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Hello and welcome to Mamma Mia out loud What women are actually talking about on Friday, the twenty ninth of August. I'm Holly Waynwright, I'm Jesse Stevens, and I'm m Vernon. And on our agenda today, we've got what is the snow globe effect and why it might put words around something you're struggling to adjust to.
Plus, are you an extrovert, an introvert or an otrovert the new term that might describe you?
And clear your weekend plans because we have four things for you to watch and they're.
All very very good four things.
But first, and I don't know who started this hate treen about millennials putting lol at the end of our text messages and telling us that we need to stop doing that.
You can't tell us what to do.
We invented text messages, Our generation invented text messages. If you don't know the struggle of having to press a nine three times just to get a Y and then having to do that three more times, just to get three wives at the end of your.
Hay, okay, tell us what to do. You don't even know how to text.
You don't even know what text messages are. You know, typing because you get a keyboard you have to press one letter at a time.
Dear, so generational throw down there, Friday, that way.
Yes we are.
First it was the skinny jeans, then it was the side fringes, and now it's the way they text. I feel like millennials cannot.
Catch a break. So this I'm so.
Very finding out louders who don't know the ins and outs of our dynamic.
At this table, we have gen Z.
I'm as millennial because every time I say gen Z, the people younger than me get very old. And every time I say I'm a millennial, people older me also get very.
She's on the cuffs the gen z ish Yeah, and Jesse is very millennials.
I'm proper millennials, and I'm propergenic, propergenics. Okay, So this whole lool thing started from a tweet, which is like where I feel like most generational disagreements start. This tweet has over four million views and it says millennials use lol like stop at the end of a telegram.
Loll Okay. I think we use loll like you know when you're on a walkie talkie and you say over. That's how I use lot.
Yes, that's like a full stop. Yes, I don't really know what a telegram is. It's wrong with that.
So if you've ever watched an old movie, right, it's like like black and white movie, a piece of paper will come to the post office or whatever and it'll be mum, very sick, stop must come now stop, like it's the full stop.
Oh wow, Okay, So that's what.
You're doing, and what the loll is meant to infer is millennials never want anyone to think they're being dramatic or over the top. We don't want to worry. I don't want you to worry.
About what I'm saying.
So it's like Luna's got hand foot in mouth. Low, I'm not feeling very well lol. And then it's like work was fucked today.
Lol.
It's like it just lightens everything a little bit and it injects a millennial cynicism and kind of takes out the earnestness like wet or being whiny, like yes, yes, exactly, it's just like this dryness that gen Z doesn't understand because they take themselves so seriously.
Okay, it's interesting how the loll made it through though, because the reason loll started was when we didn't have keyboards on our phones. We had all the numbers and like three letters assigned to each number, and it.
Was easier to do an l OL than a ha ha ha ha.
Yeah, exactly right.
And yet l ol made it through the keyboard phase of the Internet, whereas like a lot of other ones like see let us see you letter you late eight.
Yeah, we just just abandoned. But there's something about loll that just and it's it's ironic, like millennials are pretending that it's but it's just your way of lightning the mood when it comes to anything.
I rarely use it. I rarely use it.
I use it only if I want to say something serious but don't want it to escalate beyond that, so I'll be like, yeah, hey, I didn't really like how you called me a stupid little bitch.
Lol, it's massively past.
Hang.
Can I ask a question just while on this topic, Yeah, because I saw on my Instagram today, because that's where gen xs live on Instagram a video of like a young adult explained with doing a PowerPoint presentation to his presumably late gen X parents, how they were using all their emojis wrong, like we know that right generally, but this one I hadn't heard before, and I need to run it past you in particular, En, but maybe you also, Jesse. The exclamation marks, you know, are the red ones? Yeah,
the red exclamation marks. The kid doing this presentation. The example was he texted his mom saying I'm in a bar with Alex Cooper. She is podcast royalty in the world, and his mom had responded with the exclamation marks, like wow, that's what she thought. She was saying wow ye, And he said, no, you're saying, yes, I am also in a bar with Alex keeper.
We're being trolled that. No, you don't just get to reinvent grammar.
I was saying, exclamation emoji means I agree on me too.
Is that true? Have you heard that before?
I think it's both, Like it depends on the person, but I think you can differentiate between someone going wow exclamation Also, why wouldn't you just type wow, it's my parents? I mean, exclamation could be like okay, cool, But I use it as like saying, if you message me.
He was saying, He's saying it's same.
So it's like, Mum, you weren't in a bar with Alex Cooper, so you shouldn't have gone with the exclamation.
See if m messages me and goes I won the lottery, I've just become a millionaire. I reckon i'd go three exclamation marks, like I'd be like.
I want to talk about my friendly Now. Regular Outlouders will have heard about our friend Lucy. Actually she is a friend to all of us because we've all worked with Lucy. Lucy Ormonde is made of ours who has an amazing substack called Year of Healing, and we talked about it on the show once before because we talked about Glimmers. But Lucy continues to produce excellent newsles.
Thank you Les.
We need to talk about her next one because I think that what she raises in it is something that.
Will be really useful to lots of people.
So, our friend Lucy has just spent a year going through some very intense treatment for breast cancer. Some Outlauders know this because we've talked about it on the show. Before she was diagnosed last year when we were on tour together, actually in April, and she has recently completed the most serious part of that treatment and it was so far successful. She has ongoing treatment going on, but
she's kind of in this after period. And I hang out with Lucy quite a bit, and what is clear is that the neat narrative that we would all like, which is that was terrible. Now things are fine. Let's all get on with it and pretend that didn't happen, or just isn't that a wonderful neat little ending.
It's just not how it rolls now.
I'm going to just read you a bit from Lucy's substack letter about talking to her psychologist about why she doesn't feel like she can just move on? Is I guess the words that she would want the snow globe effect that I'm about to read you this bit of a letter from in this case was credited to doctor Charlotte Totpman, who's an Australian psychologist who specializes in cancer related distress. I know that it's a theory that floats around in lots of places, but in this instance it
was Dr Topman who applied it to cancer. This is a bit of Lucy's post. Have you heard about the snow globe effect? My psychologist asks midway through our ladies session, right about the time I was starting yet another spiral about the complexity of my feelings on having cancer and why I can't quite find my way in this new world. She reaches off screen and pulls as small plastic snow globe into focus. As a specialist in oncology, she must use the snow globe analogy enough to know she always
needs one close. I want you to imagine this snow globe is your life, she says, as she holds it close to the screen. She gives me a few seconds to take it in before she starts to shake it. And then suddenly you're diagnosed with cancer. Shake shake, shake, shake, shake, shake.
And stop.
The cylinder stops in her hands, but the snowflakes continue to fall. Now, she says, imagine all those little bits of snowy your values and priorities. Cancer has thrown them all up in the air, and now none of them are settling where they were before. The flakes keep falling. The things that used to matter don't matter anymore, and some of the things that really didn't matter.
Now do.
Now what Lucy's talking about. There is something called the snow globe effect. It's been widely talked about and credited to different psychologists. Is that something that rings true with you too about maybe other areas of life, or that explains why things sometimes aren't in such a neat little package.
I love this analogy so much because when people talk about values work, and you hear a lot of psychologists talk about the importance of values, and maybe a lot of people in the self help space, there's this idea that your values, you can write them down in a journal, you can point to them, and they are your north star and they never ever change, and that makes us feel very in control of things. And it is a total oversimplification of how values work, because in fact, sometimes
you don't get to choose your values. Sometimes something so catastrophic or transformative happens in your life that it is shaken. And I think this will happen to every single person at some point in their life, and maybe it won't be as horrific as a cancer diagnosis, but I think I think in some ways life is a snow globe in that you know the second you feel like everything is calm, it just all gets shaken. I've, you know,
noticed this with Lucier. I've noticed this with a lot of friends, where sometimes they're like, but I don't want those to be my values. I don't want those to be my priorities. But you've got to let it all sit and go. This is kind of how life looks now and in the middle of the mess, it's impossible to see where it's all gonna land. And if you are a controlling I feel like I can be quite controlling. We all are. We all would like to have more
control over our lives. We try and grab this piece and then nail this piece to a wall and then go and I'll just put this here and then fine, it's all okay now now can we move on? But it almost reminded me of something. I don't think I've talked about it here. I've spoken about it somewhere else. But Kate Langbrook. Before I had a baby, I was speaking to Kate, who's got four kids, and she said, parenting is like falling down the stairs drunk. You injure
yourself when you resist. You've got to go floppy. If you go floppy, you'll be fine. And I've thought about that so much because it's the resistance that causes the pain. Yes, Like it's the resistance to kind of even in the snow globe, you're kind of going around and like almost in the middle of this hurricane, and the more you try and resist, the more you get frustrated and irritated, and you're going whether it's in parenting, there is so little you can control, and like it is so much
more comfortable if you just go. I think the word there is just surrender, like just surrender to it.
Yeah, it's so interesting.
I actually learned about the snow globe effect years ago from my own therapist, and it was a situation where I started going to therapy but there wasn't something that happened to me where I needed to go to therapy for. And I think it's that ongoing argument on if nothing's happened to you, you don't need therapy, versus like you have to wait for something.
To happen to you and then go to therapy.
I've read that people go during the snow globe storm when maybe they should go before.
Yeah.
Yeah, so, and it's actually really hard because my first few therapy sessions. I hated it because the whole idea was my therapist, who's absolutely amazing. She was trying to get me to talk about my values that I had and question them and see if they were actually the right values for me. And the movies taught me that when you go to therapy, you leave therapy and like the world's a better place. Was I was leaving therapy
and I was feeling worse. I was feeling like, oh my god, this sucks, like this is the hardest.
More confused. I'm more confused.
I just feel so sad, like everything's just so annoying. I hate everyone. And then eventually it started getting lighter and lighter. But it did make me realize that therapy is like a muscle that I constantly had to keep training, and I had to keep going to actually figure out
what my actual values are and I can't. When I read Lucy's piece, I remember like it brought me back to that snow globe theory, and I can't even imagine what it would be like to go through all of that when you're not in control of it, wh're already happening to you instead of you looking at it before it happens.
So what context did your therapist use the snow globe effect? Can you remember what they were talking about.
So I had this bit of a crisis where I was twenty three or something and I just felt so childlike. And it was the same age that my dad was when he moved to Australia from India and had to literally start his life, find a job, work, get married, have kids. And it just put me in this place where I was like, how was my dad able to do that in a brand new country, also facing like so much like racism and stuff, and I can't even like make my bed sometimes in the morning. And that's
what my therapists had to go through. I think it's very common, especially with children of immigrants, not being able to do what your parents did, because in the back of your head, you're always like, they did this a mesona, I have to do something with my life because they literally gave.
Up their life for me.
There's like pressure, yeah, And it was around that where she was like, I think you just need to enjoy the life you're living right now, and I feel like you're struggling to do that because you constantly have that voice in the back of your head, and then she was talking about is that actually happening or are you telling yourself that that's happening?
Because my dad wasn't.
Telling me that, like he wasn't And it was one of those things where I was like, that was my whole life up until that point. I was like, there's no way I can stop doing that, Like there's no way I can stop thinking about that. And it took years for me to get out of that mentality and have.
A perspective share.
Yeah.
I think one of the things about the snow globe, and this is what Lucy has said to me about it too, is that she's sort of after a storm in a way, right, Like it's not really over. She's still on cancer treatment. There's still a lot of physical and emotional and psychological stuff going on, and yet the storm is over, the snowflakes have settled in theory, right, and everything is in a different place than it was before.
And I think that this is also something that can happen in grief, in loss, maybe after a massive life upheaval, like a divorce that you didn't see coming, is suddenly everything's different and you're changed. You're the same, but you're changed, and that can also be really confusing for people around you.
I know people who've been through enormous loss, for example, that has rearranged all their snowflakes, and everything's in a different place, and everything tastes different and looks different, smells different, and the people around you are going, but the storm is over, Like, you know, you lost your person and now it's been six months and you should be getting
over it. Or you had cancer. Now you've been told that your cancer free for now, so it's over, so come on, you know more, you know, the crisis has passed, the storm is over. And the thing is is that you can never pretend as if the storm didn't happen.
Yeah, it's not temporary.
Yeah whatever this massive thing that's happened to you, that did tear the wallpaper off your walls, or whatever analogy you want to torture with it, you can't just piece it all back together and make it exactly the same. So then you've got to be comfortable with the change.
And to your point Jesse, about we like to be so certain about our values and we like to have them nailed to the wall, and we like to be like, this is who I am and often when we're going through something really difficult, we just crave the normalcy of knowing where all the furniture is. Again, it's like another crisis in facing that the furniture is never going to be in.
The same so we're not going back to where we came from.
So I think it's really helpful.
One of the other things that Lucy said to me about this analogy, though, is she said that in some ways she feels like her snowflakes have settled in places that are better than where they were before. Right now, not everybody likes that kind of neat analogy that a terrible experience like always has this big meaning that, oh, suddenly I understand what life's about. You know, that's certainly not true for everybody. There's so much anger and darkness
involved in all that too. But if your values are drama rearranged and your priorities are dramatically rearranged after a traumatic event for you, maybe they are going back in places that are better for you.
And that's some post traumatic growth, right Like, That's what Leigh Sales writes about in any ordinary day her book, And you hear people who have been through the most unimaginable tragedies who at the end go, I feel like I've grown out of that, which again is in everyone's story, but it's got to be a lesson in sort of stopping the resisting and to sort of torture the analogy for more. The thing about a snow globe is that it's just happening to you, like it's not happening to
the whole world. You're kind of stuck in this thing, and to everyone else things are still completely normal. And as you say, they don't see the crisis anymore, but they don't probably understand the aftermath of the storm to the same extent, and so it must also be a really lonely experience of trying to understand all of those changes.
If you know anyone who might benefit from reading Lucy's newsletter, A Year of Heat, it is on Substacked, and we will obviously put a link in the show notes. It's a really beautiful, it really beautiful series.
Of letters out louders in a moment? Are you someone who has never ever felt like you belong? Apparently there are extroverts, introverts, and otroverts, and we have at least one sitting at this table. Do you hate parties? Do you despise team sports? Do you prefer working on your own than with a group. Have you gone through life feeling like a bit of an outsider? If so, you might be something called an otrovert, and a man named doctor Rami Kaminski has just published an entire book about you.
Kaminski is an award winning psychiatrist, and he says that over the years he has had a very specific kind of person come into his practice. While introverts face inwards and extroverts face outwards, otroverts, that's a term here is coined, are on a completely different continuum. They see themselves as other and are facing somewhere else entirely. Otroverts have no problem standing up for themselves. They gain energy from deep
conversations with close friends. They are often gregarious or outgoing, but critically, they have no desire to join in. As Kaminski puts it, they are soloists who cannot play in an orchestra. Most people except the group that they're born into, without question, whether that's religious, is cultural, it's political. Most crave a sense of belonging. It feels so critical to sort of your life that you belong to a group.
Otroverts do not feel this. They are observers more than participants, and often they become leaders or artists or prominent thinkers because of their defiance. So the likes of Freedo, Carlo, Albert Einstein people they are outroverts. I can think of so many people in my life who fit this definition. It has been a real light bulb moment. Holly, does this sound at all familiar?
Yes, So I hesitate like I don't want to pathologize myself, and there are clearly lots of things in that list that are not me.
I'm not at any parties with Albert. I'm starting the color and.
I will say Yet, Kaminski says, this is not a pathology. It is not something you need to see a therapist for. It is not something that is a diagnosis. It is simply a different way of being.
But whenever I look, you know, we will also love the introvert extrovert thing. The past ten years, as we know, it's just been introvert central and then extrovert's got a bad name, and then you know, brat Summer and people got a bit more extrovert.
Wh yeah, blah blah.
But whenever I think about that, I'm always like I'm neither of those things. Because when I read this, I was like, this is why I hide in the toilets at parties, but I never want my small friend dinners to end. Like I'm not an introvert in that I don't like socializing. I love socializing, but I like socializing with one person or two people. When I was reading this list, I was like, obviously, not all these things are true for me, right, but this is part of
the list. It says these are the people who always prefer to have dinner with a friend one on one rather than attend a dinner party tick. When they have to attend large gatherings, they are the figure standing off to the side, deep in conversation with another person rather than working the room tick. They despise playing team sports tick and find the shared traditions of rituals of communal life like office parties, graduation ceremonies difficult and even baffling.
Right tick tick tick.
Like I love all the people I work with, but I do not want to be at a party with them. I don't like parties. I don't like big communal celebrations things I didn't relate to when it says you would rather do work assignments individually than in a group. Well, I'm a writer, so obviously yes. But also I do this, so obviously no. And I've worked in lots of teams, and I've led teams, and I've really enjoyed that. That
bit doesn't strike such a chord with me. But when he wrote, unlike introvers most of whom would be completely drained from hours spent in a quiet corner of a pub talking with their closest friend. Otroverts tend to gain energy from these kinds of deep conversations. Sitting in a quiet corner of a pub talking to my dearest friend for hours is my idea of heaven.
I would do that for a week. I think that sounds a little intense.
Yeah, yeah, So I did tick a lot of boxes, did this in my head, and I also thought about my kids and my partner, Like my daughter matured, she loves team sports like she loves that environment so much.
It's a very big part.
And I this is what I always say that one of the biggest lessons about parenting is how much your kids aren't you. I look at it with bafflement and wonder and I'm like, amazing. My son is much more like me. Brent has never met a party. He doesn't want to rip up like. He's always like can we go? And I'm like, oh no, it'll be awful. He's like, can we go?
I'm like, you go.
So I feel like, although the deep side of this, I'm not necessarily sure that I can tick the with the geniuses on a social front, because I always go, well, I'm not really an introvert and I'm not ann.
Do you feel Have you gone through life feeling like you don't belong often?
Yes?
Like this bit I related to too, not to a tiny violin. But he quoted this kid who was getting this diagnosis as saying, I feel weird in a group situation you're talking about, like I'm not part of it, which is odd because these are all my friends and I know they like me and are happy I'm there, but I still don't feel connected. I only feel lonely or bored when I'm with many people, and not when I'm with one or two close friends or when i'm alone.
And that's true, Like I always feel really weird in big groups, and that's so funny and I don't know why how about that maybe I do?
And do you relate to this at all?
I just okay, so you found out you're an otrovert? Like now what?
Like?
Now what happens? Like I want to pull a Jemia M kirkcard here. Yeah, because I was learning about otrovat and I'm like, oh my god, I think I'm an otrovert, but maybe I have extravert tendencies. But I've been feeling a bit in about it lately. And then I was like, ww j k D what would you mind?
Kid?
Do do you tell me I'm thinking about myself way too much? And she'd be right. We all are what.
I don't like about when we create labels that aren't diagnosis on people, it gives people the excuse to do things their way. So now I know, hole, when I have my big thirtieth birthday next year, you're going to be like, hey, and remember how I'm an otrovert. Yeah, you know I don't like big setting, so I can't come to your party. Let me know when you want to have a one on one dinner, say.
I I'm going to push back on you with that. I had never had my belief that everyone should belong and everyone should want to belong. I had never had that belief challenge before, and this blew my mind. They were talking about parenting a kid who doesn't want to join in, and you go, no, but you've got to
join in. You've got to be part of a group that's really really important, and it's like, not everyone is the same, and we do so sometimes pathologize or fret about some personality traits that are just on the spectrum of normal.
Yeah, that's it's so fun, absolutely, and I think it's not to pathologize it, but I think that it's very helpful to just understand that you can be all of
these things and still be happy and fulfilled. Like when I say that I feel weird in groups, it's not like a sad thing like that I need someone to come and put their arm around me and talk to me deeply about something intense, Like it's not that it's just even though I'm a very competent speaker, know how to ask questions and like integrate myself into a group. Obviously I've done it a million times in my job and my life.
I always feel.
Other in those situations, like even with a group of people I know, well, I always feel like I shouldn't really be there, So this is helpful because it's just like, oh, maybe I'm just And then I also think that maybe my life choices, like moving across the other side of the world when I was young, all of those kinds of things have also probably made me a bit like that too, you know what I mean, Like that you're a singular une rather than the unit in a try.
Maybe you were also better equipped to make those decisions, those decisions that would have been terrifying for people. If you've always seen yourself as an individuals rather than part of a group, or you never really identified with being from Manchester, or you never really and you just see people on their individual basis, then it makes sense that you would be more brave in some ways.
Doesn't that also sound like you might be more self interested in selfish?
I don't.
Yes, you're protecting your peace too much. It's not always all about you.
Like I understand parents feeling like, oh so my kids fine, and like they just don't actually want to go, but also sometimes you have to force your kid to go, Like they have to go, they have to join in.
Ye have to like it. I do think that, but I was also I wrote something recently and I was thinking about last year I went to Northern Ireland and it was my mind was blown by my experience of Northern Ireland. Never been anywhere like it, and to me it crystallized so much about history. I felt like I landed there and I was like, Wow, this just puts a whole framework on like wars and disagreements and groupthink. And I say that because in Northern Ireland you've got
these two very distinct groups. You've got the Protestants and the Catholics and the Catholics. And if dry Girls taught me one thing, Protestants and Catholics living virtually side by side in neighborhoods, and they cannot even sit in the same pub together, like they hate each other. And you were brought up and we had a Protestant cab driver and I asked him a bunch of questions and like he'd never spoke to a Catholic, he would never like they you don't go to school together. You subscribed to
completely different narratives. History is different for you. You are taught different histories in class, right, And if you think about some of the worst atrocities that have happened throughout
human history, group think is responsible for them. This psychiatrist writes a lot about the hive mind, like the idea that when you're part of a hive, it's not just that you're all together and you're protective, but you've got to subscribe to the same ideology and beliefs and thoughts even when the logic stops making sense, right, and just so you can stay in that case, Yeah, because that's your primary desire. This is why ultroverts are so important.
I was just thinking about them and how necessary they are to communities, Like oltroverts are the people that go this is kind of weird, Like this isn't really making sense to me. This is something I'm going to challenge. They don't necessarily think the belonging is the most important thing.
I feel oppressed by that kind of yeah, like not oppressed in the serious way. I'm not an oppressed person, for God's sake, Like I'm you know, middle aged white lady. But I find it oppressive. That's the I've always been deeply uncomfortable with patriotism of any kind. And although I love some kinds of belonging, like I love being at a football match or whatever.
I just don't like being on the team or at a concert where you all love the But then I also stop pulling away from it because I'll be like, well, I really my team to win, but now they're kind of winning, and I feel really uncomfortable about that.
And then I'm like, I don't know, I know, part of the group.
Yeah, I know. I can't be part of the group who's all cheering for that thing. I don't know.
It's it's weird to like, I sound like I'm beings such a precious little snowflake. But it's like when I read this, too, are related to a lot of it in that way. Is that I think we do all want to belong and I want to belong to the people who I want to belong with, But I also feel, you know, like a wolf with my leg in the in the trap when I feel when the belonging is pushed.
On me too much. So do you experience fomo? Not much?
Right, not much at all? I mean, obviously about things I really want to do, but I often will be once it becomes a critical mass, I'm like, oh no, I don't want it. I don't know anyway I sound. Isn't it funny much too much?
As Jemia M.
Kirkwould say that you are semi resisting the label of Otrovit.
Wonder very interesting if critical.
To outroverts is them going, I'm not a perfect otrivit. I'm not like all the other outroverts. I'm a very specific kind of outrivat. It just reminded me though, that it's like, you couldn't have a world full of otroverts be chaos. It'd be anarchy. It'd be very independent and like to be a lone birthday it'd be oh my god, there would be no birthday parties, there would be no community. But you need them in a society that has all
the other different types of people. And I quite liked that, and it made me understand why some people in my life might seem a little rebellious. There was a term that he used, which was that they're sort of meek rebels, like they don't try and do something wrong for the sake of it. But it also explains why they can feel very exhausted from pretending to be part of a even like you know, workforces, we've become so obsessed with
the team a part of the team. If you're not part of the team, then there's no there's no iron tea, there's no And it's like that pretending can be very exhausting for people.
So yeah, and I think that what it is is that often when you do belong to a group, whatever kind of group it is, the thing that feels suffocating is that you're expecting to co sign on all of these things and nearly always, whether it's you know, a political position that I might hold that I would have a million things in common with the other people who hold that, but of course there will be five things on that list that you don't.
Know and you're not willing to compromise on, and you're like.
I'm not here for that, you know. And so I think that that's why it's tricky if you're an outrovert to join anything. I also think, not to be too wanky about it, but it's probably useful for a rider, because the cliche about riders is you're an observer, right, You're always a little bit on the outside looking, and like I love looking at families because I'm not part of a big family and all those things closure blind.
Yes, yes, they.
Like watching it.
I think that that is probably a bit otroverty of me too. I hope this has made sense to some out louders that you're like, oh yeah, now I know what I am, and and I'll be like, who cares what.
She's right, it's coming to my birthday. I promise I'll come to thank you so much. Yeah. Yeah, I'll just.
Find someone to talk to. I've got a little bit of news to share with the group. You know how sometimes we do this on Friday, and sometimes it's big, Like it's big, like me is taking a break or whatever. I've just got something very important to Last week, Brent and I won pop trivia for the first time. So Thursday nights it's our date night. Yeah, two little lotroverts refusing to join a big team.
You guys are smallest. It's a team of two. Wow, just me and him.
Oh no, Holly, Holly, no, no, no, this is this is a competitive disadvanta. This is what I find interesting about trivia, right, there's a threshold at which too many becomes a disadvantage.
Oh yeah, because they can't agree.
Exactly, and you start going, you guys are distracting.
And then you forget to do the sheet and you're just drinking and exactly.
And it's like you're very distracting. I think probably five or six might be the idea.
It's our date night, right, because we're that exciting that on Thursday nights we go around the corner to the local pub and we play trivia.
Your knowledge is like, how long have we been doing this.
Since we moved to where we live and you've only just only just one.
This is how exciting it is.
But the main thing I need to share with you in the out loud is the two things that got us over the line.
Oh.
Number one, this is very out louder coded. They had one of those who are my around you know where they read out like facts about.
That is my skill.
And the first two only took me to the first two was I was born on February eleventh, nineteen sixty nine. I was born in Sherman Oaks, California. And I leapt from my seat and I said, Amber, that's the name of our trivia master, Amber, I said, Amber, it's Jennifer Aniston.
And it was Jennifer, Oh my god. The other one did everyone look at you like you're a goness? Well no, they looked to me like there was something wrong with me.
Because who knows from only those two facts that it was Jennifer Aniston.
Oh my god, you're going to be known as the Jennifer Aniston woman Trivia.
And the other thing was a beout. Jesse knows this. What is a sapio sexual attracted to?
Okay? Why did you not think? I know that? That is insane? Gone? What does a sap sexual fund attractive? Okay? So it's sapio and nature is what I'm thinking, which means like sapio sounds like cpia.
Yeah, I love it.
Are you sexually attracted to?
This is why you want too many people on your team?
Olden day movies, it's quite close. That would be quite hot.
But Jesse, isn't it when you're attracted to someone's brain?
Yes?
Course you knew that.
It's intelligence and I was Trivia. Who knew that its because why we were?
You know?
My other special skill is when they get the sheet out of celebrities as children, Yes, and they're like, who's this? And I'm like, give me the pen. This is one that I got. What does Bob Prevost from Chicago have in common with three billion people?
Oh?
He's a pope. He's the Pope.
Okay, the thing. We're all sitting there and we're going, he's ahead of a tech company? Did he create national broadband network? Like we're all doing it? And then I had this moment. I was like, Bop from Chicago, why is it ringing a bell? And I was like, who's the fucking part? I was so excited. That's such a good questions, such a good one because it doesn't sound like the Pope doesn't.
Nothing like pub trivia, I'm telling you, like the people who played pub trivia. A small town, we all vaguely know each other. So whenever the celebrity sheets come out, they're.
Like, Oh, here we go.
Are you win a metre one hundred dollars out to spend in the pub? Oh my god, that's amazing.
That's amazing, big weekend.
That's actually quite exciting. So there go.
That was the important thing to share with the group. Now, I'm sure we've got more important things.
To talk about out louders after the break, we have some recommendations that you can watch all weekends.
One unlimited out loud access. We drop episodes every Tuesday and Thursday exclusively for Mamma Mia subscribers follow the link in the show notes to get us in your ears five days a week, and a huge thank you to all our current subscribers.
Vibes ideas atmosphere, something casual, something fun.
This is my best recommendation.
It is Friday, and we want to help set up your weekend with our very best recommendation.
Holly, do you want to kick it off?
I do.
I have a recommendation for a TV show that's on Binge and it's called Mixtape.
Right, you never forget the boy who makes you your first mixtape.
One dance.
I'm gonna walk you on one dance, but you won't be walking me on.
Kay.
I know when you're shutting me out.
Allie, soon it don't just up and leave home.
It's seventeen.
I will shit it bath.
She's not coming back. Theresa Palmer is like the busiest one.
She's everywhere.
Does she have.
Four fourteen children?
She has so many children and she's so amazing, but she seems to be in everything at the moment.
Okay, I'm going to need you to step it up. She's in this.
So Mixtape is a four part show. Now it's interesting because it's a co production between Ireland, England and Australia, and Theresa Palmer and Jim Sturgis who's a British actor who he was in the movie version of One Day with Anne Hathaway, you know, like back in the Oh. I love that movie and he's back in the Day last year and yes.
No, it wasn't that. That was the original one, and there was one.
Yes, here is the original Leo Woodhall many Steps. But anyway, it's called mixtape because it's about first love. So Theresa Palmer and Jim sturg just play people who are supposedly about my age and I tell you what, Theresa Palmer not my age. But they put a few wrinkles on her and here we go and they are dreaming of reconnecting with their first love, who was each other. And they fell in love at high school.
So it's a story that's told.
On two Front's reason it's called mixtape is because when they met at a school party in Sheffield in the north of England when they were young, they bonded over music of the time and because it was dining in eighty nine or whatever, the music is amazing, so there's an amazing soundtrack. But anyway, fast forward thirty years or whatever, twenty five years. They are now both married to other people.
She lives in Australia, he lives still in Sheffield, and things happen that mean that they come back into each other's mind and they reconnect by sending each other songs on Spotify, which is they never talked. They're not friends on Facebook or anything, which is something I've never thought to do, but now I feel the need to do it. Yeah, songs anyway, and then what happens is it explores, you know, why.
Did these people ever break up?
Blah blah blah blah blah. Are they going to get together? He traveled to Australia, doesn't really work.
So it's like it's is it like a straight drama?
Like it's a drama.
It's got quite heavy themes because you find out from the young versions of them, like the reasons why they broke up. There's quite a lot of trauma in Allison, who's Theresa Partner's character's background that he was never really aware of because she would never open up her family to him and stuff. So there's like it's really interesting. It's one of those TV shows that I can't stop thinking about because it's not like perfect.
There's a weird casting. It's always really hard.
To depict the partners of people who aren't the right partners, do you know what I mean? So he's got a wife and she's got a husband, and you're a little bit like I'm not quite sure why you two would be. But anyway, the whole question, of course, is are they gonna, yeah, reconnect. They're clearly meant for each other on this deep level, and are they going to reconnect? And it's just a really lovely, slightly challenging TV show with an amazing.
Soundtrack, and it's called Mixtape and great em what's your record?
Okay, I'm recommending a fairly new TV show.
Out on Disney Plus. It's called Alien Earth.
How's our Girl?
She's ready.
You're going to be the first person to transition from a human body.
To a synthetic because I'm special.
That's right, You're very.
Very special.
It's popped up for me.
Oh, it's part of the Alien franchise. I was really interested in this because it went viral before the show even came out, because it had over a two hundred and fifty million dollar budget, which is very very rare for TV shows, so they're really backing this show.
This is like that's a movie budget.
It's like a Game of Thrones budget, like massive, massive budget. Watch the first episode if you're a fan of like it's not like super super horror like the original Alien movies with Sigourney Weaver. It's more like creepy dystopian. It's still a bit bloody, what's it like? The special effects are insane and like the prop so it's just so good. So basically the premise of it is like our world
in the future, there's no more government. Instead, it's these massive evil corporations that basically own countries country.
Is that about the future, It's like about right now.
So what's happening with these companies is that they all are working on how to make everyone immortal, and there are like.
Awsome like a documentary.
There are three contenders on immortality. There's the cyborgs, which are humans but enhanced. There's the synths, which are just artificial beings, and then the hybrids, which are artificial beings with the human conscious. And these three are competing kind of like how AI like Chatchy compet like Pupactica like that that's one of them wants to be the best, and then the alien comes and just sucks up everything.
And when you say it's part of the Alien Frontise, you mean like Alien the movie.
Yeah, like the movie.
Yeah, yeah, I mean she's not in it, sadly, but there's like, yeah, there's like some beautiful scenes that like kind of replicate the original Alien when they're all sitting at the dinner table laughing in the spaceship. What's really different about this alien if you're a fan of the Alien movie, is that all the alien movies take place either in space or on the aircraft. This one takes place on Earth, so the aircraft like lands on Earth,
so you actually see the aliens on Earth. And the special effects are insane, Like it's so so well done, but it is a bit scary, So if you have little eyes around, it's great.
My recommendation is a three part Netflix documentary. Has anyone watched Amy Bradley is missing?
No?
Seen it? Pop up? Yes? Come up? Seeing it? Ever something to do with the cruise ship?
Yes?
Have you ever wanted to kill somebody?
Just take them on a cruise exactly?
What has happened to their daughter.
Is a mystery You'll Never Get.
Caught Welcomeboard the MS Rhapsody of the Seas.
Amy Bradley was twenty three and she was on her family vacation.
Was crystal clear, her life was good, everything was great. Thought of theory tomorrow and went to bed.
Around five thirty in the morning, I saw Amy on the balcony six o'clock.
Woke up again.
She wasn't there.
Kept seeing it pop up, and I was like, I don't know, Like, she goes missing on her cruise, Like how how complicated can it be? Yeah, Anyway, we started watching. It's about this twenty three year old woman who gets on this cruise shit with her family in nineteen ninety eight, and she's last seen at five am by her dad. She's just out on the balcony. He thinks she's probably
asleep or something, can see her legs. And then at six am he kind of wakes with a start because he hears something and he notices that the door's open to the room, looks like she's changed her shirt, and he's like, oh, she must have gone up for a coffee or whatever. So he goes up and tries to find her, cannot find her. Hours pass and they're like,
where has she gone? And so they say to the captain and you know, try and escalate it, and they say, because the ship's about to dock, they go, before we dock the ship, can we please find her because we can't find her anywhere. And they're like no, like this is part of the ship that they get to go out to this new island and see things. And they're like, please don't dock Anyway, they dock, they open the doors.
By this point, a lot of people are thinking she's fallen overboard, like whether that's on purpose or whether it's by accident. But the twists that come in the next two episodes about sightings of her, about people who say they've had interactions with her that are so compelling, like seems so real.
Because I would have read about this case right, and generally she went overboard, yeah, but nobody knows why.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
But her family thinks she went overboard.
No, and the reason why is because they were actually quite close to a coastline when she would have gone overboard, and all the locals, the coast guard are going, we know our waters. Someone goes overboard, they wash up. There is no world in which she doesn't wash up, Like that's really weird. And so all these bizarre things happen and you just think, how does someone go missing on a cruise ship? Like it's mind blowing. So that's really
good three part documentary on Netflix. But I want to throw an extra one who here has seen the f one movie?
You know?
I saw the opening weekend and I wrote many, many things about it.
Okay, she has seen it. I saw it on the weekend like you did, Jesse, in my living room. I know it's meant for a big screen, but the biggest screen I could get for it is in my living room.
Because on Apple TV, like I thoroughly enjoyed it. Is it a good film? Would we say no?
I didn't think it was. Like I enjoyed it. I didn't think it was a good film. I wanted to talk about it too, okay, because.
I just I really enjoyed my Saturday night. It was a real spectacle. Like the amount of people that were involved.
With you excited.
There were a lot of people from Drive to Survive in that bave and I could tell and.
Was that movie made for us? Like as in people who have Drive to Survive? Send me know the rules, don't totally know the rules and therefore can defy logic and just understand that Brad Pitt could return to F one.
As a sixty year old. But also so it was made. The reason I was excited to see it in the first place, because I'm not a big F one person like you are, is that it's made by the people who made Top Gun Maverick. Now, I went on and on about Top Gun Maverick a couple of years ago when it came out because I haven't had a better time at the movies in years than I did when I won't see that, And I know Tom Cruise is problematic, and so's Brad Pitt, let's be honest, but just so great,
so much fun, couldn't get over it. Made by the same people, budget the size of a small country, like films everywhere in the world, and it's pretty much the same premise, which is dude over hill, Yeah, comes back to show those youngsters what he's made of what they've made. So you're appealing there to a whole lot of people, the Gen x's who are like, I'm not over the hill, I've still got it, and the young people and all the new F one fans and people who are like
Brad Pitt but very compelling. But I was like halfway through it and I thought, oh, Brad, I thought, even putting aside what we now know about what happened, and we've talked about this on the.
Show before, which is very difficult.
We didn't episode called what do we do with a problem like Brad Pitt? So even putting that aside, and just I can appreciate the beauty of that amazing Cuman.
Yeah, but like he's better than that. He used to be better than that. Terrible dialogue, but don't you reckon?
I just walked out of that. And when Brad Pitt, how old is he?
He's sixty one years old.
So he's accomplished so much. He's got all the money in the world. He's heading to sixty and he goes, what do you want to do?
Brad?
Right, he looks in the mirror, goes, what do you want to do? I'd like to drive an F one carve really fast.
I just like he's like that Tom Cruise Fellow, feels like he's got to figure it out.
Yes, And I think he went I'd like to be friends with Lewis Hamilton.
Yeah, I'd like, which is fair?
I mean I wouldam And so he's like, what would be fun to do? I'd like to join F one? And I feel as though the whole project was sort of a vanity project for Brad Pitt to be like, this is every sixty year old man's dream. Did you know that this is the highest grossing Brad Pitt movie of all time?
Is it? Indeed? It is so one thing? I don't know. You can tell me.
Has it been deemed the success that it needed to be to pay for that small nation?
And they're talking about a sequel? It has made so much money and a lot of people like the reviews are bad, the reviews actually on that mad The reason not like the average person was.
The script that upset me And okay, that's not what you're there for, but like, come on, some of the lines, brad Pitt's got it coming out of his mouth. I'm like, I bet he went home and counted after that.
I could tell, could.
You tell, because I know we talked about how Simone Ashley was completely cut from the movie. Yeah, I could tell exactly how perfectly she would have slotted in what.
Was going to be the love interest of the younger.
Interests of the younger F one driver, which made more sense than Brad Pitt having a love interest. Simone Ashley is an actress. She's a Tamil actress from Britain and she was in season two Bridgeton. Everyone knows her from that. She's absolutely brilliant. She was also in sex Education. So the whole thing about her is that she was actually in the F one movie. She did the press for it,
she was doing an interview with Sport. They completely cut her role out completely, like there's no sign effects.
I f for like one photo or something.
It tells us a lot about the moment we're in where you can pull in Brad Pitt, who's got a few issues in the closet.
Let's just put it that way.
You can cut the entire role of a talented young woman of color actress, and yet it's still the biggest closing movie of the last fucking damn it. The problem with the most beautiful people in the world, and he is one even with all his issues, and there are lots of other actors and actresses who fit this mold too. Is the problem with them being in any movie?
Is you just any room.
They walked into the entire dynamic of everything that could ever happen in that because you're just like a god.
Just came down from like Brad Pitt just being.
Like this schlubby walking under the pit lane with his jeans on, and we're all watching him walk for like that whole five minutes of watching him walk could have been Simone Ashley's not That.
Was my favorite part.
Oh my god, did you enjoy it? Would you recommend it?
What I found really funny about it was the opening weekend, which was like its biggest weekend. Everyone went to watch it the first weekend and came out. The actual F one race that happened the weekend after, I think it was in silver Stone was the funniest race to watch. If that movie got you into F one, it was one of the only races where I think there was like a million penalties. Everyone was spinning out like people who started at eighteen came first.
It was just a really funny race.
Yes, which is kind of what that movie is about. Is about F one is.
Like Brad Pitt out louders before we go.
I'm still getting my head around the fact that's the biggest ever Brad Pitt grossing movie. What about Fight Club? What about Benjamin I'm not surprised. What about World War Z?
That was Second.
That's when I got Second.
That's when I got to be in the room with him. I went to the premiere of that.
Oh yeah, Jennifer Andison's birthday exactly.
I also know Angelina Jolies, but like there's so many degrees about he doesn't I bet you don't remember their birthdays.
Anyway, that's a conversation for an the time.
Anyway, out Louders, Before we go, we have some very exciting news for any of you who loved Parenting Out Loud.
Our sister podcast is coming back, and we wanted to give you a little bit of a clue about who one of the new hosts is because it might be familiar. If you're a long time out Louder, you might go, well, I think I recognize that voice.
Ah, I would recognize that.
Yeah, yeah, some original out Louders are going to be jumping up and down because that is the voice of the original Mama meare out Loud host Monique Bowlie. Right, we love Monique Bolyi. She's part of the DNA of this show.
Of the law, still a good friend of all of ours.
And here is a message from Mons.
Hello out louders, It's Mons. Remember me. I went away for a long time. Now I'm back again, like a cockroach that you can't get rid of. I'm so excited because I'm going to be back in your ears tomorrow. On Parenting out Loud. It's all the things you love about out loud, culture, trends, explainers, a little bit of shit talking just about the biggest, most intense job in the world, parenting so exciting.
Mon's is going to be doing it with Amelia.
I feel like we are casting back to light seven years ago when it was a simpler time. But I feel like it's just I have not heard Mons's voice like that in such a long time. It is going to be the most fun Parenting out Loud hosted by Monique Bowley, Amelia Lester, and Stacy Hicks. Can I tell you something funny about Stacy? But I haven't told Stacy yet?
Oh yes, please, because she was my old manager.
Sir.
Well, I'm watching my Amy Bradley is Missing documentary and they pop up an article from news dot com written by one Stacy Hick on the net Flix sty I haven't even told he yet, but yes, very exciting. Anyway, that Stacy Hicks is on Parenting out Loud, make sure you head to the Parenting out Loud podcast feed. You have to go there, you have to follow it. There will be a link in our show notes and subscribe and follow so you never miss an episode.
But if you keep listening, you are about to hear a sneak peek. We are putting a little bit of the first episode of the new look Parenting out Loud at the end of this episode, so don't press stop. That is all we have time for today, though, friends. A massive thank you to all of you out louders for being.
With us all week.
We're going to be back in your ears on Monday. Jesse and them read us out.
A big thank you to our team group executive producer Ruth Devine, executive producers Emmeline Gazillas and Sasha Tanic.
Our senior auto producer is Leah Porge's, our video producer is Josh Green, and our junior content producers are Tessa and Coco.
Bye Bye.
I'm really curious if you think that this idea that the over therapization and that is a word I just made up. The over therapization of our culture is in part leading to this reluctance to have kids.
Interesting theory. It's not the only thing. I mean, there's cost of living, there's work life balance, theres access to childcare, there's all of these other factors, mainly crushing cost of living and housing and job in security. But what an interesting theory that takes it beyond that into actually therapy culture. I think therapy culture has has a lot to answer for.
It has been great in so many ways. Opening up discussions about mental health is always going to be a good thing, but it's not without its downsides, and I want to talk about I just want to put on the table the idea about friction in relationships for a minute.
So I follow this culture analyst, I guess, and he was talking recently about how life is very frictionless for us now that tech companies have made all these apps so that we don't have to experience much discomfort anymore, so that when we do experience it, it feels very jarring to us and we're not resilient enough to handle it. So there is this stress response I guess where people
will just flee an uncomfortable situation. Now, that is to say, a strang is obviously important for so many, like there would be abuse and toxic relationships and that's fine, But what you're talking about now merely is like this middle ground where people just feel uncomfortable about a relationship and so will estrange themselves from their parents. And I think we're very quick to remove friction now from our lives
or not be able to sit with it. So is therapy culture making all of our relationships feel impossible to maintain because I think also.
When you because it's holding us two impossible standards.
Completely and it's bleeding into friendships. So once upon a time you might have had a friend that was a bit flaky and you'd roll your eyes and you'd be like, oh, come on, get it together. But now you say, no, these are my boundaries and you're toxic and I'm cutting
you out of my life. And like in work culture too, I was a manager before I sat behind this microphone, and there's certainly as a manager now you have to have such a responsibility to be emotionally literate, Like there's lots of healing and affirming and trauma proofing that you have to do in the work, so is therapy culture. As you said Emelily, I'm making our relationships hard to maintain.
And also just making it feel like parenting is an impossible task, like making people feel like, well, I could never have children because I can never be the perfect parent that i'd want to be.
But I think that's just the volume of information there is now. Like I know, when I had my daughter and was struggling in the newborn days, I had this conversation with my mum where she was like, well, it's just that you've got too many answers. Now, you've got too many options. She was like, when I did it, I just had to figure it out. And that was kind of just her kind way of being like, can you stop reading about wake windows and just put your baby to sleep when they seem tired? Like you are
making this so hard for yourself. And I think I had never even really thought about how I was parented until I became a parent and started getting all these TikTok videos that you speak of, Like I get them come up in my algorithm all the time, saying are you a chronic people pleaser who can sense the you know, the atmosphere change when people's moods change room, and I was like, yeah, I can, but I don't think that's my parent's fault. I think that's just my personality type.
Like I think I'm just conscious of wanting everyone to be having a nice time. That's not something that they necessarily did wrong.
Stacy, have you had therapy before?
I only did after having my daughter, so very short amount of sessions after having.
Do you remember, like what one of the first questions I asked you was?
It was about my parents. It was all about the dynamic of my parents. And almost withholding from me, Ah, I've sussed this and we're going to get to why you're struggling with this now.
Yeah, I hear that. Like one of the first questions you'll get asked in therapy if you can afford it to go and have it, is tell me about your childhood. Yeah, tell me about how you were parented. And so I don't think this is new. We are not the first generation to agonize about having kids or to blame parents for any psychological wobble like I think our parents were. Also, they probably didn't have the language or the words around it, but parents have them too.
So fertility rates are at an all time low.
So millennials are on track to be the generation with the least children in recorded history. And one point that's made in this article is that when you have children, you suddenly forgive your parents for all their perceived shortcomings. So you're like, oh, yeah, this is really hard. Yeah that's true, and I'm just struggling to do. I find myself saying to my children a line that I heard throughte my childhood, which is, I'm doing the very best I can, and why don't you appreciate the work I'm
doing for you? And all of these lines are coming out of me because now I see that they're in fact true. I'm doing the best I can. Why can't you appreciate all the work I'm doing for you? When you have children, you realize that that's true. But if
you don't have children, you don't realize that's true. And I wonder if there's a chicken and egg element here, is that what's contributing to these really high rates of family estrangement too, because people are not having that experience of oh wait, my parents are just human just like everyone else.
Another reason I think that therapy could be contributing to more people choosing to be child free is that there is much more language now around our partners and the bad behaviors they might have. So you might be able to now recognize when someone is a narcissist, or when someone is gaslighting you, or when someone's just a bit of a douche, and you might choose not to procreate with them for that reason.
I don't think you necessarily need to have had a child, though, to come to that understanding. So I've had seven years of therapy. I've spent fortune on it. Or save you the time and the money and.
Therapy.
One of the best things that my therapist ever said to me was what if they were just doing the best they could with the tools they had. Parenting out loud listen weekly wherever you get your podcasts.