Adulting - #96 Political Philosophy, Addiction & Achievement Myths with Moya Lothian-McLean

Episode Date: March 28, 2021

Hey Podulters, I hope you’re well! In this week's episode I speak to the politics editor at gal-dem, Moya Lothian-McLean. We discuss which three things she wishes she had been taught in school, namely political philosophy, addiction and achievement myths. We talk a lot about social media, and the way that online discourse often dominates our perception of world events and compels us to form opinions on everything all the time, perhaps to our detriment. We also speak about fitness addiction, body image and dieting - so content warning for that. I hope you enjoy, as always please do rate, review and subscribe.link to NHS therapy https://www.nhs.uk/Service-Search/other-services/NHS%20psychological%20therapies%20services%20(IAPT),%20including%20cognitive%20behavioural%20therapy%20(CBT)/LocationSearch/10008 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca. Please play responsibly. Hey, poddleters. I hope you're doing well. In this week's episode, I speak to Moya Lothian-McLean about what three things she wishes she had been taught in school, namely political philosophy, addiction and achievement myths. We do talk a lot about social media and the way the online discourse often dominates our perception of the world as well. I found this conversation personally very cathartic because I love a lot of the things that Moya writes and the way that she talks about things. And so it's, I feel that I'm very rambly in this episode because I quite selfishly was

just loving talking to Moya but I hope that you still find it really enjoyable to listen to it it is a lot more of a conversation um this episode than interview but I hope that's enjoyable to listen to we do also talk about um fitness addiction and dieting so if that is going to be triggering for you I just thought I'd point that that does happen about halfway through the episode um we actually recorded this episode prior to me doing a post on Instagram about having not really worked out. And we talk about that in a lot more depth when it comes to kind of like body privilege and other privileges. So if you were following that when that happened online as well, then this might add a bit more context for that. But I really hope that you

enjoy listening and do make sure to check out Moira's writing on Galdem. And she also is on lots of TV programs doing interviews and stuff. So I'm sure you've seen her around. Anyway, I hope you enjoy listening. And as always, please do rate, review and subscribe. Bye. hello and welcome to adulting today i'm joined by moya lovian mclean you go hello hello hi um it's nice to have me nice to have me on let's start that again let's do that again sorry i completely missed that as long as i am much more professional than Snorley. I was just like... Just vibing. Just vibing in the corner.

Just vibing. Let's do that again. Sorry about that. It's quite funny. I kind of want to leave it. Hello and welcome to Adoption. You can leave that in. Let's just go from here.

It's fun. I love it. Okay, let's leave it in isn't um thank you so much having me on I'm very excited to be here today thank you for coming on I'm super excited to talk to you um I'm loving this weather I'm sweating now you were just saying you're getting hot it's suddenly sunny the world's looking up a little bit how are you how are you feeling I can't believe I'm feeling okay I'm a little I'm a little tired from a lot of work um but the fact that I can now feel sweat pooling under my arms is a real it's a positive sign that we're getting close to summer we're just inching there so that's a good thing I like to smell bad it is good I mean I'm yeah I've definitely got a Sula going on um but yeah you've been very busy

um I found you through your work and love reading everything that you put out so I wonder for people who maybe haven't been introduced to you yet or haven't come across you could we get an introduction to Moya who you are what you do a little bit about you of course um I'm a journalist uh I'm currently the politics editor at galdem which is a online and print publication which amplifies uh the voices of people of color from marginalized genders which essentially means everyone except cis men um so i do that but on the side i'm also a freelance journalist working across a range of things so I'm currently working on a podcast with a company called Broccoli Content which will be out soon

and it's about British slavery and that's all I can say and I also do a lot of like visual work so I do videos for the likes of like the BBC and I write articles for anyone who will let me write articles but yeah so mainly politics based but I like to dabble. Amazing so what was your background how did you get into the angle of politics did you study politics at university what was your background before getting into this angle of journalism? I did not study politics at university I did history at university actually so um not that I can remember that much of it given I went when I was 18 and uh did what every person when they're 18 goes to university does which is basically mess around for about three years and then pull their shit together at the very last minute um so so yeah I didn't I didn't do politics at university but I I guess I had a vested interest

in politics as not as the Westminster sort of centric politics that we think of it as but as I think it should be which is you know the sort of rules that govern everyone's lives and the structures that um dictate how we live so in that sense I was always interested in the way the world worked and why we did certain things as a collective society or as individuals within that society, looking out for their own interests. So that was why I got into politics. And it was, I almost fell into writing about politics because there was a real dearth of, I think, young politics writers of colour. And that's not because they're not interested.

That's because often there's barriers there, which mean that they don't get into it. And I was lucky in the sense that I was, you know, middle class, I'm mixed race. So I was almost able to move in as a bridge between these circles. So people often got me on board and then they realised that I have something to say.

But also I've been lucky in the sense that I've come of age at the time when publications like Galdem exist, who specifically are there to make sure there are those platforms and that we can talk about these things as people of colour looking at politics in a slightly different way than perhaps the lobby journalists who just want to talk about the budget, which is important, but it's not the entirety of politics. So that's, so I fell into it almost, I just was writing about the world around me. And that is politics. So then I then I got into the official title of political journalist, journalist. And once you're there, and everyone's just like, Oh, yeah, they know about politics.

So it's sort of like a cosign operation. So I don't know if I'm looking at this just from my angle of when I've come across you but for me it feels like you've really come into your stride with your writing and I see your work being shared everywhere in my corner of the internet and um it seems like you've got lots of eyeballs on you and from looking on the outside it looked like that happened quite quickly like you suddenly were launched into being a voice that people were going oh I wonder what Moya's got to say I remember like sending you a DM on Twitter being like you're the only person I listen to because you were really balanced but it's true like you would really break things down in a way that I would

go oh thank you this makes sense like it's not hysterical it's not like histrionics it's not kind of going like oh my god this is bad this is good you would give a really good breakdown you're very skillful at doing that and I don't know correct me if I'm wrong but did you have suddenly a big kind of explosion of eyeballs on you and how has that been as a writer because I know that people who are naturally writers don't always aren't always comfortable with that level of exposure how do you feel about it that's a actually really interesting question because it's something me and my therapist have been discussing at length recently. So it's funny. I've been writing for years.

So I've been writing since I was at university, since I was, I would say, 19 when I started out as a music journalist. And I wrote on the side. And it was paid from the very beginning for me because I was really, really lucky. And so I wrote for Vice. And then I moved. You know, I worked as as stylist for three years but the the explosion thing is simply because I I started working for places like Galdem and people started following me on social media that's the reason it's like the work I've been doing I haven't been

doing exactly the same the whole time because I haven't had the perhaps the platform or the capacity to say what but I've been doing very similar work in little pieces where I could people just haven't seen it so now it feels for example I followed you on Instagram for years since I was at since I was at university as well so it's like it's really interesting to me that now people that I used to follow are like oh wow I really like what you're saying I'm like that's that's very that's very funny it's a strange dynamic um and it's it I think I think it's given me a real insight into how you know social media will push people to the forefront and it's a very like narrow sort of um I don't want to say focus that's not the right word it's like a it's like a channel it's like once someone gets a bit of

traction the growth is almost exponential because then more and more people just go to them and um think that they must have something to say because everyone's following them and even if they don't quite understand what they're saying which is not what i mean about my work it's like even if someone doesn't quite agree they'll still keep following that person because they're like oh but everyone everyone else is on this so they must be saying something good which is also why there's a lot of like mediocre um commentators out there in my opinion who have just been pushed up to certain heights because some people are like oh yeah they're good and i'm like what are you talking about they're saying nonsense they're talking shit uh I'm sure there's people who think that about me as well but it is very much a case of I've been behind the scenes or

even on the on the scenes but just not perhaps noticed for literally since 2014 so it's it's not bit it's felt like an overnight explosion of eyeballs but I think it's because I got the I've been working as the politics editor's gal and as cover before but when I officially got the job that also coincided with a couple of bits more freelance work I'd been doing that I think had got me a bit more attention um more radio shows were starting to get me on because they're like I can talk that's also a thing if you can talk you start getting that traction as well um so it was a lot of factors came together and that's why it feels like overnight it's only been me and it's it's been it's been a bit stressful because and I'm sure you're very aware of this because as someone who's built a platform and has and is and knows what it's like to suddenly have a lot of people have expectations of you

that maybe don't even have any bearing on who you who you've been and the work you've done um because that you're you're suddenly you're suddenly seen as a voice and sort of humanity of you stripped away and it's just like oh they're just this they're a voice they've got this to say it's like i i i'm trying very hard to make sure i'm not distracted from what i actually want to do and i'm not going to just start doing things because I'm offered them and because suddenly it's like oh she's a voice let's get her onto this program or this program and I'm like okay it's it's fine for me to say no to that if that's not something that I would have done previously before if like if I've been offered what they weren't offering but now they

are and it's like if I wasn't if I didn't want to do that before there's no reason I should do that now if I don't think it's a subject within my area if I don't think it's something that's part of my like long-term goals I have to you have to keep focused because let's face it you can get lost in the source the clout the clout is the clout the clout is tempting but the clout is not satisfying so that's the way I feel about it um but yeah it's been it's been interesting it's it's been funny to see and it's also it's also it's also stressful because it's something I write about like I write about how we um we push young women onto these pedestals and we push them into being like the voice and for it to then happen it's not I'm not saying it's happened to me to the level it

does the people I write about but for it to happen even a little bit to me is very like i know exactly what's going on and so you have to fight tooth and nail to sort of resist being sucked into that but at the same time when people push expectations on you you cannot once you're once it's out there it's like you can't completely change their perception of you so it's interesting it's like managing it's like trying to relinquish control of that image of myself while also accepting that I can still do the things that I always wanted to do and it doesn't matter if that's not what people expect me to do yeah it's it's definitely really hard managing that that people's perceptions of you because

also you don't really you don't want to let people down you're like it's lovely when people think highly of you. So there's that weird element of like, oh, but this is a compliment, but actually it's so damaging as you say, because you end up bending over backwards to keep up this image that people have projected onto you, like she's this and that. And then it's so flattening. And then one day you wake up and you're like, oh my God, literally, I am just the opinion girl or whatever it is. And you've spent years probably trying to like, especially as women, I think we spend years trying to figure out who we are all the parts of us that make us us and then suddenly one thing that we say becomes like the time stamp of who we are and people like great let's go back to that thing that you said and we'll keep you there and it does mean that yeah

it's difficult because you've got to manage your own expectations and everyone else's while still trying to keep going so I think that is it is hard being in that position but I do think you're straddling it very well especially because you're not you're in a position where you aren't talking about yourself I think when you're like an influencer or someone you're kind of constantly having to be brought back to talking about you and obviously I want to be talking more about you here but the good thing I guess about journalism is you're given the freedom to explore other people and so you can talk about you in a way that isn't you kind of infer what you think without actually giving stuff away so I think that that's kind of like maybe slightly safer place to be but not not necessarily um but I'm really excited to have you on and um as you

said like people do think you're a good talker and I think you're great I've listened to on so many things I've read so many things so I was really interested to hear what you would say your three things that you wish you've been taught in school were and I'm glad that I did ask because they're great so the first one that you said kind of ties into what you're talking about right at the beginning which is political philosophy um I also wish I'd been taught this because as you said again right at the beginning I thought politics was party politics that was over there I was never going to understand it it was red and blue and like nothing to do with me and I never realized that all of these small conversations that we're having about like my really entry-level feminism conversations

or about who we were going to date or what we're going to wear that actually were really political in lots of ways so yeah I'd love to know when you had that I guess that political awakening and when you really started to understand and can figure out more a bit about how everything sort of it's all just one melting pot of ideas I guess it's interesting I think I'm actually going through it now to be honest with you that political awakening as it were it's it's a it's very funny so when I talk about political philosophy it's something that I still I'm not completely okay with and i will have to do a lot more education and reading which is why i wish in school we've been taught it and political philosophy specifically is sort of the um it's how it's it's sort of like the

theorizing and i'm sure you know about this but i'm just explaining it so that it's um for the listeners in case they're like what is political philosophy and if there are any political philosophy professors out there who think i'm messing up this explanation please do not tweet me about it um so political philosophy is sort of how to deploy public power to maintain survival and quality of human life so it's it's like it's theorizing about how we should do politics how politics should be like what is our political life like what are the systems we should be living by should be how can we make you know a better life for everyone and it's it's you have your old old guard of like the platos and the aristotles and all of

that and then you've got you've got the middle grounds of like the um utilitarianism and the russos uh and then you've got like marx so these are these are names that you hear and you're like okay i know these names what are they on about what are they saying and when i and i think you know in school when i talk about wanting to learn in school i'm i don't mean that we'd have to learn you know every single nitty-gritty bit about uh what saint augustine thought about sin because that that is something that's quite in depth and you know as a teenager you probably it's hard to engage but even the broad topic of learning how to think in that way of learning to think that politics isn't you know cut and dried because when we talk about like party politics that's political science that's that's how that's how politics is you know sort of um it's enacted in in the public sphere as it were but political philosophy

it's like learning to think and imagine about politics and learning to think about a world and what you want that world to look like and what things could be like and what is the best way like talking about that just like it's those conversations that you have at 2am perhaps with your friends when you've got like glass of wine in your hand and you're like but imagine if we had this system in place and you know would you want a world where everyone is like can is a world where everyone is equal actually possible and it's those kind of conversations about those systems and I think it's I think it's you know we obviously get taught how to think in a certain manner we get taught that some things are just part of the fabric of life we get taught

that some things are just this and that's the way they are so with the two-party system for example we get taught that you know you're either left or you're right and that's sort of it and then you get older you realize that actually within that there's so many more positions you know you could be on the left and you could have complete different views to someone else on the left and then there's you know you have all the libertarians all of of that. And there's so many different ways that people think about the world, but I don't think we're taught in how to imagine them.

And I think right now is, you know, I guess capitalism is sort of, is political philosophy. So thinking our way out of the system that we're currently in, I don't know if you've read Mark Fisher at all, but he's, he's a, he's a,

I guess he's a philosopher. He was an academic. He's a, he's a philosopher uh he's uh i guess he's a philosopher he was an academic he's a he's a philosopher he's very famous sort of like i think marxist tradition philosopher but he's really accessible like for example his book capitalist realism is really popular among young left-wingers uh like me because when you read it you're he's talking about for example um his students in class and being so overstimulated by, you know, the media world and the Internet and online around them that they they can't engage in day to day life. And that's sort of like philosophy of how you engage with life. And he says in his book about capitalist realism, it's like we can't even think it's easier for us. He talks about films, for example, like Children of Men or The Day After Tomorrow and these apocalyptic films

and how it's easy for us to imagine the end of the world than it is for us to imagine the end of capitalism. So, you know, you take the bank bailout in 2008 and it was like, the one thing in the bank bailout was, we cannot, like the system had failed, but it cannot fail. It will continue. It will have to continue. So they bailed them all out and they were like capitalism even though

it had failed and those those messages around um what captain was meant to be aka this big system that could never fail it was never going to fail because it's always ongoing and even though it failed then then and it proven that it could fail there was suddenly this the bailout because we couldn't imagine this end to capitalism we can't imagine these alternative systems because we're so deep in it and it's things like political philosophy that allow us to start thinking outside of that and challenge these assumptions like at one point in the very near past well the 1970s capital before before the 1980s capitalism wasn't the given it was it was just the new system it was like they had the second gasp of neoliberalism

that brought it back in the 80s and but there was other systems that people had in place you know the soviet union i'm not saying it was a great thing but it's like that was an alternative system and the fact that those two things exist at the same time is impossible to imagine now um that there's any alternatives so it's it's it's really interesting and this political philosophy I just think that you know we you started asking about my political awakening per se I think Jenny it is happening now because it's only now that I'm starting to be able to sit down and think there must be other things than this because what this is that I'm living in is not making me or and so many others happy but we also feel completely helpless and I think that's linked to certain

consumptive habits with the internet and things but because I've spent so long online and just engaging in online discourse and I grew up on that it's only now that I'm just so dissatisfied with it that I'm pulling myself away and start to think about you know to read outside of that and engage in the act of philosophizing I think I think discourse online is is it's weird because it comes from the practice of discoursing and having philosophical discussions but it's almost the online manner of it is so fast and so furious and so many just like snippets it's almost the um death of proper philosophizing yeah which i don't think is the correct word i don't think philosophizing is the word i'm trying to say but there's almost the death of like that conversation because it's it's it's such an individualistic

platform so only only now is it that like i'm actually maybe it's because i have the space as well because i'm now working full-time in a job that demands, I think, about politics and demands, I think, about it from a perspective that is outside the mainstream per se. And I'm not saying I do that yet, but it's saying, you know, one of my aims for Galdem, my section in Galdem is very much that I'm like, how can we push these conversations forward? OK, I know that, that you know we know racism exists we know it's here that's me to just get people to write another piece being like racism is here it's bad what how is that improving you know the our audience's understanding of these issues how is that improving how we think about them it's not so how can we think outside of them how can we report on stories that show you know alternative ways of thinking about this or ways to push this forward and ways to ways to sort of open up the discussion

and make it so that you know when you read a really a book that sort of gives you an insight and context and knowledge that you haven't had before and you feel so nourished by it we're very starved of that nourishment and I think things like political philosophy if I'd learned to think like that from an early age I think I wouldn't have spent so long um dithering about online and engaging conversations that mattered but perhaps were almost a distraction from the action outside such a good answer as you're saying that you just reminded me that when I was at uni in my first year and we learned about the concept of ideology like what ideology is and they were like you it's weird and I think I remember our lecture I think you use example of catapults like can you imagine a different version we were

like no and they're like this is ideology you're trained to believe that there is no other alternative that the moment you're living in now is what it's always been like it's like the current conversation although like more recently everyone's been talking about abolishing the police or like defunding the police and people like you can't get rid of the police and you're like of course you can it's all made up like there is a world without the police but you're right actually tapping into that mindset being able to imagine is really hard and it does take time it's interesting this idea of like there's so much conversation on the internet there's so much discourse so much rhetoric like if I read the word discourse one more time I'm gonna cry but um this pandemic's

made a slowdown in reality but if anything I think it's really even quickened the pace online I don't know if you'd agree with that like if it's kind of worsened our appetite for news and information and yeah I 100% agree with what you just said about the pandemic quickening the pace online I don't know if you've experienced this are you finding that you're trying to that that has made you perhaps finally think, I'm going to change my habits with the online world and I'm going to move away because this manner of conversation is not one that serves me anymore? Yeah, well, I've actually had, interestingly, you were saying to me before we started talking about how being like an influencer or being online means you always have to be present. And what's happened with me online is I've stopped thinking that I have to I used to think I had to show up online every day and have something to say and actually I'm doing loads of stuff now that so that I'm writing things in my free time I'm reading I'm working on stuff that may never go anywhere and that I might never show

to anyone because that's better for my long-term career goals my life whatever then kind of what I would do which is scrambling every day to get something up online be ready to be viewed by people every single day which feeds into you know it would help me with my career in the short term and it means that you're kind of doing what you're supposed to be doing but it's so fundamentally unhelpful for your mental health for your general education and like acquirement of knowledge I don't think that like the pace with which people read stuff and then immediately have an opinion on it, like terrifies me. And I know we spoke about that

in that Twitter exchange that time when something had happened on Women's Hour and people were having like opinions. And I was thinking, God, that's moved really quickly from kind of, like how have you had the space within a minute to form an opinion? And so, yeah, my attitude towards how I show up online

is changing a lot in that I'm watching a lot more and trying to sit back a bit more and take time with things because um it's turned into like a really weird rat race that I don't I feel I feel like it's a stampede and that you're gonna get trampled basically and I'm trying to like sit back a little bit online. Do you think that's you know you're what you're describing there to me is changing the art of the way you think about things which is exactly the way I see you know being if I was taught political philosophy from a young age it's that idea of how we think about things how we respond to things how we see the world shaped around us. And I wonder, like, what for you, you say, obviously, this is this being part of this rat race has done that, has that had an

impact on, you know, in the recent years, when you formed your political opinions, or you start how your political opinions changed at all, have the way that you engage with sort of politics, and you're talking about feminism, has that changed? Like, because this is all part of the conversation that I'm having about this political philosophy idea, which is, you know, as we now we're having to unlearn the things we're taught and relearn them. And imagine if we were just taught how to think about that at school. So I guess what's happening with me is I'm, I went from zero to a hundred with my political awake thing in terms of like, I was at university. I suddenly learned a lot about politics and inequality and the world and feminism and history. And I was wow I'm so I listen to the guilty feminist every day it was the most

amazing thing I've ever heard in my life and then now I've kind of slowed down and realized that I need to read a fucking lot and be more up to date and then I can comment in a week in a month but just not straight away. That's the exposition I'm in. It's so, I think it's really exciting. It's really exciting when you realize how much you don't know and that you're not a fully formed person who has every answer and that, you know what, you can go and sit down and read a book and that's so exciting.

I don't have to be online and I don't have to, you know, know every single thing about the way the world works and the way the world should work. And I can read different views on that and form my own opinion using critical analysis rather than just looking down the timeline and coming to a consensus, which is, I think, something that's so, you know, it doesn't make you happy that they're consuming it. Do you know what I find is so interesting? That every conversation I have at the moment, it will always return to this being online. And I think what we're going to talk about later will also come back to this. But it's because it's such a fundamental part of our lives

and it's like divesting from that space in a way that's healthy for us. Because there are great things about being online. I think when we talk about it, we're talking primarily about social media because if I spend hours scrolling the encyclopedias online or scrolling like these really interesting articles about you know politics and political systems that's probably going to be that's a lot more nourishing than sitting on twitter and having the same conversations

over and over again in the echo chamber and not being able to and I talked about this the other day not being able to pull that knowledge in a way that forms a collective dialogue rather than just like you know it's there one day and it's gone the next day and then someone else is saying it the next day, but they can't see the person was saying it in the first place. So it's just like an ongoing repetition. And yeah, having those discussions with the people offline is so jarring because you realize that you're speaking in a register and an absolutism, as you pointed out, that is just not reflective of the world around you. And that there's a very, you know, you've got millions of people online, but it's still a very small pocket of people and when I go outside in the street and

if I talk to all my neighbors it's like would they would they be speaking the same register I am would they understand what I'm talking about it's like my mum had this conversation with me actually where she said you know we're very we're very much nearly on the same page when it comes to politics she's the person who raised me so I have similar political views to her, probably even a bit more left because of, you know, the spaces I've been in, the experiences I've had. And, but she, she said to me, you're always campaigning at me, Moya. You're always campaigning. And instead of having a conversation, I was just campaigning at her. And I was trying to, a lot of the stuff is stuff she knows, or she's experienced, or she's, she's literally lived through, you know, know she she was a she came of age as 20 year old something in the 70s so she was there through

all of that it's not there's not to say that you know you know everything just because you've lived it because I don't think that's true I think lived experience has to pair with learning and education and actually an analysis but the fact that I was campaigning about her on topics that she you know she'd already seen and done, it just made me annoying. It just made me really annoying and sound like I knew everything when I knew very little. And once you realize that you don't have to have those absolutes, it's so freeing, like existing in a space where you break through these binaries. And it does allow you to think more about other binaries and things like that you know I've always been someone who's such you know I've thought I've thought about the gender binary as not being that absolute thing but it really once you see those links in other

spaces and think you can look oh you can move past this sort of binary of thinking it opens up every other thing that's the point it's like none of these things exist in a vacuum they're all part of the interconnected way we live and think about our lives and just breaking down those initial barriers will lead on to other areas that you didn't even imagine it's like thinking you know you know I've always been like I'm a cis woman but I'm like do I have to be a cis woman just because I don't like I'm not saying I'm non-binary but it's like these ideas of thinking about yourself beyond that and seeing like oh just because I have tits that doesn't make me a woman that makes me you know a person with tits and it's like thinking beyond those binaries in a really exciting way and having those just any assumptions you've ever

made about yourself challenged but on your terms so yeah that's I just think absolutism is is it's tiring and it's not it's not a fun way to live your life in the world I think this leads quite nicely onto your second thing which is add, because I think that very nature of social media being so heightened, so emotive, is what makes it very addictive. And I don't know if that was what you were going to talk about with your addictions, but I certainly have realised in this pandemic that I'm addicted to social media for sure absolutely I was it was one of the main sort of like I think my addiction to my smartphone specifically the social media apps on my smartphone has probably been one of the most damaging things in my life but it's also been one of the ones that's the most normalized and I've had you know I've had a fitness addiction exercise addiction which I think from seeing your posts on social media you probably can speak to and we can discuss

that a bit because it's it's quite common um and you know but that one that one also and I had an I have another addiction or rather something that threatened to become addiction and I won't say exactly what it was but it was involving substances and that's something I'm very much in recovery for in a really positive way like I I would I'm very clean of it now but it's something that if I talked about that openly properly openly um which I'm not quite ready to do but I can talk around it I'm very happy to do that if I've properly talked about that openly there would be a lot of stigma and shame that came with that and it would it would reflect on me in a way that talking about my smartphone addiction doesn't and I can talk about my fitness addiction now because it's you know I passed that

and I really do believe that talking about that fully like that's that's in the past well it always kind of carries with you but um that's something that like we can talk about because it's also been normalized to the point to talk about on social social media funnily enough and it's interesting me comparing the different ways that I feel able to discuss these separate addictions because one of them is involving you know substances it's something that's very shameful it's something that's seen as a loss of control one of them is involving my smartphone which is seen as so normalized because it's just a part of how you function in everyday life and how you engage and how you know I build my platform and my brand as they like to call it um and how you know you interact with the world around you

now and then you know your fitness addiction that's almost something you can talk about because it's like it's not doesn't come from from, it came from like the pursuit of wanting to have a certain body image, but it's more about control. But because it's, you know, trying to look a conventional way, almost, that's, it's not that it seems like good, but it seems like far more acceptable. It's understandable. So the separations between these three different addictions and the reasons behind it, which all come to the same thing which I'll talk about in a minute but it's just so funny to see the difference and to see the comparison and the contrast in how I feel about them how people feel about them and what that tells us about where we're living right now. Congratulations first of all on coming out of your addiction with your substance that's amazing

Tara and I'm very proud of you it's so difficult to break a habit um especially in addiction something like that and this the second thing I was going to say was with the fitness addiction in a very sinister and cynical take I actually think that fitness addiction is kind of seen as a good thing especially maybe not especially with women but because it's a form of self-flagellation and it's kind of like, it's a commitment to being regimented. There's something really sinister about the way that women are lauded. It's like some weird like chast. There's something in it that I think is the actual addiction, irrespective of the results the actual um sacrifice of giving up food of giving up that pleasure is something that is weirdly celebrated in women irrespective of how small they are the actual act of being on a diet in a weird way is celebrated I know that sounds

really fucked up it definitely does make sense I think it's almost I think now the way we look at diets I would say mostly if you hear the word diet I think most people think diet and they I think there was a bit of shame involved with the act of dieting itself because the way of thinking about it is now like the dieting is the bad thing but the fitness the going to the gym the working out five six seven times a day the act of that giving up the hour not going so when I had my fitness addiction or rather when I was in the throes of it really badly I was working out I would say six times a week I would do it every single evening after a full day at work I would you know it didn't matter if my boyfriend at the time would see me I couldn't do it I couldn't go out my friends until I'd done it I'd

fit in this working out um and also I was very disciplined with my like that's think discipline again that word with my diet at the same time but I would never be like I'm dieting I'd just be like oh I'm you know I am eating these foods like it's it was and at the start I gave up like sugar and stuff like that but then then I went back to eating sorry I should trigger warning and all this um then we can stick it in post edit we'll stick it in post edit um yeah then I went back to eating what you'd call a full healthy diet but then I went back to eating like what I call a full healthy diet and um I was still definitely addicted to the fitness element that would sort of like as you say that self-flagellation that punishment that work it was showing this work that I was putting in and the control and discipline of pushing my body

and punishing my body in that sense so I think I think dieting itself has more shame because you associate it with you know like the Atkins diet it's this very old-fashioned outdated idea of how to punish yourself as a woman but the fitness now that's something different that's something that's you know it's it's this almost like a fresh new way to go about it and it's it's your your what's the word you're toning up your um streamlining your you're pushing yourself in that way dieting if you want to do something that's like seen as acceptable and it's now intermittent fasting because that's like the new age spiritual version of um getting your getting your getting your body getting your body adhering to the conventional norms as it were um but yeah so I think I think dieting I think dieting you know

if I hear a friend saying they're dieting I'm like what are you doing but if I I I understand more when a friend is like I'm going to gym the gym all this time, X, Y, Z, I've got this very detailed plan, et cetera. And I'm like, oh yeah, you know, there's that subconscious thing, which is like, oh yeah, they're bettering themselves. And so when it's like, I don't know if they are. I really don't know if they are.

And it's obviously fitness is a wonderful thing, but the addiction to it has so much more bound up in it. I agree with you. Obviously, if my friend says they're dieting I'm like you don't need to go on and I might my immediate response is again a pre-packaged social media one that I've like almost said so many times over the years that it just comes out because diet is such a dirty word now in the reverse and so that happens but with the fitness that's happened to me in the pandemic is like I've basically not worked out this year I've just been going on walks and I don't think ever in the last six or seven years that I've ever not exercised and it's kind of been it's semi-conscious in that like I hate doing home workouts but it's also just I feel so emotionally drained from the pandemic

that was like I don't have the physical energy to do something really strenuous so I'm just going to go on walks and I feel nothing about it. I don't care that I'm not exercising, but sometimes I think about, oh my God, me four years ago, a bit like you were saying, like wouldn't have seen a boyfriend. I would have been panicking I hadn't exercised. I would have been finding ways to exercise. I would have been walking like a million steps a day. This pandemic had it happened to me when I was in the throes of my like disordered eating and fitness um like uh addiction I don't know I I would have found it so difficult I would not have been able to deal with the fact that I couldn't go to the gym whereas this time around I'm like oh I'll just go for a walk like it's amazing how my mindset shifted but when did your when did you

break off that addiction and like do you think I saw that you said something about this on Instagram the other day, and it is interesting. There's been like a wave of our generation of women getting fitness addictions, kind of overcoming them and now being like very confessional about that fact. Were you in time with that kind of wave of that happening?

Yeah, a hundred percent. As I said, I, I, as a, as a, like a young adult, young adult I guess teenager I followed your Instagram from the start like I was in the fitness bubble community I followed I followed everyone I was

on the Kayla program but I hated it so I quit that and um sorry Kayla and yeah so I was I was I'm very much of age I'm 26 this year in fact in two a week in 26 and a was, I'm very much of age. I'm 26 this year. In fact, in two, a week, in 26 and a week. So I'm very much of that era, I guess, that's grown up coming of this particular age online. And, you know, at university, just when this sort of like the amateur fitness, the amateur fitness person to influence a pipeline happened, because I think a lot of young women my age who

became fitness influencers I don't know if this was your journey too when they did that they started out as um you know just people part of the fitness communities online that started building up organically and they were usually at university so they had much more spare time to engage in that fitness world and work out and post those workouts and it became like a side hobby and then suddenly they found themselves with these thousands of followers who were like, every single move, it was like, Oh, wow, you're, you know, this is, this is, this is now my career, I guess this is who I am. And that becomes your life. So I was, I was on the other side of that. I didn't want to be a fitness influencer, but I was very much following those journeys. And

for me, I only, I guess I only started coming out and I wouldn't say I'm still out of it. I work out three times a week. I only, I do one 20 minute coming out. I wouldn't say I'm still out of it. I work out three times a week. I only, I do one 20 minute run and then I do two full workouts like with rest days. So it's much better now. But I only start, but I still get, I still get probably a little panicky if I didn't do like one of,

if I only did one of those things, I'd probably feel a little off, which is still something I have to work on. And it's very hard. It's really hard because it is part of the way I control my life. And that is something I constantly struggle with. But the only, the reason when I started, I guess, tackling the fitness addiction was probably,

it was probably when I met my current boyfriend, because he had knowledge of it. Let's just say he had knowledge of these kind of things. And he was very much like, in a very loving, kind way. How funny, he just tried to call me, he can feel his ears burning. In a very loving and kind way. He's like, are you talking about me on a podcast? like yeah this caring loving way he recognized that it wasn't normal that I was giving up so much time and energy to get these workouts in and that I panicked and became very distressed and I would pull up my I'd pull up my constantly just always pull up my jumper and look at my stomach in the mirror when I was passing it by without thinking it was this unconscious thing I always would do and I still do it sometimes um and he was like I think you've got a bit of an issue here and do you want to talk about it a bit more and I knew I I knew deep down I had an issue and for a while

I maintained it and then slowly with sort of his help and encouragement I tested out taking down my workouts to you know four a week or only doing like a little bit. And then I took them down to three big workouts a week. And then I started only doing two workouts a week. And it's only this year I've started running again. And that's because it's only 20 minutes. It's not a hard run. But I started running because I've never run before in my life. And I was like, I want to do something that's just a bit different and I hate running and I think it's good for me to actually challenge myself a little bit so I started I started doing a run at the start of this year just to prove I could um and now I do it just on Mondays

uh but if I if I don't feel up to it I won't but it's it's that idea of like slowly having to reduce it down and as you said with your experience this you know, realizing the world's not going to fall in, you're not going to change that much. And even if you did, it wouldn't be a bad thing, although that would be something hard to cope with. But the sky is not going to fall in and it will keep going and you will still feel okay about yourself if you give these things up. But just even taking that first step needed sort of him to hold my hand in a very big way to make me feel okay to do that and that's why having people around you that love you is so important for dealing with addictions as it were and he's also someone who he's the person who also helped me with the substance um as well so I I wouldn't say I owe him because I don't feel like you owe your

partners but he's a very big light in my life. And he's helped, he helped me realize a lot of things. And he got me to also, he's also helped me finance my therapy. So he's literally, this man is literally recovery central, I'd say. But yeah, so it's that kind of thing. It's like you, I do think that you can't deal with addictions totally on your own. And that's, that's really okay but we talk because we live in such an individualized world um we think that it's always like if you can't deal with this thing on your own you can't sort out on your own you you're not able to do that it's it's almost like a failure on yourself and then you fall further

into that shame spiral which pushes you further down the route of you know these these destructive habits and it's like I only all these things about addictions all the roots of my addictions they come from things that i've explored in therapy which is certain ways i think about the world certain guards my protectiveness my control my fear of rejection certain certain things and unhappiness and understanding what i was searching for in these addictions you know my smartphone addiction where i'm trying to fill this void i'm trying to like constantly be stimulated i'm constantly trying to find connection but I'm not going to find it through my social media apps in the way I want so I'm having to I'm now doing this thing where I

have to build up like my I have loads of wonderful wonderful friends but it's like for a long time I've I've very much sort of pulled back and relied on um social media to connect with these people even if I could walk down the road and see them and part of like the thing I'm doing in therapy is I'm getting over my fear of one-to-one not just group one-to-one interactions so one-to-one interactions and really trying to go and see them or if I can't see them zoom them and spend time with people one-on-one um so that I get over that fear of not not being enough not bringing enough to the conversation not feeling like the reason that I've always been in groups and the reason that I've often you know that the substance problems because I didn't feel like I had anything to offer myself even though that you know people be like that's not true

you're great you're full of life all of this and it's like that's fine that's it didn't come from a rational place it came from a very irrational place it came from a lot of like issues that I've had you know my father left when I was very young so I had a lot of like rejection issues around that it's very run-of-the-mill stuff, but it still was there, and these fears of, like, building these one-to-one connections with my friends, and letting them get close enough to me, IRL, that, you know, you can be hurt, you can rely on someone, or depend on someone, that's where a lot of this stuff's coming from, and, like, not feeling like you're enough, so, like, having to, you know, bring substances, or bring, you know, this fun version of yourself,

and all of that, that's another thing, and then it's, you know, this fun version of yourself and all of that. That's another thing. And then it's, you know, this exercise addiction and wanting to be at least look perfect, even if I wasn't sparkling company. So it's and going to therapy and having my partner, you know, allow that, but also gently say to me, are you sure you're OK about this thing? Are you sure this thing is that you don't seem happy? You just don't seem happy. Those those are the biggest factors in sort of tackling my addiction so I'd say it's that support network and it's also having access to things that can help you you know he he allowed me access to therapy which I'd never been able to do before because I hadn't had the disposable income to do it and that and my mum also helped pay for

a bit of it but he's primarily been helping me with it and that itself is like a major privilege but also be aware that if you don't have access to these things that's like it's not your fault if you cannot deal with it on your own that was a very long answer oh my god no when you were talking about your boyfriend it genuinely made me well up one because it's just so lovely to hear when people are in really loving supportive relationships like I just and also because I love my boyfriend that is it made me want to cry it's so stupid but it was just so sweet I just love him and it's it's so nice to have that support and it's so important and there's so many things you said that resonates with me I mean I'm in therapy as well now which is I have been since I think was it last year November last year maybe around then the most revolutionary thing

I've ever done I agree with you it's like oh my god same that was exactly the same really that's so funny um yeah it's just absolutely incredible and the things I've learned about myself like where these insecurities have come from and like where I don't know it's just it's just taking control and like learning all these things about boundaries anyway it's with the phone thing again it's the same with me the more I've been in therapy and I've unearthed um maybe issues that I didn't realize that had come from my childhood or trauma or things like that the less I've become dependent on validation from strangers or like external validation online it's been a really interesting seesaw effect watching how if you mend little things deeper down some of these what seem like surface

level problems do actually start to dissipate everything's kind of interconnected I guess I 100% agree and also I welled up talking about my boyfriend a bit so um it is it is really funny when I hear about other people's relationships like yours and you're like I love him so much I also get very emotional because I'm like it's just so nice um it's just so it's just it's just nice to have someone that shows up for you and cares and I don't want people to listen to podcasts and be like guys shut the fuck up because stop talking about your boyfriends but it it does it changes a lot and this can be a friend relationship too I also want people to note that like this support and love you can find that in your friends and they you know you just it's letting that person in in a way that they can they

can do that for you and that is that's more than okay and I think a lot of the time online as well we pathologize relationships uh so they have to be like this transactional thing of like you know who's doing the emotional labor who's doing what and it's like that's not what they are relationships are how you know it's it's just about like letting someone love you and be there for you and be there when you need someone and sometimes you don't recognize that you need someone I don't know if you feel similarly but it's like a lot of my life I've been very much like I'm so independent because of the things that now like looking at in therapies I'm so independent I could do this all on my own. And even if I do need someone, I can't need someone because if I start relying on someone,

then, you know, everything else will just crumble because then they might go away when I need them. And that's not, that's just not how it has to work. And you don't have to be like alone in that. And as you say this, you know, we're going to talk about therapy now. And I do want to say that therapy is not the be-all and end-all for everyone it doesn't solve every single thing and it is obviously a massive privilege to be able to get into it and

afford it um I would maybe in the show notes we could put a couple of groups that are providing you know access to therapy for marginalized people who don't have the money that would be really helpful because even though it's not the be-all all just having that space to talk is so important but it it's I just it's hard because like the things I'm going to talk about are things that like without therapy I wouldn't be able to discuss them and without that therapy you know without that access to this this thing that is like a real privilege um I I you know I don't want people to think that they can't do that they can do it on their own because that's also again that narrative i was talking about like if you

you know you think that you should be able to do this all on your own and you think that you should be able to like reproduce the structures of a therapeutic environment where you can sit and talk and have that and have those realizations on your own because honestly you can't and that is because our society is a very skewed unequal place and that is the thing it's like we have made up all these sort of struct we've made up all these like myths about what you should be able to do and access individually because we have made such an unequal society where people can't access that all at once and we've made a scarcity myth which is that sort of idea where you know there's a shortage of things so we'll come up with solutions for it such as you know talk about

freelancing a lot online like freelancers massively gone up because there's no staff jobs and journalism that's just one of those things it's like this scarcity thing and it doesn't have to be this way that's again going back to my point we could we could have another world where you do have this mental health support and you do have these kind of things like not just therapy but the other things that you know you know the other ways of dealing with mental health that people can access and i think it is okay to say right now there is not enough of that and it doesn't matter how many times we say it's time to talk on social media that's not going to be the answer. FanDuel Casino's exclusive live dealer studio has your chance at the number one feeling, winning. Which beats even the 27th best feeling, saying I do.

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addiction stuff it is it is all interconnected it is very much like you know this i wrote this essay on smartphone addiction the other day because i was finally able to sit down and be like i as you said you i don't get the same dopamine blast from having a thousands of strangers want to like follow me online because it doesn't mean as much anymore it's not where my values lie because that I've realized that's not where I get that satisfaction and that's not like something that I need in my life to make me happy because it just makes me feel a bit more empty and it's like the things that make me happy it's like hanging out with people that I love it's talking to people I like having interesting conversations like these where you really can chew over stuff and be like it's okay we don't

have all the answers and you know going outside and painting my electric box and planting seeds and being slow it's like you said it's just being a bit slower my dream is to you know move back to the countryside one day and live in the little cottage that I grew up in and just you know get off the rat race as you say but it's like that dream only exists because we're so overwhelmed by this stream of social media and there's not that balance yet and maybe as I get older I will be able to strike that balance in a way that makes it sustainable but right now it's like I just wanna I just want to be able to breathe and figure out who I am now compared to who I was five years ago and what that means. And having the space to do that is an enormous privilege.

It's only come with the support of my partner, my friends and, you know, having a little bit extra money to do this stuff with. And that's the truth of it there's um I'm going to share as well in the show notes but a girl dm a woman dm me about how you can actually apply for like free therapy through the NHS and they're actually it's a lot quieter than people think it is because everyone presumes it's so busy it's actually slightly easier to get referrals I'm going to put the link to that because I shared that before on Instagram um but I wanted to go back to what you're saying about fitness quickly because when you said about how where your worth, you realize it's not online, it just made me think about how it's a really sad kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, this one,

because what happened with me was all my life, I'd had quite disordered eating and always wanted to be, I'd never been a really skinny girl. So I, all I wanted to be was super lean and skinny. I thought it would make me really happy. And so you kind of, you do, I really had my eyes on the prize. And I was like, I'm going to get so shredded and everyone's going to love me then. And then you get really lean. And the way I did that was online. And so then my values did become inverse. Like I had, it's like that thing of like whatever you water grows.

So I grew a community of people online. I was so obsessed with being lean. And then I realized like slam dunk, wow, you know, having abs and being like 16% body fat has not made me happier. It's not made my friendships any better. My grades aren't any better. Like nothing has improved. I've just got loads of people following me online. And it's sad because that path kind of is set out for us. It's like predestined it's so many young women and girls are sidetracked by this because that's what we're taught we're indoctrinated to believe so irrespective of where you come from or what your background is it's like we're so set up for a fall and it's almost as though and again you kind of outline this and you're i can't think it was on your instagram story but it's almost like we have to go through as a rite of passage, all of this rigmarole and like trauma and stress. And only some of us make it out to the other side where we're able to, as you say, leisurely kind of slowly do this critical thinking and questioning like, am I cisgendered?

Am I straight? Am I happy being in the body that I'm in? Do I need to ascribe to certain beliefs? Am I interested in? Do I need to ascribe to certain beliefs? Am I interested in whatever it is? Not everyone makes it out because it's such a strong pull. It's such a magnetic force, basically the capitalist mindset dream that keeps us all, because capitalism and dieting, I guess, are like totally entrenched. Sorry, I've gone so off topic, but I'm just, I just, it was just making me think how obvious it all is it's all so deliberate do you know what I mean yeah totally I mean this is not off topic at all it's all part

of the same topic that's that's the entire point you know we're getting back to the political philosophy mixed in with you know this this we live in this structure and it's like we have agency within it but only enough that allows us to keep participating within it it's like we have agency within it but only enough that allows us to keep participating within it it's like we have this and i do think we have like a bit of like obviously free will and i do think this but as you say it's like we are on this path which is set out and that is that magnetism it's that you know paul again and again it's like it's like that sketch in um arrested development where i don't know if you've seen it tobias and lindsey are talking in that and they're like we should try an open marriage and lindsey's like does it work and Tobias goes no

it never does but and people always fool themselves into thinking that but it might just work for us and it's that idea of like we always think it might slightly be different and maybe maybe if we just try it it will be different for us but it's not it's just again these myths of like capitalism that want us to become these consumers, these, like, commodifying, and now we know how to monetize these journeys. So, you know, you're going on, we go on this fitness journey,

and even without thinking about it, it becomes part of our own mythology. I read a really interesting character, really interesting essay this week on, like, main character syndrome and how we all want to be, like, the main character in our own lives and how social media has really exacerbated that. But it's, and I think what you're saying

about who makes out to the other side is really interesting because we, I think, look, like take us, both of us, we sort of, we're kind of coming out there. We have this space to make it out. And I think you could probably argue the reason we have that space is partly because of the privileges we enjoy. You know, um, I'm I'm definitely from middle class background I think you're from middle class background too uh we both have like these very loving support networks we both fit in convention we still are very conventionally like sized we are like conventional beauty norms like that is just who we are as people and we have been afforded the grace to have that space we've been you know people come to us and they want to hear about almost these issues we've had in the way we've worked through them

whereas on people who don't fit within these parameters there's much less grace for them and they're not really afforded that recovery space and also if they do go through that recovery no one's to hear about it because it's almost seen as failure for them because they fail to still fit within these conventional norms whereas we've gone through these things and it's like we're still we're still within the structures we're still now and now we become voices of rebelling against those norms even when we still fit into them and it's very funny it's very it's not in like a haha way it's like an uh way and but we don't want that like that's not something we have ascribed to it's just the way we fit within these systems and it's

very hard to rebel against that because capitalism is so overpowering it's like we were talking about the start and I don't want to be like oh it's just capitalism because I do think it's a deeper thing but it's it's that idea of like whatever what what we do we can fight as much as we want but we'll still be ascribed certain roles and norms and probably fit into manners of speaking it's like my boyfriend the other day was telling me about you know the way I talk on Instagram like I speak in influencer speak if I'm frank with you like because of the platform and the way it shapes the voices that you use on it I do speak in that very like influencey conversational tone I slip into that lexicon

very easily and I'm not I wouldn't say I'm an influencer because per se but I definitely know what comes across in that platform best and how to convert on that platform and what will push up my content as I put it that I'm sharing on that platform so it's like even when I want to talk about the system I'm still engaging in the system to get my words out there and so it's it's really difficult but I think the answer is really sitting down and doing that thinking and being like you know what sometimes my intention will you know do I divest from Instagram altogether do I divest from Twitter altogether but or will do I accept that sometimes my intention will be misconstrued whatever happens

and like I'm operating with a system where it's like I throw as much as that wall as I can and you know some of it will punch through the wall and some of it will just stick to the wall and become a print that sells on IM5 which I love to buy my bedsheets from it's that kind of idea what you just said then was really powerful really clever actually about how we're given the grace in the room to fail and then still fit within the beauty standards still fit within the structures which is why often it's interesting to talk about this I try not to talk about my relationship with fitness or even my body anymore because I'm so straight so I'm slim and I'm white and I'm conventionally attractive as you outlined I mean I hate saying that because it sounds like I'm being

like I'm fucking hot I don't mean that you know what I mean structurally um but yeah the reason I don't like talking about it, but this is why it's so interesting talking about it from an addiction frame point, because I think that that is kind of like anyone, no matter who you are, you can have an addiction, but I wasn't marginalized. I'm never marginalized with my body. So talking about that grace to fail is such a good way of explaining this space and why it kind of made me feel a bit icky about having me talking about this I'm like oh my god that's that's such a perfect way of saying it it's like not only am I allowed to go through this I'm allowed to fail and then carry on I don't know

I just think you put that so well and it kind of made me um just made me recognize my privilege once again mid-converse it is it's just a constant it's just a constant but it's something that I'm having to grapple with as well because I've never thought of myself as like being outside the norms in any shape or form because I'm very aware of you know who I am why I you know we talked about earlier how I a lot of people are reading the things I'm doing right now. And it's also because I fit within certain molds and people like seeing, you know, young and I will say attractive, like young, attractive, conventionally attractive. As you say, straight sized. I'm, you know, I pretty much identify as this at the moment. I want to think outside of that, but I can't like go away from that like a basically straight uh woman who is also a person of color like I fit every like I fit and just enough outside like

the palatable frame but then I'm totally palatable I'm totally allowed in like I'm I'm I'm sort of like the Venn I'm the Venn diagram of like you know a broadcaster's wet dream it's why they always get mixed race people on to talk about issues that affect um non-mixed race people uh it's it's like why why why are you getting us on to try and talk about like what's affecting dark-skinned black women because we are almost the bridge um that's just spicy enough but not too spicy uh so it's it's something i'm always trying to grapple with but it is it's something that's come up a lot recently because i've been talking a lot about the influencer culture and as i said you know my boyfriend's like well you know you've done like a lot of like influencer-esque stuff and i was always like i actually cried talking to us i'm not an influencer i'm not doing that and he's like look at your feed like look at the stuff you post um look at like have have you do need some

self-reflection it's like in the past i have definitely engaged when i was working at a lifestyle magazine i used to post stuff like it wouldn't be ads but it would be like people would send me free shit and i'd sometimes be like this is a really good product i love it and like just automatically slipping into that vein and doing those things so it's it's not that we have to do the whole communist stand up and do the confess my sins self-flagellation but it is a constant process of recognizing how we engage within the systems and how you know it puts it the whole thing is to put us in the box of consuming creating a constant flow of that and um whether we like it or not you know these the certain voices we do get promoted to a platform because of who we are and because

you know it's hard to break that cycle it's really hard to break that cycle it doesn't mean we have to shut up and stop creating and stop you know talking and stop allowing our views to air but it just does mean that we have to try maybe even that little bit harder to make sure that other people are getting up there with us and extending that hand and being aware of when we don't need to take up that space and also sometimes just like I'm trying to log off more not because I'm like people don't need to hear what I have to say even though they don't it's because for my own peace of mind it's learning I don't have to share everything it's learning it's weird saying this on a podcast where I've confessed a lot of stuff that I've only

just started thinking about or confronting but um privacy privacy and like those boundaries of privacy and what the internet needs to know what it doesn't need to know and what people need to know and you know I I do pick and choose very carefully what I'm saying to people and I'm saying this to you because I I think this is a really good space for it um but it's it's interesting it's like I've I've got to wean myself off the internet and that internet addiction I have got like an alt a secret account that's not so secret now twitter account where I just have like my closest closest friends it's almost like a group chat and that's why I've now started putting all my like farted out thoughts and silly things because it makes you question the process of even doing that

and then when you're questioning you know should this go on main twitter and then you question does this even need to go on twitter at all maybe not maybe i could just sit back and not put this on this platform and i i've you know my output on instagram has really gone down i still post the odd selfie because i love it but it's really my relationship has changed it's basically just work and a couple of odd pictures and then it's like i've got i just don't enjoy that platform in the same way anymore because it's not as fulfilling and i do i think the pandemic as well as really as you say it's like I've got I just don't enjoy that platform in the same way anymore because it's not as fulfilling and I do I think the pandemic as well as really as you say it's that over consumption that's been through the pandemic but it's like god being outside is just so nice oh my god it's so interesting um especially talking about like privacy and versus thank

first of all thank you for sharing with me I've loved talking to you but I think there's such a big difference between people say to me god you share so much online I'm like I actually don't I'm really open I don't want to say vulnerable because I don't feel vulnerable in what I'm sharing because I'm very and also calculated not the word it's deliberate what I'm talking about I'm happy to talk about I'll talk about certain things too with I talk about my periods or like it's it's personal but it's what I want to share and it's interesting because I've got really good now at not sharing what people ask me to so I have the privacy in the sense that people ask me things I'm just like I don't owe you the answer to this question but then I might talk about something which they deem to be way more personal so it's interesting that kind of like private public it makes me think

going back to uni again talking about like a room of one's own and like the Victorian times, the blending of the personal and the public. But it is really interesting. It always comes back to those same kind of conversations health, sex, periods, all those things, they're what I talk about. And the things that I keep private are like what I do on the weekend, how I spend my downtime, you know, what I do with my boyfriend or like the conversations I have with my friends. That's my really private because that's my personal public. And then you have like your internet public, which is like a different thing. I don't know. It's a really interesting dichotomy to think about because it has it has really changed and the scope of what we deem to be acceptable common parlance common conversation has also changed tenfold in the last like five to ten years so I think that private public concept

is really really interesting like when we look at social media and what we deem to be personal and what we deem to be private if that makes sense no absolutely I mean it's what's really interesting what we said there is how what things like sex and periods is now you know that's internet public that's something that you may not necessarily talk about it as openly like if you're invited to a random dinner um with you know in a professional setting but I'd be more like to talk about that than some other things because I think this has a lot to do with actually the commodification of feminism and the lexicon that we're talking about it and how that is you know talking about sex is like it's easy now it's fine it's like yeah i come that's radical uh so it's like those those things it's like you know

you have all these like eco-friendly sustainable women's period places and it's all all about that kind of thing and it's like it's actually yeah talking about this online is a really cool radical thing to do and that's feminism and that's now means that it's the trickle-down effect it's actually yeah talking about this online is a really cool radical thing to do and that's feminism and that's now means that it's the trickle-down effect it's like this i always talk about like the cerulean blue jumper and the devil wears prada you know something starts from like this radical place in perhaps you know the 20th century so you have that radical feminist politic and then as as neoliberalism starts capitalism starts there's commodification of everything around us so that's geared up really in a huge way in the social media where everything became content and everything became something to be consumed then you have like this the feminism at the same

time as like this big movement but then it became gobbled up and it's like talking about as a woman online talking like like men talking about sex online i think would get a very different reception and it's not that it'd be shamed it'd just be a lot more dirty i think unless they were a queer man because queer men now talking about sex is radical um which you know that's that's different politics but it's like it's interesting as women talk about sex online that's still like very seen as like wow that's really like totally normal and liberated it's like you can write a whole book about it and sell it to the masses talking about sex and periods so it is interesting and I think when we talk about the internet public what I think about is the stuff that's safe to

be consumed and when you talk about like your personal personal stuff like you know going on the walks and spending time with your loved ones that for me is something I have to keep close to me because otherwise I feel like I'm cheapening it because I know when I put stuff out there in a way it's almost for that commodification and that consumption. And I know that whether I intend that or not, that will happen. I really live by the idea that when you put things online, no matter how unfiltered, how vulnerable you think you're being, there is always some element of putting it online. Like if you wanted a picture to be private for memory, you would print it out and put it in a drawer. Every time you put something online, it's with the knowledge it's going to be private for memory you would print it out put it in a drawer every time you put something online it's with the knowledge it's going to be seen so some even if it's a tiny

percentage some percentages of authenticity dissipates when you go online no absolutely like 100 it's this is i'm reading a really interesting i read a really interesting book on instagram itself and it's um evolution which I recommend it's called No Filter and it's by Sarah, Sarah Freer um and it's all about how Instagram grew to what it was and you know from the very beginning it was based on the side the spheres of influence and they signed celebrities up very early there's a really cute story about Ariana Grande in it actually which I recommend everyone to read to look out for but it's Instagram yeah Instagram once people realize its marketing purposes it it's almost like it couldn't be anything else and this is the problem it's like much as we want to divest from

the you know forward our own path and we might be posting as you say completely with our own intentions you know want to be unforted and all but because you know we're so versed in this this platform and the structure and the it forces us into something else whether we like it or not and it's like you know when you get people messaging you about you seem to consume parts of yourself on that platform it doesn't matter it will always make you feel a bit cheapened by it because if you're it doesn't matter what your intention is because of what the platform is that is how it's going to be received now it's very hard to get away from that and also once you're disillusioned with it's also hard to reinvest that emotional uh connection in it that you might have once had

so the communities that you built and that joy you got from it it's it's difficult now these these platforms feel fatiguing like i i i love it when people you know I like no I don't love it actually I like it when people message me and I appreciate it but it also feels really tiring because I can't give them what I want to give them just over an Instagram DM or a Twitter DM I I have like if I'm gonna work with you or do something with you I can do that in a different sphere but the conversation you know people will message me off the back of a tweet and start like a conversation that they want to have like this in-depth conversation and I totally appreciate that but I don't have I just don't have the energy to do it anymore because it's it's not somewhere that

I think can actually start I think it's a conversation like as we say we tweet and it's it's it exists in its own little vacuum and if I'm gonna have a conversation I want to be having it elsewhere and it's not the fault of the people who message me I should I should know better than to just be tweeting not expecting any responses but I just can't give them what they want and I feel so like disappointed and guilty myself not having the ability to like want to message back about uh you know the media structures um because even if I'm tweeting about them because I'm just like I don't have it in me right now to do that do you know one thing that and I don't know if you use it but I remember and maybe it's a helpful tool for some people but one thing that and I don't know if you use it but I remember and maybe it's a helpful

tool for some people but one thing that really made me feel a bit sick and like disenfranchised from platforms was when that app called Blinkist came about that basically gave you like a synopsis and summary and like chapter breakdown of like any book that you could ever read and I was like this is obscene like this is obscene because I first of all love reading books I don't understand people that say oh I pick and read bits I'm like what happens is obscene because I, first of all, love reading books. I don't understand people that say, oh, I pick and read bits. I'm like, what happens if halfway through they're like, oh my God, I loved Hitler and you didn't know. And then you were like, I love this book.

I don't know. I have to read things cover to cover. Even if I hate it, I want to know what happens. But I just found it interesting that we were doing everything sort of, it became for content. So before what it was is we had an idea we had a concept we wanted to share it and the content was the result but now the content is the goal so you kind of work backwards from the content if that makes sense and so everything is kind of like we know what we have to achieve and it's like when you first go to uni and you write an essay and you come up with all

these ideas and then you google things to back up the idea that you've already said so you haven't actually researched anything you've just found a line in an essay and been like and as we see here and there's actually no real depth to it like that's what Instagram and social media and everything has kind of become I feel like before it was really full of like real genuine new thoughts and ideas and communication and like wow and now it's sort of like right I know what I want to be saying how can I back this up in the like the quickest snappiest way possible? It's not to say there's anything wrong with that. And maybe that's really a list of me to talk about reading whole books. And those things are probably really helpful for research and whatever.

I mean, when they're used cynically and when they become part of this machine of sort of smoke and mirrors, I guess, that's when I start to feel like with the platform, as you say, that real sense of fatigue and like I actually have started posting way more meaningless shit because I'm like there's no point in me I love doing it on the podcast I have the room to talk it's like the best thing ever but on Instagram there's probably no point in me writing a really lengthy caption that I spent hours writing because fundamentally it's just gonna get swallowed up and eat and spit out and like no one's gonna see it and do you know it's just it just it is exhausting as a platform I would say for deep stuff it's funny you mentioned Blinkist because

that is something that lives in my mind rent-free and I always think about it as the sort of archetypal late social capitalism rise and grind, hustle, get this book read in 15 minutes. And I mean, I can't comment whether it's ableist or not. But I think there's, you know, plenty, there's audio books, there's other like so many other forms of things. And Blinkist was not designed to be something that was, and it might be useful to that community, the disabled community, but it wasn't designed to that. It was designed to make, it was designed to make it was designed and promoted as hustle culture it was designed and promoted as something that to make um the the consumption of knowledge quicker without actually doing the in-depth and the context and the the full sort of like understanding of this the topic um so yeah blinkers blinkers is something that i really do think is indicative of this approach as

you say logging on with these entrenched positions to back it up, rather than coming in with an open mind, or at least a curious mind. I think a curious mind is one of the best things we can have right now. But it takes time to unlearn not being curious. I don't think I've been curious. Like I remember being very curious when I was maybe 18 19 and then you know something happened I got very online I got entrenched I got very entrenched and it's only recently in the last like year or so that I've started being curious again and started wanting to have my mind changed in a way and I'm not talking about the things like as we said like I'm not talking about abhorrent views or things that I fundamentally know against my principles but I'm talking about just changing the way I think about things and change the way I think about the way the world works 100 percent and understanding more about the systems behind that rather than just going like, oh, yeah, it's because of capitalism and tailing off because I don't know exactly how that system is going.

And it's interesting I wonder how do you how did you used to feel when you wrote your like big long captions versus how have you felt recently do you do you like writing the captions itself or does that feel like a chore so I love writing my book reviews I find it really fun and I think it's like a good it's quite hard to do a book review in like a small space of time so that I find that fun as a genuine exercise of my own like how can I strap fit this into this and make it make sense and make people excited to read because I love reading and I find that I'm like that's part of my Instagram that I feel really proud of and I want people to read I want it to be cool I like the fact that I'm sharing something that isn't about me my Instagram is my work platform

and I share what I'm wearing and it is quite capitalist in that it's how I make a lot of my income and it gives me the room to read research think about what I want to write think about doing my comedy it kind of now it gives me the space to do the arts that I really want to be doing so I don't really write as many long captions and when I do I get really excited because I'm like yay I'm doing something helpful but I also feel like it feels pointless because I feel like it's not enough as you say like I used to I tried to do a series which actually was quite it worked quite well where I do let's talk about and I did a really long Instagram TV video and then I would get all of my audience to kind of reply and I would stay online literally on my page for three hours

replying to really really long comments that was fruitful because it wasn't just me putting something out into ether and then going bye but again Instagram's not quite the right platform to facilitate it like it's me being online in folks like in comments of three hours isn't actually like the best use of my time which is why I love my book clubs because we would have like these kind of conversations we're having now with a group of 20 women for three hours in real life and that's what I love so I do like writing a caption but then I kind of feel like the next day a bit like the same with the Britney Spears documentary that you could say something you think is interesting but really you need to be talking about something for weeks or months like it needs to be like investigative journalism for it to

really come out with any kind of fruitful ending so I guess um sometimes I do write them but I I feel deflated I guess I think what you've come up against is the limitations of something like Instagram and the thing about these platforms is and it's really great that you and I was going to mention your book club because I was like this is quite clearly that's also why like you have those spaces outside externally because you are someone who enjoys having that conversation that in-depth space and building that with people around you are someone who enjoys having that conversation that in-depth space and building that with people around you obviously someone who likes connection and having those connections with other people and hearing from them but instagram is a very one-sided thing it's

like you have a lot of followers who often uh you know in position of quite idolizing you as well um and i speak as you know a former a former follower who didn't know you it's like you i respected what you're saying online i was like oh this girl seems really nice and interesting um but you like you have a there you have a parasocial relationship with you so it's it's I was going to talk about that but it's also it's like you you think that these platforms will make it better but it's it's you've got like clubhouse but I find that that's almost worse than than what we're experiencing now because it's this it's this it's I thought that clubhouse would be like a really great platform full of potential but it's just like twitter on crack

it's like twitter just times 10 where everyone's just yelling at each other and the same conversations are happening again and again again and the thing about all of these platforms is they are ephemeral um they're not going to be here in x amount of years and that's also what I meant when I said it's great you're building outside because you know you've got your comedy you've got these spaces you've got like a goal that doesn't that won't solely rest on Instagram and Instagram we don't know how the longevity it has we don't know how Twitter's longevity is like remember Facebook do you remember how much time you spent on Facebook as a teenager how much time do you spend on Facebook now oh my god I never go on it it freaks me out

yeah it's Facebook is Facebook now is is so um like it's a horrible design but it's also it has nothing for us we don't have our conversations on there our social lives aren't there I only maintain my Facebook profile in case I need to like talk to sources for a story or if you know someone from my past I need to reach out to you for some unknown reason but Facebook is part of my social life and disillusionment the disillusionment I find with Facebook is something that we will soon enough I think apply to Instagram and Twitter whether we realize it or not the same way we applied it to Bebo the same way it was for MySpace, which was before my time, the same way all these networks have lived and died because we love to consume, we love to have the new thing, but it's also

these places don't make us happy in the long run. Not at all. I love this. I just realized how we were talking. I don't want to go on too long, but I wanted to ask you about your third thing um because I think this is such an important one and also we could talk about this for about an hour but your third thing and I love that you said this is achievement myths and you put like meritocracy validation for being academic etc I think this is so important because I mean I'm I've just turned 27 fellow Pisces over here. And I'm having this like sense of crisis because I'm like, I'm never going to be on this Forbes 30 under 30 list. And like, I haven't written a book

and I haven't done all of these things. And it's like, when did your 20s become this time for you to achieve things that people would dream about? Like when I was younger, I always used to want to be an author, but I would imagine myself as a 50 year old being an author who'd have written like some sci-fi fantasy book and all of a sudden these achievement I mean maybe I'm taking this slightly differently from you but these mess of achievement to me and now like sort of that you're going to be we're luckily in happy

relationships but all these really ridiculous milestones that actually the older you get you start to realize shit there is no kind of linear order in which this happens and it may never happen either you know and and you're kind of having your bubble burst at every step of the way and it's it can be really deflating tell me if I've interpreted that wrong is that what you meant no you've interpreted it very right there was there's so many levels to this so the first of all what we can talk a bit about that achievement miss those age thing the age aspect which i think is so key is and i do think this is again funnily enough link to social media and the performance online and how we you know idealize very the younger you are now the younger and shinier you are then the more you get things opportunities thrown at you so of course that's

like a self-perpetuating cycle where the people we see um put promoted what's the word risen to prominence uh the people we see who've risen to prominence are going to be younger and younger and younger and it's that sort of self-cannibalizing thing where the media will latch on to like the next young thing and the next young thing and the cycle's even quicker and before you know it's every two weeks rather than every like two months or two years so yeah the age thing is a massive one because i it's funny when i was younger my sister and i used to play a game and that game would be this game where we imagined um one of us would suddenly go like oh oh wow we're having a great time in london and we'd the other one would have to play along it was a game of make-believe where you'd have to snap into being these two characters where we were pretending we were older and my and we'd like be grown up and

I'd always be in London and I'd be writing and I would never be past the age of 25 and I would always have everything figured out by the age of 25. Funnily enough we were never married in these scenarios because I come from a single parent family where the idea of marriage was like what why so we were very much like I'm at university and I've written a book and I've got a boyfriend and we're going to a party tonight so so so when I've now I've actually reached 25 it's it's almost like I I don't know my mum did things later in life which is I mean she did all her university when she was like in her 20s, but she didn't have me and my sister until she was about in her 40s. She became, she got her doctorate in her 40s. So I also did have that model there of like, you don't have to do everything when you're young. And I'm just, I'm very aware of how much life there is to live. And I do see, I do, I am very worried by, particularly for young women, because it's always young women who have these myths thrown at us about youth in the first place and like this ageism and online I get so many like young journalists telling me how you know worried they are they're never going to make it and they're

like 19 19 and I don't want to be you know have anything figured out to me at least like even what I want to do till i'm 35 i don't want to even be in journalism i don't think beyond maybe 35 i want to do several things i want to like live out there so that's one of the achievements i was talking about the other ones in like the terms of meritocracy that for me is things like thinking you know when you're taught you're young if you work hard and you can achieve anything you want it's just absolute bollocks um and you know people people like me who come from that solid middle class background and have you know had a lot of luck I didn't I'm I didn't have hookups I didn't have any like family nepotism or anything like that apart from when I worked at Urban Outfitters

because my cousin was the manager of that but I didn't in the media I didn't have any hookups only for the 40% Urban Outfitters discount but it's it's like the I haven't had nepotism but I've been very lucky in and I've had you know when I was when I was like properly properly broke my family didn't have what I would call like money money but just enough to like make sure that they could send me like 100 quid if I was really broke and that is you know I I was I always knew I was going to go to university I always knew I was going to do this thing so I've had that sort of like I've had a comfortable path i've always had a safety net and other people who don't have those safety nets it's not a meritocracy there's a reason that for

example black women are likely to be the lowest paid across all industries we know about we know that inequality is both it intersects in the way it's racial it's geographic these things all come together um you know there's there's a reason that ethnic minorities in this country i think it's um if you're black in general you'll pay up to 10 times less than a white person doing the same role we don't live in a meritocracy and the fact that we even the fact that we peddle that myth is dangerous for two reasons one you know it obscures the the real root cause of inequality which is discrimination and lack of investment and it it creates a myth where people who are successful don't want to talk about the reasons they might be successful that might not be just due to their hard work it's like I've worked

very hard but I also have other things in place and from very young you don't want to undermine your own abilities by doing that if you're taught this meritocracy myth and it starts in all the way in school it starts with you know when you're sorted into sets and somebody who might be you know we had kids in the bottom set who were very smart and bright but weren't academically bright they couldn't you know they might have either sometimes they had learned of because sometimes it was just the academic structures of school did not suit their way they learned it didn't feed them it wasn't nourishing for them and it didn't and they were looked upon as like the least able and that affects every other opportunity you're offered from then on you're once you're sorted into these mindsets of like if you're not academically bright or you're not suited to the academic

um system in the uk which is very much sort of like regurgitating facts. It's having a lot of like surface level knowledge. You know, that sticks on your record. And because we've taken away a lot of like apprenticeships and traineeships, the vocational careers are not seen as good. And because we've marketed like education, higher education is now seen as both a necessity and it's seen as a, you know, marketization of a higher education, whereas, you know, university is seen as a business rather than you learn for learning's sake you have to pay a lot of money to

go there you get into a lot of debt it's immediately setting up these people to fail and not live lives where they can either learn in adulthood or they can just go and do things that aren't to do with like memorizing you know french verbs uh it's it's so unfair but and i i was infected with that sort of like academic um because i was i was always very academic i'd come my mum was before she was a yoga teacher which and this was before yoga teaching was very cool so she was just teaching yoga to old ladies in our rural village but she was a lecturer so she was a lecturer so and my dad before he ran off was also a a PhD student and a lecturer.

So I technically come from a background of academics, which I only recently realized, oh, that's why I've been pushed. Because I've been pushed to be academic. And of course, I had a snobbery about academics when I was young, because I was told that was what was key. And it's like, it's not. And having that snobbery is something you have to unlearn. And it's really difficult because it pushes in you an arrogance and a disdain that is just so ugly.

So those are things I'd have loved to learn much younger about this myth of metocracy. And the achievements we talked about, the age and the pressure to achieve. The idea of having a lifelong career is no longer. And this is partly because of the form of capitalism. We we're late stage capitalism where jobs don't last as long we have all these forms of like new gig economies precarious employment is far more um prevalent so it's the idea of and also the idea of having to have more than one job in order to even afford the cost of living which makes no sense because the economy is a made up thing by the government and they could, they can control those rates if they wanted to,

but they just don't. But yeah, it speaks to that, but it's also like, we do have more choice and that's so freeing. Why on earth would I want to do the same thing for my entire life if I didn't have to? And like, I always think of, of I know Tracee Ellis Ross is a very rich lucky person who is the daughter of Diana Ross but she's sort of like my idol in that sense and that she just goes and does whatever the fuck she wants and she does do that because she's got money but it's that idea of on the scale of she I don't know how old Tracee Ellis Ross is and I've never bothered looking it up because it just doesn't seem relevant the same thing with Robin even though she's a singer but I've never bothered looking at robin's age because it's just not relevant to the work she

does to me at all and i don't want to be on a 30 under 30 list because it doesn't feel relevant to the work i'm doing it's like i i think only like now it goes back to that point you were saying about like when did your 20s become when you had to know everything and it was you know and you had to have everything figured out and it's like why on earth does someone trust me 25 or to tell them what's what about the world why I've only just begun living I've literally just begun going out to the world and realizing how little I know why why are you listening to me to like give you the lowdown I can give you my opinion I can give some analysis as I see it now but that might be completely different in 10 years time and I think it's it's having that room to like grow and change is such a luxury and the fact that we like if we if we have that we should use it god I can't wait to like do so many things it's

like I have dreams about stuff our projects I'll start and things I'll do I don't have a five-year plan I just have like vague goals of like okay in the future I would love to start up some sort of um I guess what you call like a bursary system a a program that allows children from deprived areas to go out and travel like the world and sort of like replacement in training but fully funded and all that and I have no idea how I could do that but that's what that's one of the things I want to do in my life it's like there's so many there's got nothing to do jealous whatsoever at all uh so it's it's it's funny because I do think that this also has a lot to do with like but at the same time it's like how do we how do we achieve those things without falling into like the hustle culture because I

don't I don't want to do that as like a performance thing I don't want to that's part of hustle I want to do that on my own terms I don't want to do that as like a performance thing. I don't want to, that's part of hustle. I want to do that on my own terms. I don't want to be doing that because it's like, this is girl boss rise and grind. I just want to be doing that because it's an organic thing that will make me happy. And does that mean again, divesting from the performance of doing that online? But yeah,

this, this, this whole like churning, like I've, I've been, because of the recent opportunities I've been approached for, it's like someone I got asked, you know,

do I want to buy a literary agent? A literary agent approached me and I was just like, I just don't, I don't need to write write a book I don't have anything in me to write about in that sense um I've got nothing to say yet and that's fine that's that's really okay and it's I think it's just more exciting to realize that there's just so much out there that you have yet to do and it doesn't have to be you don't have to be tied to this one thing you don't have to be trapped in this thing forever because you were so young and you're just starting to figure it out I had the exact same experience where I had a literary agent come to me and I was like no

I'm not ready and they kept pestering me and I was like shit I've got to do it and then I someone else came to me and I was like half writing it and then I basically had like a breakdown I was like I don't want to be writing a book I'm not ready I don't feel and thank fuck I didn't as well because the book I was going to be writing was like not my place now I'm really glad that I didn't do it but they they knew it was sellable off the back of the podcast they knew that like I would get the audience people would buy it but it's like I I only I keep making really stupid trite jokes about turning 27 and how I feel old but really how I feel is I woke up on my 27th birthday and I cried because I was so happy

because I've never felt so weirdly in the middle of this, everything that's going on. I've had some really difficult things happen during this pandemic, but I'm so in love with my boyfriend. I've been going to therapy. My friendships are all really strong. I've had a stable income throughout this pandemic. And I suddenly start, I think I know who I am a bit more. And I woke up and I cried because I was so happy because I was like, this who you are and I was like that's only starting to happen now like I'm 27 and I even I still don't fully know but I feel like I think I know about 100% for certain 20% of me I'm like 100% sure about and the rest of it I'll figure out by the time I'm 70. Do you know what that made me well up a little bit because that's that's also very similar to how I feel but it's also it's that idea that when you catch on I know how it feels

when you catch on to how knowing yourself a little bit more and like for the first time in years you think I have a bit of a root this is this is the root to who I am now like I'm it's it's I think a lot of the difficulty and you know this pandemic again I like I think like you I've had a lot of difficult things happen and therapy's been hard but it's been ultimately it's been so like I've been so lucky to come out of it with a much better understanding of who I am what what I want like not in the terms of like I want this career I want the next career but just like the vague sort of like I want this to be happy I want to do this I want to be with this person I want to do xyz it's it's like having that just makes your it makes life bright again I think for so long I was I was very unhappy I was very unhappy and I was walking around with

those pressures and those like ideas of like achievement but also just like not knowing who I was and the idea of who I was was the person I was at 21 and I'd been holding on to that idea of that's who I was and that's how I went about things and that's how it operated through life and that's you know that's Moya the 21 year old who likes like you know this kind of partying and this what makes her happy and that must make her happy and I'm reaching 26 and I realized that is not me and that the this separation and the distance between those two people had been making me so unhappy because I was looking for that happiness in all the wrong places because I'd completely developed and changed without realizing it and it was again that absolutism that's you know I'm I'm this type of personality I'm I'm a Pisces and I'm an INFP

and it's like every time I take that fucking Myers-Briggs test it actually tells you something different and I just ignore it completely because it's actually made up pseudoscience there's a book about it it was created by these two eugenicist women in America who had no actual scientific training but it's used by so many people

but yeah so it's that idea it's that rubbing up of those two personalities and coming to terms with that you've changed and when you fight you like that waking up and crying on your birthday just because you feel more at home in yourself than you have in years is something that's so wonderful and relatable so yeah that made me a bit emotional we've been really disparaging about the internet and social media on this podcast however it is where we both reside and so if people did want to find you or get to know you a bit more or follow your work where should we be looking for you

uh I feel really bad doing I don't know if I even could actually do this because the last time I did this my boyfriend said the fact that you promoted your socials at the end just undermined everything he said so you know what I'm just gonna say google my name if you want to find me um I'm just gonna say either google my name or go on galadim and read some of the stuff on there but I'm just going to say Google my name if you want to find me. I'm just going to say either Google my name or go on Galadim and read some of the stuff on there. But I'm not going to promote my socials for once. Really? But why does it undermine... But I will promote this podcast on my socials. I think I love the sound of your boyfriend, but I think he's mean.

I think you're allowed to put your socials on it. Also, your Twitter is very much like a workspace. For journalists especially, Twitter is like a hub of information, I think. I think it is. But I also know that, I guess, if I'm really serious about trying to build up, you know, this following just for the sake of a following that's not just on my platforms, because as we talked about, I do think that Twitter and Instagram and all of that is a femoral and you know where will I be in 10 years if you know apart from when I quit journalism but where will I be if

the people are only coming to my socials and then I once I disappear from my socials am I am I just dead to the world will people still look for the work I'm doing outside of that so I guess the best place to start to try and um encourage in uh if maybe a following that seeks things outside of those platforms is any it's a good day to do it it's a good day to do it so I'm just gonna say google my name if you're interested in reading more of my work um and I'm sure you'll find my socials through that but there's there's stuff out there and you never know you could dick up all the old articles my mum doesn't want anyone to see like the ones they wrote about when I took pictures of kebab people like kebab men when I was drunk and got a load of papers so you can find that instead instead of my like

political analysis that's amazing well thank you so much for joining me I think this is going to be the longest episode this season but by far one of my favorites I've absolutely adored chatting to you and I'm so pleased that you agreed to come on thank you so so much for having me it's been a pleasure it's been an extra therapy session and yeah I got even more out of it than I expected and I expected a lot so it's been a real joy oh that's good well thank you everyone for listening as well and i will see you next week bye fandu casino daily jackpots guaranteed to hit by 11 p.m with your chance at the number one feeling We'll be right back. and physically located in Ontario. Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca. Select games only. Guarantee void if platform

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