Mamamia Out Loud: The Kind Of Marriage Every Woman (Apparently) Wants

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Mamma Mia Out Loud!

Hello and welcome to Mamma Mia Out Loud.

It's what women are actually talking about on Wednesday, the 24th of May.

My name is Holly Wainwright.

My name's Mia Friedman.

Hi, I'm Jessie Stevens.

And on the show today, the world's third richest man is getting married again.

Is his new fiancé really life goals in 2023?

Plus, do you care if a robot writes your favourite TV show and hosts your favourite podcast?

And a retrospective dilemma from a confused Jessie Stevens.

But first...

Disgraced Australian entertainer Role Parris has died at the age of 93.

The convicted pedophile was gravely ill with neck cancer using feeding tubes during his last days at home in the UK.

In case you missed it, Role Parris, a convicted pedophile, has died at the age of 93.

We learned today that Parris actually died two weeks ago and he's already been cremated.

But the news just broke this week.

Parris, who was once considered one of Australia's most famous and celebrated exports.

He was a TV presenter, musician and painter.

He is now best known because he was prosecuted in 2013 for indecent assault against girls and young women over an 18 year period.

The 12 charges he was ultimately convicted of were ultimately thanks to evidence provided by four different women.

It's interesting looking at this story because if Harris had died 20 years ago, the coverage and how we felt about him and his life would obviously be completely different.

Holly, it's interesting watching the media sort of grapple with how to cover this.

All I kept thinking today when I was reading the headlines because uniformly every headline says convicted sex offender about this or disgraced pedophile about Role Parris.

Otherwise it would have been lovable children's entertainment.

100% and it's not just time.

So it's not just 20 years.

It is literally because of the bravery of a few women that this man's legacy is forever tainted.

Because as you've said, Jesse, like he was one of the biggest cultural exports from Australia in Britain.

He was so popular.

He played at Glastonbury six times.

Like he might be a little bit of an Australian cultural cringe here.

There was a time in the 90s and the Nordies when he was kind of cool, like counter cool in England.

He played Glastonbury six times.

He used to appear on TV all the time.

And the thing is, is the women who accused Harris of those assaults, they ranged in age from 13 to mid 20s.

There was a woman who had worked with him in TV here in Australia who provided plenty of evidence that in lots of ways his behavior was an open secret and excused, covered up and ignored for decades.

So for me, when I'm reading these headlines today, I think, you know, we can get a bit eye rolly sometimes about me too.

Well, no, not eye rolly, but really discouraged about whether or not it's even worse victims reporting assault, going to court.

The conviction rate is so low.

It's so terrible.

You know, we were talking about it on the show really recently.

But we should remember the legacy of Ralph Harris because there are no glowing tributes to him today.

There are no claims that he was just a good man underneath it all.

And I think if those women, those really brave women hadn't come up and stood up and said those things and given evidence against him and said what they said, then this week we would be celebrating an Aussie legend.

The billionaire founder of Amazon and one of the richest men in the world, Jeffrey Bezos, has a new fiance, guys.

Love is in the air.

I've seen the rock.

It's so big.

You can't see the finger underneath the rock.

Lauren Sanchez is a 53 year old American media personality.

She's been an entertainment reporter and a news anchor on shows like The View and Good Day LA.

She used to be married to a very big Hollywood agent.

And that's reportedly how she met Jeff Bezos while he was married.

And so was she.

On that note, it has actually been a very good month for side chicks because first we had the coronation with Camilla being crowned queen.

And now Lauren Sanchez marrying her true love.

Both their marriages ended in 2019 after a pretty significant hard launch.

What happened was some dick pics that Jeff Bezos had sent to Lauren during their affair were stolen from his phone and used to try and blackmail him.

And he wasn't having any of it.

And instead of caving to the demands, he actually released a statement exposing, well, exposing himself in a different way,

exposing himself and saying that he wouldn't cave into blackmail.

So you would think that that kind of thing would really test a relationship, but it only made them stronger apparently.

It did cause the end of both of their marriages.

She'd been married for about 14 years.

Bezos had been married for 26 years to his wife, Mackenzie, who got half of their shared funds after the divorce.

But this week, there's lots of snark that's kind of expected, I guess, about Lauren Sanchez, about the way she looks.

She's had a huge amount of surgery.

She looks different to how she used to look.

And there's also snark about her being a gold digger because apparently it's every woman's dream to marry a billionaire.

And in an opinion piece in The Daily Mail, a writer called Jackie Stevens says,

Sometimes in life, you just have to throw in the towel and say, OK, you win.

And at 53, that's exactly what Lauren Sanchez has done.

She's won big time.

Yes, she's the former C-list TV personality who traded up from the role of lover to the tech tycoon.

Yes, she's full to the brim with plastic and pump.

And yes, her dirty laundry has been aired so often, she's practically the cover girl for Maytag.

But ladies, don't we all want to be her right now?

She then goes on to describe how Lauren and Bezos met with a take that is so ridiculous.

I have to read it to you.

Lauren's story is the ultimate triumph of the other woman.

Just imagine you're a jobbing news presenter and a helicopter pilot.

You meet Bezos through your entertainment mogul husband who you'll later ditch.

You launch into a passionate affair, which in 2019 brings about the end of your marriage.

You get him to buy a hundred and sixty five million dollar Californian mansion,

the most expensive acquisition in state history, plus other properties in Hawaii and elsewhere.

There are holidays to Spain, Italy, London.

Bezos then even steps back from the helm of Amazon to spend more time with you.

He commissions a five hundred million dollar yacht.

And then, of course, there's the reportedly twenty carat ring.

Well, I didn't realize that all women aspire to marry a billionaire.

Jesse, have you left your run too late?

Holly's the only unmarried one among us, but I guess there's always a second marriage for you.

I know, I know.

This reveals a lot about Jackie's value system, I think.

It's important to note that Lauren Sanchez, she's an Emmy Award winner who has a net worth,

an estimated net worth of about thirty million dollars to start with.

Yeah, she's a producer now apparently.

He's funding some of her films.

In terms of who needs to marry Jeff Bezos more.

All of us need Jeff Bezos more than Lauren Sanchez needs Jeff Bezos.

She's a really impressive person.

She's a helicopter pilot.

She has this production company.

She has a thriving career.

She's ambitious.

He is fifty nine, I think.

And she's fifty three.

So there's not a big age gap.

Not a massive age gap.

She has kids already.

There are so many things that you look at.

And this actually isn't a cliche as some people would present it.

But that commentary I find to be really patronizing of Sanchez and really reductive towards Bezos.

Because yes, he's a billionaire and it's really hard to know what else he is necessarily.

Although we know that he gives a lot of his money away and he wants to give a lot of his money away before he dies.

He's more than a billionaire.

Of course, he's more than a billionaire.

And to assume that someone think of the billionaire.

Hashtag not a billionaire.

To assume that someone for the last four years of their lives has slept next to Jeff Bezos,

who they're actually totally revolted by and are only attracted to them because they happen to be a billionaire.

And that's her dream.

And she's some kind of gold digger.

I don't think that's how most humans function.

I refuse to believe that.

I reckon these two people.

You clearly haven't watched the Anna Nicole Smith documentary recently.

I think there is one.

That tells a different story about a woman who marries a billionaire.

I am absolutely sure they're in love.

But what I'm interested in here is the idea that it's an aspiration.

Because you're absolutely right, Jesse, that you scratch beneath the surface of Lauren Sanchez and the images.

Because the images say a very particular kind of narrative in a way.

And it's not all it seems.

But therein lies one of the problems with marrying a billionaire.

And I'm just going to lay out a case that should make us all feel better.

For why marrying a billionaire is a fucking terrible idea.

Okay.

Nothing you do will ever matter anymore.

You could have a net worth of $30 million and produce lots of TV shows.

And you will just forever be a billionaire's wife.

He married the billionaire.

And his work and his job and his achievements will always take priority.

I watched a very informative TikTok about this recently where it was a billionaire's wife who said,

all you bitches who want to marry millionaires, you don't know what it takes.

You have to follow them around, go everywhere they go.

You have to keep an eye on them all the time because they, you know, they're a million.

Because you have a very lovely view of the fact that people don't want to sleep next to people they don't like.

Yes.

But anybody of high status will tell you that once they are high status,

they get a lot more offers than they did before.

So there are plenty of people in the world who are attracted to status.

And that's just quite a natural thing.

I slept next to people I don't like who had no status.

There you go.

What was I doing?

That was terrible.

You were sleeping down.

It really was.

So, hey, don't marry a billionaire because your achievements won't matter anymore.

They will invariably be a workaholic.

I do not believe you can build an empire of that scale.

Elon Musk says he does nothing else.

I don't want to ask Mary.

I have no idea how he has any time to have all those children that he's got

because he freely admits that he works 24 hours a day.

He sleeps on the floor of Twitter.

It's not hard.

Exactly.

He's a weirdo.

People work really hard.

Some people with no money will have to work three jobs.

Oh, no.

Of course.

Of course.

Of course.

But the workaholism of the obsession of the, even when, you know, at your three jobs,

like I just don't believe that you would ever be very high up the priority list.

And I'm needy.

And I want to be high up the priority list.

Do you know what I mean?

I am.

And the insecurity of always knowing, because there are a million examples of this,

that your replacement, the queue of replacements actually is at the door,

would be very high maintenance on your mental health.

Isn't that the same as people who marry or are with someone really, really, really good-looking?

Yeah.

Or so a bad idea.

So just don't do it.

Okay, all right.

This is my most controversial take.

I'm not suggesting for a second that it wouldn't be great to marry money.

We all like, money brings you freedom.

It brings you choices.

It brings you a lack of having to worry about how to pay your mortgage.

Like we all like that.

But you don't need to be a billionaire for that.

You could just be somebody with like a little-

Just a female.

semi-detached.

Just a female.

Is it impossible to believe that those people on the top 10 list and Jeff Bezos number three can be nice people?

Why?

I don't believe, and I know this is controversial and again is my value,

that what it takes to get to that level,

I'm not just talking about people who like their jobs or people who want to make money,

but to be like a multi-billionaire,

show me some evidence that some of those people are kind.

Look at almost any example of how you have to operate in business to get to the top.

Holly, I've got to, I'm going to say,

do you say the same of anybody who is at the top of their field?

Because you would say people who are billionaires are at the top of their field in some sort of business capacity.

What about someone who's at the top of their field in the arts?

No, clearly I wouldn't say it about that.

Painter in the world.

The best actor in the world.

The best singer in the world.

Do you think they must all be bad people as well?

No.

My value system is very much about people who just want to accumulate lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of dollars.

Do you think that Holly is discriminating against billionaires?

I think not all billionaires, Holly.

I think you're being really harsh towards the billionaires.

I'm sure there's some really lovely billionaires and I'm sure just like any profession,

if being a billionaire is indeed a profession, it's kind of a descriptor, really.

I'm sure that there's a spectrum of billionaire personality types.

Some are no doubt dicks, like Logan Roy.

Could it be your next podcast?

Are there any nice billionaires?

And every week you interview one and you just want to see if they're all right.

You know who's a billionaire?

Melanie Perkins from Canva.

The young woman who founded Canva.

She seems nice.

She's a billionaire.

Do you think she's awful?

All right, so I'm also applying this to men.

Do we think it's aspirational?

If you had a mate who went,

Holly, I've met someone and we're getting married and you're like,

what are they like?

And they said, oh, great.

I have a few kids, blah, blah, blah.

By the way, they're a billionaire.

Is that a fall off your chair?

You've killed it.

Good on you.

Or are you seeing red flags or are you neutral?

I would have red flags.

I would be, and I'm in some billionaires, a nice people camp.

And I also would be red flags because I just think that the life of a billionaire

would be really complicated for all the reasons you say.

And I think that it's like more money, more problems.

So I feel that if you are not from that world, then it might just be weird.

One of the things that's fun about listening to those podcasts hosted by movie stars

that I listened to is that you get a glimpse into movie star problems

and they're like, you can't hang around with normal people

because normal people always want things from you.

Yeah.

And I'd be like, if my mate came home and said,

my new husband is a billionaire, I'd be like,

well, we can't have him around for dinner.

Like that would be terrible.

But he's can't come to my house.

Like that's not going to happen.

Exactly.

Oh dear.

What does somebody think of the billionaires?

They're trying to end the writer's room.

They're trying to force screenwriters to work for free.

They're trying to force late night writers to write for streaming

to get paid a fraction of what people make in TV.

And we've had enough of it.

We came to the table with all these issues.

And what we got back really felt kind of like gaslighting.

As actors, we're only as good as the writing we get.

This is absolutely an existential moment for the writing profession.

Very soon, robots might be recording your favorite podcasts.

Yes, that's my impersonation.

That was a terrible robot impersonation.

Let's try that again.

Very soon, robots might be recording your favorite podcasts.

Yes, that's my impersonation of AI Holly,

who is doubtless being cooked up in a back office of Mama Mia

somewhere right now.

I think AI could do a better impersonation of you

than you could do of it, because that was appalling.

I know.

Well, you know, I'm a real human.

That's my problem.

AI is around the corner with Spotify saying that they are working

on developing AI tools trained on its hosts voices to create adverts,

targeted adverts.

So wait, that means that when people hear our voice on this podcast,

if it was Spotify or whatever, it could be an ad,

but it's not actually you saying it.

They've used your voice and they can make you say what they want.

Yes.

So they have cloned your voice to make...

Cloned the tone.

Yeah, they've cloned your tone.

Yeah, accent and the funny way you say things like premiere

and that kind of stuff, so that it's very convincing.

And then your voice is reading out ads.

Now, as with everything AI, you start going,

sounds kind of convenient, I suppose.

Less time.

I don't have to do it.

Yeah, all those things.

But then you think, first ads, then what?

Opinions, podcasts, whole shows?

Who's responsible for the words that come out of a robot's mouth?

And is this just the tiniest little tip of what's to come with AI

and content creation?

Jesse Stevens.

I reckon it is because I have been interested

in the writer strike, which is sort of taking place in the US,

although it's popped up in other places around the world.

And what I didn't realize was that a big part of it

is about the AI discussion.

And when I hear AI and chat GPT,

I tend to switch off a little bit because it feels hypothetical.

I think it feels scary.

So you know how I've said on this show before

that I have a thing with climate change stuff where I just, I can't.

Like, I know it's bad, I'm recycling, I'm doing what I can,

but I just have to sort of switch off a little bit.

I feel the same way about AI.

Like the existential threat of climate change and AI to me feels similar.

So I'm sort of a bit like, no.

Yes.

Remember when all those big billionaires, the tech billionaires

we just talked about wrote a letter saying we should stop developing this stuff

because it's going to kill us all.

I'm scared.

It's terrifying, but it's interesting.

Because basically look at a film like Ant-Man or any Marvel film.

Can you explain though what the AI has to do with the writer strike?

Because I thought it was about the writers not getting paid enough by the streamers.

Yes.

Okay.

Think about the way that a writer's room works is you might hire eight people

to go into a room for three months and write Ant-Man.

Or strife like you did.

Or strife.

Right.

And there are human conversations and you plot and then you sit down

and you script and you go through drafting and drafting.

That is going to cost you as a production company a lot of money.

You can go to chat GPT and that's only the version that we have access to.

There are more advanced versions and it's getting better every minute of every day.

And you can type in, write me the next Marvel film.

And it will come up with an entire script in 30 seconds that has plot and script

and whatever.

And maybe this bit isn't right.

So you say to it, give me a different ending.

Do this, do that.

Now writers are terrified because they're going, well, if it is more profitable to use chat GPT,

why the hell would you pay me?

And so these are the conversations that are coming up, which then the interesting question

about creativity is something like a Marvel film is algorithmic in a lot of ways.

It is an algorithm.

It is formulaic because we know that this plus this plus this plus Paul Rudd's face

plus a superhero equals blockbuster.

A couple of self-deprecating jokes.

Exactly.

Which takes this shirt off.

AI could absolutely write and it's terrifying.

Why is it terrifying?

It's terrifying because it takes the human out of the creative.

Now I've just spent two years of my life writing a book.

I look at chat GPT and think that could write a better book than what I've just written.

Plus flaws, less imperfections.

What AI has, and this is what, and people go, oh, but it's weird now.

I asked it to write a script and it had this bit that was imperfect.

Like this is early, early days.

It has access to all the creativity, all the genius that has ever come from the human mind

since the beginning of time.

And it's able to grasp it and churn something out in seconds.

I think someone should turn it off.

Of course it's better than us.

Somebody needs to turn it off.

This is my question though.

I don't like it.

This is my question.

How much do we really care?

Because we could go on to a chat GPT and say, right, normal people meets where the Croodads sing in the style of Colleen Hoover.

And it'll do and it'll be a best seller and it'll be a great book.

Well, maybe.

Yes.

It's possible that that could happen.

Yes.

And that it would be better than any other book in the bookshop, hypothetically.

Do we care if a show or a book is mind blowing and is really compelling?

Do we think that we could evolve beyond needing it to be by a human?

I made the mistake at the after party, the rap party for Strife, the TV show which you wrote along with a bunch of other humans.

No robots.

And I made the mistake at the rap party of asking that question to some writers.

Does anyone really care if AI writes the script or if it's a person and they looked at me in not a happy way?

Of course, because we feel very threatened by it.

And the thing that's interesting about that is that the internet is gripped with the existential angst of the fact that the new wave of technology is going to put a whole different class of people out of a job.

Because technology has been putting people out of jobs since the industrial revolution, right?

And there are all kinds of jobs that have disappeared and don't exist anymore.

And we have been told lots of times that this is a very big part of the problem of what's going on in America politically and an underclass that never existed before and generations of unemployment and all the things.

And a lot of the people who write about things on the internet go, hmm, that's the way it is.

And now it's the people who are writing about the things on the internet whose jobs are likely to disappear.

So when Buzzfeed said that they were going to start using AI to generate articles, their stock price went up.

Because ultimately using AI is cost cutting.

It's about saving on resources and resources are human.

I mean, we didn't riot when self-checkout became a thing and people were replaced by machines in that context.

Although it shits me every time.

It does, but we do it because we have no other choice.

And it's the same with the amount of times in my life now that I find myself interacting with what is probably a robot,

whether that's on my banking app or when I make a phone call or automated blah.

What can I do?

Are there any situations in history where with technology you can put the genie back in the bottle?

You can't.

No, you can't.

And also, will there be disclaimers?

Like, will you be told?

I mean, this feels like a much further down the track version of the conversations that we were having in the early 2000s about airbrushing.

You couldn't put the genie in the bottle.

You couldn't ask people to stop airbrushing.

You couldn't ask advertising companies and magazine companies and now individuals to stop using filters on their pictures.

Because what we're seeing in the world is becoming further and further removed from humanity.

What's the effect of that on us?

This is exactly where my anxiety starts to rise because it's true.

At the moment, a lot of AI isn't perfect.

You know, I would rather talk to a human at the bank on the phone than the robot because often my problem, even though there's finicky little details that the robot doesn't understand,

I would rather have a human do my checkout because invariably the robot thinks I put something in the bagging area that I haven't put in the bagging area and then the alarm.

Like, you know, but as you've said, Jesse, it's going to get better and better and better.

But another ethical issue this brings up is who's responsible for what robots say.

Because if we were automated and somebody using Holly Wainwright's voice expresses an opinion on this podcast that is either it maybe it's racist,

maybe it's defamatory, maybe it's, you know, offensive to massive groups of people, but it sounds like me.

Am I responsible for that or is the robot responsible for that?

And no one's going to care whether the robot is or not.

I often think that about the deep fake images.

Like the ones that just went round about that.

I don't know. I'm sure a lot of out louders would have seen them.

They were very funny that went around of this supposed after party of the coronation.

And they'd done these really hilarious images of like, you know, Camilla and this cool velvet suit dancing and Kate wearing this and Megan wearing that.

And they were really funny.

But the truth of it is, if you see enough images like that, you start thinking those are the people in a strange way.

You're like, that is their personality.

That is what they would do.

It's like the pope in that puffer jacket, that very famous deep fake AI image that's gone around.

So people are altering your image and your reputation and your very essence without your permission.

And that's really murky.

The lore and the ethics around it are still extremely murky.

There's a song that was created in Drake's voice and Drake had nothing to do with it.

It sounds exactly like Drake.

It's a brilliant song.

It's going to make lots and lots of money.

For who?

I guess for a record company.

And I think it's trying to make a point.

And so my mates who work in the music industry are just going, we are done for.

Even, you know, like a jingle that goes on the back of an ad or something that used to be written by a person.

Now you don't have to pay a person.

You can just get your AI to do it.

So ultimately, and this is where the anxiety rises is what do we need all the people for?

Right.

That's the point.

You can kind of see the boo-hoo-ism of like, oh, now the arty creatives are worried about their jobs,

just like everybody else has been worried about their job for a hundred years.

And that that's a bit like, who cares?

But it's like, we don't need all these people.

What do we need them for?

And it's terrifying.

At least now we know what to do and Jesse goes on that late.

If you want to make out loud part of your routine five days a week,

we release segments on Tuesdays and Thursdays just for Mamma Mia subscribers.

To get full access, follow the link in the show notes and a big thank you to all our current subscribers.

Where did you meet this person?

I need some advice.

Well, everybody's doing that now.

It can be a way to work something out.

It's a bit of a dilemma.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing.

What's the big deal?

How can we help?

I had a really weird thing happen the other day that I really need to talk to you both about.

It was just weird and I can't work out if I acted weird or she acted weird and what I should have done.

And when I brought these to the podcast before, out loud as often say, Jesse,

you're incredibly rude and I learned something.

So that's why I'm bringing it here.

You mean about being on your phone at the checkout?

They didn't like that.

They did not like that I was taking a phone call while trying to buy something.

I have learned that is a social faux pas.

Don't do it.

So I was walking down the street and it was raining and I saw this young woman.

Is this recently?

This is like just before I got sick.

So maybe two weeks ago, right?

And she's walking down the street around my age and obviously she's on her phone because we're all on our phone.

And she was texting and she went to cross at a crossing thing on the road.

Did she get run over?

Well, she had her phone up and she didn't realize that there was a gap between the gutter and the road.

So she quite badly stacked.

Oh, darling.

Really, really hurt herself.

I have been there and I saw her and went, oh my God.

I honestly was like, has she broken her leg?

Cause she twisted her ankle and I was like, this is just awful.

Were you triggered?

I was triggered and I was like running over to be like, are you okay?

Cause you know when that happens and you're like, I just want to disappear.

But also I'm actually in a lot of pain and blah, blah, blah.

And I could see a lot of people were kind of going, oh goodness, is she okay?

And so I walked over like ran over to her and by the time I looked at her again,

she had crawled a third of the way across the crossing.

But she was still on her phone texting.

What?

She was on the floor and traffic was banked up, like on this main road.

And she was moaning in pain, but she was texting quite frantically.

And I was like, I don't want to interrupt.

And like if you were really hurt, would you have put your phone away by then?

So all these people were hovering to kind of go, do we descend and help pick you up?

Or is this your sign that you're okay?

In which case?

Get up.

Can we move off the road?

It was like an apocalyptic moment where it's like, has this woman broken her leg

and she has to send this text message before she like.

And she wasn't texting someone for help.

No, because it was like she'd been frantically.

I thought, is she fighting with someone?

You know when you're fighting with someone and you just can't,

it was like she was so disembodied.

She was so disconnected from her body that she was like,

I'm just going to keep sending this and I'll deal with my leg later,

which she was, she was going, ah, and messaging.

And I went, I don't know if I help you up.

And so I just kind of stood there for a while.

And then I kind of walked off.

No, you interrupt.

You interrupt.

Should I have interrupted?

Because no one did.

Everyone felt like that was a sign that she was okay.

So what happened?

You just left her on the road and walked away.

Kind of.

There were other people around.

Yeah.

But she was on her own.

She wasn't crying.

Was she still texting?

She was still texting.

And I feel like if you're still texting, then you're fine.

You're right.

If she's still texting, she probably is fine.

But I feel like the etiquette in that situation is somebody says out loud,

like to interrupt the texting spree, are you okay?

Do you need help?

And if she ignores you and keeps texting, you can walk away.

That's the point at which you can walk away.

Maybe ask for a number and text her.

Do you need help?

Do you need help?

But I think it's...

I wrote a piece this week that's in a subscriber segment about phone addiction

and about how I'm constantly telling my daughter,

like I'm existentially panicked about her use of her phone,

but I couldn't possibly live by the boundaries of phone use that I put on her

because I'm deeply addicted to my phone as many of us are.

And that's just such a perfect example of like...

I mean, we can't know what she was texting about.

It might have been something life and death important.

It could have been, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so, you know, I always think that when people are very judgy about,

like, look at that moment, the playground texting,

and you're like, you don't know what she's doing.

She could be doing a million things,

and most of them are probably important.

But I think that we are so deeply in that addiction

that it obviously seems more important that your phone

and your relationship with your phone is okay

than that your legs are okay in that situation.

But I think the etiquette question is you have to interrupt and be like,

are you okay?

And if she says yes, you're allowed to walk off.

And I suppose that says something about phones

that we become so oblivious to our actual social situation.

It was like she didn't realize that she was in a public place.

She was so stuck in that phone

that she didn't realize there were people checking on her

and that there was traffic banked up and all that.

It was...

But that to me speaks to what phones do to us.

So, like any addiction, it's about blocking and escaping.

So, the reason that you can walk along the street

without any sense of where you are,

just immersed in your phone,

and the reason why it's so different

to lie next to someone in bed who's reading a book

and someone who's texting or who's on their phone,

but particularly texting,

it's almost more intense than having a conversation with an actual human.

There's something about the act of texting that is very...

just grabs you.

And I know that there's that feeling,

I feel the same way as you.

We talk to our kids about getting off their phones,

but our kids will try to get our attention

and we won't give it to them.

We can't hear them.

It's like you're shut down.

It's not that you hear them and you choose not to answer.

It's that you're just not aware of them.

There's something about the depth of focus

and removal of you from your actual situation and environment

that is what's so enticing,

because nothing can compete with how interesting your phone is,

including falling over.

It feels so urgent in that moment,

and I have gotten out of the shower to text.

I have...

because it's like I have to in this moment,

and I often think,

oh, is that my ADHD that I've got?

I've got no impulse control,

and I need that quick fix.

But yeah, it's everywhere.

The thing about people rushing to help you when you fall over, though,

and sometimes that's mortifying is interesting.

I wonder if she was avoiding you.

Exactly.

When I've fallen over in public,

I'm upset if a million people stop and stare and help,

and I'm upset if no one does.

But get off the road.

When you say she was crawling,

was she crawling further into the traffic?

Yes.

Yes.

And she was safe.

People were checking,

because there were so many people around

just kind of signalling to cars going.

She was safe.

And was she crawling across the thing to get her phone?

Her phone had almost semi-fallen out of her hands,

and then she'd retrieved it,

and then sort of finished the text.

So it's like the old thing of falling over

and not spilling your beer?

Yeah, exactly right.

So I desperately want to know what she was texting.

Me too.

Out louders, we want you to send us your dilemmas.

We've been having chats recently

where we often tell a story,

and then we ask if we're the problem.

Just like Taylor Swift.

Is it me?

Am I the problem?

Should I have stopped?

Mum and May are asked that we say yes at the same time.

Holly and I are innocent.

Usually the answer is yes when asked.

Yes, absolutely it is you.

So what we want from Out Louders,

if you wanted to record a voice memo,

there's some great ones in the Out Louders group.

You can chuck them in the Mum, May or Out Louders Facebook group as well.

Otherwise, record a voice memo.

So we can play it on the show.

With your dilemma,

with or am I the problem,

and send it to us at outloud at mumandmayout.com.au.

We want to help.

I've got a recommendation,

and it's one I wouldn't have expected to give.

Did you guys watch the first season of Bridgerton?

Yeah, the second.

I loved it.

Didn't watch the second season.

I mean, I loved it.

It was easy to watch the first season, right?

Second season, I don't know,

just never got around to it.

I started watching Queen Charlotte,

a Bridgerton story the other day.

You know the fabulous Queen character in Bridgerton?

Yes.

It's a beautiful love story, basically,

and it tells the story of where she came from

and where the king is.

Is it sexy?

No.

Because the first season was sexy.

Oh, yeah, no, there's some sexy.

There is some sexy.

Oh, I went into Shonda Rhimes,

she said it's not sexy,

and I was like, well, I'm not going to watch.

Oh, no, there's some good sex scenes.

She has some good sex with the king.

It's actually this beautiful love story,

but also heartbreaking.

There's a twist I won't spoil it for you,

but it's just really great.

It's just really different to everything.

So I'm loving that.

It's on Netflix.

It's all about a Bridgerton story.

If you're looking for something else to listen to,

yesterday's subscriber segment was a bit

of argy-bargy between Mia and I about working from home.

Elfie Scott joined us,

and Mia was positing the unpopular opinion

that working from home is not better.

And I was arguing about why I thought it was life-changing,

and it's fun.

And I've got lots of DMs for people on both sides of this.

Lots of people agreeing with you, Mia.

Oh, yeah, I went hard.

It wasn't that unpopular.

I was unpopular opinion.

It's not better to work from home.

Listen to why I think that.

On the subs episode,

there's a link in the show notes.

You can listen right now.

Thank you for listening to Australia's

number one news and pop culture show.

This episode is produced by Emma Gillespie

with assistant production from Susanna Makin,

an audio production from Leah Porges.

Bye.

Bye.

Shout out to any Mamma Mia subscribers listening.

If you love the show and want to support us as well,

subscribing to Mamma Mia is the very best way to do so.

There is a link in the episode description.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.