Mamamia Out Loud: The Pressure To Post About Everything This Week

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Welcome to Mamma Mia Out Loud.

It's what women are actually talking about on Friday the 13th of October.

I'm Mia Friedman.

I'm back in the driving seat while Holly is away.

I'm Claire.

We can possibly go wrong.

See?

See?

Already we don't know our roles.

Sorry to have begun.

We're talking over each other.

I'm Claire Stevens.

And I'm Alfie Scott.

And on the show today, whether it's the atrocities of terrorism and now war or the voice referendum,

there is growing pressure for people to post their opinions on social media.

But not everyone is comfortable with that and we discuss why.

Plus, in the most baffling celebrity story of our time, a very famous woman who has built

her brand on honesty has just admitted she's been lying to us all for the past seven years.

And Jada Pinkett Smith, we have questions.

And of course, we wrap up our best and worst of the week, which includes a wedding, a beautiful

fat bear and the most epic red carpet couple of all time.

But first...

In case you missed it, it's the teenagers.

They've discovered a new social media platform that they find celebratory, positive and uplifting.

And it's LinkedIn.

A recent article in the cart revealed a new trend of adolescents who say LinkedIn is their

happy place, a sanctuary from the angry rants and dark humor and thirst traps of other social

media networks.

What do they do there?

It's really weird.

So apparently, Gen Z has really been growing on LinkedIn for a few years now.

And while Facebook use is going down, LinkedIn use is going up.

And it's because, especially in the US, high schoolers are looking at the increase in cost

of college, an unstable job market and being like, I got to grow my professional network

early.

It's the networking that you hate, but social media.

But Younger, can you imagine a 17-year-old going into your LinkedIn DMs and being like,

Hi, I'd like to join your professional network.

I can, because I get quite a lot of these, actually.

It's always university students are reaching out.

It's actually really sweet.

Oh, my gosh.

There's something.

Mia, are you encouraging your high school aged kids to join LinkedIn and really solidify

their professional network?

Well, you know how I always say, you've got to learn social media platforms.

If you don't know the game, you can't make the rules like for your teenagers and stuff.

But I don't understand LinkedIn.

It's like it's in my too hard basket, that and Snapchat, which I understood for about,

I don't know, a month, four or five years ago, when I forced myself to.

You can't be in everywhere.

So I'm not on Twitter or whatever it's called.

I am on LinkedIn, but I never post anything to it.

And also Pinterest.

They're my three too hard baskets.

I find LinkedIn really wanky.

I love it.

How do?

It's all just humble brags.

That's it.

But it's so sincere.

Which I adore.

You can post anything on there about your work and people will be like, well done.

Congratulations.

But you do it to everybody else too.

It's really sweet.

That sounds good.

It's been a horrible, awful week for many people around the world in real life and on

social media with the atrocities that have come out of Israel after the Hamas terrorist

attack and the subsequent war.

The images that you might be seeing in the news and on social media are almost beyond

comprehension.

But in the aftermath of the initial attack and now the war between Israel and Hamas,

a lot of conversations are being had more widely about who should be posting on social

media about it and what they should be saying.

What does it mean if you choose to post and what does it mean if you don't?

Now as three women who work in the media and post to social for our work, our experience

is obviously not reflective of most people who are listening right now, but also it is

because it's not just influences and celebrities and public figures who are copying it for

what they do or don't say on social.

It's regular people too, many of whom are fielding enormous pressure from people in

their social circle or their family or the people who are following them who are demanding

that they make statements or share content that supports a particular point of view.

This is also true of course for the voice referendum, which happens tomorrow.

And so in this segment today, we wanted to talk about it.

Claire, you saw a strongly worded post circulating by an online content creator by the name of

Haya of London.

Can you talk about that?

Yeah, so I've been seeing this sentiment sort of circulating and a lot of content creators,

journalists, actors, a lot of people basically saying, hey, stop pressuring me to post a

certain way.

I'm doing things in the silence that you can't see.

And I saw this post that sort of was clearly from the other side.

It's been almost six days since the news broke out of the Israel massacre on Saturday morning

by Hamas.

Five days, five days of photos and videos circulating of rape beheading, mutilating

and burning Israelis alive.

If you have not posted anything yet, you have a terrible publicist that you should probably

fire.

If you do post now, you still have a terrible publicist and they should have told you too

earlier.

And I found that sentiment quite bizarre.

And I do not want for a second to pretend like the tension and confusion around what

to post, what not to post is in any way comparable to the actual suffering of the people who

are in this war because it's not and it sounds ridiculous.

But I do want to point out that the pressure to post quickly and reactively is what leads

to widespread misinformation online or half truths.

And I don't think the presence or absence of a post on someone's Instagram is a barometer

of their morality.

I think we have to give people space to read and listen and learn and think critically.

Otherwise, you have moments like Justin Bieber posting a ruined, bombed city with the words

praying for Israel over the top and then people pointing out that that city is actually Gaza.

And you have Jamie Lee Curtis posting in solidarity with Israel and including a photo of a terrified

Palestinian child.

I think we're losing complexity and nuance for the sake of memification.

We have to be able to put something in the format of a meme or we can't possibly say anything.

So the argument against that is that can't we all agree that killing civilians and dead

children is a bad thing?

And we said, yes, hopefully we can all agree.

And so the people who are saying post, post, post aren't they just demanding that people

condemn what we all agree or what we should all agree is horrific?

I don't think that's what's happening, though.

I think that people are demanding that people who are posting are planting their flag on

either side of the conflict.

And I think for a lot of us, we are looking at this conflict and we are feeling desperately

heartbroken for people in Israel.

We are feeling desperately heartbroken for people in Palestine who are now bearing the

brunt of that war against Hamas.

And I haven't posted yet because I don't feel comfortable doing that.

And I think there have been incredibly nuanced posts that have been really helpful.

There's been Esther Perrell's post, which I think you've got Claire.

And I think that that really sums up how a lot of us are feeling.

But there has been so much tribalism, so much racism, so much hatred that I feel, like

at least from my perspective, really apprehensive to post anything because I think that saying

that you care about both sides right now isn't enough for a lot of people.

Mia, do you, as somebody who has a personal connection to this tragedy, are you aware

of and hurt by people who aren't posting?

Such a great question.

And I have been asked it implicitly and explicitly.

With Jewish people, there is a history to the trauma response because I've never believed

in silence is violence, that slogan about, if you say nothing, that's violence in itself.

I've never believed in that.

I think it's a really cheap slogan.

I agree with you.

I think that social media and even the internet flattens things so that you have to pick

aside, make a statement, say this, do it fast.

But I wanted to just share a little bit of a grab from a Jewish content creator and author

that I follow, Rebecca Wolf.

And she explained a little bit.

She said that she was stepping away from social media, but she explained a little bit

about why some Jewish people and Israeli people feel so strongly.

I think people don't realize that Jews grow up hearing never again and being told not

to trust people.

And, you know, because we are all related to Holocaust survivors whose friends ratted

them out, who said they would hide them and wouldn't.

And so there is like a very specific trauma response, which is why you keep hearing Jewish

people asking, begging people to speak on this.

There is a very obvious trauma response to Jews feeling like people do not have their

backs who aren't Jewish.

I thought that was really interesting what she said.

And I get it.

I also know that when I feel strongly about anything, when I feel in a heightened emotional

state, I need people to mirror that state back to me to affirm it and validate it somehow.

I recognize that in myself because I don't think it's fair.

And I also recognize it in others because it's also projected on to me as it is, I know,

to the two of you sometimes.

So, for example, around the time of Black Lives Matter and George Floyd, a lot of white

people wanted to say we're allies, but we don't know how.

And then we're all doing our black tiles and that was the wrong thing.

And I've also seen it with the voice where it's like, I'm a white person.

I want to say that I'm voting yes, but I don't want to make anyone that's voting no,

make me think that I'm accusing them of being racist.

And I'm just, do I even have the right to tell people what to do as a white person?

I understand that it's really, really hard.

And to me, it's not a test because I know, Claire, how you feel because you've told me

and we've talked about it in text and privately.

To me, you don't need to perform that, but I also wanted to explain, I think,

anyone in a situation like this, it also does feel like a bit of a test.

It's like, are you with me?

Because we feel like we're being attacked.

That from Rebecca Wolfe was when I heard that it was the first time it

crystallized for me a little bit why there is this pressure.

Like I hadn't got it.

Like, you know, initially I got a few DMs from people saying, why aren't you

posting about this?

And I wrote back and tried to say, like, this is such a disturbing,

distressing tragedy, and I just don't know what my own words can add to this.

Like, I don't know what to say.

But when I heard that, I thought, it's so interesting because you study

Holocaust history and you look back on that and you think, how did people sit

by and say nothing?

And I think that's what's so triggering for people involved in this situation.

I think the most disturbing thing I've seen is some people almost celebrating

what happened over the weekend, that it was the moment that Hamas was

inflicting this terror on Israeli civilians.

And there were people reframing it as an act of liberation.

When the fact is, there are so many truths here to hold at the same time.

And I think that's why people are finding it so hard to say anything because

we're aware that acknowledging grief for one side doesn't mean that we have a

lack of empathy for lives on the other side.

I don't think that necessarily a hashtag can sum this up.

I don't think a hashtag can sum up a war.

And I think asking it to is really reductive and dangerous and polarizing.

Yeah, I totally agree.

And I think that this has got to be one of the first times that I have ever

seen in a social media universe that is often very polarized, where people

on both sides of this conflict are explicitly supporting violence.

And I find that so disturbing.

I think that the idea that anybody is supporting violence in any capacity,

it feels so wrong to me.

And an article that's going viral at the moment that really encapsulates

how a lot of us are feeling is this article in New York magazine by a

writer called Eric Levitz, which is a left that refuses to condemn mass murder is doomed.

And I really feel like that has been such a well balanced response to everything

that's happening on social media this week and how just disturbing the response

has been from so many people.

I think what also needs to be acknowledged is that when you're in the public eye,

you have a lot of people following you on social media who you don't know,

which is different to if you're not in the public eye, they'll be friends,

they'll be work colleagues or people you went to school with.

They'll be known to you, the people who are following you pretty much,

even if they're one or two degrees removed.

But for us, and this sounds like a ridiculous thing to say, but it's important.

When you've got tens of thousands of people or thousands or even hundreds

of people following you, you don't know how they feel about anything.

And so when you post something, what fills up your DMs is a lot.

And so you have to think about whether you're prepared for that every time

you do that, because it is opening yourself up to when people are demanding

you comment on this issue or that issue, it opens you up to something that's a lot.

And I think on social media, we all decide what we do and don't post there, right?

Like we've all got our own personal ring fences around our social media personas.

For example, I don't post photos of my children on social media.

It doesn't mean I don't have children.

It doesn't mean I don't love my children, but I don't post photos of them there.

And in some ways that feels weird, because that's not my whole self,

because my children and my family are so much of my life, same with my husband.

Like I don't post photos of any of them, and that is like 90 percent of my life.

But that's because I've chosen that.

And I think some people choose to post certain parts of their life on social

media and not others, including their political opinions or commentary on the news.

And I think we've got to be able to respect that.

What's interesting is that now research came out a couple of years ago,

that as we've lost faith in institutions and governments,

we've now put our faith in our business leaders and the brands

that we like by extension influencers to speak our values.

And that's a lot of pressure.

So, you know, I remember in this presentation they were saying,

so now people are expecting the CEO of companies to speak out on the housing crisis

and racism and white supremacy and the Palestinian-Israeli war.

And that's a lot of pressure to put on individuals who have no expertise

in those areas and also no ability to impact change in those areas.

And you look at something like conflict in the Middle East,

and it is one of the most complex topics to intellectually engage with.

And the reason everything is so fraught that any kind of like pro-Palestine,

pro-Israel, free Palestine, I notice in statements that it's like,

I stand with Israelis and I stand with Palestinians.

It's like, well, why did you put Israelis first?

Like, there's so much that goes into it.

And it's like, when you're looking at human history,

you can look at the last 50 years, the last 100 years, the last thousand years.

And there's so much context that it is impossible to make any kind of statement

that sums that up.

It is. But what I should say about this week that's been really difficult

is that Israeli civilians were attacked.

It was a terrorist attack.

It was an unprovoked attack on civilians.

And what's happened has been a response to that attack.

And those two things aren't the same.

So the both sidesism also feels like it cuts deep.

That everyone's at fault and we should just have a ceasefire.

It's like Hamas took 150 hostages.

What do they want Israel to do to just send flowers?

Like, it's awful what's happening.

No one wants a loss of life.

But the acts of the military of a country versus a terrorist group

are not the same thing in the same way that Israeli government is not,

you know, representative of all Israeli people.

So I get all of that complexity.

And for me, it's civilians on both sides.

That's the part that I think most people cannot get their heads around.

That's it. On both sides, it is innocent civilians.

And the tragedy of war is that civilians will be killed.

But there would be no war this week

if a terrorist attack hadn't taken place on Israeli soil.

And that's just the truth.

And I know that there's other things and whatever, but that is the truth.

And I know that these are all hard things to put in a meme.

Because people could argue there would have been no war

if an act 50 years ago hadn't happened.

Like, if you study any war, the way that history works

is that everything is causal.

Everything is determined by something before it.

So the reason that I haven't posted anything is because I have not seen anything

possible to post that would not be inflammatory in some way to people.

And I feel like I don't know what to do

with the emotions that that provokes for people.

There's no answer to that.

Because also it's like, how does anyone return to social media?

How do you post about anything else?

And for those people whose job it is to post on social media

to promote their small business, or if that's what they do for a job,

what do you do?

Like, if you post about something, does it say that you don't care about something else?

Everything feels insensitive.

Yeah.

It's a fraught time to be on social media.

But I do think that the more we expect

influences and people whose job it is to kind of just have a platform,

the more we expect them to have nuanced, all-encompassing statements

on evolving conflict, the less clever we're going to be about this whole thing.

Shifting gears yet again.

This week, Jada Pinkett Smith admitted that her and Will Smith have been separated for some time.

The celebrity couple were married in 1997,

and over the years, they have shared intimate details of their relationship.

So this interview comes as the beginning of their relationship with Jada Pinkett Smith.

And over the years, they have shared intimate details of their relationship.

So this interview comes as Jada is set to release a tell-all memoir.

And a week before the memoir goes on sale, coincidentally, I'm sure,

she revealed that she's still technically Will Smith's wife,

but they've been living completely separate lives for the last seven years.

I don't understand anything about this story.

I know, I know.

Are you going to explain it to me, Alfie, please?

God, no, Clarice, I'm telling you that right now.

Jada sat down with US television journalist Hoda Kotbee for an exclusive TV interview,

and a snippet of that TV interview has been released.

Here's a little bit of it.

In 2016, you and Will decided that you were going to live completely separate lives.

It was not a divorce on paper, but it was a divorce.

So why do that?

Like, what was the reason?

I think just not being ready yet,

still trying to figure out between the two of us how to be in partnership, right?

And in regards to how do we present that to people?

Why did the relationship fracture?

Oh, why a fracture?

That's a lot of things.

Yeah.

And I think by the time we got to 2016, we were just exhausted with trying.

I think we were both kind of still stuck in our fantasy of what we thought the other person should be.

Jada says she considered a legal divorce, but could never go through with it.

I made a promise that there will never be a reason for us to get a divorce.

We will work through whatever, and I just haven't been able to break that promise.

So it is no secret that Jada and Will's relationship has been under a lot of intense public

gaze and scrutiny after last year when Smith slapped Chris Rock after he mocked

Pinkett Smith's alopecia while presenting at the Oscars.

The full interview with Jada Pinkett Smith will air on Friday night in the US as a one off TV special.

Claire, what has been your reaction to this news?

Why do we care?

I need to know less about Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith's marriage.

I didn't ask.

I have no further questions.

Is that the end of the segment?

Are we done?

I think it's the end of the segment.

I just I'm so confused, but I think this is a really interesting culmination of the age where vulnerability sells.

So you have to keep being vulnerable to the point where it starts to contradict itself.

So it's like she's done all these interviews and read table talk and all this stuff about her marriage.

And then it's like jokes.

We were separated the whole time.

This is what I don't understand, Claire, because there have always been rumors that they have an open marriage, right?

And then a few years ago, some guy came out and said August.

It was August.

Can you just remind us of?

Why do I know about August?

He's a rapper.

So he gave an interview where he talked about his love affair with Jada Pinkett Smith, who, by the way, Jada Pinkett Smith was

introduced to August by her son, which I find odd and is also a fact I didn't ask to know.

So there was the whole story about her entanglement.

And then they talked about it on Red Table Talk, and they had Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith.

And they kind of went into this whole story.

You and I were going through a very difficult time.

Yeah.

And we decided I was done with your ex.

Yeah, you kicked me to the curb.

I was done with you.

Yeah, we basically.

Marriages have that, though.

Yeah, we basically.

We broke up.

And then what did you do, Jada?

Well, you know, I think from there, you know, as time went on, I got into a different kind of entanglement.

But what doesn't make sense now is it's like, wait, where was the tension if you were separated?

And then August said he got permission from Will Smith.

Can we get the context behind that interview?

Sorry, why were they talking about it in detail?

Because August came out.

Oh, OK.

Because August came out.

Because it was a response to that.

Yes, yes.

OK, sure, sure.

And Jada Pinkett Smith was like, this was meant to be private.

So here's a conversation about it, Ed, to 12 million people.

And Will Smith basically said, he's not a home record because I knew and I gave my permission.

And she said, no, no, no, no, no, no, you can't give your permission, which is true.

But also they weren't made the whole thing.

Also, it's a weird conversation to have with your mum together.

You know what she said in that interview?

We just didn't quite know how to frame that.

You just say we're splitting up.

It's not hard.

I'm really interested.

The fact that she is so scared of divorce, yet she is separated.

So she's like, we can't possibly get a divorce, but we live separately and we're not together.

And have sex with other people.

And it's just bizarre.

But this also sheds new light on the whole Chris Rock story.

So I can't believe it was only last year that Will Smith...

It feels like 10 years ago.

I thought it was a decade ago.

Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars after Rock made the G.I. Jane joke about Jada Pinkett Smith.

Jada, I love you.

G.I. Jane too.

Can't wait to see it.

All right?

This job was a nice one.

OK, I'm out here.

Uh-oh, Richard.

Oh, wow.

Wow.

Will Smith just smack the shit out of me?

Now we know, A, they were separated and B, according to a new interview with Jada,

Chris once asked you out on a date because there were reports that she and Will were getting a divorce.

And apparently she said to Chris, no, we're not getting a divorce.

That's just a tabloid story.

And Chris was like, oh, sorry, sorry, I thought I could ask you out.

And it's like, one, you actually were separated, so the tabloids were a little bit right.

And two, is it that Chris Rock and Will Smith had tension because Chris Rock had tried to be with Jada?

Is that like a normal thing to do if somebody's separated is to ask them out?

I'm so baffled by this story, but the response online has given me so much joy

because I read this story and I thought same as you, Mia.

I went, what, why do I know this?

And I didn't ask.

And then like on Twitter, everybody is just like, I didn't ask any of this.

There's one tweet where somebody's just written, Jada Pinkett Smith comes out and says she's never met Will.

It seems like we're just backtracking so many layers.

But I really do think that the vulnerability piece here is interesting,

that you can vulnerability yourself into a hole until your life no longer makes sense.

I am also as somebody who's never really engaged with the Pinkett Smith.

Like, there's something about that that's just so funny.

I'm sorry, I'm kind of delirious.

But like, what is the mythology around this couple?

Because I don't understand why they're really culturally relevant anymore other than the slap.

Is that really bad?

I don't understand why they're so famous.

I think they've created it through red table talk and through having these really open conversations with their kids.

They're very kind of earnest.

Quite publicly.

I'm with you. Like, in some ways, I'm like, this is just a fun little fluffy piece of sugar to just bounce around my brain.

And then I'm like, but I don't even care.

I know, I know.

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

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

It's Friday, which means it's time to wrap up with our best and worst of the week.

We've got our highlights and our lowlights.

Elfie, please kick us off with your worst this week.

OK, I'm concerned about how much detail I'm going to go into with this

because it's something that I have told everybody in the office because I'm a baby.

But I've had such a bad week of medical issues.

You know what? I'm going to go into it. I don't care.

You're all listening. Please, I really want to know.

I love hearing about other people's medical issues.

It's like my special interest area.

OK, so I went home last Monday because I got like a stiff neck and I was like, oh, it hurts so bad.

I went to the doctor with it the next day and he was like,

you could be having an aneurysm or you could have a blood clot.

So he sent me to the hospital with such urgency, by the way.

Can I say that he was like, can you call me when you get to the hospital?

So I know that you've made it.

I'm like, hadn't you been in hospital with a migraine the week before?

The week before, because I did see that on social media.

And you've got KFC and I was like, I don't know how to like

tell you that I'm jealous about the KFC, but I'm sad about the hospital element.

But I was like, oh, that KFC looks good.

Anyway, they could have told me that it was delicious, admittedly.

Yes, I've been in hospital twice in two weeks.

Brain is fine.

Did the scans got hideously sick with some kind of sinus infection?

They saw my sinuses on the skin.

They were like, they're full of bubbles.

It's so weird. Was that related to this stiff neck?

Apparently, I don't know.

I don't have any clear answers on this.

And by the way, two days ago, I was flossing and I pulled out half my tooth

because it came out with a filling.

Was that also from your sinuses?

No, that was just, it's the witch's curse that has happened to me.

Your sinuses fell into your mouth.

You're falling apart.

I'm falling the fuck apart.

And I still feel sick and I'm just so demoralized by it.

And I feel like at this point, I have a deeper appreciation for people

who live with chronic illness than ever before.

Because I've been doing this for a week and a half now and I feel so upset

and anybody who has to deal with this long term, God, you are incredible.

Here's something I reckon everybody learns at some point.

The uncertainty of medicine.

Everybody has a moment.

You're in hospital for something, whatever.

There's some abnormal tests.

And the vibe is we're ruling things out.

Yes. And that's it.

And then you leave being like, am I like actively dying or am I dying later?

Like, what's the vibe?

I know. And then also it's that feeling where like you're sick.

And then somebody tells you you could be like really sick.

Like it could be very bad.

And that knocks you off kilter because you're like, oh,

is everything that's happening to me related to some fatal disease

that is inside my body at the moment? Who knows?

Nobody's given me an answer.

Anyway, the worst best of the week is my brother got married last night,

which is so sweet like on a Thursday night.

So he lives in London and him and his wonderful girlfriend

went to Hackney Town Hall and they got married and the photos are so gorgeous.

Oh, did you feel sad that you weren't there?

I feel a bit sad that we weren't there, but it is made up for in the fact

that they're probably getting married in Italy next year.

So I'm like, they'll be fine.

Oh, absolutely love.

Yes. That's a great excuse for a holiday.

Yeah. Well, it was still just so nice to see, you know,

your sibling being in love with a person that you love and it feels great.

It's beautiful.

I'm going to go next.

And guys, I'm breaking with protocol and doing two bests

because there's just been so much worse this week.

And I'm going to go quite trivial.

You've been warned.

My first best is Beyonce attending the premiere of Taylor Swift's

Euras Tour concert movie, which happened yesterday.

I don't even know where it was somewhere in America.

And I think the movie comes out today.

I thought it was very cool that she turned up because, of course,

there is history there.

Remember, Taylor was collecting her award and Kanye got on the stage.

No, Taylor.

I'm really happy for you.

I'm let you finish.

But Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time.

We all imagined there was beef there.

Yeah. Well, no, because straight away, Beyonce came out

and was in the audience going, no, Kanye, no.

And afterwards made a statement and said she was mortified.

But obviously that was the start or deep into friendship that has gone on.

And I just thought those two women have really shown the ability

of female artists to flex their power and move economic mountains

in terms of this movie for Taylor Swift has already done 100 million

in pre-sale tickets to the movies expected to do about twice that

by the time it's finished.

Beyonce is doing the same thing in about four weeks with her concert tour movie.

This is a new thing where you go to the cinema and watch a concert

that maybe you couldn't afford to go.

Sure, you couldn't go to another country.

Anyway, I just thought it was very cool.

And my other best was that I got a compliment on my outfit.

I've had a couple actually this week from my daughter.

What were you wearing?

We need to know specifically.

Anyone that has a teenage daughter or has been a teenage daughter

knows how hard it is and what a tough crowd that is.

I would never have complimented something my mom was wearing.

No. Would you do it now?

Because I still hold back on compliments.

Every now and then I go nice top.

So it is quite golden, you know.

And so my styles changed a little bit lately for reasons that I'm still trying

to unpack in my head.

But I was wearing a pair of jeans and a coloured linen top and normal flat shoes.

And she went, I like that you're not too outrageous today.

Things match.

I said, how do you think I normally look?

And she said, like, you just picked up random things on the floor in the dark,

which is not untrue.

So I'm taking those to my hand and compliment, but still a compliment.

Well, I'm not as optimistic as Mia ever.

So don't worry, guys, I've got a worst sometime most weeks.

I'm like, can I have two words?

No one lets me.

So I was listening to ABC Radio this week and they were interviewing

everyday Aussies about how they were going to vote in the referendum

or how they've already voted and they interviewed this one guy.

This is what he said.

I want them to have a voice, not someone else to assume things

and say things on their behalf.

So First Nations Voice to Parliament would be a voice made up of indigenous people.

Is that something you're against?

No.

So that's what the referendum is posing.

So have you already voted?

Yeah, I have, yeah.

And so you voted no?

Yeah, that's correct.

What did you think the referendum was proposing?

So I thought it was more of a land grab type of thing.

Well, I heard some rumours.

And where did you hear that?

Just TikTok.

Oh my god.

I feel like, so I heard that on the radio and I laughed, I laughed and I laughed

and then I went, that is the most troubling thing I've heard in so long

and I hate that I think that's indicative of a lot of people turning up to vote.

Disinformation is so effective.

Is that they don't know what they're voting on?

They don't know.

And a platform like TikTok has just done so much damage.

And I feel like in a few years' time, if this doesn't pass in a few years' time,

we'll think, why didn't we vote yes?

And everyone will be like, TikTok?

Like, I've found that really, really distressing.

And I'm going into the weekend incredibly anxious and negative.

But my best.

My best was sent to me by an outlouder named Shannon, who clearly knows me really well

because a female brown bear named Grazer has been voted winner of Fat Bear Week 2023,

which is an annual competition to see which Alaskan bears can pack on the most pounds

before hibernation season.

It's an online poll and Grazer beat 11 other bears, including a big boy named Chunk, to

be victorious.

And the best part is that Grazer's win has been put down to the fact that she was single

this year.

And a ranger from the park said she had no cubs to defend and feed, so she could just

concentrate on herself and job one, which is getting fat, and she did a great job of

doing that.

I love this.

It should be explained, because this is quite an iconic thing that happens every year.

These bears are not in a zoo.

They're in the wild, and yet they're known to rangers, so it's very engaging content.

Very engaging.

She got the angles right with getting the salmon in the river.

And so I'm really happy for her and her single-girl summer.

Look, we might put a picture of Grazer up on the Out Loud Instagram.

I would like that.

She's got this week.

Yeah, I want to be like single-girl summer.

Our icon is Grazer.

Out Loud is, if you are wanting to take a bit of a break from the news, from social, as

I did this week, I've been really struggling to get into a book, and this week I did,

so I wanted to recommend it.

It's a book that was recommended by someone on social media.

I forget who.

It's called Green Dot.

It's by an Australian author called Madeleine Gray.

Here, Steven is clawing through her mid-20s, working as an underpaid comment moderator

in an overly air-conditioned newsroom by day, and kicking around Sydney with her two best

friends by night.

Instead of money or stability, she has so far accrued one ex-girlfriend, several hundred

hangovers, and a dog-eared novel collection.

When she meets Arthur, an old and married colleague, intoxicated by the promise of ordinary happiness

he represents, here falls headlong into a workplace romance that everyone, including

her, knows is doomed to fail.

It's so good.

It's funny and clever and interesting, and I just absolutely loved it.

We'll put a link in the show notes.

If you're looking for something else to listen to, on yesterday's subscriber episode, Holly,

Mia and I discussed Victoria and David Beckham's tight-knit family unit and the fact that Holly

watched it and thought, that weird family reminds me of some weird families I know, and it was

me and Mia's families.

And she was like, you're weird, discuss.

And that's what we talked about.

Because Holly says that she couldn't be...

She said it's her worst nightmare.

Let's be honest.

...being in a relationship with somebody who was in a family that was that enmeshed.

That was the word we came up with.

A link to that episode will be in the show notes.

Thank you for listening to Australia's number one news and pop culture show.

This episode was produced by Emily and Gazillus.

The assistant producer is Tali Blackman with audio production by Leah Porges.

Not that anyone asked, but I'll be voting yes.

In fact, I already have voted yes tomorrow.

Remember to vote if you haven't already.

I'll be voting yes.

You'll see me at the polls volunteering.

Oh!

My little shirt.

How are you voting, Alfie?

I'm voting yes.

You'll have a yes shirt on.

Yes, I will.

Take care, everyone.

It's a little bit rough out there, sending lots of love to everyone.

We'll see you next week.

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.