Mamamia Out Loud: The Smear Campaign Against Sophie Turner Has Begun

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Mamma Mia Out Loud!

Welcome to Mamma Mia Out Loud.

It's what women are actually talking about on Wednesday, the 6th of September.

I'm Holly Wainwright.

I'm Mia Friedman.

And I'm Claire Stevens.

And on the show today.

The latest celebrity divorce comes with a heavy dose of millennial nostalgia.

But why is the wife the one getting the villain at it?

Also, more than 4,000 women in one Australian state have submitted their negative birth

stories to a landmark inquiry.

So what if anything needs to change?

And oops, wrong chat.

A group chat truth bomb that will change the way you make plans.

But first, Mia.

In case you missed it, everyone is really mad with Qantas right now.

One of Australia's most trusted and adored brands is now one of the most distrusted

after a few weeks of pretty bad revelations about the company.

The Australian Consumer and Consumption Commission, the ACCC, launched action in the

federal court on Thursday against Qantas, alleging that the national carrier had engaged

in false, misleading or deceptive conduct by selling tickets for more than 8,000 already

cancelled flights between May and July last year.

And the ACCC is seeking to penalise the airline by more than $250 million.

There are like very hefty fines for doing such things.

Yesterday, the CEO, Alan Joyce, stepped down saying that the new CEO, a woman called Vanessa

Hudson, who's been with the company a long time, needed some clear air to help rebuild

trust with its customers.

But Joyce is expected to be paid about $24 million this financial year, including a

$10 million bonus and his base salary.

This group recently announced its first four-year profit since COVID and it was a big number.

It was about $2.5 billion.

So lots of cranky people.

I have been sort of seeing snippets of this story and then I got really, really into it.

And the idea of a man being paid $24 million for a financial year in this cost of living

crisis when they laid off so many people during COVID is so distra- I just don't see

how anybody needs that kind of money.

I mean, the way capitalism works is that if you run a company and create that much money

for shareholders, then you get a big chunk of cash to say thank you.

But what he did was naughty and Bridget McKenzie called him out on it because he did a thing

where the years that Qantas didn't make money, he kind of postponed his bonuses and then

he took them all when the company was profitable again.

He also had sold about $18 million worth of Qantas shares recently.

This is a little bit of an example of we get to all blame Alan Joyce now for all of this

because he stepped down and as we know, the person coming into his job is a woman.

So we could definitely make the glass cliff analogy there.

But also we need to remember that it's not like Alan Joyce just sat in a room and just

made all the shit up on his own.

I think sometimes when we get these storms of negative publicity, it's very convenient

to be able to scapegoat one person rather than looking at maybe like the entire system.

The entire business and the government that assisted them.

This week, it's been reported that after four years of marriage, one of the Jonas Brothers,

Joe Jonas and actor from Game of Thrones, Sophie Turner, are divorcing.

And what everyone's talking about is the direction this narrative is going with the demonization

of Sophie Turner.

Reports started earlier this week with rumors that Joe Jonas had retained a divorce lawyer

and the way these celebrity stories work, whenever you hear that one party has retained

the divorce lawyer, the idea is that they're the wronged party.

So that was interesting that that came out.

People were combing through photos and noticing images where Joe and Sophie weren't wearing

their wedding rings, but then he'd be wearing it.

And then the day the divorce news officially broke, he wore his ring on stage and Sophie

was in the audience.

Tell me why I need to care.

I don't even know really who these people are.

I know Joe Jonas, the Jonas Brothers, something, something.

I am also too old for the Jonas Brothers.

However, this is what I find fascinating.

Once we learn about a celebrity divorce, the speculation begins about who's at fault.

And months ago, it was reported that Joe Jonas was caring for the couple's two young children

pretty much all of the time, even though his band was truing around the US.

An article in the Daily Mail said, it's unclear where Sophie has been or what has caused the

arrangement, leaving Joe to reportedly take the lead.

Maybe it's that he's the children's father, but anyway, Sophie, shockingly, had actually

been working.

She's the lead in an upcoming British drama currently being filmed in the UK.

But sources have told TMZ she likes to party, he likes to stay at home.

They have very different lifestyles.

I would like to translate that.

The thing about this, Mia, and I'm with you about the Jonases, it's interesting though,

when I used to make Lowbrow, the pop culture podcast I made that was about a generational

split.

The Jonas Brothers for young millennials and older Gen Zs are very important, very iconic.

They had crushes on them, but they followed their personal lives massively.

And they are a band, if we can call them a band, I suppose we can, who have managed to

transition sort of from teen poppy pop dudes to having quite successful careers.

Their concerts sell out, everyone was so excited, they come into Australia next year.

And they've also had this kind of image overhaul in the past couple of years as real wife guys,

because they're all married now, right?

Obviously, Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner, their wedding was huge, they had two weddings.

Priyanka Chopra is married to Nick Jonas, also that wedding was huge.

And the other one's married, but I can't remember who too, no offence, sorry.

And their wives are in their music videos, they're in their photo shoots, they've really

kind of hung their hats on the fact they're not boys anymore, they're men, they're dads,

right?

As soon as I started seeing these headlines this week about Sophie and Joe, and again,

Joe couldn't pick him out of a lineup, but Sophie, I know because she's an English actress

and she's Sansa Stark, it was so clear what the narrative is.

Because as you say, Mia, the dog whistles here are partying, which means drugs.

Like I'm not saying that, I'm not defaming Sophie, but that's what in tabloid world,

it's coded language for drugs.

Mental health is being thrown around a lot too.

And this is one of those things that's such a double-edged sword.

We talk about how great it is.

Young women in particular can talk about their mental health struggles now, but if they do,

it will almost certainly be used as a weapon against them a little bit further down the

line.

So they're talking about mental health, they're talking about partying.

As you've pointed out, Claire, there's been a lot of reporting about how he's been looking

after the children.

Let's be clear that they've had two kids in three years.

How much partying is Sophie Turner doing?

Really?

So whatever's really going on here, what's interesting, I think culturally, is the narrative

Jonas has definitely taken charge of the PR machine.

He's got more money, he's got more resources behind him.

He obviously wants to fight about custody.

So it's really interesting to watch like the PR machinations kicking in.

I'm obsessed with the competition that seems to be playing out about who is working more.

So TMZ, in their report about this, listed Joe's accomplishments, writing, he's gone

on tour with his brothers recently and is scheduled to perform through the winter.

And then they just added, Sophie's done some TV slash movie stuff in recent years but isn't

nearly as active as she was during her Game of Thrones days.

So basically making it sound like she's sitting around doing nothing.

He has a demanding career.

And why isn't she at home with the children?

These things are very much often played out in the press.

But what aggravates me is that even if nobody's leaking to media, there's always this default

assumption that if a woman is famous and works, that somehow she's not able to also be a mother

or take responsibility for childcare or share that responsibility with her partner.

And so it sort of comes back to this idea that I think we all internalise in a way,

and it's the root of mother guilt, that a good mother is one that's with her children

all the time.

I think that that's a weak point for us culturally because I know that's what a lot of my guilt

is from.

It's from this idea that I absorbed through our culture, even though my mother worked

outside the home, that I couldn't be a good mother.

That idea of being, oh, I'm a full-time mum, meaning I'm at home all the time.

Even if you're not with your children, you don't stop being their mum.

I think that's 100% true.

But also, if you look at Sophie and Joe's wedding pictures, and let's remember, these

are young people like Sophie Turner is 27 now, they've been married for longer than

three years.

I think we're obviously together before.

So we were talking about young people.

They had a wedding in Vegas with a really famous DJ playing.

They clearly all liked to an inverted commas party.

I don't mean that in the dog whistle sense, but what I mean is clearly their lifestyle

because now that's another world that's being thrown around a lot, that Joe has problems

with Sophie's lifestyle.

Their lifestyle, it was that, partying, DJs, clubs, big lavish weddings, lots of celebrity

friends.

You can see the tone shifting in this reporting that for a young mother, that's not true.

That's not appropriate.

Do you know what I mean?

The other thing about this couple is that they were the fun couple.

They were the cool, fun, social media couple.

So they were going out, looking glamorous, you know, doing red carpets, having a fun

wedding.

Sophie Turner did a roast of Joe Jonas.

The purity rings.

For those of you who don't know, purity rings are worn to demonstrate that you're abstaining

from sex before marriage.

And the Jonas brothers, they all had them.

Look, Joe Jonas wasn't just sticking his fingers in some dumb metal rings, he was sticking

his fingers in co-stars, cactresses, and even a supermodel or two.

It's been this whole narrative of them being this fun, light couple.

And then clearly the assumption was that when they have these two little girls, that Sophie

Turner will step back from her career and not be that fun person anymore and go into

the role of mother.

She won't like going out anymore.

She won't like partying.

But the other thing I'm thinking about with this story is, is it possible for two parents

to both have big careers?

To me, I'm like, OK, so Joe's touring and Sophie is working on a British TV show, which apparently

is not as important.

Do you have to have a kind of lead parent in the home sense and then a lead person in

a couple who's focusing on career?

I mean, it depends.

I think that there's so many different factors and money is one of them, but even money can't

substitute for the fact that there's only a certain amount of hours in the day, right?

And particularly if you have a job that takes you literally out of your home, like for days

and months on end.

And I don't think this all the time about actors.

And then if you're a touring musician, you're away a lot of the time.

And we saw this with the breakup between Tom Brady, the American footballer and Giselle

Buenschen, the model.

And she basically stopped work while they had their kids, because he did have to travel

around all the time.

And then he was meant to retire.

And the expectation was that she could then resume something of her career.

And then he retired for a minute.

And then he unretired.

And that's when they got divorced, because if it's important to you to have one of you

with the children or being that lead with the children, you might be able to do it in

chunks.

I'm more on, now it's your turn.

And you see this with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, and they just took their kids all around

wherever they went together.

Even if you're not famous and touring, it's very hard to have two big careers in one household.

Well, a hundred percent, it is a hundred percent.

And I think that you often see in these kind of relationships that when kids are little,

the Hollywood actors can take them on the road, you know, like they just say, we're

a traveling camp.

You know, you hear Hollywood star saying this all the time, but then they start school.

So I don't doubt that's complicated.

But I just would caution people who are invested in celebrity breakups, which we all are to

a point.

But as soon as I started seeing those headlines on Monday and all that workmates at Mamma Mia,

they were upset about this split.

And I was like, watch her become the baddie.

Watch the demonization of Sophie Turner begin.

And that's exactly what's happened.

And I just would always caution people when they start reading those headlines about celebrity

splits to just, just think about that.

Who's leaking about what here?

And the question is always, who's bigger at the moment?

And he is more in the spotlight at the moment because they're touring and they've had this

resurgence.

And she's working on a show.

Game of Thrones ended a few years ago, whereas I think if this was when Game of Thrones was

on, it might be that she's the wronged party and she's the one we're focusing on.

I find the leaking so interesting.

And I think you're right.

But I have to be a little bit suspicious about the demonization of Sophie Turner.

Thousands of harrowing submissions laying bare the impact of birth trauma.

I got bullied into forceps without consent.

I was not informed my son was in distress.

I have nightmares most nights, recurring flashbacks and struggle to leave my daughter.

That's the ABC reporting on a landmark inquiry happening in New South Wales right now.

So more than 4,000 women have submitted their stories to the inquiry.

And just to explain quickly kind of what it is and what it's for, it started on Monday.

It's called a select committee.

And basically it means it's a special group that's been put together with people from

all kinds of perspectives to discuss the issue of birth trauma.

And then what will happen at the end of it is a report will be published that has various

recommendations about what needs addressing and what things might need to change, right?

What's birth trauma?

If you're wondering, it's a term that refers to the emotional and psychological injury

experience during or after childbirth.

And as you heard in those read by actors submissions in that grab from the ABC, very

varied.

Among the 4,000 submissions this committee is working through, many of them are from

women and mothers, but some of them are also from midwives and obstetricians and a really

wide range of experiences on these issues, right?

It's very complicated, but some of the main things that are being discussed here are the

term obstetric violence, which has become a more commonly used term recently.

There was a report that's part of this inquiry that is disputed that claims that one in ten

women who they interviewed had said that that's what they'd experienced, obstetric violence.

But the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists actually

say we need to really be careful about using that term.

They say why RANSCOG acknowledges that interventions can cause harm or psychological stress to

the patient, the term obstetric violence implicates that the obstetrician intended

the harm, which is unfair and vastly incorrect.

Also, there's an argument about whether reported birth trauma is on the rise because of this

combination of factors, one of which might be a stretched health system that means that

continuity of care, which is what nearly everybody involved in this, obstetricians,

midwives, women themselves, agree would be the ideal situation, which is that a pregnant

woman sees one health professional or a group of health professionals throughout her pregnancy

and birth is almost impossible to deliver.

And also the New South Wales AMA says an unrealistic expectation of the birth process has

been exacerbated by social media and the prevalence of birth plans.

They say messaging from social and mainstream media often delivers a false perception that

a woman will have a high percentage chance of following a birth plan and achieving a

normal or perfect birth, their submission said.

They also said that really the anecdote to this is for pregnant women to be more educated

pre-birth about all the things that might happen or go unexpectedly during birth.

The argument against that, though, is that we might terrify everybody.

So Claire, I'm not sure how I'd feel hearing all this and all these submissions as a pregnant

woman, but I'm asking you, are you happy this inquiry is being held?

I saw a headline the other day about a woman saying she was traumatised by her birth and

it had ruined her life.

And I thought, oh goodness, I don't think this is helpful for people who are pregnant

to think that that's the norm.

Because even this inquiry, it's not the norm.

It's too many women.

It's far too many women, but it is not the majority.

I am so glad that this inquiry is happening, though, because being a woman of childbearing

age, the experiences I have heard from friends and family about what can happen during

birth. And again, this is not about women versus obstetricians and midwives, because

in the inquiry, there are obstetricians and midwives saying, yes, I was part of a traumatic

birth and this is what happened.

And it was factors that was outside their control.

But to hear from women, things like I almost died in childbirth, far too many of my friends

say that.

So many of your friends say they nearly died in childbirth.

What do you mean?

So there is an increase in post-birth hemorrhaging.

I read an article recently about how that has become more and more common and the

rates of basically almost dying after childbirth are going up.

For what reason?

They're not sure.

It's C-sections and it's vaginal deliveries.

But basically that hemorrhaging, which in this inquiry, there's quite a few stories

about that, women having given birth and then hemorrhaging and losing a whole lot of

blood and waking up the next day on life support.

Like it's absolutely terrifying.

So I have friends who have almost died in childbirth, a lot of friends who say there

wasn't time for pain relief or there was some kind of clerical error around getting

it, that seems to happen.

They're like, oh, actually no, you're not eligible for an epidural or they've come

up with a plan to get a certain pain relief medication.

And then when they enter the hospital, it's not available.

And then just before they're about to give birth, they're like, oh, this might work

and it's too late.

People being sent home and then things start happening and they have no control over it.

Basically, just a lot of experiences that I think should be listened to and taken

seriously because you hear those and it is absolutely not the case of obstetricians

or midwives or anybody in the medical world choosing not to do the right thing

for women, but it is about the system.

And when it's under resourced and it's not planned in a way that is the best for

women, that's what happens.

The idea of the continuity of care, if you're in rural or regional Australia, it

is so, so, so hard to get that.

And that's where a lot of these complaints have come from.

They're less so in major cities and more in these rural and regional hospitals

where you go in with an idea of how you want your birth to go and nobody knows who

you are. It's the first time you're meeting them and they're not listening to you.

Something else I've sort of been thinking about is that I'm 32 and I have spent my

whole life terrified of giving birth and it is not a normal medical procedure.

It is not like going in to have surgery on your leg.

It's not like anything else.

And I don't know if we are treating women with the sensitivity and the all

well-rounded care that's needed given that this is a really, really

different type of medical experience.

There's a lot to unpack with this issue and a lot to unpack with even the

examples that you just gave.

I would say that I'm also glad that this inquiry is happening and I would also

caution against demonising medical professionals.

I mean, the term obstetric violence, I also find disturbing.

I'm not saying it doesn't happen that there aren't bad doctors or that things

aren't done deliberately.

But the idea that doctors are deliberately trying to hurt women is one

that I think is very dangerous and very unfair to those medical professionals

who are just trying to do their jobs.

The examples that you gave, Claire, are really interesting and I think that

they fall into two categories.

Like, as you said, I think one is the systemic problems.

So my second birth, I didn't have a birth.

My only birth plan was that I wanted to have an epidural.

And when I got to the hospital, it was public hospital.

They tried to send me home.

I ended up labouring in a public, like in a shower, in the waiting room.

And then when I was finally admitted, there was no anesthetist available.

So I couldn't get an epidural.

Now, I ended up having my baby, she was fine, I was fine.

But I would say that I was traumatised by that.

And what traumatised me, it wasn't anybody's fault.

What traumatised me was I thought things would go a certain way and they didn't.

And so, yeah, I would say that that was a degree of trauma and it did

mean that I had trouble bonding with my baby for the first little while.

But again, that was a systemic problem.

There weren't enough anesthetists there, right?

But it was also I wasn't prepared for an outcome that I couldn't control.

Like, I just assumed if I wanted to have an epidural in the same way

that some people just assume that if they don't want pain intervention

or they want to have a vaginal birth, that that's what will happen.

So I think that there is a degree of trauma in your expectations not being met.

That's what they're referring to when they say that the popularity

and the prevalence of birth plans might be exacerbating this because that means

that more women are planning exactly how they thought it was going to go.

So then there's more gaps.

Yes, prize. Yes, exactly.

And I think trauma can live in that surprise.

But Sophie Walker, who hosts Australian Birth Story,

she wrote a brilliant piece in The Sydney Morning Herald about being one

of the three Australian mothers who suffers from birth trauma.

And she really argued against that idea that birth plans are the problem.

She basically said birth plans are the opportunity for pregnant women

and their support people to get educated, make informed choices,

list their preferences, pain relief interventions.

And she said, we don't want a perfect birth.

We just want to feel safe and supported.

I don't think the only problem, Claire, if I can interrupt for a second,

the only problem with that, I mean, birth plans to me are about expectations.

But the problem with that is that I think that no one says in their birth plan,

forceps, suction, those decisions have to be made fast.

And you pointed out something that I think is so important,

is that giving birth is unlike any other medical situation, right?

For two reasons. Firstly, two lives are at risk, not just one.

Secondly, the patient's conscious.

So when these quick decisions are being made, unlike in an operation

when you're under general anesthesia, the patient has a say.

Not that that's bad, but it's certainly different.

I'd say, thirdly, the stakes are so high.

The stakes are so high for lifelong complications if something goes wrong.

And decisions have to be made very, very quickly.

And the third reason that I think it's different

is that no one goes into their appendectomy or their boob job or their

cancer surgery expecting a beautiful experience

with candles and music and wanting to make an Instagram out of it.

So you go into those operations going, this is going to be shit.

I'm going to feel shit afterwards.

And so I think that even just that gap, people say quite rightly,

Holland, and I know we have this argument all the time.

I see birth as a medical procedure and I know that a lot of people don't.

A lot of people say it's a natural thing.

It's a beautiful thing.

It's the day I meet my baby, all of those things.

But I think, again, in that gap, a lot of trauma can occur.

See, the research shows that birth plans actually do facilitate

shared decision making and a woman's sense of autonomy.

And Sophie Walker says, what we're talking about is not a woman sitting there

being like, my birth plan is that everything will be perfect.

And like, that's not her idea of what a birth plan is.

You should be creating a birth plan in conjunction with a medical professional

so that when you say, I want no intervention, they'll say, these are the reasons

we have to do intervention.

These are the choices that you actually have.

Something I've found fascinating throughout this process is there are things

you can say no to, and I don't think most women know that, that going into

childbirth, there are things that you're allowed to say, actually, no,

can we wait a bit longer for that?

Actually, no, I don't want to do that.

You're allowed to say no to anything.

But sometimes you saying no can then result in bad outcomes that can cause you

further trauma of creating a birth plan.

And that's part of health care is having those conversations, knowing

what the risks are, but still having an element of decision making.

I think the thing that's really difficult about this conversation that

means that it's so hard to have it without very heightened emotions

is that there's such a broad spectrum of what we're talking about here.

And what really raises my hackles, and I know a lot of other women,

is this idea that women have become too invested in the birth experience,

which I know is a conversation that you and I have, Mia.

And they really should just shut up and let us get on with it, right?

Now, I know that is not what any good medical professional thinks,

but there is an undercurrent of that attitude that goes through a lot of this stuff, right?

So whenever we write about this issue on Mama Mia, we are overwhelmed with stories

and they vary from really serious things to things that are much less serious

like I was looking at one today and there was a woman who said that her

obstetrician was busy and irritated that they'd been called in and refused

to come in until the absolute last moment and then rolled her eyes a bit

because the woman was wanted her obstetrician to come in sooner.

And the following day, the OB told the woman, I thought you were going to

make me miss school, pick up.

Some women are really good at bearing down and pushing you not so much.

Now, I know so many people who have those kind of experiences of the way

that their obstetrician or midwife might talk to them.

That is not necessarily what you'd call trauma,

but in the most vulnerable moment of your life, because the real tension here comes.

Birth is the most ordinary and the most extraordinary thing that will ever happen.

Right? It happens constantly all the time.

It's the reason we're all here.

There's overpopulation, like people are giving birth constantly.

And yet for you personally, this is the most vulnerable or otherwise

that you're ever likely to be.

And as you've said, Claire, the stakes have never been higher.

So every word that's said to you, every look you get,

every look that the professionals are exchanging because they're getting on with,

you know, like, oh, I think this thing is happening and we need to.

It's so heightened and important.

It's really difficult because a lot of these discussions,

it's sexy in the media to pit women against obstetricians or to pit women

against midwives or even better to pit midwives against obstetricians.

That's something that we really like to do.

But really these health professionals are doing a job and they're being asked

every day to bring extraordinary levels of sensitivity to this job,

like never to be having a bad day, never to be short with anyone,

never to be, you know, terse with their communication,

which seems unreasonable on the surface.

But then on the other hand, there is no more important job

than helping a woman bring a baby into the world.

I really understand why so many women feel so dismissed by this

probably outdated, patrician idea of an obstetrician is a dude

who's irritated because you've pulled him off the golf course or in black tie

because he's come from some fancy fundraiser and you're just an annoying

woman with too many opinions.

And I think so many people struggle a lot with that stereotype.

I think that point that you make, Holly, about that woman's example,

kind of picking up on an obstetrician's body language and energy,

being a form of trauma.

The interesting thing about this is that there's kind of physical trauma.

There's the fact that some people get fourth degree tears

and there are physical things that can be incredibly traumatic.

Then there's psychological trauma and something that causes trauma

in one person will not cause trauma in another.

And the kind of increase in post-traumatic stress disorder

after childbirth is something really important to look at

because in terms of trauma, we know that the preexisting framework

a person brings into a potentially traumatic event matters.

And I think that's what this inquiry is about.

It's saying things like continuity of care and having somebody

that you trust in the room and feeling like you'll listen to

even when plans have to change.

That stops it from being traumatic, even if the exact same

series of decisions are being made.

That's what I hope will be achieved by this inquiry,

that women get more information, there are more conversations that go on

and that it becomes something where women's voices are heard

and discussions are had rather than things being done to women

who are just meant to be silent.

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

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

To get full access, follow the link in the show notes

and a big thank you to all our current subscribers.

As more and more of our interactions with our friends and family move to group chats,

we're starting to notice certain problems that can arise.

And this week, a viral TikTok by a random person called Catherine

articulated a very specific question of etiquette in the group chat.

Here's what she said.

I am becoming anti group chat.

I think that it visualizes dissent.

And what I mean by that is when someone drops a random proposal into a group chat,

like, hey, anyone down to go to the park on Thursday,

that message becomes quite vulnerable to the first person who chooses to respond.

Because if the first person that responds is like, yeah, I'm down, I'm in,

then a positive sentiment gets attached to those plans and the group chat.

Maybe it picks up momentum at snowballs into something bigger.

But when it goes the other way and the first person replies back negatively,

like, I can't go, sorry, I can't, I have plans, I'm busy.

Then it kind of snowballs and picks up momentum the other way,

where sometimes I'll be the last one in the thread that hasn't replied yet.

And I'm like, damn, no one else can go.

So it's up to me if this plan happens or not.

Oh, this is very, very true.

So Catherine's plan, she says at the end of this TikTok,

her plans now to text one person privately,

get the confirmation that they can come to whatever the event is that she's planning.

And then they create a group chat together, asking the others to join them,

which sounds like a lot of extra steps and a lot of hard work.

Holly, what do you think about the politics of the group chat

and how the power of that first person to influence the way it all goes?

It's one of those things that you hadn't thought about.

And then I was like, yes, yes, yes.

I know I'm an outlier here, but I'm not a massive fan of group chats

because I think, you know, within most group chats,

there's a level of how well you know everybody.

There's a kind of disparity there in how you might talk to someone

or how polite you have to be or whether they're going to take you out of context

because they can't hear your tone.

So I actually did this the other day, right?

We wanted to have a barbecue at our place, spring and whatever.

And I started a group chat with a group of friends that I was like,

thinking of having a barbecue on this date.

And then someone came in and said, oh, on that date,

I can't because I'm at this school fundraiser.

And I was like, oh, shit, so am I.

OK, so I've got that date.

All right, what about this date?

And then my friend's like, no, that won't work.

What about this date?

So then she's planned the date that we're having a thing at my house.

And it's like, oh, OK, and then I'm like, I just think that actually

those kind of making arrangements by committee are really hard.

But what she actually nailed here is the vibes around something.

If you put in a let's go for dinner on blah and everybody

immediately jumps in and going, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

We all think, yeah, that dinner is going to be amazing.

The vibes of that dinner are very strong.

But if there's a big pause and no one answers for ages

and then one person comes in and goes, sure, I think I can do that.

The vibe is pulled down.

The risk here for conflict and insult is huge.

I always find the most awkward thing.

So you've got five people in a group chat

and someone's put out a dinner invitation.

One person immediately is like, oh, I can't come.

But the others can.

Then you change the date and everyone can come except for one other person.

And it becomes obvious that one person not being there

matters more than another person.

The hierarchy of the contest.

It's not a vibe if so and so isn't there.

But it is still a vibe if so and so.

Then there's the dilemma of when one person cancels.

Yes, or says you go ahead without me and you're just like, oh, no,

but I don't want to do that without you.

It was very dependent on that individual being there.

The other thing is I've got a group chat at the moment

where I mean, I have never initiated a group chat in my life.

So Holly, I applaud you.

Although you doing that group chat, like I feel uncomfortable about it

because you're not a group chat.

I make so many.

That's why I screwed it up.

And I picked this date out of the air that I couldn't even do.

And it's like, actually, don't worry about it.

I'll never do it again.

I'm always making group chats.

I made one with you two the other day.

You are.

Mia likes to really divide the group chat by theme, by like.

So true.

Group. It's very good.

But I've got one at the moment where somebody started a huge group chat.

By the way, there should be a rule about the maximum number of people

in a group chat because this just had too many people.

It was like 15 people and is like, hey, let's do this thing.

No one's responded.

It's been like a week.

Oh, that's awkward.

But I think it's because there's too many people.

If I'm like, yeah, I can go and then somebody else that I don't know is going,

then it's just not the event that I want to attend.

Because no one wants to commit.

No, no one wants to commit because they don't know.

What do we think is the solution to this?

I totally agree that what it has to be is somebody getting another person on board

so that there's already a preexisting vibe.

So you are going me.

Two people does not make a vibe.

No, it does, actually.

I genuinely think it does.

If it's me and Sarah are doing this thing, who wants to come?

OK, it's you and Sarah.

I feel safe. I feel safe in that.

So I think you've got to kind of recruit somebody else.

I also think we have to accept that sometimes there's going to be a fail rate.

Like you're going to put stuff out there and sometimes it's going to work.

And then other times you're going to put it out there and it's going to fall flat.

I've got an example of when Holly breached group text etiquette all the time last week

or the week before.

We were meant to have a group dinner with Holly, me, our friend, Kate Debrito

and our friend, Jackie Lan.

Thanks for the thanks for the invite.

The four of us are a combo.

You have to be Gen X. You're too young.

We have these dinners every so often and it's always very dependent on Holly

because she lives not in the city and so it's dependent on when she comes down.

So she gave the dates that were possible.

We all agreed on the date.

No, this is fine.

And then she had to cancel because she realized she double booked, right?

Yeah, which is fine.

These things happen, but the breach of etiquette was that she's then responsible

for rebooking it into the diaries and she didn't pick that up.

She didn't pick up that baton.

I fell over.

OK, I'm going to do that straight away.

You know, we've been talking about modern etiquette.

That is a very important one.

You're absolutely right.

The person who fucks the plan is responsible for recreating a new one.

I totally agree.

But it is always very interesting to find out whether or not you are the vibe

because in that situation, if it's like Holly can't come like something happened

a few weeks ago where I think you guys were going to visit Luna and Holly couldn't come.

It's like, thing doesn't happen because Holly is actually important part of the vibe.

But what if?

How would it feel for Holly if it's like, oh, I can't come.

OK, well, we're all going along without you.

I told them to go anyway.

I told them to go anyway because I didn't want to be responsible

for blowing up the glory of the Generation X dinner.

So I was like, you guys go without me, but they didn't.

Holly, I think that's so flattering that you are so crucial to the vibe

that the event actually hinges on your attendance.

I don't think I'm that crucial to any vibe.

Out loud as we want to hear from you.

How do you navigate group text?

What are some other points of etiquette?

Maybe we need to create some kind of manual of group text.

Absolutely. That's a great idea.

Clay, you've got a recommendation before we go.

I do.

It is a book called The Villain Edit by Alicia Aitken Radburn.

So I read this a while ago.

I got an early copy of it.

And once I picked it up, I could not put it down.

It's a memoir about Aitken Radburn's experience on The Bachelor

and then two seasons of Bachelor in Paradise.

Would I remember her?

Would I know who she was?

If you googled her right now, you'd remember her.

So she was on the 2018 Honey Badger season of The Bachelor,

which I don't want to say it was the last brilliant season of The Bachelor,

but it really may have been the last brilliant season.

She was on that and there were three girls kind of cast as the mean girls.

And she was one of them.

She got what she refers to in this book as The Villain Edit,

but she's also incredibly self-aware and acknowledges that she did things

and said things she shouldn't have done.

It's all about basically the experience of being on the side of getting The Villain Edit.

The book starts with her reading all the commentary about herself.

So the whole time she was on the show, she read everything from Instagram comments

to DMs to random anonymous forums.

And she talks about the night she got eliminated.

She was reading everything.

And at 3 a.m., she read a comment that said, you're a bad person.

And that was the one that she couldn't shake.

But what's really interesting about it is that then she went on two seasons

of Bachelor in Paradise and her reputation got totally rehabilitated

and everybody fell in love with her.

And it's basically about, well, the power of the edit,

but also the lesson that you're not defined by what people think of you

and that actually what Australia thinks of you matters very, very little

to what you think of yourself.

I don't know about that.

I interviewed her, Claire, but you'll be excited to know.

If you can't be bothered out loud as to read the book.

I interviewed her for Next Week's No Filter.

Yes. And I cannot wait to hear that interview because she also worked in politics.

Yeah, it's kind of a fascinating story of learning who you are

and to love yourself externally to all the validation around you.

So I absolutely loved it.

It is far more intelligent and nuanced

than you would think a book about reality TV could possibly be.

When I was away last week, you guys recorded a subs episode with Jesse

about her first eight weeks as a mother, which is delightful listening.

You can listen right now.

It includes her experiences with Mumgild and the email.

This is so good. I don't know about this.

She sent Luca, her husband, an email at six weeks to change the game.

Great episode to listen to.

We'll put a link in the show notes for Mummia subscribers.

And if you're not a subscriber, please support us by becoming one.

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

This episode was produced by Emily Gazillas.

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

We'll see you tomorrow. Bye.

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