Mamamia Out Loud: This Group Chat Is Ruining My Life

Hi Mamma Mia listeners, Beck Melrose here, dropping into your feed to talk about our

new Mamma Mia podcast, Things You Didn't Learn in School.

Things You Didn't Learn in School is the show that helps you realise that we weirdly

all graduate without the basic life skills we actually need.

Should I buy or rent?

How does voting work?

Should I be investing my money?

How do I even talk to my mechanic?

And most importantly, where the hell do I park my car?

I'm Ann Burnham and I'll be the first to admit we obviously still have some things

to learn.

But that is where our show comes in.

And we know what you're thinking, Beck and Ann, why are you even making a podcast when

we can just Google all of this?

Because you haven't Googled it, have you?

No.

So we rounded up experts on everything from finance to fallopian tubes in a cute little

curriculum just for you.

Things You Didn't Learn in School is a new podcast by Mamma Mia.

Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.

You're listening to a Mamma Mia podcast.

Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast is recorded

on.

Mamma Mia is powered by our subscribers who enable our team of female journalists to

continue telling stories that matter to women.

So if you love the podcast stories and newsletters that we create and want to show us some love

and support, become a Mamma Mia subscriber today.

To get in on the exclusive podcasts, articles and subscriber perks, all you need to do is

visit mamamia.com.au forward slash subscribe.

And a big thank you to all our current subscribers.

We love you and your support.

Hello and welcome to Mamma Mia Out Loud.

It's what women are actually talking about.

On Friday, the 6th of October, I'm Holly Wainwright.

I'm Mia Friedman.

And I'm Claire Stadens.

And on the show today, there's a new viral referendum ad in your feed.

So who made it and will it work?

Also, have we reached peak group chat and argument that texting is officially out of control?

And best and worst of the week, which include the mistaken identity of Claire's breasts,

Mia's strong feelings about Buskers and the most holly.com TV show of the year.

But first.

Because Paris prepares to roll out the Olympic welcoming mat, some unwelcome visitors are

already in town.

In case you missed it, there is a nightmare wanting Paris right now.

And yeah, it's a bed bug crisis.

The government has been forced to step in to calm an increasingly anxious population

about bed bug infestations around the city, in hotels and Airbnbs, and even on buses and

trains and cinemas.

Cinemas is what got me.

Tiktok videos have gone viral of people showing the insects, which are the size of an apple

seed burrowing in different places.

That's quite big.

I thought they were smaller.

Me too.

Me too.

But then I went really deep and looked at photos.

You can see them.

And apparently, bed bugs have been an increasing problem in France and other countries for

decades because they've become resistant to insecticides.

So they can't be killed.

And then they're spreading more quickly because of the rise in travel.

So this is the new pandemic.

Yes.

I feel like it's nice to have a health crisis that we can laugh about.

Yes.

Although if you've got bed bugs, which I assume are itchy, I thought they were the same as

scabies.

No, I feel like scabies is more hectic.

Well, I've had scabies a number of times, which is like full body lice.

That's the only way I can describe it.

So when I used to travel a lot for work, back when I worked in magazines, and I was going

down to Melbourne a lot, I think Melbourne might have had a bed bug crisis that they

just kept under wraps because my husband was also traveling to Melbourne a lot for work.

And we kept coming back, each of us infected.

And you have to put this lotion, it's itchy all over you, particularly between your fingers

and toes.

And you have to put this lotion all over you and like sleep in it.

And I remember one really bad time when we also had nits and we had a knit scabies double

whammy.

And that was a low moment in our household.

I like just blaming Melbourne for it.

Some fun facts about bed bugs, they can stay alive up to a year without a meal.

Their presence has nothing to do with hygiene, they just feast on human blood.

And when they bite you, there's these large red and itchy lump things that fade to a red

spot.

But it's a big issue ahead of the Paris Olympics, which are nine months away.

It's a bit of a PR issue that they're like, we can't be a bed bug city.

It's not very fresh.

No.

It's not trashy.

No.

You've already seen it, I'm sure.

But in case you've been trapped under something heavy today, there's a video going viral

about the voice campaign that's taking quite a different approach to the ones that have

gone before it.

We're going to play you a little bit of it, but let me set the scene.

Three friends are sitting in a pub.

One of them is Indigenous.

In fact, it's Adam Briggs, universally known as the rapper Briggs and he's a writer as

well.

And the other two are young white women, played by comedians Jenna Owen and Vic Serbst.

The young women are commiserating with Briggs about just how hard it must be for him right

now because the voice referendum is so hard and so complicated and so confusing and maybe

it doesn't go far enough because, you know, it just doesn't make sense.

And so at one point, Briggs asks the women if they've googled what the voice proposition

is.

Here's what he says.

Have you googled it?

The voice, the proposal, the referendum, have you googled it?

You know what?

I have not had heaps of time.

Busy.

Yeah.

Pretty much.

Life.

Yeah.

Have you got your phone?

Yeah.

Can I see it?

I'll help you out.

Oh.

Let's see what you do have time for.

What was the last thing you searched?

Well, we'll just probably just...

Oh.

Did Aaron leave Love Island 13 because he had gone to Ria?

Did he?

Yes.

He then finds the definition of the voice, hands it to the girls and they read out the

proposition in full.

The video was made by Nash Edgerton, who's a director who's made many things and it's

not actually affiliated with the Yes campaign at all.

It was made by him when Briggs gave McCall about it in response to the very thing we

were discussing on the show last week, that the No campaign has been extremely effective

on social media and on TikTok in particular, stirring up the so-called progressive No vote

among young people.

And Briggs says that after seeing all that, he called Edgerton and asked him if he'd be

up for making a short film to counter the No vote and this happened.

It was filmed in half a day, edited out within a week and now it's absolutely everywhere,

being shared by really big names like Tyker Wattini and Jason Momoa and of course by your

auntie and your sister and by me.

No doubt it's funny and clever, but Claire Stevens, will it work?

I don't know if it will change minds.

I think the thing blocking any fruitful conversation about this referendum has been contempt on

both sides.

There's all this anger and all this demonization of if you're voting yes, if you're voting

no.

The thing I love about this video is that it's built on humour and that it's a conversation.

It's a conversation between people who are thinking different ways.

I worry a little bit that people might see it as painting No voters as ignorant, oblivious,

not caring about important things when I'm sure a lot of No voters are thinking that's

not how I am.

I've considered this very, very thoroughly.

We know that simply having people like Jason Momoa and Tyker Wattini share a video isn't

necessarily going to move the needle.

It sounds like a big deal, but when you think about the Trump-Clinton election, think about

all the celebrities and all the media that came out supporting Hillary Clinton, it didn't

make a difference.

In fact, the yes campaign have very deliberately avoided going that route because they learnt

from that.

It pisses people off when you have a lot of celebrities because the claim from some people

who are in the no camp are, oh, it's about elite people.

It's not about grassroots.

Exactly.

But I think when I saw this video, I breathed a sigh of relief.

I thought, I feel like this is what people have been waiting for.

I feel like the content that I want to share about the yes campaign kind of hasn't existed

and there's some guilt in that as a content creator because I'm a little bit like, well,

should I be creating the content?

Should we be creating the content?

But then there's so much tension around, well, can you do that if you're not an Indigenous

person?

I think the best line in the whole video was when Brig says, OK, so you would vote no to

this progress so that we can reconvene an underscores point in the future and then go

far enough.

That is exactly what I feel like I've been trying to say.

It doesn't make sense.

All the people poking holes in this and essentially making perfect be the enemy of good, like

saying, but how about this?

How about this?

I think that articulated something that so many of us have been trying to say.

I'm such a loser that when I saw it and it said at Senator Briggs, I was like, oh, I

don't know this senator.

What political party is he from?

True story.

Even I know who Briggs is, Mia, so, you know, I'm a little bit cooler than you in one regard

at least.

He looks familiar.

What worked about this is that it was funny, humour is so important.

And I think that there has been frustration that the yes campaign just has not been able

to have that viral message.

You know, I know a lot of people who have got criticisms of the yes campaign, it's easy

to from the outside and it is, to be fair, a lot easier to make a negative campaign and

if you don't know, vote no.

But what I loved about this was it took a swipe at that because it's like if you don't

know.

Google it.

Google it.

Someone has also said, what about all those people who were like, do your research around

COVID?

Like, have we gone from like, if you don't know, just do this.

We were telling people to go and do their own research before.

What I think has always been a risk with the yes, which is something that happened to Hillary

Clinton and something that we've talked about behind the scenes and not necessarily on the

show is the risk of alienating everybody who's either undecided or who's maybe a soft

no.

Because they say there's like a hard no, soft no, soft yes, hard yes, right?

So hard no and hard yes aren't changing their minds.

Soft no and soft yes, and obviously all the people in the fence are still changeable.

They're still a little bit in play.

Hearts and minds can still be won in this last week.

And remember with Hillary Clinton, when she referred to Trump supporters as a basket of

deplorables.

You could put half of Trump supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables.

Trump went so badly because there are a whole lot of people who were on the fence and they

said, don't you call us that?

And I think that the yes campaign, there are people who are racist who will vote no, but

not everybody who votes no is racist.

In fact, there is also what's called the progressive no, which are the people like Lydia Thorpe

who are so far to the left that they don't think it goes far enough.

So what I loved about this video is that it just addressed in a really light way every

single counter argument.

And I was reading a behind the scenes and how it came about.

No one involved in it got paid.

The two women are actors from the feed.

They were also involved in writing it.

It was all done like in one shoot.

Everyone done it at the time.

Yeah, it just feels very authentic because it is.

This referendum is sort of a coming together of so many things that we've been talking

about over the past year because we've talked a lot about how chaos is a very effective

strategy in our time at the moment.

Like if you can just throw a lot of noise at the wall sometimes, whether you are a influencer

who's trying to get out of a scandal, whether you're a politician trying to distract from

something you've done, whether you are trying to make a political point.

Chaos and confusion is a really winning strategy and it's a really winning strategy on the

no side and for good reason because it is complicated.

It's what this ad targets beautifully is that in theory, changing the constitution sounds

like a complicated thing that we don't understand.

So create a lot of chaos and confusion around that and you've got a winning strategy.

So I love the simplicity of this.

It's the only way to stay on message.

It's so disheartening.

Where I live, there are yes signs that have been defaced around my town.

Everybody in social media comments is so febrile.

We talked about this on Wednesday.

It feels like a really combustible situation and so humor and simplicity, it just feels

like a really good way to go.

I feel like Briggs has been the leading voice on the yes side for me as somebody who absorbs

media in terms of having a sense of humor about it being really common sense.

He has a viral tweet that I saw early on that I thought really spoke volumes and it says,

on referendum day, you won't be able to vote yes and then no progressive, no racist.

There's not three choices.

There's not three choices.

There's two choices and he's like, we already live in the no and I want to know what it's

like to live in the yes.

And I just think that voice that...

Oh, that's an interesting line.

Yeah.

He's really been an interesting advocate at this moment and I think having humor and

common sense, he is passionate.

Because he does get frustrated, but it's not name calling, just engaging people in conversation

that I'm finding really compelling.

The group chats are out of control.

Earlier this week, we talked about a story that I still can't really wrap my head around

and I'm going to stop trying about two Kardashian sisters, one of whom is Kim and has a group

chat that's called Not Courtney, that involves everyone in the family except Courtney has

his stuff.

All of your friends call us complaining whether you think they're the ones going to you, they're

all coming to us on the side saying the opposite to us.

So we're all confused and we're on a group chat that's actually labeled Not Courtney

so we know and have to funnel what your friends are saying to us.

And so this week, after we recorded that episode, I changed our Mamma Mia Out Loud group chat

to Not Holly.

And for a second, I was like, is Holly really not in there?

I was like, oh my God, finally we get to talk about Holly, but she's still in it.

I can't tell you how much it's made me laugh and now when I want to find that group chat

every time I have to search Not Holly.

It is some of your finest work.

Some of my finest work.

It was very funny.

But coincidentally, there was a story in the Atlantic this week which I absolutely loved

and shared in all my group chats, which basically said that if you thought social media was

intense, group chat culture is out of control because there are so many different kinds

of group chats.

There are group chats of your friends, your family, housemates, different friend groups,

subsets of those friend groups.

If you're a parent, you'll have a group chat for perhaps your child's class.

You might have another one for your child's whole year.

You might have just a group chat that sprung up because five of you were going to go out

to dinner, or perhaps there might be a group chat around a wedding that was organized in

your family, or a smaller group of friends say, Not Holly.

Maybe we were planning a gift for Holly's birthday.

We weren't.

Co-workers, co-workers from previous places, book clubs, another book club's extended family.

This person just said it was a guy who wrote this, which I thought was funny, but he said

the sheer number of them can be overwhelming because as people have moved away from social

media, for all the reasons we've been discussing, it's too febrile, it's too much argy-bargy.

They've moved on to group chats, and he writes, By the time I wake up, the notifications have

already started rolling in.

As I'm going to bed, they're still coming.

In between, I try to keep up, but all it takes is one 30-minute meeting before I've somehow

gotten 100 new messages, half of them consisting of lol or write.

I scroll up and up and up trying to find where I left off like I've lost my place in a book

that keeps getting longer as I read.

I think this is so great.

Hol, can you relate?

I can hard relate because I'm not as group chat positive as some of my friends, and

Mia hates it about me, let's be honest.

She's always like, lift your game in the group chat, Hol.

I respect that you are not a big group chat person, I do respect that.

I find them overwhelming, and it's interesting because like every parent listening, as you've

just spelled out, Mia, I'm in so many group chats to do with my children, and they are

generally very useful because sometimes you'll try and organize something like Matilda's

in a new football team, and the parent is like, I don't want to start a new group chat, everybody's

got too many group chats, but then it's impossible to organize anything without the group chat.

So we always end up going, oh, they'll go, maybe I'll do it on Messenger instead of

WhatsApp, or before you know it, it's like, okay, let's just shut up and have a group

chat.

I'll give you one second about the school-related group chats, because this is something that

some out louders will be familiar with, others, including Claire, will not.

There's a particular excruciating nature to a group chat around school because it exposes

different parenting styles, and I'll give you a live example.

So at one of my children's schools, and every day without fail, there would be people in

the afternoon who would be like, Johnny's left his book at school, can anyone take a

photo of what the homework is because blah, blah, and it would go every single day.

And then one time, I just lost it, and I went, how about our kids learn to remember their

homework, and if they don't, they just deal with the consequences.

Silence.

This is the thing about group chats is they can be every bit as sort of confrontational

and conflict-driven as other forms of social media.

I made a mistake in a group chat the other week.

I won't talk about the topic because it will reveal too much, but one of my friends put

a news article in a group chat I have with some of my Sydney friends, right?

And I went, wow, great news, and then everybody just wrote, not great news, terrible news.

This is really bad for us, but I was like, oh, shit, I've said the wrong thing.

And then I was like, okay, sorry, obviously I don't understand the context.

That was stressful.

I think there's another thing which is that not everybody has lots of really engaged,

exciting group chats, so it can build the same level of FOMO as other social media platforms

can.

And the last thing I'll say about it is we've talked about this a lot.

One of our differences is Mia loves constant stimulation, whereas I get really stressed

with constant stimulation, so I need some peace.

And when I'm trying to write or I'm trying to do something and my phone is just going

blah, blah, blah, blah, like I get really anxious.

So those are my issues with group chats.

I talked on the show a little while ago about what happened when I once turned off notifications

on my messages and then I ended up missing a dinner and the person was messaging me saying

she was there.

And you can't turn off notifications because there will be something important that you

miss.

But what I'm finding is that in terms of my addiction to my phone, which is horrific

and debilitating, group chats are the kryptonite.

So I can delete Instagram, TikTok, Facebook.

I have an app where I have blocked them.

Like the freedom app.

Yeah.

So they're locked, so I can't access them.

Does very little for my screen time because I'm still so embedded in all of these chats.

And I am not good enough at boundaries or self-regulation or anything like that to impose guidelines

about it.

I think, Holly, you're really good at it.

Like you can tell when we're in the group chat having a chat, I'm like, I bet Holly's

riding.

I bet Holly's doing something important with her life.

Meanwhile, we're just planting the veggies.

Like the amount of productive hours that have gone down the drain from me screenshotting

something on Instagram, putting it in a group chat and having a conversation about it for

20 minutes.

But it's also this logical fallacy that when somebody is accessible in the group chat,

you kind of think everybody is, like it's really easy to always be present and think

that that's normal, but it's not because you do actually need to tap out in order to do

other things.

Yeah.

To have things to talk about in the group chat.

Exactly.

Yes.

So what are your rules?

What are your rules?

I think what works for me about group chats is I've got a couple of group chats that are

really prolific.

So we won't talk for months when it pops off.

You know, you'll look away and you'll look back at your phone and there's like 37 messages

and you'll be like, oh, I know what group chat's gone off or you'll wake up in the morning.

What I like about group chats is that they're different to one-on-one chats because if you're

not there, there's no expectation that you'll participate.

So that's why Holly can just not engage in our group chats because she's riding or living

a life or sitting by a stream and watching her vegetables grow.

That's fine.

There's so much disdain from my co-hosts.

Whereas if Holly gets back and there's just in her and my direct messages, there's the

expectation, oh, shit, I've got to engage.

So I think as long as you take the pressure off yourself.

That's good and bad because there's diffusion of responsibility in a group setting.

But I find personally, like I've got a few group chats where I'm just not active in it

for whatever reason.

And I feel bad in those situations that I'm not contributing enough.

And it's because I'm like, I don't have to, there's enough people in here.

I also reckon there's something incredibly narcissistic about my group chat behaviour,

which is so many group chats where somebody will be like, I did this thing, here's a picture

of my dog.

Here's a thing I saw online and I ignore it.

But when I have something I want to say, I'm like, guys, assemble, assemble everybody.

That's so true.

Excuse me.

I have something to talk about.

I've also think that group chats very much suit your quick mind and way of communicating

Mia because sometimes we'll be having a debate in the group chat and I'll be like, I don't

have the time or the energy to explain to Mia the 25 ways in which she's wrong about

this particular thing that she's arguing about.

So she's like, I won.

So we'll get to it next week when I see her face to face because I love her face to face

Arjibarj with Mia.

But Mia loves a text-based Arjibarj and she's very good at it.

So it suits you.

It's like why you used to like Twitter before Twitter went down the toilet.

I've got a lot of time.

I don't have time to make those 25 points.

But Mia does.

And she will.

The other funny thing is when you're trying to get a group chat going and it just won't

go, it's like an engine that won't turn over.

Like I keep trying to make a group chat with my parents and my brother happen and I just

can't.

Like I have a group chat with my parents and I have a group chat with my brother and I

assume they talk to each other sometimes, but I just can't get the family group chat

happening.

Yeah.

My family group chat is too dominated by the women.

Like mum put something funny in this morning.

She saw a sign that said for a chicken shop called Brown Chicken.

She was like, how appealing.

And I'm like, mum, this is actually funny.

My brothers would never engage.

And I'm like, we need to be a family.

This is the other thing about group chats.

It suits show-offs of which I am one.

So to me, a group chat is about the banter.

It's about me entertaining myself and trying to make my friends laugh or trying to add

value, like gain status by posting a really cool link for everyone to see.

Like to me, it's that I get status and I get self-esteem from giving good group chat.

But I think really I'm just annoying.

You're not annoying.

The darker side of group chats, I think I have been probably not as social in the last

few months as I usually am.

I just prefer being at home because I'm uncomfortable and that kind of thing.

And I think group chats superficially make me feel less lonely, but not in a deep way.

That's true.

I'm constantly on my phone having chats with people because I'm like, look at me being

socially connected, but I think I'm actually quite lonely.

Yeah.

I've seen out louders say before, like, my group chats aren't like that.

It's another way of making people feel like their friendships aren't enough somehow.

You know, if you're not having really exciting banter in your group chats every day.

I would say though, my mere out louders Facebook group is like a big, all-inclusive group chat.

You can always come in and we'll have a chat.

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.

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

Mia, please kick us off with your worst of this week.

My worst is quite random, but poignant.

I have a very, I can't even find the words for it, but every time I see a busker or my

life, I've always just felt a real pang of like, I feel like busking is a really vulnerable

thing to do.

And solely busking like on the street.

Yeah.

So I've busked before when I was a kid.

I did like a gymnastics show in the park.

I was totally looking at a sake.

Did you know I did singing for my HSC?

No, we did gymnastics except I wasn't very good.

I was like nine and my best friend was Justine Clarke and I don't say that to name drop.

I just say that because she was really good and I really wasn't good.

Anyway, we made a little bit of money, not much.

So I've always had a soft spot in my heart for buskers.

I know the vulnerability of putting yourself out there and going, Hey, so every time I

see a busker, I always try to give a busker money, but I don't have any money anymore.

And no one carries money anymore.

No one that I know carries cash anymore, little loan coins.

So I feel like busking as an art form has just been completely disrupted.

And all of these people, like the worst they are, the more money I give them usually because

I am just like, good on you.

And the worst thing is old people who busk.

Oh my God, like an old man with a trumpet, take my money, but he doesn't have like a

stripe.

Like I can't like tap my phone.

That should be a government priority, giving buskers access to something where I can tap

my card.

Because it's fun.

It does enhance the cultural vibe of streets.

So I'm feeling bad for buskers.

My best of the week was actually going into the writer's room for season two of Strife.

It's a TV show that is coming out on binge in God, probably about six or eight weeks.

Pretty much finished now.

I've learned that when episodes are done, they're called, they're locked.

The episodes are locked and we're pretty close to locking off all the episodes.

But we've started work on season two, Claire has been in the writer's room.

Of course, she's one of the writers.

I'm not a writer, but I make limited appearances where they ask me lots of questions.

And it was just really exciting and the ideas they've got for season two and all the characters

and everything.

Yeah.

I just had a great time.

Because often when I'm in the room, they'll ask for like real examples of the mum, me,

a workplace, or they'll just stay imparting like, oh, you know, is there anything weird

that happens in your office?

And I'm like, oh, guys.

How long have you got?

And they're always like, no, that didn't happen.

And I'm like, yeah, dude.

Is that surprising?

It is a lot of fun.

My worst is that I'm engaged in a war with a hungry rat and a pack of marauding cabbage

moths.

This is what is going on in my peaceful countryside life this week.

Tell us more about that.

This is niche veggie content related.

I get about one mention of that a month.

I think this is it.

My worm farm lives in a veggie bed and rats been trying to break in.

But they've literally been trying to break and enter into the plastic of the worm farm

so they can eat the worms and the goodness inside it.

The good thing about this is that people are very clever.

So I went and posted in a group chat about how to defend myself from rats.

And I got a long list of like put chili oil, put mint oil, wrap chicken wire around it.

So now I'm engaged in a war with the rats.

I've got them put mint oil to start with around it.

And then I go out every morning to see if they're there.

The mint doesn't work.

I tried that for mice because I've read that online as well.

Like peppermint oil or that no, they're too smart.

They've evolved too much.

Some people said traps and I'm not dealing.

I'm not dealing.

The other thing that's happening is that moths are eating my greens.

And what is very telling about this is they eat the kale, but not all the other things,

which is good because at least something in the world likes kale.

And as one person said to me, you always need to grow a batch of sacrificial kale for them

off to eat so other things can flourish.

Anyway, that's where we're at in the veggie garden this week.

My best though, we're going to talk about this next week out loud as so you've all

got the weekend to get on board.

But you may have heard there is a four part documentary on Netflix called Beckham.

It is about surprise, surprise David Beckham.

It is largely being described as the best sports documentary since the last dance,

which is the one that was about basketball that everybody loved.

It's been made by Fisher Stevens, who's a really famous.

He's actually Hugo in succession.

Did you know that?

He was also married to Michelle Fife, a fun fact.

They've been making it for years and it is unbelievably high quality and they've got

access to everybody right back from the people that Beckham used to play football with,

obviously his family, obviously his dad, obviously his wife.

It is so great.

I never really did well at school because all I ever wanted to do was play football.

My manager kept saying, try and keep it under wraps.

So we would meet in car parks and that's not as serious as it sounds.

Classy.

My life had become something different.

We were worried that he'd lose all what he'd worked for because football came first and all of a sudden it wasn't.

OK David.

Big smile.

It definitely didn't change me.

Well, you changed.

There's no doubt about that.

It is so holly.com because certainly the early episodes are like early 90s Manchester, which

is obviously a sweet spot for me.

But the Beckhams and just all their strangeness, Victoria, who opens the whole thing by sitting

down for her doco and patting the couch to get the spaniel to jump up and she's like

come and sit next to me and make me look like I'm a nice person.

She's so funny.

I just love her.

She is so funny.

And so and she's just like the early days of their romance.

She's like, I don't like football.

I don't even care.

Like it's just great.

So peak nostalgia.

Go and watch it because we're going to talk about Beckham next week.

I can't wait.

I'm watching it on the weekends.

So Netflix.

So my worst of the week is it's genuinely really heartbreaking and it's niche twin experience.

So if there are any other twins listening, please tell me if this is a thing.

Luna, Jesse's little baby girl who's three months old, something like that.

She now cries when she sees me because she thinks I'm her mum and she wants me to feed

her.

So if she, the other day she was sitting on dad's lap and I walked into the house and

mum and dad were looking after Luna, Jesse was out and I obviously gate crashed because

I was like, I need to spend time with my favourite person in the world.

And I said, Luna, hello.

Her bottom lip went, she started sobbing.

And so I picked her up and I was like, you were so happy a second ago.

What is it?

And I picked her up and she went for my boob.

She was like, lady, come on, come on mum.

You're back.

Give me your boob.

And I'm like, sweetie, that is the one thing I can't do.

This steers itself to an obvious place, Claire Stevens, which is that in not too distant

future, you would be able to feed that baby.

And I bet I'm not the first person to ask, would you do that?

Somebody asked yesterday.

I asked.

I asked six months ago.

I said yes.

Before Jesse was pregnant, I think I asked.

I said yes and Jesse got mad.

Jesse was like, no, you're not allowed to feed my baby.

And I was like, I think it'd be really good for both babies and immune systems to just

have some weird stuff in there.

Boundaries, Claire Stevens, boundaries.

I'm into it, but anyway, it is heartbreaking to see a baby sob because they think you are

somebody else.

Because you are such a disappointment.

But interestingly, when I'm there and when I'm holding Luna, my boobs start to hurt.

Something's happening.

Maybe I'll start lactating early or something.

That'd be really fun.

That'd be really fun.

My best of the week is the concept of boy math.

So a few weeks ago, we talked about girl math on out loud.

And the out loud is, even though Holly had, yes, very sexist, there are some ideological

problems with it.

I'm such a pun.

The out loud is they said, yes, this is funny.

And now they have jumped on board boy math and they are sending me all sorts of memes

that are making me crack up.

So basically the idea is that girl math was this invented set of rules that women supposedly

keep when justifying impulse spending.

Now, boy math is all about the nonsensical rules, but the focus is not on spending necessarily

but just general hypocrisy and like leaps of logic.

So my favorite ones are boy math has been afraid of Goldie as when you only have three

pairs of socks.

Boy math is having a 70 inch TV, but no dining table.

I think we know that we've all been to a boys house where they've got like an Xbox and like

a racing chair.

And it's like, you have no lounge or bed.

Boy math is saying women are too emotional for positions of power and then punching holes

in walls when you're mad.

That's very boy math.

The best example of boy math is paying $44 billion for a $25 billion company and through

business smarts and entrepreneurial know how turning it into an 8.8 billion company, which

is exactly what Elon Musk did.

Terrible, terrible boy math.

My favorite example of this is boy math is telling everyone you won an election when

you lost by millions of votes.

That is so boy math.

I've got a quick record before we go and it is a little bit maths adjacent.

And it's also a little bit controversial because we launched, we've launched two new podcasts

over the last few weeks, but one of them that we did launch that I know out loud is have

strong feelings about.

I'm going to recommend and it's called things you didn't learn in school.

You were school captain.

Yeah.

We had very different experiences in school.

I loved school.

It feels like I haven't learned a lot since school and life's kind of plummeted downhill

since then.

I feel like I achieved all of my biggest things in school.

What was your favorite schooling moment?

It would have to be the moment that I was a wanted school captain and I can't go past

that.

Do you have to do a speech?

Of course I had to do a speech and it was all about everybody being valued and equal

and I was just going to change the whole school and I succeeded.

Teacher's pet over here.

Teacher's pet over here, that's for sure.

The teachers aren't happy about the title of the podcast.

Clare Stevens predicted that.

I did.

She did and I know there's been a lot of conversations in the Out Louders group about this led by

one teacher and Stevens, Clare's mother who I love.

What the podcast is about is how there are some basic life skills that we need that we

miss out on and it's hosted by comedian Beck Melrose and Emily Vernon from Mamma Mia and

each week they have an expert on to help them digest and learn about life topics like how

to nail a job interview and the secrets to getting the job of your dreams and how to

manage your money.

The teachers are cranky, which you predicted, Clare Stevens, because they say, firstly,

we can't teach everything at school.

We've got to teach reading and writing and there's a curriculum and don't blame us for

the fact that you don't know how to go to a job interview or manage your own bank account.

The other argument is, in fact, we do teach some of those things at school and you just

weren't listening, which is very possible.

Accurate.

To all the out loud teachers, we hear you.

When we raised this before the podcast launched, they insisted Gen Z love this title because

for them, things you didn't learn in school isn't literal.

It just means...

I don't know these things.

I don't know this and I really need it to be a person in the world.

The job interview one is so...

There are so many things in there that I had never, ever considered.

I recommend everyone go and listen to it.

I feel like an idiot listening to it.

And these are some funny women.

Yes, it's a comedy podcast.

It's one of my favourite lulls.

She is so funny.

So we'll put a link in the show notes, give it a try and out loud to teachers, we love you.

If you're looking for something else to listen to, on yesterday's subscribe episode, we had

an emergency meeting about Taylor Swift.

Taylor Swift correspondent Mia Friedman had some concerns to raise about Taylor's new

boyfriend as well as the string of public outings that she's kind of embarking on

while she's on her world tour.

We got into a really interesting place, which I don't think any of us expected to.

And I was a little bit resistant.

I was like, oh yeah, Taylor, she's everywhere.

But as soon as I started talking about it, I was like, no, I've got a lot of feelings about this topic.

I loved it.

I loved that conversation.

We'll put a link in the show notes.

Thanks.

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

This episode was produced by Emmeline Gazillas, the assistant producer is Tali Blackman with

audio production from Leah Porges.

And we'll see you next week.

Bye.

Bye.

Bye.

Shout out to any Mamma Mia subscribers listening.

If you love the show and will support us as well, subscribing to Mamma Mia is the very best

way to do so.

There is a link in the episode description.

Thank you.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.