You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Mamma Mere acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast is recorded on Hello and welcome to Mamma Mia. Out loud, what women are actually talking about on Wednesday, the eighteenth of September. I'm Holly Waynwright. Sorry I forgot that part. I'm Holly Wayne Right, I'm and.
I'm jeffew Stevens.
I got me who I.
Was for a moment. It's not surprising brain was wondering. I'm back in the room and on the show. Today. Instagram is finally doing something about teenagers on its app, but others think this is just a parental cop out. We unpack Also, are you terrified of breaking a streak? When does a self improvement have it become an addiction? And what are hours? And a very famous Australian man is in complete public free fall?
Is it time to look away?
But for us Jesse steven.
In case you missed it, as a close personal friend of both Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez, I am at my wit tend Matt Damon and I we've been on the phone.
I bet you have.
We have because where we are in the same boat.
The benefit support what'sapp groups must be going.
There's Ben again.
Yes, that's what we call our group.
Oh no, not Ben again.
We event and we rage. And this is because on Saturday, Ben and Jen were pictured having brunch together with afflex two kids and Lopez's twins, and apparently the reports are that they were kissing and Affleck couldn't keep his hands off Lopez.
I raise reports denied, Well, there was one report that said that, and then the other reports, plus some of the photos showed him what looked to be shouting at her baldy language was awful.
I don't ah, but some of the ones I saw they were very very close.
They arrived together in a car. I don't know what's going on. I don't know why they would do the pat walk and go to I think it was such a famous so where they know they are going to be. Perhaps it was a pet walk, right, So what are they trying to achieve with a pet walk? They don't need to be in the media more. I guess if they want to send a message, stop writing. It's just started a whole new cycle.
Ye pressure, and she had her engagement ring on her pinky finger.
Do you think they're getting back together?
I don't.
But I don't think that this helped with the rumors because's a friend.
I'm concerned the divorce announcement, and then can't keep our hands off each other. Maybe whatever.
I'm so tired, I know, right, it's like, really, what.
Do I say to Jen?
What do I say? You say, No, that man is not going to change. That's what you say. He's not going to change. You think he's going to change, He's not going to change. Just keep moving forward.
What Matt Damon was trying to tell her.
Okay, I feel as though their kids are close, and what I saw was two people who want what is best for their kids. And in the reports it said, you know, they want to make sure their kids are still hanging out. The big question is, of course, couldn't they hang out in the backyard in a private location.
Well, the kids are not little kids now. The kids do hang out together, I think. But also it is genuinely really tricky when you've got a blended family and the two parents bring children into their relationship. I've seen this play out a number of times, and the kids become really close to their step siblings and then they just part ways, and it's not like when you know
two parents and their biological children. If the two parents split, the biological children will see both and they'll probably the kids will stay together and will go between parents. But when it's everyone came with their own children, they kind of leave with their own children, and then the children don't see the other parents and relationship siblings, Yeah, what is that relationship with your former stepfather and your former step siblings. It's really tricky.
I think I'm glad you're seeing so much real life in the Benefit saga. I'm just more like past the popcorn.
They're an automatic set of protections for teens that try and proactively address the top concerns that we've heard from parents about teens online, things like who can contact them, what content they see, and how much time they spend on their device.
Instagram's about to change dramatically for teenagers is the breaking news, and they are not going to be thrilled. But anyone losing sleep over how much sleep teens are losing because of incessant Instagram notifications and the fact that social media has been proven to cause major harm to kids and teens, well, it is a good day for you. You might remember last week we spoke about how the government announced that they would be looking at the banning of kids from using social media.
We're looking at the range between fourteen and sixteen.
That's one of the reasons why we're having a trial, and what we're looking at is how you deliver it.
This is a global issue.
Well since that conversation in the last twenty four hours, Instagram has tried to make a preemptive move to avoid government regulation. Not just in Australia, but a lot of governments are sort of rumbling around the world about this. And Instagram, owned of course by Meta, who own Facebook, They've announced changes of their own. And the big change is that teen accounts are going to be introduced for
anyone under eighteen. You're not meant to be on Instagram anyway under thirteen, So if you're a teenager, starting with Australia, the UK, the US and Canada and then rolling out for the rest of the world, here are the key changes. All teen accounts will be set to private as a default. It's going to start happening now. So if you teenage, or if a teenage already has an account, presuming that they entered their correct air state, which they probably didn't.
It will be set to private. Followers who the user has not accepted, cannot see their content are interact with them. That's what private means. Teenage users will automatically be placed on a more restrictive setting for sensitive content, such as material promoting cosmetic procedures and sexually explicit or violent content. No thought, maybe that might have been happening before, seems not.
An anti bullying feature will filter out offensive words or phrases in comments and DM requests, which should go swimmingly given that the words that teenagers use aren't even understood by anyone. They'll also get a notification which they can ignore, to tell them to leave the app after sixty minutes.
You stay very cynical about it. I was sitting there going that sounds good. That sounds good.
Have you met a teenager? The interesting one also is that sleep mode will be automatically turned on for all teen accounts between ten pm and seven am, which means that they'll get no notifications. Now, if you're sixteen or seventeen, you can opt out of all of those settings, but if you're fifteen or younger you'll need a parent or guardian's permission to do so, or your teenager will just get your phone and pretend to be you an opt out on your behalf.
I hear your cynicism. Yeah, but haven't we been yelling at metas to do something? And now Meta's done something and everyone's going while the teenagers can just override it.
This is very different to the fact that they just shouldn't be on social media. So this is designed to plicate governments and parents and make everyone think, oh, they're being responsible, they're doing something. Therefore, it takes all the wind out of the sales of a total ban, right, which is what governments have been talking about, which we know is far better for the kids.
Yes, but that's going to take so much time an actual legal ban in different territories around the world. And it's interesting you were saying how Australia is not the only one. It's not. But we discussed last week the social media restrictions that our government are discussing putting in are amongst the harshest in the world, and they're talking about them in America like everybody's talking about them.
So I but that's why this is happening whole No I get that.
I don't want no, no, But my point is it's going to take a really long time, so something's better than nothing. From my perspective.
It won't necessarily take a really long time because they have bipartisan support for this legislation, so to be lobbied about the government, they're.
Going to be lobbied and lobbied and lobbied by these massive like if Australia manages to do it. Nowhere else has managed to do it yet, So if Australia manages to do it, great, But my perspective is I know why they're doing it, and it is cynical. They're trying to divert some of this heat. But something is better than nothing.
Yeah, I think that's a bit of a defeatist attitude. Frankly. So parents are also going to have some new features that they can use, like supervision features. None of these features parents will understand how to use. And I am one, and I'm very but.
This sounds simpler than the other things a little bit.
It's pretty complicated. Have you ever tried to get your kids phone and try to make it like it's really hard?
One hundred percent yes, But and this is exactly why they've done it so that people like me who are umming and ring about whether or not my teenagers should be on Instagram. But this sounds like a really simple way for me to be at because I cannot do all that parental control stuff. I know I should, and I google and I watch YouTube videos about how to do it. I find it really confusing soda most parents.
If I can just from the get go set them up with an account that is all these things are built into it, that's a good thing.
But what are they actually so their account won't be public like it sounds like a lot, but it's.
Ten o'clock to get off or like this, which reminder I'm like, you need to kick him off.
Doesn't mean you can't look at it. I just won't get push notifications. But you know who also isn't happy. Evan Spiegel, our friendly billionaire husband of Miranda Kerr. He's the boss of Snapchat. And what's interesting about this is that Instagram is not the main game for teenagers and Facebook doesn't even exist for them. That's something that their
grandparents use. They are all on Snapchat and TikTok, and the bosses of those social platforms do not agree with the Instagram approach, and the loudest pushback has come from Evan Spiegel. He's the boss of Snapchat and he's the father of their three children, who are too young to have phones conveniently, and he says, there's a teenager in it's the all Under Bloom one. I think, yeah, yeah,
it's the Orlando Bloom one. He's fourteen. So he says he weighed on not about the Instagram band, but he weighed into the idea of Australia's planned social media age band, and funnily enough, he's not in favor of Funny that. He says, parents have already got these tools today. We use the iOS level controls and screen time at our house to limit what our teen who's fourteen, what he's
able to use. We have Family Center as well inside of Snapchat that allows parents to monitor their teens activity on Snapchat and put in place more stringent content controls and things like that. He clearly has not spent much time with his fourteen year old, and maybe he has because he's the boss of Snapchat, so he understands how to work it. Yeah. I have never been more puzzled.
I tried to get on Snapchat many years ago, like a lot of people did, because I like to try and understand social platforms from the inside, because I'm always a believer. If you don't know the game, you can't make the rules. It is so confusing. It felt like wandering around in the dark. I didn't understand it. And this is where kids are doing all their communicating. So we might use group techs, WhatsApp groups, they do all
of it on Snapchat. So Snapchat is the big game, and the big insidious thing that Snapchat has that's so I think so awful for teens is the snap maps, so you can see where all your friends all are at all times, and that means that you can see when everybody's at a party or when everybody's at some house and you haven't been invited.
Evan says that Snapchat's really good for well being though.
Yeah so, and he actually says that they're not even really a social media platform, so I shouldn't really be included in these exactly.
So puts it on to parents. He said, we've really done a lot to empower parents to make the right choices for their teenagers. And again, all those tools already exist for parents who would rather restrict the use of certain naps for their teens, would we I'd rather they just be banned.
So, as you say, of course he's going to say that, I was looking at the data. So most Snapchat users are between the ages of thirteen and thirty four. One in five are between thirteen and seventeen.
I think the only one that's thirty four is Evans is going to say, yeah, one year old is on Snapchat.
Oh, I know millions are under the age of twelve. So of course it is for little little kids. And as you say, it's so rich for a tech founded to tell us about the parental controls. We work in digital media. We're pretty tech savy. I've never heard of the iOS level controls, what the family center something something. I was like, I have no idea what you're talking about, Like, you are so literate in this in a way that
parents aren't. And on the Instagram thing, I know that you were saying they're doing this, you know, to appease governments, and there's been this pushback. On the one hand, I'm glad that they've done something, and I really I want to pay that the cynic in me is going this is a move because they're looking at potentially losing millions and millions of users.
And Adam Assiri said that, he said, it's bad for business, but we'll struggle through.
Yeah, no, no, no, this is good. This is a good for business move because the options are because they didn't have any of these controls. The Jonathan Heights of the world, who's written that very famous book about the Anxious Generation, He's spoken a lot about Instagram and mental health rates declining with the introduction of Instagram and Snapchat and TikTok. The push has been get them off, that's the big argument. In fact, parental controls aren't what they're saying.
They're saying get them off. So they're clearly sitting in board meetings going, well, we can't lose them all together. We're going to have to make some like this is a new product, essentially to tailor it specifically to a generation that they can't afford to lose. Like I don't think that this is about giving anything.
The sound you can hear are parents heaving a big sigh at the thought of the mental load of having to navigate all of this new stuff and what I struggle with well, I don't struggle with But my belief is that we agree as a society that there are certain things that are bad and there are certain things that we need to do to protect everyone in our community. For example, seat belts. We don't just say, oh, seat belts are there, you can use them. We've installed them
if you want to. But it's up to parents to decide whether kids use a seat belt or not. There are really strict rules around that. Same with alcohol, with vaping, all of these things that we understand. The driving age, it's not like parents should be able to decide when the kids are able to drive or smoke or drink.
I'm with you on that.
But then what Meta is doing. What I appreciate about what they're doing is about how automatic it is, like is happening overnight. It's not that you need to go home tonight. It's not any parent. It doesn't need to go and press one hundred buttons. That's going to happen automatically.
I also think this thing where and it's interesting the head of Instagram came out and he was saying he's not even going to talk about all the tools they're going to use to ensure that teenagers are protected because we don't want to give teens an instruction manual. Because I find this thing about, well, they're just going to use a new VPN. We'll talk about this last week. It's like, well they are.
Now, Well, no, they are, though. Look I'm at the absolute coal face of this. Right. My fourteen year old daughter uses social media and I have not yet bought a phone for my twelve year old son, but he will get one in January because he's gone to high school. And that, like, it's really interesting. The Jonathan hypebook that you mentioned before, when we look back at this time of realignment about social media and kids and teens, that was an absolute cut through pivotal change. It spoke to
the right people in the right voices. It was massively influential, and it has Remember when we first saw that and we talked about it on the show, that big piece that was about in New York Times, and I said, it's making me feel sick, and we discussed it. That is going to be one of the big temp pole moments where we all went, Oh, the thing is, as I think about, right, I'm going to buy my son a phone for high school, and I get a chance to do over right what I did with my teenager.
With all this new information that has come out, particularly in the past twelve months, what am I going to do differently? Probably nothing, is the God's honest truth, right, of course I will. I'm more aware, I've read the things. But at the same time, the same social pressures are going to be there, particularly for a kid who might be a little quirky, a little different. I'll have some
issue around social relationships. The same issues are going to be there that everybody else is on it, everybody else is doing it. If I'm not on that, I can't talk to blah blah blah. So I actually appreciate, even though I am smart woman and I can see absolutely the cynicism with which these changes are being made. You're one hundred percent right Mia and Jesse about that. They're panicking about what they're about to lose, and so they're
going how can we mitigate? How can we mitigate? I appreciate anything that is going to make it really simple for me?
So which parts do you think?
So I think of making those changes on Instagram automatic and immediate, but is really mean which.
Changes in particular do you think are going to help.
The fact that all I have to do is make my daughter's account. If I give it to her a teen account, and it's automatically private, and it's automatically going to have various restrictions on it, on content that's served to her. That's good. It's better than not. It's not perfect, but it's good.
Wouldn't it be better if she wasn't on it?
Well, she's not on it, and if I decide to do it, it's such a sort of at the moment still a very ideological Wouldn't it just be great if no kids had phones? Wouldn't it just be great if no kids looked at social That's not the world I live in. I might live in that if I was a very different kind of person with a very different kind of life. But actually technology plays quite a big part in my life, of my kids' lives, and it's
going to for the rest of their lives. So but what I'm not a fan of the luod eye.
What we can see, what Instagram have shown us is that they can identify all the kids' accounts right everyone under eighteen or under sixteen, or under whatever aage, and they can apply restrictions so what they could do is say, no child under let's just say sixteen needs to be on Instagram between ten pm and six a three. So you don't just get notifications like do you know what I mean? That's why when you actually drill into what they're doing and what they could clearly do but aren't doing.
And I have one hundred percent agree with that, and I also I am a fan of the age gating of social media apps, I really am, and I hope it happens, but it hasn't happened yet, and so we're still in the wild West at the moment. Like the tweaks are okay, But the place that this gets really thorny for parents is what Evan Spiegl's saying, which is like,
it's your fault. So, for example, with the ten pm one rule that I do have in my house and it's very strict and we do not breach it is no phones in the bedrooms, so after a certain time of night, they're not allowed their phones, generally speaking. Enormous pushback to that one that Matilda first got a phone all that, but now that's just set. That's just the
way it is. No one argues about it. Anymore. There is a point there people will say, well, that's up to parents, and that's subjecnt and like some of it is, and some of it is easier to do than others. So that's that can be easy ish to do, depending on whether or not you've got a lock box, which we do, whether or not you've got control of the Wi Fi and all those things. But what is complicated for me, even as Jesse's already said, as someone who's very tech savvy, is when I hand my son the phone,
have I put the right restrictions on it? Are the filters right? Everything that he needs to do has to go through me, and I have to password to prove it. And I have a hard time remembering any of my passwords ever, because I'm a woman of a certain age. Perhaps I don't know why, but I do like I've DoD so make it easy for me until we've solved this problem.
And I know there is a term that's totally overused, but I feel, like Evan Spiegel, I think this is gaslighting. This is gaslighting parents, and it is guilty parents.
And he's so privileged because not everybody has staff and nannies and people at home and able to supervise their kids twenty four seven. Yeh so and.
Divert them with really like enriching activities.
So I'm going to create an app that will addict your children. It is designed to addict you. And he said, on the same day as he gave these comments, we're on pace for record annual revenue this year. So he's celebrating his wins which have been caused by creating absolute addiction. And then he's going to sit there and wag the finger at parents and say, if your kids are addicted, that's your fault. What's the difference between ritual and obsession,
an enjoyable habit and a compulsion. How do we know what serves us or brings us joy and gives our life structure? And what might we be a little bit too reliant on? You might have heard of the running app Strava.
Have you like everyone that my running friends are very into their Strava?
Yeah, I don't have any running friends.
Well. A recent article in The Guardian by Chloe Hamilton tells a story of a man named Tom Vickery and he cannot break his Strava streak. He's on a streak and streak is just what we were talking about. Word popularized by snapchat. You're on snap streaks, which is when you've been messaging each other constantly for a very long period of time, and this language, well, yes, exactly right.
It's the gamification of habits essentially. But this streak language has now infiltrated a lot of apps that we use because it ensures that you will use it every day. So he has to log his run and Hamilton also speaks to people who have the same relationship with wordle or due lingo. They can't go a day without completing it. In fact, do you two remember, I think it was just a week ago that we talked about tarot and
magic and all that. Anyone else checking their bloody coaster? Yes, I've checked it every single day since I've downloaded that god forsaken out.
Have you learnt much?
Yes, it's changed how I live my life. And that's really it's a real problem because it's not real. According to gamification expert Kimba Cooper Martin, this is due to something called loss of version. So it's a psychological principle that says humans are often more motivated by the fear of losing something than the prospect of gaining something new. So that means that if you're on a streak, you are terrified of breaking it because you're now invested in
this kind of long game. So is this healthy? I mean, if it's a running app, you think this is great, it's encouraging exercise. Or is it a kind of addiction and his addiction always bad? What do you think?
The first thing that I thought of was actually when people who have become sober talk about how many days of sobriety they have or how many years of sobriety they have. And I was listening to an interview with Demi Moore this week and she was talking about how she got sober when she was like twenty two, and that was forty years ago. But then she was clear to point out that she then I can't know how she called it a detour. She called it a detour,
and that she has twelve years of sobriety. In the interviewer was sort of saying, yeah, was it hard to start again? Because essentially the clock resets. And the other story that I remember is David Sedaris. Remember when everybody got Apple watches and it was about ten thousand steps and suddenly you could measure you steps. And David Sidaris is an amazing writer and comedian, and he became obsessed.
Every day he went for a walk near his home in northern England, I think, and he would pick up rubbish and then he started needing to beat his ten thousand steps, and then it became I've got to do fifteen and twenty. And he kept going until he was doing like fifty thousand steps, walking twenty miles a day and was like winning awards in the community because we
picked up so much rubbish and he couldn't stop. His watch eventually broke and he was so kind of relieved because that was the only way it had to be taken out of his hands, because he was so addicted to this streak in this routine.
It's very clever loss of version. It's very clever, and so many people use it. In fact, we should use it like watch your mommere out loud listening streak Like you don't want to break it, do you? It's this is it's a brilliant marketing tactic. It's infiltrated my world lately because I might be one of the few people who started doing wordle in lockdown and kept going. So do you still do it? I do Wordle and the New York Times every day. I try and do it
every day. So my routine is, and we're going to talk about routines that before I fall asleep, I do Wordle, Connections and Strands, which are three New York Times word games before I fall asleep.
Doesn't that activate arouse your brain too much? Maybe?
But for me, I find it quite a good wine down. And I also like to believe that I'm like fending off Alzheimer's or something, you know. But they have only recently introduced streaks for all those things. So your word or streak they've had for a while. So when you finish Wordle and you get it, you start to immediately pop up, It's got your streak on there, It's got you know. Obviously you often get it on three or
you often get it on four. And then now with Connections and Strands being two other word games, and they're they're slowly introducing streaks for those two. And I have had two very consciously uncouple myself from being attached to the streak because what was happening to me is I would fall into bed exhausted from doing whatever else, or working late or doing whatever I was doing.
With the kids.
And then I'd be like, fuck, I've got to do wordle because if I don't do word I lose my streak. And then I'd remind myself I'm a growner, yeah, and I am in charge of my own life, and the New York Times app does not own me. And then I give myself a stern talking to And does it hurt a little bit the next day when it says you're on zero? Yes, But do I have to just remind myself that I'm a grown up.
Yes.
But we do this even though you know apps have done it because they're capitalizing on the psychology of habits, which enormous amount of research has gone into lately. We all do it within our own lives. We game of fire habits all the time. Well, for example, I have started going to the gym and have been like, I am going to go three times a week. So in my head, that's kind of the streak. If I didn't go three times in a week, I would definitely feel a sense of loss and like I hadn't.
So if you get to the end of the week and you haven't done it. You go, I have to go tomorrow because I have to do money exactly. I have to do my three It's weird. I'm not a numbers person, but I'm a data person, so I have to have something I can track. And I've used my Apple Watch like I have my Kilo jewels on it and I have to hit a certain amount of Killo jewels in order to establish that I have done the
right workout that I have done sort of enough. And this goes to James Clear, who I've talked about before, who wrote the book Atomic Habits. He says, when you want to change your behavior, you can simply ask yourself, how can I make it obvious? How can I make it attractive? How can I make it easy? And how can I make it satisfying? And that's kind of the big ask.
Well, it's it's the four things, because it's like que behavior something and reward. You need four things in order. So it's like a weird thing. Right, every morning, I make my bed. But the way that I now do that process is I walk into my room and the curtains is still drawn, and I know I can't open the curtains till the bed is made. So it's this weird thing because then I get to open the curtains me like the day has started and the light's in.
Like it's a really simple cue that I there is this tiny little reward at.
The end of you worked that out from reading that book.
Yeah, so there are like all of these things. Another weird one that I've gamified in my life is I have a pickieater in Luna, and I was feeling a lot of stress. Still I am about what she doesn't doesn't it. I now have these lists in my phone. This is insane, but this is what I've done because I've gamified it. Every time I give her a new food, I have to write it down because if I write it down, then I feel like there has been an achieved, like I did do a thing. I tried to do
a thing, and I need to mark that. And then I've got a list of all the things she will eat and so I look at it and I go, look at your achievement. She does have things that she like.
You know, the gamifying. They say that kids have to be given something. I think it's seven times before they'll accept it. So that's also a way to game of fy it isn't.
It exactly, because otherwise it feels very mundane.
I think you and me are very because you love a routine. I think you have worked that out about yourself without having to gamify it, right, Like, your routines are quite immovable in some ways, so am mine completely so mine, But you didn't need to do that to do that. But well, how do you feel if your routine, say, your morning routine gets disrupted.
I don't feel like myself and I need my routines to be seven days unfortunately, which is a real shame because sometimes it's nice to have a day off. But the thing about routines is that they lighten your mental load because they mean it's less decisions that you have to make, less choices that you have to make. That's why, for example, the best time to exercise is in the morning, and not give yourself a choice and just make it
part of your morning routine. Because as soon as you say, if it's at the end of the day, you've then got the whole day to find reasons not to do.
It, and your willpower starts to fall off a clear.
And I would always maybe other people are different. Maybe doing it at night can be your routine. But for me, I would spend the whole day with the mental load of should I, should I not, could I not? Will? But maybe how will I feel? So to me the mental load of choice. What I have for breakfast? Am I going to exercise? Should I wash my hair or not? I try to remove as many of those choices as possible from my day with routine, light steeve jobs and the black pole.
Have any tricks for the shit you don't want to do? Like one example that I read was a writer or let's say there's emails or salespeople have to make fifteen calls and they don't want to make the calls, right was you need a visual cue? So they said in one jar you have like hairpins, or you have paper clips or whatever, and then you move it every time. You need a visual sense of progress. For a lot of people, that's like something I have to do. What do you do if you've got a task that you
really really don't want to do? How do you trick yourself.
Into doing it?
Now?
Don't? I just don't do it? And that's a real problem. So one of the sort of the productivity hacks is eat the frog first, yea. So they say, if you've got thing, something that you really don't want to do, do that first. You get it out of the way, and then you need to treat everything else you do.
The reason that that doesn't work for everybody, particularly if you have ADHD, is that the thing you don't want to do become so insurmountable that it means that not only will you not eat the frog, you won't do anything else that you've got to do afterwards. And so that's how your life can sort of descend into a bit of chaos and things can just get postponed, postponed.
So how about you, Holly, Yeah, Like, how about the shit you don't want to do?
Little treats? Yeah, it's the only way. It's like if I do that, I get to blah blah so and that might be a different thing on a different day,
depending on where I am. The treat might be like a literal treat, like I get to eat that thing, drink that thing, or it might be I'm not allowed to go in my garden and do the thing I'm do in my garden until I've written that many words like there will be that like or whatever it is, you know, whatever the task is I have to do, Like, I'm not allowed to do that until I've done that.
I think about how teens is also for me. If you do them for long enough, they're not routines anymore. They become almost part of your identity. It doesn't even occur to me making breakfasts or what the thing I make for breakfast. It's literally muscle memory. Like my body moves in a way. I notice this when I'm in the shower. My body moves in a way in the shower that I'm not even aware of. Yeh, but I do this. Then my face, then I do this, and then I reach and then I do this.
Well, it's got of common ingrained process. And this is what clear says that when you walk into a dark room, you switch on the light, and that's not a conscious thought. So I think we imagine.
People cost nothing in mental load.
Yeah, and people go, oh, me a exercise of seven days a week. Where does she get the motivation? You don't have any motivation when it comes to exercise. No, You've actually outside.
Where do you get the motivation to brush your teeth?
Like?
You don't even think about that as a choice. It's just a thing that you do.
I'm obsessed with my morning walk. If I don't get to do it, I'm really pissed off. I will organize my day around that, whether I'm here, whether I'm at home. It's like if I don't get to do it, if I've got an early meeting or an early interview, or I've got to dry it like it, just do you actually enjoy the war?
I love it.
I love because I don't really.
Enjoy my exercise in the morning. I don't enjoy it, but I enjoy how I feel afterwards, and I enjoy having done it, Yeah.
Which is how I feel about things like running and like hard things. But walking isn't hard. Walking is just nice and I like being outside and I like, I don't know for what I mean. It gives me whatever it gives me. But it's interesting to me that if I think now about like maybe tomorrow, I might not get to go because I've got this thing and that thing or I've got to finish that thing, I can feel the like, the unhappiness, the anxiety building in my
chest because I just love it. Right, So it's become a routine that I very much embrace.
My trick has been pairing those things I don't want to do with things I.
Love, like opening the curtains.
Yeah, and there's always tasks, like you know, whether it's invoicing or emails you don't want to reply to, or there's work I don't want to do. I have to do it alongside something I enjoy it, which is usually coffee. It's like when you sit down to have the coffee, which you love, you've got to do you don't want to do.
Tea is my conduit into doing anything.
Really and saving podcasts for exercise because then I'm looking forward to the podcast, and I've convinced myself I'm looking forward to the exercise. Out louders, I want to know how you keep good habits. What are your little tricks? What have you gamified? Do you think it's sometimes a little bit toxic? Do you have a bit of a streak like Collie does with her world or I know lots of people I was traveling recently and that I went, Okay,
we need to have an intervention. Because there is addiction with word.
Or going on.
Yes, there definitely is. But also for me and brand it's a togetherness thing too, because we send each other our stats. If we're not together, there go see it's cute saving lives. Just wait for the Montmere out loud streak.
Do you want daily out loud access? Why wouldn't you? We dropped episodes every Tuesday and Thursday exclusively for mum MEA subscribers. Follow the link in the show notes to get us in your ears five days a week, and a huge thank you if you're already a subscriber.
Yesterday, the front page of a Sydney tabloid newspaper, beaming out at us from every servo and convenience store shelf, was of a famous man who had just suffered a drug overdose. Andrew O'Keeffe used to be a mainstream TV hero. He hosted game shows, Morning TV and he even received an order of Australia Medal in twenty seventeen for his
TV and charity work. Things began to go pair shaped for him in the late twenty teens, in quite a familiar pattern for those who've seen the celebrity downfall narrative unfold before scuffles with photographers, a divorce, a dui, a big dollar contract with his employer Channel seven not renewed, and then things ramped up. The man who was once the chairman of White Ribbon was arrested in twenty twenty one on domestic violence and common assault charges against his partner.
Those charges were dismissed on mental health grounds. He was ordered into an intense mental health program. Then later that same year, more assault charges and now drug possession. His reliance on methamphetamine ice as many people call it, becomes clear. Since then, more assault charges, more DUIs, a five month stint and rehab, arrested for breaching, an avo, intimidation, stalking, and this week an overdose an ice possession. Back in court before a judge who's saying that jail might be
the only thing to save Andrew O'Keeffe's life. There are more paparazzi outside court, more front pages, more news articles, more headlines. Why are we talking about Andrew O'Keefe today, Well, I've got a question. Should this man's descent into an absolute freefall of mental illness and drug addiction and violence
and desperation be on our front pages at all? Would not covering this be giving a free kick to a privileged celebrity who's been convicted of assaulting women or is continuing to cover this just added cruelty, unhelpful, robinecking and exploitation of a fascination with riches to rags stories.
Jesse, I think it's voyeurism, and I don't think it's in the public interest anymore. I keep seeing this on the front page of papers and on every homepage. He has not worked in media for almost four years, like he isn't on television currently. He is clearly very very unwell with addiction issues and mental health issues. And there's a video that's been circulating that was broadcast on Channel seven.
I'm not sure if other networks picked it up, but he was being followed by a paparazzi who was snapping and filming, who yelled at him Big Weekend Mate in reference to him nearly dying over the weekend of a drug overdose. He obviously, I mean, I would assume, reacted. He didn't want to be followed out of the police station, and he was yelling back, and this cameraman was saying, you're a degenerate, You're a degenerate, And I thought, when.
You say a camera man, I don't think it was anyone employed by the media necessarily. I think it was someone with a phone who then sold the footage.
Yes, but around were television cameras, so what I could see was he is followed everywhere. Yes, he's followed absolutely everywhere, which begs the question why do we need to see this? Who is it?
Four?
Is this a way for us to sort of mock or even get some titillation out of addiction? And even reading what the judge this is a really really sad story. And I don't mean just sad for Andrew o'caife. There are serious victims. I feel for his family, like this is just horrific. But the judge said they've tried rehabilitation facilities, they've tried mental health facilities and nothing is working. For a lot of Australian families, is probably quite familiar that
you just get absolutely stuck. But I don't think we should be looking anymore. Is there an argument of public interest here?
I guess the argument could be it's a cautionary tale. It's as close to our own Britney Spears or Amanda Binds as we've seen. Obviously he doesn't have that kind of level of fame. But the line between mental health and addiction and crime and self destruction. I mean, there is no line. They're all just so blurred. And I think, well, the thing about fame is that you can't give it
back like he will always be. You can't turn it off, and you can't retrospectively go because people aren't following, you know, Joe Brown around and photographing him every time he gets arrested. And as you say, Jesse, this will be a really familiar cycle to people who have loved ones who are struggling with addiction. The problem is what are you meant to do? Like the justice system and the legal system, they're made up of people, right, we understand, and the
judges understand. And he's been shown an extraordinary amount of leeway and compassion and given a lot of chances. But a crime is a crime. And when you are caught with a band substance, when you are driving under the influence, when you're endangering people's lives, when you're assaulting people, you
can't really look away. And the fact that he was a white ribbon ambassador or a chair and he was the guy on all the game shows and on breakfast television, the rubbernecking and the I won't say necessarily public interest but the public curiosity because if no one was buying the newspapers and clicking on the stories, they would stop and he wouldn't be followed anymore. But people do want to look. They do because it is so shocking up. You know, I met Andrew a few times in various
media capacities. I always thought he was an intense guy. He is quite a prickly guy. But it's shocking that someone that you have met that seems like they had it all, that had a wife and kids and fame and fortune, this could happen to them.
He's in and out of court like he's And this is what I mean is that he is being reprimanded, but that.
In itself becomes the narrative.
The clear comparison to here was Ben Cousins, right, This is exactly what happened to Ben Cousins. Now he's particularly famous in Western Australia, the footballer who we've talked about on the show before, because his redemption arc is now in full swing. It was the same. It was public incident after public incident. Do you wi cops chasing photographers, assault,
stalking like almost exactly the same playbook. Anyone who knows anything about serious addiction knows that it will take and Matthew Perry's book was very clear on this and obviously tragic ending there. It will take many trips to rehabit will take many Like it's not we like everything to have a neat narrative like problem, you know, treatment fixed. It's not generally how it goes with very entrenched addiction
and mental health. This will go on. And there's an element here that you've got to unpick the kind of privilege, because there is privilege at play here. As mere reference before, particularly in his first domestic violence and assault case, he got off on a way that he would not have got off if he was Joe Brown. He could afford the really good lawyers. He's had a lot of leeway.
And so there's an argument there that it's kind of like, particularly when it comes to violence, often famous and powerful and rich men get away with a lot more shit. I mean, men in general get away with a lot of things when they do things to women that they shouldn't, but famous and powerful and rich men more so, more so, more so, so, you could argue that that is a narrative that plays out here. But arguing against myself about that there is also just an element of public shaming
here that we clearly find irresistible. And me is right, they're not necessarily reputable. Cameramember that the people who are covering this are yelling at him, You're a disgrace, You're a degenerate in order to get a reaction from him. It's like, how low do they want him to stoop? How low do we need that man to be so that we can be like, hat, look at you? And
I don't know. It's interesting about whether we should look away because do I think that if and when Andrew O'Keeffe manages to get on top of this in some way in the way that Ben Cousins apparently has, I want him on Dancing with the Stars in three years time? No, absolutely not, not with that rap sheet. But do I think he deserves to be on the front page every
time that you know he's in then? Also No, I think there's kind of a middle ground there of like, is it just time to look away and let this shit out?
We're just compounding the man's distress. And you were saying we like things to be black and white, and even victim perpetrator, and in the case of the DV incident, there is victor pert distress and yeah, but.
It's so interesting these conversations. Sorry to interrupt you about when you're saying, we're compounding this, so we should stop. What is the role of the media, And I'm not saying that in a rhetorical way, like genuinely, what is the role of the media, because is it to protect Andrew?
Is it to harass someone who's mentally ill? Because I don't think so. I think if you've got a mental illness, so imagine if it was something like dementia and what.
But is that a mental illness or is he just addicted?
You know, he has been diagnosed with mental illness, bipolar disorder and even addiction.
Who have bipolar disorder and mental illness don't spit on women and assault them and have drugs and drive under the influence. So I think that you can't just say, oh, well, if you've got the mental health card, therefore all bets are off and you're exempt from all scrutiny.
But it is a relentless and awful disease.
It just is, right, Yeah, I guess the question is if privacy is a human right, like if it's some.
Court reporting, like you're allowed to report on court. If Joe Brown was in that, we need to report on it. It's got to be a transparency.
Yeah.
Yeah, And I think the redemption arc your ben cousin's point is interesting, right, because part of me wonders, is the redemption arc possible because we kept him in the spotlight because because he never went away exactly, he never went away, so he was always famous. So you're going to profit off my fame. I'm going to profit off my fame. I think at this point, Andrew o' keef needs to not be famous, like we've got it.
His money unbecome famous.
Well, I think we look back at Britney Spears, right, and we look at her and it might be Pollyanna or whatever, but we go, hey, maybe you shouldn't have been taking photos of someone who would just shave their head and was throwing around an umbrella. And having people in my family who have struggled with mental illness and various things, who have had moments like that, you don't broadcast it like there is some privacy and intimacy in those moments that you have this instinct to protect.
But that's because you are their family you're not the media who can monetize those pictures.
Also, in that particular case, there's a very solid argument that it was making it worse, that the attention was actually making it well.
And so is this I would say with Andrew O'Keeffe, whether it's the addictional the mental illness, it's like, this is actually compounding a man's distress and it's not helping his victims. I think that it's easy for the media to go, oh, we're just reflecting, but to not hold the media any kind of ethics in this situation, I
think is like what do we want here? Because we all know where this is heading and what the next headline might be, and if that headline comes, it's like, WHOA, Yeah, I think the media had something to do with it.
I don't think they helped.
I don't know about that.
That's I know exactly what you're saying. Could the media be proud of the way they've covered this?
Y are the media we're talking about?
You're a degenerate.
But here's the thing is that I agree, I know what you mean, But we do ask ourselves that, Like, whenever we're talking about these kind of things, we go like, is there an interesting point to discuss here, or are we just rober necking? And you know, it's a line that we might not always exactly get right, but it's definitely an examined thing. Right we make a conscious choice. I think it's interesting because I know what you're saying.
Could the media, including ourselves, say we treated that with respect? No, they couldn't. Yeah, but could you argue that they have blood on their hands? I would say in this case, I don't.
Think it's blood on your hands, but I don't think it would be far fetched to say that there are people you could look at celebrities who have whether it's addiction or mental health issues that if you were to go, did the media help or hinder they had a hand in it. Yeah. Out Louders, if you enjoy listening to this podcast, it would mean so much to us if you would be willing to take just a few seconds to do these three things.
First, can you please follow or subscribe to out loud? Following the pod helps you And I just thought everyone did this, but these animals tell me that's not the case. You never miss an episode if you follow us or subscribe, and it helps us because you know, miss an episode.
To do this, all you have to do is you go to the out Loud show page on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts, and all you have to do is tap the little plus sign or click on follow. This is the most important thing you can do to support your podcast.
While you're there. If you'd be willing to give us a five star rating, we'd love it too, and share an episode with a friend. We would be so grateful. We're so grateful to have your ears, and we appreciate our outluders so very much.
A massive thank you to all of you who already do that and those who are doing it right now. I can hear you, I can see you.
Three things, follow, five star review, share with a friend.
That's exactly it. Amazing, well done out that is, thank you for listening today. I can hear them doing okay, I can feel them doing it good. And thank you for listening to today's show. And of course, thank you to our fabulous team for putting the show together. We're going to be back in your ear tomorrow.
Yay bye.
Have you done it yet? Go do it? Do you remember what the three things are?
Go?
Do it?
Just press the plus shout out to any Mamma Mia subscribers listening. If you love the show and you want to support us, subscribing to Mamma Mia is the very best way to do it. There's a link in the episode description