what would happen when they're.
Not After the break, Michelle Obama has taken on Holly's word of the Year, and I have an announcement.
Four bush and a bikini full bush, and a bikini full bush and a bikini like full bush in a bikini.
Friends, it wouldn't be the start of the year without important pubic hair news. And today we have some full bush in a bikini. As you just heard, is a phrase that I'd like to consider for our first out loud merch drop because it speaks to a growing full bush movement in the pants of gen Z women while gen X and boomer women are feeling very excited about finally having on trend pubes. Happy days. All right, let's
unpack these pubes together. The woman you just heard is the one we have to thank for this new phrase. Her name is Suninda, and she's a regular person on TikTok. Funnily enough, who was just scrolling through Etsy and found this bikini that she quite liked. And underneath there were all these reviews from people who'd bought the bikini, including someone who'd bought it and posted a picture of herself, and in this picture it was a positive review. Suninda
noticed that she had a very, very full bush. Now nobody can actually locate this photo, because yes, I have tried. The sentiment is being widely embraced by the thirteen million people who've watched that video about it. Now, this does seem to be bad news for laser people who might want to consider merkans, because laser is sadly not reversible. There has been some really awesome commentary overall, translating to
you do you. One particular poetic observer noted pubic hair, often viewed through a lens of societal uneasy taboo, is here reclaimed as a form of personal expression and empowerment, and another person brilliantly described it as age one week born on TikTok appearance dense and luxuriant. The movement's unofficial motto comes from this comment. Every time you keep your bush despite societal pressures an angel gains its wings.
Yeah, have you guys seen this at the beach this summer? No, I've seen it in the wild.
I think I see it anyway, because I hang around with normal people. Yeah, exactly, we still have pubic care.
I've definitely seen.
A very judgmental comment. Me is glaring at me because it sound like I'm saying that people who don't have pubic care not normal. No, No, I retract that comment. You misread my look.
It was what situations are you in where you see other women's pubic care when.
Miss the beach and it's coming out of the sides of their bikini.
But so you have seen it in the wild, Okay.
And when you're saying you don't think it's intentional, I don't think.
I don't think i've seen it in the wild as like a cool TikTok trend. I think I've just seen it in the wild as the way that women look when they go swimming at the beach.
Sometimes I wonder if as a result of the new cut of bikinis. When I say new, let's say the last two years, yes, is inevitable have gone? I either remove with a tweezer every single hair I've ever grown, or I just embrace this because the cut at the front I quite like a not a boyleg, but like, oh yeah, I don't do a G string or whatever.
I just the high nineties, the high nineties thing.
I mean, you can get a great bikini like you can do your bikini line. You've not even half removed what's going to be on show. So I think people have just gone it's all too hard. Let the bush fly.
Tomorrow is the coronation, sorry, inauguration of Donald Trump as the returning president of the USA. And look, we're going to be pulling Amelia Lester out of the corner. She's likely rocking in to attend our debrief when we're going to record a little episode about the event just for subscribers.
But someone who is not accepting her invitation to the party, which, unlike the last time Trump took off, is going to be a big, well attended affair with huge, very well funded victory parties all over town, is Michelle Obama, who is we've decided giving big let them energy to her year of nup. Her husband is going, Hillary Clinton is going, Kamala Harris and Doug are going. Former presidents Bush and Clinton and the current one we think he's called Joe
Biden will be there, of course with Jill. But Michelle has said nup, not doing it, and I think it means something. Last time Trump was standing on that White House stage in his big coat, it was the Obamas who were leaving office, and she said, understandably perhaps that she cried her eyes out afterwards. Here's a little bit of what she said about it.
To sit on that stage and watch the opposite of what we represented on display. There was no diversity, there was no color on that stage. There was no reflection of the broader sense of America. I cried for thirty minutes straight, uncontrollable sobbing, because that's how much we were holding it together for eight years.
So this time she is protecting her peace and nupping it so we believe, is Nancy Pelosi. I wonder if this is all part of the lessons being learned from the Trump era, like fuck the rules, fuck the niceties, We're gonna do what we want to do. Because former
president's wives have always gone to these things. Michelle Obama, though, is one of the most high profile of all of those women, and she is not going to go and smile and shake hands with the man she's openly criticized in the past, unlike a lot of the people who are going to be there, who have said awful things about Trump before, but now suddenly, as we just discussed, are saying, Oh, actually he's fine. Here, I have some money, let's have a party.
Mia.
Does Michelle's not have a broader significance?
I thought it was really interesting that she did this after last week or the week before not attending Jimmy Carter's funeral as well.
What was the reason for that? Has she said? What the reason was?
She the reason that she gave for not attending Jimmy Carter's funeral, He was the oldest living president, and every other living president was there. There were some really funny memes and videos about that. But she said she had a scheduling conflict, and it was later discovered that she was on holiday I think in Hawaii or somewhere, and so that actually all sparked up a little bit of divorce rumors over the weekend. How are the Obama's doing?
They haven't been seen in public for a while, which Obama hosed down by posting a happy birthday photo with him and Michelle holding hands over a table, and she commented, love you honey anyway her nup. I think, Holly, you've nailed it. It's you know, if you've read Becoming, which
we all have. Michelle's autobiography, she talks so much about being the first Black first lady and how she had to just be so so diligent about not giving anybody anything to weaponize against her and against black women and black people by being perfect essentially, And imagine what it must have felt like for her to then leave and then see basically Milania just came in and took a big dump over what that role has traditioned been, including
my personal highlight of wearing the jacket saying I don't care to you when she was going to visit children in cages. So I think she's literally just drawn a line in the sand. She's having the year of nap, just like you whole, and I think that everybody's seen, particularly women. You can do everything right, Kamala Harras. You can be even Hillary Clinton, you can be qualified, You can do all the right things, you can say all the right things, and it doesn't seem to matter.
I think she's read let them. I reckon she read her over the holidays, because I know that Oprah, how I believe you know they're in a chap. Sure, Oprah read it. Oprah loved it. I think she said, Michelle, not passive aggressively, but just said, I think you'd get a lot out of this.
Yeah, let them have their party.
Yes, let them have their party, but let me not come. And that's what she's decided to do.
Because I ask you, though, Jessie, because you're very good at this, what's the respectful line of nup in that situation? Because when you lose, you shake the hand of the winner, and you know the progressive side of politics, and made a big deal of that after the insurrection in Washington in twenty twenty one. So you shake the hand, you follow the niceties. Is there like a disrespectful line of nup? Because does that also mean you have to go?
You were right? I was wrong. I reckon she did that in twenty sixteen watching the Obamas after Trump said that Barack Obama was the head of isis total falsehoods about them For them to show up at his inauguration and shake his hand and be respectful they did their job. She's no longer the first lady. I think your job's finished. It's so fine.
Yeah, whereas your role as a former president, your job's kind of neverit different.
It's different. And she wasn't the president, she was the first lady.
Because Obama sat next to Trump at the funeral. Yeah, and they were famously seen. He was sort of like laughing. I mean, he was making small talk. He'd have to.
And let's not forget there is one president in all of US history who did not show up to an inauguration, and it was Donald Trump and Millennia. They did not show up to Joe bien As inauguration. So I totally respect her move. There's another nut story this week. I'm not sure if you've seen it. So Novak Djokovic is also embracing his year of nuts. Some would say, you know, we're going on to twenty years of nut with Djokovic.
You're a tennis correspondent.
Yes, Australian Open, so this is the news today. He won his quarter final last night and then he refused to speak to the reporter on the court. He just kind of said something to the audience and then walked off. He was speaking afterwards about why he made that decision.
The reason why I chose not to do that is because a few days ago a famous a sports journalist here from Australia who works for a main broadcaster of Australia and open at Channel nine, decided to mock a Serbian fans and he made insulting and offensive comments towards me. So I was hoping he's going to apologize in public, which he hasn't done yet.
I made it into the channel name.
So what did Jones actually say? Here's a grab of what he said the other day back to.
Melbourne Park where you can see the Novak Djokovic fans there in full voice. Yeah, the chances are quite exuretiny Novak, he's overrated. Novaksa has the Novack kicking out.
Oh I'm glad they can't hear me.
But wasn't he just repeating what the chances were saying.
They were actually supporters and he mocked the Serbian fans, which Novak hated. I reckon it's totally fair enough for him to finish playing a match which he won. You know, he's been the number one in the world for a very long time. I'm not sure if he is right now, but he has been to be mocked by a commentator like that. It's like, no, I'm not going to come out and talk to you. And then this morning Jones came out and apologize.
Remember when Michelle Obama said when they go low, we go high about Donald Trump.
Now it's when we go low we go to Hawaii, we don't.
Go It's interesting because I reckon that fits into the screw of the rules. Who because it's like, you have to give an interview to this particular journalist.
This is the official broadcaster.
You absolutely have to. This is how it works. It's always been done like this, so on and so on and so on, and there's just a whole lot of people, powerful people, it has to be said, who are able to do it just going not gonna don't like you, that's not okay.
On that note, I've got a little announcement. For the first time in out Loud history, I am changing my word of the Year. Oh so I should have known there was a problem when because out Loud as we record our word of the Year episode just before we go off on Christmas break, can we release it on news Day? As is tradition but when I was away, even before the episode came out, I couldn't remember what the word is.
I actually can't remember right now. It was make okay mate.
I don't want that word a bit. I refuse to have it. My word is going to be let them. And I know I'm breaking two rules. Not only am I changing my word, but I'm usually the stickler for you can't have more than one word. It can all be made one word with a hyphen. And I didn't know about let them before, and I've just found myself using that so much in January when I couldn't remember what my other word was. So I'm changing.
Them them, turn it into one word, let them, leave them, let them.
We should say, if you missed our word of the Year episode, we'll have a link in our show notes. And apparently there are new rules and you can just choose a word now I need. The new season of I'm a Celebrity premiered last night, and no one recognized each other. That's hyperbolic, but in an article for news dot com dot Au, Nick Bond writes it makes for an awkward I'm a celeb premiere when even the stars
don't recognize each other. Samantha, who featured on Married at First Sight, asked sam Ti Day, the former captain of the Brisbane Broncos, so what's your talent? I really like the use of the word in there.
But before you went in, don't you reckon? You'd bone up on like every possible person who might be in there, so you could go sah.
Holly, you could have done that and you still wouldn't have come across some of these. I'm going to throw some names at you. Zach Towhey, guess, come on, guess.
Zach Towey. Does he have a you know what?
He might, but he's an AFL player, Tina proves, Come on.
Tina influencers.
I feel bad.
Love Island contestant probably has more flowers than both of you put together on Instagram. I'm sure going Holy yeah right, Max Blegda never heard he's so famous. He is a UK TikTok creator with you half a million followers or something. There's also Nikky Buckley. What do I feel like? You know?
Sale of the.
Century Maddie j who he is from Lovely Chat podcaster married to.
Shana Jack No decorator, olympian. Oh you're thinking of I know she thinks she's on a TV Who's on the block.
Blaze, she'd be quite different.
Shana Jack Swims, Reggie Bird. Do we remember Reggie? She won Big Brother?
Oh Reggie? I remember that Reggie lost her sight, didn't she recently?
She's got a degenerate condition.
Wow, that'll make it a challenge in the jungle. Maybe it'll be easier because she doesn't have to look at what she's eating.
She can just eat you exactly. Right point is there's a lot of diversity in the fame element. My pet hate is when I see people comment on a news article about a famous person with who, because I look it up, and also it's a flex you're trying to say, like I don't even know who that is.
I think you're being harsh. I often will be reading something or looking at a picture of someone, and in my mind will be the sentence, I do not know that person.
That it's not a nice thing to say who.
I'm not saying it in a disparaging way. I'm just like recognizing the complete fragmentation of fame.
And that's what this speaks to, is that fame. I think it's what makes the show really interesting. The only household name in this is Dave Hughes Cusey, but it speaks to how fame means something different to every generation. I love the idea of a household like your household, Holly. I guarantee that your kids know these people.
I do think jen z Ed's would even know who Hughes he was.
No true.
I tell Brent all the time that the most embarrassing thing he says all the time it's never heard of them.
Which is what he says.
It will be said many times during the Hottest one hundred countdown. He'll be like Sabrina Carpenter, never heard of them? Like, mate, shut up, it's embarrassed.
I always think, though you turn up in the jungle, you don't recognize anyone. How do you ask a question? I like the what's your talents?
Your talent that's great.
I like that in a moment Harry and Meghan's big cover story, we will and by that I mean Holly and Maya will tell you everything you need to know about.
It out loud as.
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for ret novella. Yeah, that is actually your regular cover story or your regular feature online would probably be about two thousand words, maybe three thousand words if it was very chunky, And the most interesting part about this story is that there were no interviews granted by the actual couple themselves, but this story examines their post royal life and it was obviously time to coincide with the scheduled launch of her new show on Netflix, which was postponed
for a couple of months because of the bushfires.
It was written by.
Contributing editor and Appeal, and it interviewed lots some lots of people who've worked with them since they moved to America or who know them, and it sort of is all about how they've navigated this transition over the.
Have you actually read eight thousand.
Well every word?
Are you kidding about? You?
Absolutely?
I need to confess.
I broke out thumbs clicking on it.
I looked at it and I went, Jesse, you're going to die one day and you don't want to spend Okay, Yeah.
Twenty five cover line was American Hustlers, which I think is.
I like to cover. I thought that was interesting, but I went, life's too short, so I thought you'd fill me in.
Yeah, So the cover was a pap shot of the two of them in Sunny's on some public event. I'm going to give you the five takeaways so you don't have to read it first. One was all about workplace drama. So there's a source that described Megan's management style as mean girls teenager, suggesting that she'd undermine employees by talking behind their back and gnawing at their sense of self and multiple employees told Vanity Fair that they reportedly took
extended breaks or underwent therapy after working with her. I think everyone should have therapy.
Anyways, were there multiple sources? Was that one source like how.
Baucs of sources through the whole thing, but a lot of them were almost all of them were anonymous. So you have to take all of this with a big pinch of salt ok. The second theme of this article was about the production chaos around the podcast that they or that she recorded with Spotify. They signed you might remember one hundred million dollar deal I think, with Spotify
to produce some podcasts. Megan produced a podcast called Archetypes, which we know, and this article talked about people who worked at Spotify, saying that she'd agree to provocative ideas but then walk them back on the show. So like, one episode was meant to be about the word slut as being this archetype that women are called, but she didn't want to say the word slut. She didn't want to say the word bitch, So the bitch episode was called the b word.
I thought this was a bit unfair, too, right, because one of the things that must be very hard to be Megan and Harry and I know that like the world's smallest violin, but you would know that everything you said in any setting, any creative brainstorm session, anything with any employees, that Vanity Fair and every other media publication lord would love to know.
Right.
So imagine that we're having a brainstorming session about what's a new podcast going to be, and I have a terrible idea and you have a worse idea, Jesse, because that would definitely happen, and Mia just has an embarrassing idea because.
The idea is just lame.
It's like, this is what that is, you know what I mean, It's like they can't do that because they're so high risk. Every would like, can you believe that Mia Friedman said that thing? You know? And or the other thing was I can picture this very clearly too, that they would enthusiastically say because Hattery, for example, apparently wanted to do one where he interviewed high profile sociopaths, including Vladimir Putin, Mark Zuckerberg.
That sounds like a great.
This was actually my favorite thing in the whole interview. For people who've ever worked on podcasts or who've worked in media, trying to learn interviews and particularly trying to learn podcast guests in this very out of market is challenging, right, So a lot of very hard. So the idea that Harry wanted to make this podcast about was about men who have traumatic events happened to them in the childhood. Like he said, my mother was basically murdered, My life
was traumatic. Donald Trump Putin, all these other people, perhaps they had traumatic events, but what made me grow up into a lovely guy and them grow up and to be sociopaths. And the quote from a source was like this provided somewhat of a booking challenge to the producers.
Hello, will you be on my podcast called I'm a Sociopath?
Exactly?
But also again I have a bit of sympathy because you know, you often do have really big, bold ideas and then you think them through and you're like, we would get annihilated.
Yeah, yeah, but it's also.
Just not possible, you know what I mean? So I think what it all spoke to is the rush. And this wasn't Harry and Meghan's fault. The check books were out to say, we'll throw all this money at you. Netflix did the same, and then it was like, oh, what will you actually do? And is anyone interested in what you have to say if it's not talking about the royal family, which you've ostensibly left. Also the relationship dynamic between them. A source described their relationship as intensely passionate.
They are so hot for each other, the way they look at each other. I should probably not be here right now. One person said.
I think that's accurate. Whenever you see them look at each other. They look at each other like that.
But then others said that it was a little bit oedipus that Megan was essentially reparenting Harry and that he was trying to save her in the way that he couldn't save his mother. There was also a very interesting anecdote in there about Megan allegedly shopping a potential memoir about a divorce. If she were to get divorced, would people be interested in a divorce memoir from her? So that was interesting, It's weird, and there was no smoking guns in this right, so there was nothing that we
haven't heard before. It was just really confirmation of all of those kind of rumors that they're difficult to work with, that they think they know best, that they're a bit clueless when it comes to making the world.
Need another profile on Meghan and Harry.
I ask the same question because one of the things that I think is really interesting about this because yes, it's basically a lot of mean spirited rumors stitch together and a lot of stuff we've heard already. As Mia said, So in twenty seventeen, Megan did a proper cover with Vanity Fair. Normally a Vanity Fair cover that features celebrity, not always but very often is an agreed shoot. An Illeblewitch shot it. It cost a bajillion dollars, a long
form interview. The journalist travels with you, hangs around like it's success. It's access to access, and it's deeply sourced and it's prestigious.
And it used to have to be that you'd only get a Vanity Fair cover if you gave them something a big exclusive, like will you talk about the miscarriage no one you had or the divorce like Jennifer Aniston famously after Brad So.
When Meghan did that, it was the first time she'd ever spoken publicly about Harry. What is interesting to me is that we've gone from that, you know, like her giving full access to them, to Vanity Fair running basically what in the business we'd call it right around, which is they've got a random picture of them, made it look really lovely and glossy, slapped it on the cover,
and then just wrote around everything we've already heard. And it's like, I wouldn't blame them for being really pissed off about that, because this is an exact example of why they hate the media, right even the media who are supposedly the most credible, the ones who are on their side and inverted commas. Clearly they're not anymore.
And remember they did give access Megan in particular, did give access to the cut, and they wrote the most snarky It wasn't actually I thought it.
I don't think it was. I think that was an interesting story. But the criticism that's made is that they've never really understood that the media is not just pr the media is independent.
And I think they understand that. I think they get taught that lesson eighty five times a week.
But the problem is it's left them with nowhere to go to promote their genuine things.
But that's why she's back.
Yes, so you would imagine for a major Netflix launch show as Megan hasn't. We know, we spoke last week about how it's been pushed from January to March because of the LA fires. She would be doing traditional media. She would be doing a Vanity Fair cover, for example, or a People cover, which she still made. People still do seem to be on side.
Well.
She would be doing talk show appearances. She would be doing all kinds of things she isn't going to do any of that, because she and Harry have very clearly drawn the lines of the media haters for very good reason. But it kind of puts them in a difficult position then, because they're celebrities.
I wonder if there's a world in which they did give Vanity Fair something and then they took it back after the LA fires. Is that possible?
No, because the problem with magazines is that they're on very long, laid times. But also when you're a Netflix, I mean, your talent is contractually obliged to promote things. It's interesting because with the Polo documentary that Harry did that came out just before Christmas, they didn't seem to
promote it. They didn't do interviews, they didn't Maybe this is written into their contract that they wanted, but it starts looking like not a very good deal, which is what all the trade press has been saying for a really long time that it hasn't been a good deal, which is why Spotify didn't renew. She's doing a new podcast, however,
with another podcast company called Limonata. They want a platform and they want fame, but they don't really have a lot to say that people are interested in, because what people are interested in. Is not Megan talking about feminism. It's Megan talking about how hideous it was to be inside the royal family, and understandably she doesn't do that anymore.
I disagree. I would read the absolute shit out of a long form Vanity Fair profile where I got to see inside Meghan's house, where I got to see, you know, like day in the life he stuff. I'm tired of all the royal gossip, like I've heard it all, all those stories. I mean, Harry wrote an entire book about that, very good book that was all about that. So now I still think in the same way, I'm interested in all kinds of celebrities. I would still want to peak,
but they understandably do not want to show. To the end of our first show in our new home, how do we feel it went.
Friends by, I think it was great. I'll come back again tomorrow, which.
Is lucky because we will. As we mentioned, we back again tomorrow to talk about the inauguration. A massive thank you to all of you out louders for listening to our show today and to our fabulous team for putting it together in our new home. We're going to be back in your ears tomorrow.
Bye bye. Shout out to any Mum and MEA subscribers listening. If you love the show and you want to support us, subscribing to mom and Mia is the very best way to do so. There's a link in the episode description. Did you see the TikTok trend over the weekend of the Americans who knew they were losing TikTok confessing to things.
Oh no, oh no, because I thought maybe for bush and a bikini was part of that. Now I'm just going I've got nothing. I'm gone now.
It was like a sound of trending sound and it basically said, let's just say you would never have bought any of those skin care products if you knew that. I had to filter on someone else saying hundreds of thousands of followers about glute exercises, and she's like, I have a baby, l.
Oh, I love like everyone wearing slightly short sighted.
That's what I'm gonna.
I'm like, damn it.
And then I actually got here's a squat and it's like no, it's no more squats.