This is Outspoken. The podcast is not afraid to say exactly what you're thinking. Our names are Amy Kate and Sophie Torba. We're identical triplets, but we often don't have identical opinions, so sometimes things can get heated. Outspoken covers all things reality TV, influencers, entertainment, and issues facing women.
That is so fat.
Thank you.
Welcome to Outspoken Fridays Now. A post by a Stan of Anna Paul has got us thinking today because this fan shared a tattoo she had of Anna Poul in bikinis on her arm. I really wanted to know if you guys had to get a tattoo of someone in pop culture, an influencer, a celebrity, and so if you
can't say your dog Archie, who would it be? Well, I do remember seeing there was a fan of Money Heist who got a big tattoo of Tokyo, one of the characters on his leg, and he met her at the Red carpet and she just was like, it's such shock. I love Money highst. I can't actually imagine getting a Money Highest tattoo, though, Well, you got to come up with something. Who would you get? Actually also reminds me of the time that Saffron Barker tricked her mum that
she got her mum's face tattooed on a leg. Can we for our parents on LG No, at at all. It has to be pop culture related. I might even make it more specific. If you guys had to get an Australian influencer on your arm, who would it be? Oh? My god, can I say Bindi Shinny Grumman's dog. Oh, she's pretty iconic.
I don't know.
I can't think of anybody. I mean, I just I'm not a tattoo person. So the thought of having an influencer's face on my arm, I just I can't even imagine it. Can you imagine in twenty years time coming to your kids and they're like, who's that on your arm? Mum? And you're like, oh, just an influencer I used to follow. Well, you know what, this girl had some pretty cool body art, so it wasn't just I mean, if you Sophie just got one random tattoo at a peril days he slapped
my arm, Kate, what about you? Is anyone you'd ever consider getting tattooed on your arm in the pop culture space? Well, look, no, I would never do it, but if I had to pick someone, I'd probably say Taylor Swift. Feel he's not an influencer, but she's in the set in the pop culture space. Okay, we're gonna put a thread in our Facebook community. We'd love to know which influencer or person in pop culture you would get tattooed on your arm.
Entire Channel four News team. I'm Veronica Corningstone.
And I'm Ron Burgundy.
Goof yourself, san Diego.
When Lilah Vocalin turned to a closed women's Facebook group to ask for advice, she never imagined her private messages would end up in the mainstream media. Lila asked group members of the Tea Time Facebook community what she should do after she realized her psychologist had liked and messaged her on dating app Hinge. Now, Amy, can you explain more so, Lilah shared screenshots of messages on Hinge from
a man who she says is her psychologist. The first message from the man read hey with love heart eye emojis. He wrote, I feel like we've matched before. Leela responded, aren't you my psych to which he replied, oh that's why you look familiar. Sorry, I deal with lots of clients and it's hard to keep up. How have you been so as you can see, Instead of shutting down the conversation, it appeared her psychologists tried to keep initiating
conversation between the pair on the dating app. Now, according to APPRA, which is the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency, practitioners are expected to act in their patient's best interests and not use their position of power and trust to
exploit patients physically, sexually, emotionally or psychologically. Now, not only does Lila say that her post in the private Facebook group was leaked to the psychologist, who has since threatened to sue her for defamation, which is just disgusting in itself, she also woke up to find that numerous online articles were written by mainstream media publications about her post. Now, according to the Facebook group's rules, this is a privacy breach.
Wila also says she was never contacted for comment. Now, Wila is kindly joining us. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Firstly, we're just so sorry to hear about how all of this has blown up. How are you feeling very overwhelmed?
Anxious?
Kind of like everything's out of my control, but there's not really anything I can do, So I'm kind of just sitting back and seeing what happens.
And how did you feel when you first realized that you had matched with your psychologist on hinge?
It raised a lot of red flags for me.
I didn't I don't really think that I kind of gathered what was happening initially. I just knew it was wrong, and I kind of quick Google, like is this okay? Like I know, you know, like teacher student relationships, Like that's not all right.
And after you found out that you had matched with him on hinge, you then decided to post about your experience on a Facebook group called Tea Time. Can you tell us what you wrote and also why you felt compelled to share that experience on Tea Time.
I don't like saying that I matched with him because I think that he was the one that kind of first instigated the compact. Like with the way that hinge works is that you can see who liked you first. And because it was under a fake name, there were two people in the photo. I didn't really realize at the time until he sent that message through. Yeah, so I posted in tea time. I was talking to my housemate about it and kind of said, like, this is just what's happened, Like what do you think?
And she was like, nah, like that's not.
Okay, but like can she She actually was the one who told me about tea time, and she said that there's a really good girls group. It's very supportive, like very feminist, like they're quick to call things out. Why don't you like post in there, have a like, have a look at what those girls have to say, and then yeah, make a decision from there. So yeah, I kind of I was just seeking out women's support and advice really.
And that's why everyone our kind of age does, isn't it. These groups have sort of become a safe place for women to be able to share this sort of information, And it's also good to get other people's opinions maybe on what to do and how best to tackle the situation. So I definitely think if I was in a similar situation, I'd want to reach out to, you know, like minded people online and get that sort of support too.
Exactly.
Yep, And you raised a really good point. You said that you didn't actually match with your psychologists. Are you able to explain because there's been a bit of misinformation going on. I think a lot of people just think of Tinder when they think of dating apps, but Hinge is obviously a little bit different.
Yeah.
So the way that Hinge works is that there's a little icon there that you click on and you can see everybody who has like like like you, and you can actually send messages without the other person matching with you. Basically. Yeah, so I just went into that little icon. I was just mindlessly scrolling in a bit of a zombie mode, and I pressed the tick and like, because his name was a fake name, there were two people in his photo, and yes, I.
Clicked on him.
This was I think on Tuesday, February fifteenth, and I don't even think I saw the message until three or four days later when he did send me that message like with the hey, with the love hard eyes, haven't we matched before? Kind of insinuating that I looked familiar, which makes me think that he definitely did know who I was when he sent that.
And you immediately tried to shut this conversation down. You were like, aren't you my psychologist?
Exactly? Yep.
It's just such a gross breach of power. I just can't believe that these sort of things going on, and I just can't imagine. Also, how you must have felt when you woke up in the morning and saw your story plastered all over mainstream media.
Yeah, that was a real shock to the system, just because I had posted in a closed, private women's Facebook group just asking for advice. Turns out that journalist Matilda Rudd was in that group. She stole my story, and yeah, now it's everywhere. It was on Daily Mail, it was on these random US news sites, Channel seven news dot com.
Now it's very overwhelming, but.
Yeah, it must be, especially because in the group it clearly states there are rules that there is privacy for members and that journalists are not able to take information and share it. Were you ever actually contacted by the journalists who wrote the story?
So there's been three journalists who have written stories now, so Matilda Rudd was the first one that was for Daily Mail. She never contacted me. I actually made an attempt to contact her when I first saw that the news article had been published.
I first contacted Daily Mail.
To issue a complaint asking them to take it down, but I never heard back, and then I contacted Matilda through her Instagram DMS. I sent her a very polite message just saying that I wasn't ready for this to be publicized, because you please take it down.
I never heard back from her either. Part of me does want to.
Have this publicized, because I do want to speak out, but I think that I also want to wait until just to see what happens with Opera and the hate Treple C and to see if I can actually publicize his name, because right now I can't say his name at all, which I think he deserves to have his name out there.
I mean, definitely, I suppose that's been the issue with the reporting. I mean that Sofa and I have witnessed so far is that it's all sort of been on you, and I feel like, because you are young and you're attractive, they've chosen a lot of photos of you, taken stuff you've said out of context, and that's obviously led to a lot of commentary online as well that hasn't been so nice. How have you felt reading some of these
comments from people who were almost blaming you. I mean, we personally think there's a lot of victim blaming going on.
Oh one hundred percent.
I've been reading the comments on The comments on the news dot com.
Article on Facebook particularly bad. A lot of old men.
I think I read one saying, well, she's a basket case. She sees a psychologist. He knew what he was getting into her, getting in with her, dodged a bullet. There a lot of things like that, things like well she's wearing a swimsuit, like, what does she expect?
That was one of them.
Yeah, just really really nasty, misogynistic victim blaming comments.
Now, you did make a really great point on Instagram how when women speak out about male's predatory behavior, they're often slap with legal action. What has the fallout been from the psychologist.
I haven't heard from him since he threatened me, so basically oft he must have seen the tea time post, like the initial one that I posted.
It got leaked to him somehow, and he sent me.
A message saying that I should expect to be hearing from his lawyer over the next week or so. In regards to defamation, that didn't really scare me much because I know there's no grounds for defamation there. But I think that it's all too common that when a man is in a position of power, not even necessarily in
a position of power, just men. They just want to intimidate women, and like they throw around, throw around these words like legal action just to try and scare you pretty much and try and get you to back down and try and.
Get you off their case. But like in this case, it's not going to work.
I love that, and that is so true, and it's quite interesting because I feel like your story has raised a lot of questions about just how private these facebooks actually are, especially groups like Tea Time, which have so many thousands of followers. What would be your advice to people who do post on these groups in the future.
I think with social media, you're always taking a risk with what you put out there.
I had to look at the Tea.
Time members and it is something like eighty thousand, so I didn't realize it was that big, but I guess, yeah, I was taking a risk. But it was also a closed women's Facebook group, and you know, in our day and age, there's so much like going around, like especially on social media, about like women's empowerment, women supporting one another, and yeah, to have a woman do this to.
Me is it's a really gross violation.
So I know, of Tea Time, you can post anonymously if you If you private message the admins, they'll post for you.
So I'd say yeah.
In the future, if there's any girls who think that what they what they want to post could be a bit risky, did I just posted anonymously?
Well, thank you so much for joining us, and congratulations on taking a stance against this type of behavior. Because your statement that you put up on Instagram was amazing and we'll have to link it in our show notes everyone can have a read. And also the fact that you are twenty one. It blows my mind. You have just spoken so articulately and also so bravely, as Amy said, especially when this person is obviously sought out to try
and silence you. So congratulations for the amazing way that you have responded to it.
Thank you.
This week, Brittany Hockley confirmed she has split with tennis player boyfriend Jordan Thompson. She made the tiery announcement on her Life Uncut podcast after months of rumors. The former Bachelor star explained our constant speculation had strained her relationship as the pair tried to make a decision about the future, and it was really hard not to feel extremely sorry
for Britt. As she shared the update, she spoke about how she couldn't get out of bed and couldn't stop crying, all while dealing with the media and fans demanding an update. So BRIT's situation got me thinking about how much privacy influences and public figures should be afforded when it comes to breakups. Do we have the right to know exactly when it happens? Shall we get to know the ins and outs and the reason for the breakup? And why do we think we deserve to know? What do you
guys think? Well, I've previously discussed on the podcast how I do think influencers who monetize their relationships on the platform are somewhat indebted to sharing relationship updates. However, BRIT's reaction has really made me see another side to it, and it kind of makes me reflect on my own breakup experiences and I can't imagine how difficult it would be, particularly when a lot of the time when you do break up with someone, there is that period where you
get back together. I feel like when an influencer is going through that phase of on and off again relationship, it's really hard to then inform everyone's what's happening, because most of the time you don't really know what's going on in your relationship yourself, particularly in their situation where it sounds like it was pretty amicable and the only reason they really were breaking up was because of the
long distance nature of their relationship. And I feel like brit was quite quick to point out that they're breaking up for now, but you never know what is going to happen in the future. And personally, I would find that really difficult to then jump on a mic and dissect that relationship, because, as she said, it would almost be easier if you hated that person. I know, when I was going through a breakup, I had that little glimmer of hope that maybe we were going to get
back together. And on a lesser scale, it's kind of like when you have a bitch to your friends about your ex boyfriend and what a dickhead they've been, and then suddenly you think it's back on again, and you've kind of got to, you know, come crawling back to everyone saying how wonderful they are trying to win people over. Gosh. I have been there so many times in my first relationship,
because my first relationship was very toxic. It was very off and on, and I remember feeling so embarrassed when I have to tell you guys or Mum or any of my friends that, hey, actually I've accepted that behavior and taken him back. And I'm not saying that is
at all what's going on with Britt and Jordan. But you know, when you reflect back on your relationships and the terminals that you've gone through, it's hard not to feel sorry for someone in the public eye that then has to communicate outwardly to followers and media about their
relationship and what's happened in those everyday situations. It's really awkward for the friend as well who has had the person bitch to them, because half the time you end up putting your foot in it, agreeing with your friend who's been dumbed, And then when that person comes back in the picture, it's always very awkward, yeah, because you almost need to hold your tongue the first time someone says they've broken up with somebody because you say what
you honestly thought of them, and then next week they're back together, but just circling back to Brits so her announcing the split to all of the life uncut followers. That is the final nail in the coffin of this relationship. And as you said, she might have held hope that maybe she and Jordan would get back together. Well, it seems like that two weeks over Samma was very much them seeing what it would be like and maybe having
those difficult conversations about where is this going. And it would be really difficult to have those conversations when there is a lot of speculation going on about it online.
In terms of followers feeling like they deserve to know the ins and outs of influencers breakups, I really feel like it comes down to parasocial relationships that we build with influencers online, And for those who don't know, a parasocial relationship is essentially a one way relationship with an influencer, celebrity,
or brand that feels like a two way relationship. So social media has really increased these parasocial relationships we have because it provides an intimate and personal look into someone's life and it gives us a feeling that we know them when we really don't. So I think that we believe we're in titled to know what's going on with these influencer relationships because we feel like we've gone through
the experience with the influencer. And I think another aspect comes down to Instagram's algorithm, because the platform really rewards users for going big with their posts and sometimes monetizing them. So, for example, you'll notice that announcements around big life events like engagements and pregnancies often garner the most likes for influencers, and it's also the case for normal people as well.
And this then results in influencers curating their feed only to show the highlights, and they end up presenting the best possible view without the whole story. And this all has a trickle down effect to normal Instagram users as well, And I feel like due to this highlight sharing, Instagram has become a place where people go and see content that makes them sometimes feel inadequate or jealous about their
own lives. And inadequacy is often felt about people's own relationships when they compare them to everyday life to the highlight reel of influencers. So when influencers do break up with their partners, it kind of feels like a car crash scenario where you know you should look away, but you just can't because you're so curious about what's happened and how this perfect relationship failed. I think the other
thing is just human nature. When you do start dating someone and it's the honeymoon stage, you do post more about that person because you're really excited to let everyone know that you're in a new relationship. And I think that's obviously the case for everyday people and influencers, and unfortunately for influencers, because we are so interested in their lives and comparing how they are to theirs. I think a lot of followers pick up when things start to
slow down. So suddenly, when we don't see that relationship online anymore, a bit like with Britt and Jordan, we begin to speculate why, and it just kind of builds that anticipation and that appetite to know what happened, and you know, we also think that there must be way more to it than they're so invested. You're so invested sometimes in these people you don't know'se relationships than in
your friends relationships. It's so it's true, so strange, and I do feel like some people actually use influencers pitfalls as a way to keep their behavior in check as well. So if the influencer does something in their relationship that doesn't align with your values. When they do break up, you kind of see that as a win to yourself, like, oh, well, I wouldn't have done that, so that means I'm correct
in my behavior and how I navigate relationships. I also think it must be quite difficult for people in the public eye to openly speak about relationship breakdowns when they feel like their partner might not have a right of reply. And in the situation with Britt and Jordan, of course he is a public facing person being a tennis player, but he's not someone who openly talks about their relationship on his Instagram account. And I think that she's also
taken that very much into consideration. And I think there is a slight difference if you are a YouTube or Instagram couple and you've built your following around your relationship in that situation, you do then owe your audience an explanation of what happened and what went down, because a lot of these Instagram couples do glamorize their relationship and
monetize it as well. Yeah, well, that's why I think there is such an appetite to find out about breakdowns of relationships because influencers in the past have shared so much about their relationships. So as you said on YouTube, and we have seen so many influencers who have come out and done full breakdown debriefs on their channel, and then it sets the precedence that everyone wants to know more and more and more about different influencers relationships.
Not a Gelly, you've got in your hair smells quite strongly too. Why are you telling this to me now? I'm just mentioning it. I can see you've got a lot in That's all I don't. I mean, I can't wash it now, can I've not got time. God, I don't know why you are like this.
Sometimes, as we approach our joint thirty third birthday next month, we've been chatting with some of our friends about the immense pressure women face to not only beat the biological clock, but also keep a grasp on your social currency. So if I know you've been a little bit stressed about our birthday coming up, I wouldn't say I've been stressed
about it. I just feel for women who are entering their thirties because I feel like there's so much pressure from society on your shoulders, and you suddenly realize when you are in your thirties that there's all these boxes that you're supposed to have ticked by the time you're
in that age demographic. And I feel like I've fed such a different story in your twenties because you're always told, oh, there's plenty of time, you can make mistakes, just have fun dating people, don't settle for anyone, and you're really on this journey of finding out who you are and what you want to be. And I found in my twenties I was constantly being told I was too young
or too inexperience for certain jobs. But then suddenly, out of nowhere, when your thirtieth birthday rolls around, You're supposed to have this incredible job. You're supposed to have a solid income, own a home, you're supposed to be settling down. There's all these things, having kids, and I just think it's this ridiculous expectation, particularly on women, and I just feel like there's this ticking time bomb that we've got going.
And I've also found from personal experience as someone who was forced to look for a new job when I was in my thirties, that I thought once I got into my thirties that I would be taken more seriously. But I've found it's quite a hindrance because people assume that you're going to be getting married and having children, and they don't necessarily want to employ someone that's going to go on a maternity contract, even if that's not
in your plan. I've just noticed that my Facebook and Instagram feed has literally just turned into baby pictures as well, and just everyone's getting married, everyone's having babies, and you kind of feel a bit left behind if you're not doing that, or you feel even weird that you might
not even want to think about kids at the moment. Yeah, there's like this fucked up expectation that makes many of us feel inadequate or unsuccessful if you haven't done those things at the perceived right time, when they may not even be things that you even want to be doing then.
And as thirty approaches, I feel like people suddenly find it appropriate to point out to women of that age that their biological clock is ticking and that if we don't hurry up, will lose the opportunity to have a family one day, and one many women don't necessarily want to have children or many women may not be able to have children. You never know what's going on in someone's life, and I feel like it's really unfair for people to put these questions and assumptions towards women of
a certain age. And even just having a podcast that's in the influencer space, I've noticed so much agism going on on social media. People who are in their thirties. They're often spoken about by young influencers as if we're almost dead. It's actually quite depressing because I don't feel any different to how I felt in by twenties at all, and I've just noticed so much shit talk about people
in their thirties going on, Yeah, that's the thing. Suddenly, when you find yourself outside of the twenties demographic that you never thought you'd leave, you made to feel as though your social currency is waning. And I feel like so many of us go through a bit of an identity crisis. I know when we were turning thirty, I suddenly started to second guess the clothes that I was wearing. So usually in summer I just wear denim shorts and chuck on a white top, and I even was thinking,
is this appropriate for a thirty year old to be wearing. God, of course it is. And I think that's why we saw such a meltdown with skinny jeans and the side part, because we've always been the young generation. We've always been setting the trends, and suddenly this younger generation was telling us that we're the epitome of uncle m. And that's
the thing. I'm so torn on this because quite often I feel myself saying this to other women, because a lot of the time, when you say your age, automatically women or men will go, don't worry, you don't look that old. And I think it's actually quite a harmful thing to say to people, because being older shouldn't necessarily be a negative thing. I feel like it's this constant pursuit to be young, which is actually really damaging and really harmful to women. And I personally have to stop
at myself as I get older. I really do feel for women who are also older than ourselves, because I've always heard this whisper going around that, you know, people in their forties start to feel invisible, and in my thirties, I can already see that happening. As we've established, Yeah, I think many women do start to feel invisible, and it's really because society places an overwhelming amount of importance on women's appearance and I hate the term, but on
women's fuck ability. So many of us have grown up internalizing this notion that there is only currency in our
appearance and staying youthful. And I feel like for so long in TV shows and movies there's really been an absence of women of a certain age, even on television news in Australia, and I think that the older women become, the less they see themselves, particularly in pop culture, and it can become very polarizing if you don't see anyone like you out there, and the only women who are getting granted these positions are women who look a hell of a lot younger than they are and don't actually
reflect what the average forty fifty, sixty seventy year old woman looks like. And at the moment people are seeing Sarah Jesca Park has appear pearance as being some sort of beacon because she actually looks her age and we aren't used to seeing women on TV without filly in their face. But I have loved watching just like that. And I did hear Mia Friedman talking about how much.
A lot of people don't think that fifty year old lives are actually like that, and it's like young people just stick to their own lane and they don't realize that you're still the same person, and as you get older, you're still gonna have dramas in your life, and things still happen after you turn thirty exactly. I mean, I feel like the criticism of Sarah Jessica Parker's appearance has been so unfair. I actually thought she looked incredible, and I think the fact that she hadn't had any work
actually made her appear much more youthful. That's the thing I feel like now, especially because we are living in a social media era, I feel like as soon as you turn thirty, you also start thinking about whether you in fact need certain cosmetic procedures done, or whether you
should start investing in some really expensive skin care. And I vividly remember when I was twenty nine going to a mark A stall and this woman was selling a lot of skincare products and she asked me how old I was, and I told her, and she said, and this isn't a humble brag, She said, Wow, I thought you were a lot younger I thought you were in your early twenties, and she said, wow, we really should start you on some botox then, and I just thought,
hold on a second. You've just told me how apparently young I look, and now you're telling me in the next breath that I need to start cosmetic procedures. And at the end of the day, it's definitely up to the individual what they want to do, because I think it is something that makes women feel a lot more confident in their skin. And if that's what you want
to do, that's your decision. But I don't think women should be told by other people that they it's something that they need to do, and I don't think we should be scared of getting wrinkles and looking older. Also, that woman's talking about it as if it's just a obvious step when you hit your thirties that you have to then freeze any sort of signs of life on
your face. And as you said, Sophia, if that's what someone wants to do, but people should be okay with not choosing that as well, because that is an individual's choice. I really hope moving forward that society stops categorizing women by their age, because it's not really something that we do to men, and I feel like by doing it, it just puts an expiration date on women's success or what women are and aren't allowed to do. So I
think that's all we've got time for today. Thank you so much for joining us for another episode, and if you want to join in on the conversation, head over to our Facebook community, which is outspoken of the podcast community. Also, we'd love it if you could leave us a five star review