Mamamia Out Loud"Taylor Swift endorses Donald Trump". At least, that’s what he says. We unpack the latest in the US election, including the moment from the first night of Democratic National Convention that made Holly cry.
Plus, the mother who refuses to put a trigger warning on her child’s life. Do they do more harm than good? We have a very heated conversation (grab the popcorn).
And, the pop star of the moment that does not want to take a selfie with fans - does she have a point?
What To Listen To Next:
- Listen to our latest episode: Mia On All The Behind The Scenes Logies Gossip
- Read: A Baby, A Cat And A Late Onset Psychopath
- Listen: Em Rata And A Universal Truth About Divorce
- Listen: US Election Update: Trump Spirals
- Listen to No Filter: The Mother Who Won’t Put A Trigger Warning On Her Child’s Life
- Listen to Cancelled: Bennifer: When Your Marriage Has Too Much Content
- Connect your subscription to Apple Podcasts
Sign up to the Mamamia Out Loud Newsletter for all our recommendations and behind-the-scenes content in one place.
Want to try our new exercise app? Click here to start a seven-day free trial of MOVE by Mamamia
What To Read:
- Read: The hidden details in Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck's divorce filing.
- Read: There's a reason Bennifer's divorce feels so personal.
- Read: 3 years ago, Chappell Roan was working at a drive-through. Now she's climbing the Australian charts.
GET IN TOUCH:
Feedback? We’re listening. Send us an email at outloud@mamamia.com.au
Share your story, feedback, or dilemma! Send us a voice message
Join our Facebook group Mamamia Outlouders to talk about the show.
Follow us on Instagram @mamamiaoutloud
CREDITS:
Hosts: Holly Wainwright, Mia Freedman & Jessie Stephens
Producer: Emeline Gazilas
Audio Production: Leah Porges
Mamamia acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the Land we have recorded this podcast on, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to their Elders past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures.
You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Mamma Mea acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast is recorded on Hello and welcome to Mama Mia out Loud. It's what women are actually talking about. On Wednesday, the twenty first of August, I'm Holly Wainwright, I'm Mea Friedman.
And I'm Jesse Stevens.
And on the show today, Taylor Swift endorses Donald Trump. At least that's what he says. Also, the mother who refused to put a trigger warning on her child's life, do they do more harm than good? And the pop star of the moment does not want to take a selfie with you or even.
Talk to you at all. Is that Aloud?
But first mea Friedman?
Big news out louders in case you missed it. After months of pat walks and first trap Instagram posts and speculation, I don't.
Like your tone. No, they don't like your tone.
There is someone who is in the midst of she is grieving and I would like some respect.
All the rumors have been confirmed. As we went into our planning meeting this morning, news broke that Jlo and Ben Affleck are getting divorced now, Oh, we could just.
Have a moment's silence. It's come as a shock.
According to Variety, in People and everywhere, Jlo has officially filed for divorce from Ben. The papers have been filed. They've been married for two years. Interestingly, she filed on their two year anniversary, which is the most passive, aggressive, fabulous thing I've ever heard.
Yea, and because she filed, right, she filed, filed, and I think it's got to be quite symbolic that she waited. It feels like she waited to go. I'm going to do it on exactly the two years since.
Our official She is pissed off.
She's pissed off.
Yes, I've filled out divorce paperwork, but I've never actually filed it. But there is significance in the person that files it. I'm just not sure what that significance is. There is definitely a subtext. I'm sure out louders could tell us. Certainly, when you're a famous person, someone has to do it. Though, who files his control the narrative essentially.
Well, the person who files, I feel like wants to divorce more. That's a vibeager.
We're going to put a link in the show notes to a great story on Maya that unpacks all the hidden details in this divorce filing. The one that I was most drawn to is that she lists the date of separation as April twenty sixth, twenty twenty four, and that's significant. I went back and did some sleuthing CSI j Loo divorce, and I thought, is that around the time that her movie came out? But no, the movie came out on February seventeen, So I feel like though it could have gone south after that. I feel like maybe something happened after that. In terms of it feels.
So bad for her, I feel bad for her too. And in terms of the timeline, it appears that they separated about two weeks before the met Gala. Remember she turned up on her own to the Magdala and there was speculation. That's when the speculation she looks like really started.
But she looked very great. She never doesn't look great, true, but she did look sad. And you might have read reports that there was no prenup. The documents that she filed did not actually say whether there was or not, And I don't think you're legally required to say that in the documents whether there was a prenup. Not being a divorce lawyer, I am unsure. But anyway, this is not a surprise at all. In fact, there's going to be so much to talk about. We're going to be revisiting this on Friday's episode and talking about breakups more generally.
I feel terrible for her because I watched We all had to because me and made us watch This is Me Now.
I was rooting for them.
Did you guys watch The Greatest Love Story?
Oh? That one?
Sorry, that's what I watched.
I think we watched both.
I made you watch all of it.
But I was like, you put all that out there and you're like, we're finally back together and it's all wonderful.
It's like, no, but that's why it's so relatable, Holly, as we've all done that.
She should have listened to Jane Fonder who said, maybe have the relationship, don't make art about it.
Though I am much more on the team of the meme I've seen. That's like when you wait twenty years for your extra change and he's still the same ass whole he always was.
Love it well before Friday. There will no doubt be narratives spun from both camps. We'll be revisiting this on the show Friday, and.
If you can't wait till then, last week, Claire and I put together a little treat for anyone who is like, hang on, I need to know the TikTok. I need to know the background. We did an episode on the cancelation of benefit that was last week's episode, and we said we think in the next week we're probably going to find out that a divorce is looming.
I loved so much listening to that.
So there's a leak.
It's not like what you mean about either of them. That's not the spirit of cancel.
We're rooting for them, but unfortunately it has fallen through.
And I want to.
Kick us off by celebrating our incredible President.
Joe Biden.
Joe, thank you for your historic leadership, for your lifetime of service to our nation, and for all you will continue to do. We are forever grateful to you.
Here's your quick dip into what's happening in American politics this week, which includes Taylor Swift and my very predictable tears. I don't want to alarm anyone, but Taylor Swift is asking you to vote for Donald Trump and the Swifties am mobilizing for him. There is, at least that's what he has apparently chosen to believe, posting an AI generated image of crowds of young women wearing Swifties for Trump T shirts and a meme of Swift dressed as Uncle Sam Finger, extended in the iconic point with the words Taylor Swift wants you to vote for Donald Trump. I accept, he wrote when he posted it on Twitter. I think he posted on truth Social he did, but it was also posted on Twitter. But now it's been taken down because fake news, as Mia says, was.
It taken down by his friend Elon.
Possibly or I think probably by his own camp because bless those posts obviously were fake, although the Swifties for Trump images did indeed have an authentic origin. There's a nineteen year old woman called Jenna Pervovchuk who made and wore her Swifties for Trump T shirt to a Trump rally in June, and she managed to get a picture with Trump and he told her he really liked her shirt. She's released a statement and said, because everyone's saying there are no Swifties for Trump when you're talking about and she's like I think you'll find, and she said I made a more the Swifties for Trump shirt and June to the Trump rally in Racine because I'm a Swifty who supports him. Swifties are a more diverse group than people think. I know of so many Swifties who have conservative values and many many more who reached out to express their support and appreciation for Swifties for Trump. We are a young demographic of people who are looking at home prices, the cost of living, etc.
Blah blah blah.
Yes you are real, Jenna. It's true you are real. But there is no official Swifties for Trump movement, and that image was fake. It's not surprising that there isn't one, given that she did endorse Biden in the last election. There is, yes, a swift Is for Kamala group. It's not official, but it has more than sixty four thousand members on Twitter and it says its aim is to mobilize swift fans to get Democrats elected. Maya, is Trump trying to bait swift with his I accept post.
Yes he is.
But what he's also trying to do is that that's the irony about the term fake news. It was originally coined to describe what Trump did, and then now he of course weaponizes it against anything that he doesn't like or doesn't agree with. What do they say about how a lie will have circled the globe while the facts are still tying up their shoelacers. I think that a lot of people will just see headlines Taylor Swift endorses Trump, Trump shares photo of Taylor Swift, or they'll see the image and they're not going to go and say, oh really, They'll just think that that's true, right, the irony I mean, which puts her in the position of having to come out and denying it. And the reason that it was taken down. Wouldn't it been Elon He doesn't get he's pro Trump. Our friend Tree Payne, who is the extraordinarily named publicist extraordinaire of Taylor Swift and has been for a long time, she would have made immediate calls to say, because I mean, that's defamatory if you would look at I mean, not that there's defamation laws in America in that same way, but she would have caused some merry. Hell, but don't you think it's.
Weird that he's poking the bear because everybody assumes that Taylor obviously is going to come out for Kamala. It feels like poking the bear, and it feels like when she inevitably does, maybe he's got something prepped.
The timing also isn't coincidental because it's the Democratic Convention this week. You might have seen some of the footage or the headlines. Hillary Clinton spoke, this is like the launch of their campaign essentially, where she officially takes the nomination. And so he hates nothing more than not having attention, and so this is what guaranteed that he's got attention. Again.
I'm not sure if it's baiting, because I don't think he thought of that far ahead. I reckon it's just a reshap because he got a little bit excited on his computer. But what he shared is illegal in Tennessee, which is where Taylor Swift is from. You can't share. Tennessee has a lot of very famous it's got Dolly Partner, it's got Taylor Swift, and they've passed a law saying you can't share AI generated images that suggest a celebrity endorsees something they don't. So that's the first thing. But what Trump is doing here is twofold. The first is that he is sharing a lot of AI generated images. Another one was the one of Harris standing at the Democratic Convention with the socialist symbol in the background. It's really ominous looking, it's really scary. It looks like she is like an image from history where she's galvanizing you know, socialist people and there's going to be some kind of war. Like, it's really scary. He shared that, and then at the same time, what he does is he suggests that image is shared by Harris, for example, at a speaking event she's doing. He says, they're AI generated, So there's something but.
She generated the crowds exactly.
So there's something called the liar's dividend, which is what disinformation research is. It's a term they've coined, and it means that an increase in manipulated content leads to general skepticism of all media. So what he's doing, which is what he did in the last election, is if you you're so enough seeds, you throw enough chaos, all used to exactly is create, you've undermined everyone. So even when they shared true images, he's like, what's even true anymore? Here's Taylor Swift endorsing.
Me and as you say, mea, the images have already gone all the way around the world by the time he's like, oh, got to take it down. Turns out it was fake.
So earlier this year, the BBC discovered that there were dozens of deep fakes circulating images portraying black people supporting Trump. Even though Taylor hasn't come out. We spoke about on the show last week that image where it looked like Kamala Harris was in the background of her concert, she actually wasn't. Taylor Swift hasn't come out yet and spoken about this election or expressed her support.
Do you think she will?
Well, definitely it will.
In the twenty twenty election, she did support the Democratic Party, and she criticized Trump during the nationwide protests over the police murder of George Floyd. She posted back then on Twitter, after stoking the fires of white supremacy and racism your entire presidency, you have the nerve to feign moral superiority before threatening violence. We will vote you out in November. I was surprised to discover that I had missed it at the time, because, as we spoke on the show last week, all she needs to do is just tell people to vote, because even though there's the occasional swifty for Trump, because of course she's got When you've got hundreds of millions of fans, they're going to be along the political spectrum. But generally young people more likely to vote for Democrats. And so if she says vote, but I think she will come out. There's rumors that she and Beyonce are going to perform at the Democratic Convention.
Moving on to my tears. As Mia mentioned, it's the Harris campaigns big week, right because it's the Democratic Convention. It's being held in Chicago, and in America, these conventions are massive. They're covered on national TV. They have all the showbiz production values of major awards shows, and they go on for days. It's like program of who gets to talk on day one and who gets to talk on day two.
You know, it goes on and on.
You'll hear roaring crowds. Celebrities are posting from their podcasts are being recorded there. It's like Glastonbury for political nerds. But on day one the old Guard people spoke. Biden, the guy who is still the President of America, got up and said some lovely stuff, so did me. As nemesis Jill Biden, she got up and said some lovely stuff. AOC was there. She was being thrillingly lefty for the lefties among us. She threw us a bit of red meat. And then Hillary Clinton, who no doubt thought it was her destiny to be the first female president, of course, got up and spoke. And I did some serious sobbing about this into the videos on my phone, going to play it to you now, and then I'm going to ask you if you feel the same way, because I don't know what's wrong with me. Is what Hillary said that completely got me.
I wish my mother and Kamala's mother could see us. They would say keep going, Sureleye and Jerry would say, keep going. I want I want my grandchildren and their grandchildren to know I was here at this moment, that we were here, and that we were with Kamala Harris every step of the way. This is our time, America.
This is when we stand up, This is when we breakthrough.
The future is hair.
It is at our grasp.
Lads, Jesse, are you moved by that or is it just pressing all my gen x feminist buttons.
I am moved I was going to suggest it was your menopause, but I am very moved. And the headline from this convention that I keep seeing is that it is incredibly unified. So conventions have a lot of different speakers, and obviously there are more leftist factions and more centrist factions. And what people have noted is that this party has behind the scenes clearly come together and been like, we need a really united message, and that even with Clinton, like or AOC, there are people here that on paper are very very different. But I do think that we're feeling the real momentum of the campaign, and obviously having Hillary Clinton there I think is very significant. Joe Biden didn't speak till eleven thirty PM, and that stressed me out. I thought about you at the logis may I imagine that's like winning a Gold LOGI. Joe Biden won the Gold LOGI and had to get up.
I think he had a nap. I think they woke him up. I think he'd been asleep since seven. I think they gave him a little gentle shake at about ten.
Leave the mar He did what you wanted him to do.
She did, really did.
I've got five months left in my presidency. I've got a lot to do. I intend to get it done. I spent the hour in my lifetime the server as your president. I love the job, but I love my country more.
It was you moved by the Hilary and Kamala, I wish our mothers were here. That just got me because there's all this cynicism about you know, is this about women? Isn't it about women? Haven't we moved past that? But it is remarkable when you stand back and think about Hillary's mother and Kamala's mother, and about our mothers and the fact that hasn't yet been an American female president. It's like it makes me holly.
A very wise woman once told me, it's the hope that kills you. It is. So I wasn't moved. I was alert, and I was alert in a fearful way because that rhetoric around the history making idea of the first female president didn't go well last time. It really didn't go well. And I've been reading a lot about the difference. And I'm sure we'll talk about this in weeks and months to come, but the difference between the way Hillary ran in twenty sixteen and two thousand and eight and the way Kamala is running and gender is not part really of the campaign for Kamala because it really didn't work. And I think that the reason that it didn't work with Hillary is complicated, But I was just nervous about her reminding everyone of the fact that the gender thing. And I'm just cautious.
In saying that though Obama when he was campaigning, I don't think it was central to his campaign, but it was certainly underpinning it that he was potentially going to be the first person of color and that was exciting.
That's because and it always works if you can be a change candidate, except when it was Hillary CLIs and the reason that she couldn't make herself a change candidate is because of the Clinton thing. She could so she'd been around for so long she couldn't but come a lot, which is ironic. Well, even though she's the vice president, so she shouldn't be able to. But she feels like a change because ironically we haven't seen or heard much of her in the last four years, so she does feel like a change candidate, even though she's kind of the incumbent.
The Republicans are saying that she is not a change candidate how she managed to skape through it. I agree with you. I don't think we will hear very much about gender and the first and all those things. But I think that that moment just did remind us. It reminded me like of how far we've come and how far we have to go. And I loved it. Tell us what you think out louders leave us a voice, not send us an email.
Lovely out loud.
So let me get this straight. You, as a very privileged person who have got two healthy children as far as you know, want me, someone who is experience operiencing trauma and pain to put a trigger warning on my child's life to make you feel more comfortable.
A few months ago, a theater company in Melbourne was in the headlines for the use of trigger warnings or content warnings in the promotion of all of its shows, including on its website and on No Filter. This week I interviewed a woman called Rachel Cassella about the topic of trigger warnings.
Now.
Rachel has been diagnosed with PTSD after living through numerous traumatic events, including her daughter McKenzie, who died in twenty seventeen after being diagnosed with a genetic condition and only lived for seven months and eleven days. Now, Rachel is the mum of three McKenzie and also her two boys, who raged one and three. But she writes about McKenzie a lot, and she writes about the experience of pregnancy loss. She lost a number of children during pregnancy, as well as McKenzie at seven months. And the reason that I'm connecting these two things, which might seem so disparate, is that Rachel believes very strongly that she will not ever put a trigger warning on content about her daughter's life. She's written about it for Mamma Maya. And it's an interesting episode of No Filter because we've talked about trigger warnings a lot on this show. I have got strong views as a person and also as a person who runs a media company, but we wanted to also talk to an academic and look at the science of it. So in the episode, we interviewed Rachel, but we also interviewed a woman called Victoria Bridgeland who's an academic and researcher at Flinda's University, and she's studied the effects and impact of trigger warnings. Her work has found that trigger warnings don't work. Essentially, here's a little bit of what she said.
No matter how you slice it, I just think they're not doing much at all of anything they're they're definitely not helping, and there's some evidence that they're probably doing some harm. But it's just really bad to assume that as long as you slap a trigger warning on any piece of media, you're protecting people. Or you know, if a professor just puts a trigger warning on their class material but doesn't think about how the class will receive it or fair any support, or it's like a band aid to sort of slap on things and try and fix this mental health crisis that we'd always talking about.
Jesse, did you listen to the episode No Pressure.
I started listening because I was very interested in it, and twelve minutes in I was walking down the street and I audibly said the word out loud no, and I turned it off. And I have been examining my response to that.
At what point in Rachel's story did you turn it off?
She was speaking because I know Rachel's story, so the work that she has done is so important.
I have enormous laws around genetic testing.
Yeah, enormous respect for Rachel. There was a detail she was sharing about what did trigger her, and she was talking about a very specific example of something that happened in an ambulance. I know exactly the moment you talk and I felt like I was going to vomit, like I was so emotionally distressed, which sounds like a ridiculous thing to say when I'm listening it does a story, it.
Doesn't at all, So how did you feel?
I just thought, I actually don't think that there is room within me to listen to this story right now, and I stopped listening. I thought about trigger warnings. I did come back to it because I knew we were talking about it today and I wanted to listen to what the research said because I have cited the research in the past and I think it's pretty conclusive. But I do want to offer another perspective that I thought might have been missing from the conversation, which explains why I turned it off. So, for example, yesterday I was scrolling through my Instagram feed and I noticed that this is what I saw. In one scroll. I saw a story about miscarriage, a story about stillbirth, images of babies and children who had been killed in Gaza, one about a fatal car accident that claimed the lives of children, and then there was a story on Mamma Maya about baby boxes when newborns are surrendered. There's nothing wrong with any of this content in isolation, and I'm not saying it shouldn't exist, but when it is aggregated like that, what that does to your nervous system and to your sense of sort of safety in the world, when you're trying to raise a baby who's sitting beside you and you're trying to look after that baby is I just feel completely overwhelmed. And I found it on homepages as well. As I look at a homepage, I feel my heart race, and sometimes I do feel assaulted by certain information. I click on it and I go Sexual violence is another one that has crept into IF Laura and Orders on the TV. It's every true crime podcast, it's every story you read. And I think, if I'm going to be a useful person who is capable of helping those around me, I don't think it is my moral or emotional obligation to bear witness to all of this, which actually speaks to Rachel's point, which was so astute, that trigger warnings are not for the people who have experienced it.
I would say that ninety ninety percent of the time, the people who want the trigger warning haven't experienced that trauma, because most of the people, at least in the child loss community, do not want trigger warnings on their children.
I am someone who has not experienced what she was talking about, but I feel as though I need some control over the content that I am consuming. And that's why I think this isn't even a conversation about trigger warnings, is a conversation about the Internet and what the Internet does to us, because I feel as though she is right that something could happen. We are all going to be touched by grief and tragedy and pain to varying degrees, and we cannot control that. And we've got to accept that. I do not need to read every tragic thing that happened in the world today, and so I think that the push for trigger warnings and the push for content warnings is an attempt to redeem some of that control and to go. I need to not have the pain of global humane on my shoulders today.
Do you think trigger warnings on any of those things would have made a difference.
Yeah, because the second I knew with that story that there were going to be certain details, but you did know.
This is what's interesting. Yeah, you knew Rachel's story going in, So essentially you didn't need a trigger warning because you already had one in your head, and yet you listened until you couldn't listen to that.
I think I thought from the title that it was going to be a broader discussion about trigger warnings, and then when I got that, and I don't want to censor what she is saying because she is right. I felt in the way that she talked, I felt Mackenzie, and I felt how alive and how incredible and what a person she was. I have found in my own behavior that I see certain things and I go, oh, that's actually going to be too upsetting for me today. And there's what would you have liked see? And I don't think that this is about a trigger warning, And this is why I pushed, because I don't think the word trigger is the one we're looking for. I think content warnings. I think the way that film and television does it is right sometimes. So I really don't like, for example, violence, I actually feel really sick when I see punching, like when I see physical violence. If something says there's going to be heaps of physical violence in this, I'll be like, oh, I can't.
I couldn't agree. More like, I loved this conversation. I think me and you did it so well, Like the way that you set this up with Rachel talking about her situation and obviously then addressing it more broadly. It was interesting when Victoria the Expert was talking. She said that they don't work because people ignore them. But personally, if I watch my behavior, if I'm scrolling through Instagram, whatever, and a post starts with a CWTW, then I usually scroll past it. As Jesse is just beautifully articulated. Some days I can handle that stuff, and some days, for whatever reason, I really can't. And so I'll be like, you know, what do I need right now to put that in my mind?
No?
I don't, So I want to just ask you Cole, though, when you say that stuff, what do you mean?
Well?
I think everybody has different triggers, but I think that Jesse has got, you know, explained it very beautifully. When you're talking about the suffering of children, or whether you're talking about violence or sexual assault. Some days I do feel like I can handle all that, and some days I don't. And I don't really think there's anything wrong with understanding what I'm about to look at. The thing I would love to understand better is why they upset people so much, because even in the example of that theater, you start the episode of no Filter by reading all the trigger warnings for Macbeth a production of Macbeth at that theater. I've also read columns in the newspapers.
Words of very detailed description.
But if I want to read that, I have to go look for it. If I'm going to buy a ticket to go and watch Macbeth at that theater, I do not have to read those trigger warnings before I buy my ticket. I do not have to read them before I go in. So they exist there for the people who want them and need them. And the thing I don't really understand about why they insense everybody so much, and I'd love you to explain this to me a bit, is because to me, it's like an accessible bathroom or subtitles. If you need them, it's great. If you don't need them, they're just there, do you know what I mean?
Yeah, And that's always been your position, like what's the harm? What's the harm? Yeah, well, literally there is harm.
So the research show Victoria even said there was harm. She said, there's a little bit of research that she knows.
She goes on to say that it is harmful because for two reasons. Firstly, is that avoidance creates more avoidance because avoidance tells you, it defines you, and says you're going to be really upset by something.
But what if you are going to be really upset by some.
Okay, absolutely fair point. What if you're going to be upset by something? What's interesting to me about your defensive content warnings hole is that you're a content creator and you're also an author. So I'm always interested to understand. Firstly, life is upsetting, and you know, I think that what happened to Jesse is the way that life works, right, Like if you're watching a TV show and it was very interesting what you said, Jesse. When I listen to a true crime podcast or when I watch a crime TV show, I don't listen to two crime podcasts or watch TV shows like that for that reason. That's my responsibility, right. So the two problems with this is, firstly, what a content warning does? Is it outsources your mental health to the internet, which is not a good idea, the idea that it's someone else's responsibility to protect you from being distressed. That's the first problem. The second problem is that the reason that there's trigger creep is because the things that trigger everyone are very specific and very personal. So if there'd been a content warning Jesse at the start of that about death of a child, you already know Rachel's story, right, so you knew that going in. You knew that it was going to no doubt discuss the death of a baby around the same age as yours. But she was saying what triggers her are things that they would never be content warnings for, like the sound of an ambulance and the song Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star. That's what triggered you too, but then you turned it off, and so that's the world working as it should.
I get that, and I have, as I say, I had a enormous amount of respect for the way Rachel told this story. I also actually think though, that her story is very specific because the thing that she was pushing back on in the post that she wrote that was so successful is the fact that people are saying what Jesse was saying, which is like, I'm pregnant or I'm expecting a child and seeing images like this really upset me. I'm one hundred percent with Rachel. I don't think she should have trigger warnings of contact warnings on that. We used to have a content series of Mamma Mia that was also a Facebook group called Never Forgotten that was about infant loss and stillbirth. People would post pictures in there of their beautiful children who were born sleeping, as they would say, and some people would find that so upsetting, but so many more people who needed that more found it really life affirming and important and validating. But importantly, it was a choice to go there, right, it's a choice to go there. It is a different thing if you're going to come across it in a day. Because I think I get your point about life's upsetting, But for anyone who and it's everyone, because as you say, life is upsetting and we've all been touched by it, I think there's nothing wrong with getting to choose whether you want to be hijacked by your worst moment on any particular moment, and you can't control everything. You can't control the ambulance site.
You can never.
Control what comes up in a conversation. You can never.
Control, can't. But there are some things in life you can control and there are some you can't.
So okay, because someone has to be responsible for reading that and deciding all the things that might trigger someone.
Right.
So, for example, the Lively movie, it ends with us. You know, I read some entertainment sites, gossip sites, and there'll be a content warning and it will say content warning discussion of domestic violence. There won't be actual discussion of the acts of domestic violence. It will literally say this movie is about domestic violence. It will literally be just those words. My point is there are some things that we can agree on, and many people who don't work in the media might think that these things are mandatory. They're not. They're completely subjective. Right. What we're talking about is who am I as a content creator to say what might or might not trigger you and upset you. So some of the things that people have started using content warnings for are depictions of meat. This recipe contains meat in the macbeth one, occasional drinking and smoking. There's a whole section under that, under swearing, under diet culture, under exercise.
And again you only need to look at it if you want to look at it. I don't understand the philosophical Okay.
What trigger warnings would you have put at the start of this episode.
I wouldn't. I'm like, I'm entirely okay with the idea that it's not mandatory. I'm not arguing for a second that it should be mandatory. I just do not feel the way that you do that they are somehow making us all because I actually think that, as Jesse articulated very well at the beginning of this the way we consume media and the pace and the amount we consume now has never been like this before. So I don't think it's unreasonable to say, hey, we might need a few guardrails. Some organizations might choose to do it. And if that theater company chooses to do it, and they choose to put it on their website behind a big thing that says content warnings that I don't have to read and tick a box before I walk in, because I'd rather not know.
Well, interesting the playwright a playwright and Shakespeare's you know, interesting, because you would also assume everybody knows that a playwright has come out, and if it's coming for theater, it's coming for your novels. Right, So if you have to list everything at the beginning, that gives the plot away, spoils the element of surprise, and he also says it reduces it. Like to mention, he used an example in his play. He said, like a word was used, and so, for example, wasn't this but like abortion? But he said, it's not a play about abortion. And yet the content warning mentioned all these things gave away important plot points and made the play seem like this horrible, depressing.
Particular think that it wasn't and you're priming them to wait for that moment, which, like in terms of fiction and storytelling, isn't ideal. But I have always been against trigger warnings, and I've kind of been changing my mind a little bit on it. But I think that what Holly's speaking to is that there's this other philosophy coming in that I think Holly and I are pushing back to, which is almost a conservative dog whistle of hardner. There's this thing of just like everyone needs to harden and just look at it, just look at it.
No Jesse, no one's saying just look at it. If you start reading something like I've put down books that there's something in there that I find upsetting. I don't want to read it. I've put it down. That's my choice. No one's forcing you to look at all these stories that you talk about, No, no, no pay witness.
But this thing about life doesn't come with a trigger warning. I just think you said before a conversation. If I'm speaking to a friend and she speaks to me about her miscarriage, I'm not going to say that needed a trigger warning because a conversation, you have one of those at a time with one person.
But you were just listening to Rachel tell her story. That was just one person telling one story.
But I might listen to honestly, like four podcasts that day and then consume eleven articles and the other thing that I reckon.
But how is it the responsibility of me, as someone who's either a normal person who's posting on my Instagram about the fact that I had to put down my dog or that I had a miscarriage. I don't know.
To be cleared out, I don't think protect you. I don't think that podcast should have had a trigger warning. I don't. But in that moment, I felt something that made me interrogate wid you felt upset?
Guess what? Guess how upset do you think Rachel felt me?
This is what I It's not about content warnings. It's about your particular and not just when I say you, I don't mean you, I mean all the people who get so upset about content warnings. It's about your deep harden up, your all snowflakes to.
Me from the same place as the people who say I disagree with what you wrote, Jesse, you need to delete it.
To change what do you think?
Because it's like people having no resilience for feelings of discomfort, upset, disappointment. We need to be helicopters and suddenly the world needs to be my helicopter and protect me from bad That's a.
Very specific view on that. I think people like Rachel is allowed to have her opinion about that.
But also this is the research shows that well at.
The philosophy, the philosophy you're talking about is the same philosophy that I am feeling a lot on the internet that is yelling sometimes explicitly to me bear witness. Look at this.
Do you know what if there's somebody who's posting those kind of images, you can block them, you can unfollow them. That is your responsibility as a human. If you're listening to a podcast about someone being murdered, you can choose to either not listen to bit to it in the first place, or turn it off.
But also, what's wrong with knowing that it's going to be there?
I just don't understand because the problem because I can tell you the problem with knowing that it's going to be there. Firstly, you're giving a job to all the people.
No, only if it's mandatory, you are if it's entirely your choice whether or not you want to.
Because so the more you do, the more trigger warnings there are, the more people expect. That's why it's creep. So when you start reading a trigger warning for this, then you're like, oh, I need to be protected from that. And so you're like, you're right upset by this hold. And this is the thing where people talking about soft and I agree with you. The internet is full on man, and our brains are not equipped to deal with it. But the answer is not to outsource that management to every individual person and organization that posts contents.
I don't see it like that at all. I don't I think it's in the same way that we're allowed to start saying to tech companies, you know, maybe don't keep feeding eating disorder content to teenage girls. Maybe we need some more rigor around this.
Maybe don't live stream a massa.
Yeah, exactly, It's fine to sometimes ask a brand new way that we consume media to look at what they're doing and consider it. I walk alongside you with the fact that there is upsetting stuff happening, But I also fully understand that for some people having the access to the information about what they're about to see walk into whether or not they want to relive that worse moment, it's fine for them to ask for that too, And it's fine for organizations to provide that as long as they're not beating everybody else over the head with it. I think it's fine.
Every Tuesday and Thursday we drop new segments of Mummya out Loud just for Mummy A subscribers. Follow the link in the show notes to get your daily doseph out Loud and a big thank you to all our current subscribers. Chapel Roan, who until three seconds ago I called Chappelle Rowan, wants her fans to know that asking for selfie is creepy and weird. If you're like, wait, hang on, who is chapel Roan like me?
Well done?
Well. Maya recommended her music a few weeks ago. She's a twenty six year old singer and songwriter who's blowing up Maya. What are her songs that we would know?
Amazing, Pemenomenon which is amazing, Pink Pony Club, Hot to Go, She's amazing. She's the most extraordinary singer songwriter, and she's been doing this for a really long time. She was dropped by her record company a few years ago because she was like her music just wasn't hitting, but having so many because she's brought a bit like Charlie Xylie More fame before. It's her moment. She's put out an album that just sounds different. She's got an image. She kind of dresses in this sort of scary, sexy way. She says she's inspired by how drag Queen's dress. She's queer. All her clips and her songs are about you know, and drugs and rock and roll, but between two women, and it's just she's incredibly cool and her music's fantastic.
I've been loving her and also loving the irony that I've been like all her as in my a's while I'm doing my gardening in the suburbs. Those songs are all about getting wasted and having loads of all sex, and I'm like, yeah, plant those tomatoes.
Whoat to go.
She's become very, very famous, quite quickly, and this week she posted two videos on her TikTok, which has more than three million followers, and here's what she said.
I don't care that abuse, in harassment, stalking, whatever is a normal thing to do two people who are famous or a little famous whatever. I don't care that it's normal.
I don't care that this crazy type of behavior comes along with the job, the career field I've chosen. That does not make it okay. That doesn't make it normal. It doesn't mean I want it, doesn't mean that I like it. I don't want whatever the fuck you think you're supposed to be entitled to.
Whenever you see a celebrity, I'll go fuck.
If you think it's.
Selfish for me to say no for a photo or for your time, or to you're a hug, that's not normal, that's weird.
Sweety's not going well with fame.
She's struggling a little bit with faith. Yeah, recently she was on stage and she had a bit of a breakdown on stage, and she said, this has all happened very quickly, and I'm overwhelmed. The response to these videos has been predictably mixed. Here are some of the comments. Someone said she just wants people to respect her boundaries.
That's it.
Another said just got her first hit and is already saying no to taking pictures with fans. She must think she's Beyonce, and another said I have no sympathy for someone putting themselves out there with the help of fan support, yet acts hostile when someone asks her for a photo.
Ooh, it's hard, isn't it.
Is it okay to ask a celebrity for a selfie?
Look, having just been at the Logis, I need to take a couple of celebrities with costas the gardening and I'd never do it, though I know I never did it. I just did it on the Logis because I needed to make content, but I never would because this is the world's least relatable problem. We get asked selfies sometimes and we are not Chapel roone. But sometimes it's so fine. Other times it can feel like you're just walking around the world like you're just the normal person that you are. As Chapel rone Is, we all kind of think that we're walking around the world anonymous, but then when someone says, can I have a selfie? It kind of punctures your feelings of privacy even though you're in public. It's weird. I mean, having said that, out Louders we don't mind it. We honestly don't, because we're not Chapel Roone. But she's clearly wrestling with not being able to leave her house.
I agree, I don't mind it because it doesn't happen all that often, and.
Out Louders is always so respectful and so lovely.
And I think there's something about we speak on a podcast and people come up and they are like, hey, it's my friend, and I'm like, oh, you're an out louder. You're probably my friend. You know who I am. You know what my perspective is on things. I can spot an out louder from a mile away because of the type of person they are. The issue when you're a singer like this, where people don't know who she is, They just know her music, and so she's an artist putting out this work, she has mass appeal. I imagine that when you are that level of fame as well. There are a lot of people on the internet who hate you, so there's an element of being terrified when you're outside. But it used to be that people would ask for an autograph, which is quite a separate, like physically separate thing, right. It might be that they give you a piece of paper, or can you sign this? A selfie is incredibly intimate, and if you're doing that with one hundred people a day, that would take something from you and I'm not sure how you politely decline. That would be a hard thing to do, especially as a woman.
I think that we used to have a basic sort of deal that we thought this is what we were paying the famous people for, you know, like there's a cliche. I'm sure I've said it before. We say all the time in gossip bags. I can't imagine why we used to justify.
Talking celebrities in this way.
But we'd be like, Brad Pitt doesn't get paid twenty million a movie because he's the best actor in the world. You get paid twenty million a movie for the inconvenience of being that famous in a way, right, That was kind of this assumption that there's a bit of a deal going on here, the privilege and the money and the because pea.
Cost of that, like you you've got fans. Like if you don't have fans and no one wants to come and see you movie, you're by your album, you can't be successful.
But I think that the Internet has changed all that, as you say, Jesse, in terms of the scale and selfies. But also Chapel Roan is gen Z and gen Z are very good at boundaries. They don't give a fuck if their boundaries make you uncomfortable, and they don't see it as a price of privilege of success. She's like, this is what I've chosen to do for a job. It doesn't give you the right to interrupt me in the street. It doesn't give you the right to be creepy towards me. And these are my boundaries. Obviously, as me has already made very clear, we are not Chapel Rone But I'm quite needy. So I love it when people come up and say I listened to out because I'm kind of you know, I'm like, oh, they like what I do.
That feels great. I have been known to grab something that's fine and say do you want a selfie and they're like, no.
Thing, no thanks. But I totally understand the scale of this and also that boundaries are being redrawn, Like if you think about how Sia always used to hide under the wig. In a way, Chapel roone is better off if she keeps wearing the She sort of wears almost garga like disguise is on stage, So I'm not convinced I would know her if I walk past her in the street, because like, that's why that's a really good idea.
I wonder if too the social media element, because I follow my mum, my cousin, and roan on social media. They all pop up as though they're like the same. So then when I see someone really famous in real life, I'm often like, hey, I know you.
It kept happening to me at the logis.
Yes, and so you go.
To That's also what a parasocial relationship.
Is exactly whereas if I saw Jennifer Aniston, I'd be a lot less likely to go and ask her for a selfie because she's just in the printed man magazines, so there's less of a parasocial relationship. I wonder if there's more kind of ownership over people when we know them from the nipe.
I also think you write both of you in that we are ourselves on this show. So when people go I feel like I know you, it's like, well, you do know us, because this is who we are, and you know us really well, and we feel like we know you because if you listen to this show, you're of a certain type. I think what Chapel Roane's no doubt dealing with is issues around security because you said before Jesse about the intimacy of a selfie when someone takes a selfie with you, because you need to be quite close together. They'll touch you, so they'll put their arm around you, they might put their arm around your waist, they'll breathe on you. And it's also they'll be very quick because they won't want you to say no, and in defense they'll want it, not want in truth. So I imagine it's like, yeah, can I just take a selfie and then just stand there And she's probably like looking up and we don't have images, we don't care. But she's a performer who has a particular way she wants to put herself across and this idea instead same as paparazzi if someone takes a photo with you without your permission, and I've seen this happen to celebrities, where people go, can I have a selfie and they've already stood there next to you, taken the selfie before you can even say anything or.
So the scale of it would make it very hard to live your life. And I'm sure what's happened to her, as you pointed out at the beginning, MEA, is that she is really reeling from how famous she's become very fast. She was probably just a few months ago able to walk down the street in Brooklyn or be in a nightclub with her mates, and suddenly that's been taken from you because of course, like I don't understand it because I'm not that famous. But it's lovely to have someone come up to you and say I love what you do, thank you for the thing you make. But it would be completely different to feel that every way you went, everybody was staring at you, looking at everything you were doing, clocking every move you were making, and actually making it impossible for you to live your life. So I feel for her what I worry about with this video though, is it going to help like the people who love her. I don't know what we call chapel roone. I don't think they've got like a Swiss tag or anything, have they. But the people who love her will respect this, and they will like police each other. But there will be a lot of people who will be very irritated by this, as was evidence in the comments that you read out before, Jesse, and it might actually make it worse for her.
That's true. I saw a lot of people reposting it as well, famous people sort of reposting it, So I wonder if it could signal a bit of a shift, and it made me think. I had an experience recently where I was at a cafe with my daughter and a friend and we were just sitting there having a chat. Do you know when you just feel a bit like someone's watching you? And I turn around and there was a group of women behind us. One of them had got her phone out and started filming me, Like I could see that she was filming me. Now, why was she doing that? She was probably going, oh weird, I was just listening to a podcast and blah bah blah. Maybe she didn't want to interrupt. Yeah, but I was sitting there with my daughter having a private conversation being filmed, and it felt like such an invasion of privacy. I really felt, and I didn't I'm not a confrontational person. I wouldn't have said anything to them. But if you're this level, there's one thing coming up and asking for selfie, and then there's people. It's not paparazzi anymore. It is everyone getting their phone and just taking photos of with chaperone.
She also has a particular persona on stage and in her music and in her film clips, which is very sexual, very out there, like as you say, it's like awesome and just big and very sexually confident. And that's not necessarily who you want to be when you're at the doctor, in the waiting room or buying milk. And I think sometimes people like to think of famous people. If you're famous, you don't do all of that stuff. You've got all these people who do it for you. But she still has to go through airports, she still has to go and buy toilet paper. You know, maybe she's got an assistant, But you unless you just live in a room alone, you do interact with people in the regular world, but you can see, like most people, it comes up a bit more slow. I think what the Internet does as well now is that the level of fame is so instantaneous. I mean, imagine how ray Gun's feeling at the moment. And I think Chapel Royin's really grappling with these two sides of things. She loves performing. She's an incredible artist, but she didn't sign up for that. And I think it's also be careful what you wish for, because everybody wants to be that famous until you are that.
And I think that once you get to the level of a Taylor Swift or whatever, you've got a machine around you you figure out, oh, you know, you've had time to figure out how to be in the world, where you can go, where you can't go, how it all works, how you get into places, how you get out of places, all of those things. But when you're like a baby celebrity and suddenly it's all rushing at you, it must actually be very frightening.
Stephen Colbert has a kind of quote about this where he says that you're walking down the street and someone comes up to you and knows you and has this familiarity and in a split second you need to meet them where they're at and meet their level of familiarity because to them you're not a stranger. To you, they are an absolute stranger and you have to try and meet them energetically. And I thought that was a really insightful way of looking at it, because you need to be overly familiar, overly polite. We're also at a time when if you're not, someone will jump on TikTok and say Stephen Colbert is a dick. It's a thing that her fans probably can't grapple with. How strange have.
You ever done it? Like not at a work, not at like work thing, but like a civilian? Have you ever been a civilian who went and asked for selfie with it?
So a few years ago I was at a cafe at Hamish Blake and Zoe were at the cafe and like, I love Hamish, I love Zoe, and I thought I'd love to be one of those people. But I just I looked at them at the cafe and what I love about Australia, people will leave you alone. They sat there in the corner, they got left alone. Hamish, who is very gracious. Who gets asked for a dollar or a bow or whatever a million times. I just thought that interaction would be exciting for me, It wouldn't be exciting for them, So I will just let them.
Finish the who always does it? Brent? He would like, I mortified.
I'd never do it it once with Adam Goods because I wanted my son to have a picture with him. But I literally did stop him at the beach. But anytime we see a famous liss and Brent's like, I'm gonna go, and I'm like, no, don't do that. It's so uncool.
What does he do when he goes up to this?
So Hugh Jackman we saw him at Bronze Beach once and it was years ago when he was also like really peak Wolverine, Like really, I mean I know he is again, but you know, Brent, I.
Was like stop it, don't know, don't do and he was just like you, He's like that, he is always that guy. And I'm just like dying and he.
And then he like points to me and goes she's too cool. Say hello, I'm not high.
You love your movies up to that?
Oh my god.
How about you may or have you ever done it?
I think, oh, have I done it? I feel like I have done it. I just can't think of when where you're just like I really need to tell this person how much they mean to me. Yeah, but at the Logi's on Sunday night, Mary Amd it was like, you know, it's so lovely all the people coming up to you and warning selfies and stuff, because usually when I'm in the street, people wind out they're window and go come on down your wanker.
That's what I like about Australia speaking of people that are really really famous. In case you missed it, man went to the logan, so if you've wonder what that's like. We actually did a subscriber episode this week where Maya gave us all the behind the scenes goss, what the food was like, what happens in the ad breaks, if any celebrities drank too much, Maya does not hold back. There is a link to that episode in the show notes.
A big thank you to all of you out louders for listening to today's show and being with us as you always are, and of course to our fabulous team for putting this show together. We will be back in your ears tomorrow maybe with or without.
A trigger warning. Bye, Hi, I'll take you.
Shout out to any Mamma Mia subscribers listening. If you love the show and you want to support us, subscribing to Mamma Mia is the very best way to do it. There's a link in the episode of description
