Goes Without Saying - online authenticity & virtue signalling: perfection, but make it problematic

Episode Date: June 14, 2021

your ~potentially problematic~ internet besties are back with another brutally honest episode of Goes Without Saying. join us (sephy & wing) as we unpack the facade of instagram perfection and ask the question: can anyone be truly authentic online? from virtue signalling to cancel culture, we're discussing whether the aesthetics of wokeness have become more important than actually being a good person irl. join the conversation every monday. speak your mind on the @sephyandwing instagram! you’re invited to our discord group chat: https://discord.gg/kZm8XYyM5t Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

ACAST powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. Nature. I've got a gay rooster named Francois. Is so gay. These rams are gay. I'm studying gay animals. Does that mean I'm gay?

So why don't more people know this? I'm Owen Ever. I'm Lane Kaplan-Levinson. And this is a field guide to gay animals. A podcast about queerness in the natural world. The animal kingdom is queer and we are a part. Find a field guide to gay animals on Spotify, Apple. Or wherever you get your podcasts.

Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com Goes without saying, we are back by unpopular demand. We are back. people of demand we are back sephie and wing are here to give you god a very very real and frank and a bit brutal conversation on social media formative allyship learning and fucking up and being held accountable and perfection and aesthetics and living a fake life validation can we escape that question mark who knows i mean it's hardly a comprehensive essay but i think it's been a laugh and i think you'll enjoy it it has been a laugh it's been a laugh it's been a cry it's been a good time stay tuned let's go tell me how you're feeling i'm

feeling good today which i hate to say because i know you're feeling bad no i love to hear that you're feeling good because we need one of us to be feeling good honestly we do and we always well actually your boyfriend said this once sometimes when I'm up here you're down here and when you're up there I'm down there we balance we're a little seesaw of depression the yin yang of vibes always I'm feeling good though because I went swimming in the river today and I I was just telling you before but it's like I didn't think I could do it I was really like dipping my toes in like my mum goes every day she's been going for like since like October through the winter so I was like fuck I'm gonna do this kind of yesterday I went like kind of got my head under that was it but today I swam for like 20 minutes so I'm feeling really good at

like seven in the morning as I don't get up at that time anyway yeah it's so stunning though like hearing that I'm like that's the most stunning story I've ever heard it was like it was a real story of persistence of like I can't do it I can't do it and then be like climbing up off the riverbank and then be like oh fuck I feel shit go back in go back and kind of do it again oh damn it I can't do it and then it's like on the last time it's like stayed in for 20 minutes probably got hypothermia but so great but loved every second oh loved it but yeah I mean I hate I hate to kind of start with i didn't like i'm feeling great i'm feeling great because i swam in a river how are you feeling i'm feeling

bad because i'm depressed i'm swimming in a river of tears no but just before we change the subject let's just enjoy you feeling good swimming in a river like we were saying as well before we started recording that of course you would feel good swimming in a river like we were saying as well before we started recording that of course you would feel good to be in a river because it's so human it's like you're not supposed to wake up at whatever time roll over look at your phone like yeah feel like shit blah blah blah it's like no you're supposed to be in a river you're supposed to be in a very real real environment and it's very like it feels very like alive like it's kind of the crack of dawn and like there's kind of swans around and it's like i'm in the water with the swans yeah but it's like i love it i can't get enough with the winter was too much for me like i couldn't all throughout kind of winter lockdown my mom and her friend

were going with my sister would go sometimes as well and it's like i just i just can't get into it in the winter but in the summer oh i'm i'm way into it it's the most stunning thing i've ever heard but go on wing go go go um all right bring us in well well i don't know i don't even know where to begin the crux of it is i'm not feeling great but i mean when are we like it's rare that we're ever feeling great anyway and i don't like it when we are feels off well i love it i love it i'm not i'm not gonna pretend i don't like to feel good i do i'm sorry you can really hear me shimmering around so it's not shimmering i'm shiny i'm shimmying okay well here's my train of thought this podcast works for me which is good news this podcast doesn't work for me it doesn't work work. She's going to do a Trisha. She's going to run.

Frenemies is ending and Ghost Without a Thing is ending. No, but I think the podcast has worked because like no matter what's happening to me, it's like, okay, well, yeah, it doesn't matter what's happening. It doesn't matter where I feel this way. If this has happened, if I'm like, whatever, like I've got this going on. I've lost someone close to me. I'm dealing with this. I'm stressed about this. I don't know how i'm gonna do this i can always come to the podcast

and it's good right yeah always that's why i feel like it's been so good to have like a really honest space and i don't know if we've declared this on the podcast i know we've said so many other things god knows what we've been saying so much but on the podcast it's like we're making a podcast that we would want to listen to if i found this podcast i'd be like i'd be chuffed to be honest absolutely chuffed i'd be honestly chuffed to bits over the moon yeah honestly thrilled over the fucking moon yeah i'd be thrilled not because it's great and it's informative and it's educational and it gives me new insight it's not about the hot take because it's none of those's informative and it's educational and it gives me new insights.

It's not about the hot takes. Because it's none of those. It's none of that. It's because I want to hear something real. And I just want to hear like someone talking honestly. I want to hear girls talk about the shit girls talk about in their own houses. But I want to hear it on camera, on audio, whatever this is, on a microphone. Yeah, yeah. The thing with social media is that is that

a bit of an oxymoron so we asked on the story can so can you ever be completely authentic online on the stories on sephian wing stories 82 percent of people said that it's not possible to ever be actually authentic online which is fine i agree then I also think, what does that mean for us? In the sense that, I don't know, if I'm being really, really honest, I feel like what's the exchange here for me? I give hours and hours of, like, quite scary things and you anonymously listen and I'm so grateful. But am I also signing myself up for the people who are going to refuse to get me? And yes, like we are.

And like, what's external validation anyway? Like, I know we've been through that a thousand times over on every episode. I think it's really easy to get all of us, like not just listeners, I think for us too, to get a bit twisted in the sense of like external validation, like it's a performative. It's like all of this self-awareness doesn't really, all of these thoughts like they can only do so much it's like yeah you've been listening to sephie and wink but if you get a fucking parking fine and we're like they're just performing what it is to be a parking attendant like it's like this like how much are we helping like it's not gonna go down well in a court of law yeah exactly you're

just performing what it's like to be a judge and a jury you're performing the roles here exactly and i just think i'm feeling that i think it's a bit too much navel gazing i'm a bit too sensitive i know i said in a previous episode that i had a whole trauma about being homeless when i was younger like when i was like however old like a child essentially and since then like over the past week my housing situation has kind of fallen from under me and so i'm in a bit of a bleak situation now of stressing about how i'm gonna live meanwhile like people want to say that we're tearing women down oh i don't know okay shall we get well should we should we just get into that because i don't think it's people saying that but yeah let's get

into it okay so so i think we need to address we're not addressed that makes me sound really fucking serious i think we need to address the rumors we've been retitled this addressing the rumors let's put the rumors to bed but there aren't any basically nothing's happened we just got a review that we just really didn't like it was really mean well that's the thing is like before we even get into it i want to say like we're torn between being like whatever we just can't take fucking criticism obviously we're far too sensitive to do this we're gonna have to end the pod like let's not talk about it like we're being fucking dumb but then there is a big part of it that's like this is very interesting and i also think in the way that we go on and on that we want to be really honest with you guys

i never want you to listen and think like oh there's something they haven't they're choosing to not share that with us even though there's a balance and sorry to bring nana up in two episodes in a row she comes and um takes the crown honestly like i kind of don't want to talk about anything else but um i also kind of just want to put her on the spot i don't think i told this to you sephie but when i was listening to a podcast of nana's this is nana florence by the way this is a real bloody hell tangent after tangent and i was like i'm just gonna fucking what's it called like cream like um hair dissolve your hair what is that called like hair removal cream oh like veed yes i'm like let me just veet myself head to toe i'm butt fucking naked standing in the bathroom like i'm in fucking creator sim with my hand like spread wide listening to this podcast la la la la

and they're just like go to that saying blah blah blah if they didn't post an episode i'd be gutted and i was like oh my god like oh my god shit shit shit and then it was the following episode that we like didn't post and i was like oh my god shit like she fucking predicted the future we've let nana down yeah i was like shit she would have been think because i listened to that after we'd missed an ep i was like oh my god fuck we're idiots we would have pushed through if you we knew nana i'm so sorry um literally like with fucking covered in like little white mustache like honestly butt naked looking around the room like oh my god i have to do something like kind of get me on the

story i can't um but nana said in a in a podcast that she doesn't want to make people think that her life is perfect but also she doesn't owe to make people think that her life is perfect, but also she doesn't owe them any explanation. And I know we say that all the time, Sefi, but like, it's hard, I think. Because I do, it's just hard, isn't it? It's like, you want to give people the explanation. Anyway, go on. I'm stepping all over the review.

No, no, not at all. I just think we need to be, like, I think we've just, we need to be really explicit with what we're saying. Kind of in the way that it's like, God, I feel like listening. You're confused. Yeah. Because it sounds like we're kind of having breakdowns, but we're not. I think the thing is, we've never got any negative criticism and we get one thing and it's kind of all hands on deck. Like, oh God, are we over? We're like, are we fucking idiots? Just makes you see yourself a bit differently. Makes you wonder. But I think there's one review. I mean, you can all go read it. Yeah. If you haven't gone to our reviews right now are we on pause right now who knows 100 you can all go send us some nice reviews maybe no don't we got one review and it just hit us quite hard it was

a two-star review and it just felt a bit mean but also are we just really sensitive i don't really know the difference is i want people to if you're listening and you're thinking oh i actually think i disagree with what stephanie wing said about this bit or i wonder what their thoughts on on this part of the male gaze are like i would love to know come to our dms and have a chat go to the discord and be like guys what do you think about this blah blah blah but i think anyone who's listened for a decent amount of time or anyone just come on everyone can tell if i'm sat here talking about the male gaze i'm obviously not making it a full

in-depth comprehensive guide to the male gaze as like in critical theory for an hour because if i was doing this seriously i wouldn't be talking about fucking shrek every five minutes like you can fucking tell that you are not getting our kind of comprehensive thoughts on a massive topic like this is a bit of fun ultimately and i can write a perfect essay about the male gaze all i want and you know the bit that again just gonna be honest to be told that your your feminism is rooted in tearing other women down jesus kind of when you're homeless again or like kind of in the in the midst of the worst time of your life whilst you're putting out nice conversations with your best friend feels a bit bizarre when you've listened to hours i mean

what you've listened to what 10 15 20 hours of the free content you decided you didn't like us and then you came and and gave a review you got you wrote a few little paragraphs about how you don't like us anymore and that's fine and you are entitled to your own opinion obviously it goes without saying i just think if i was doing a better job at being a feminist when i was keeping my mouth shut and i was just at uni and i was writing my perfect little essays with every point taken into you know super considered in what i was saying and no one was listening and no one was messaging us saying you've changed my life and blah blah blah and i was making no impact if i was a better feminist feminist when i was being quiet well i'm the one tearing women down am i am i am i really also i think the bit that was particularly stingy is that what the

review has spoken about was in a you know you've listened to an hour of me kind of essentially expose my deepest my most raw trauma trauma, my most raw like heartbreak for nothing, just in the hopes that it would make one person feel a bit like, oh, that makes me feel a bit better about this situation, just in the hopes that one person could not even relate. It just made them feel a bit like, great, that's, you know what, that's good to hear. Life isn't perfect. It's fucking real. You've listened to all of that. You've listened to, you know, Sefi's wisdom. You've listened to our jokes. You've listened to our dynamic that you've listened to you know sephie's wisdom you've listened to our jokes you've listened to our dynamic you've listened to the rawest parts of us for hours and upon hours i don't know and and it just it just feels it to be honest it feels a

little bit blind it feels a little bit like we said a few episodes ago you could pick out if you wanted to take out like focus on minute details of the episodes like you could fucking edit it together to make us sound like we were um fucking chefs like we think causebill sucks yeah you can take a small part and run with it and absolutely and yes we're not giving you our comprehensive thoughts on anything and it's not perfect and it's not potentially problematic it's completely problematic and that is the point i want to give you the ugly side of who i am along with all the curated shit because it's fucking real and that's what i want i think this is kind of the crux of what we're talking about because it's not even about a review because

i think when we know we're gonna get hundreds and hundreds of shitty reviews we know we know we know we love the criticism we love it all and i want you guys to feel like you can tell us things oh absolutely the bit that upset us was that it was like okay they're problematic and we want to just say right now yes we're problematic and so are you and so are you and so are you harry yeah it's not potentially we are you're all problematic we are all problematic yes i think the thing that we want to kind of nip in the bud right now is this idea that kind of we are the authorities on the male gaze and on feminism exactly and when we say one thing oh my god they're problematic no we're problematic in all ways if you record my conversation now which we are doing by coincidence it's gonna have loads

of shit in from start to fucking finish gonna say loads of shit that's problematic i'm also later in the day gonna say loads it's problematic and be like oh fuck maybe i shouldn't have said that thing and by the way so will you this girl didn't do anything wrong that sent us a review she's totally fucking fair we are problematic but i think the thing that we want to make it really clear um and what this whole episode is about is that social media is a lie that makes everyone think they should have uphold this kind of perfect image of i would never say anything wrong and if i do call me out and i'll make an apology for it but it's almost like yeah do do that do say when we say things wrong but also it's gonna happen all the time it's gonna happen constantly just like it's gonna happen constantly in your life and i think it's not about kind of

coming with any defensive thing because i completely agree with so much that is said about us um i agree when you say we're perfect i agree when you say we're stunning i completely agree with so much that is said about us um i agree when you say we're perfect i agree when you say we're stunning i completely agree with so much i agree with so much but i also agree with um i hate to be like we're human but it's like we're all human here so you listening you're imposing your view i'm talking i'm imposing my view wing has also had a different life experience to me she's imposing her view the person next to you the harry next to you is he's imposing his view and i just think it's really really really important that it's like yeah we are problematic we're all problematic i thought that's what we're in for exactly it's not when you delve a bit deeper we get problematic it's like no that's the point

on surface level that's the fucking point and so are you yeah and so and that's what i want i think there's a problem when you've got look if i go anywhere in this town i'll be fucking pointed out as like the most annoying woke fucking lefty liberal annoying snowflake bitch ever and if i'm being told that i'm problematic then we've got a fucking problem because it's the same thing of and i know we've said this before in episodes where it's kind of the british way of dealing with racism of like yeah we're all sitting on the same part of the bus now so there's no such thing as racism it's like but just because you want to sweep it under the rug you're leaving all of the shit there underneath and you're you're doing that because you don't want to look inward

and reflect on what you still need to do to change we are all learning that's the point i just want this to be i thought that went without saying honestly we wanted to make it really clear kind of right at the beginning of this episode before we get into kind of the big old chat about social media and like perfectionism that we're not perfect spoiler alert we're not perfect and neither are you and neither are you and neither of you none of us want to be and to be honest i don't aim for i don't aim for perfection i don't aim to be this no no big ahead of whatever and please please please don't make us that we're not the mockingjay here no no it's not about that it's about i'm gonna say the wrong thing endlessly and so are we all and let's hope let's just hope that

we can all be kind when we point that out to each other because we're all on the same team here if we're all listening here we've said this before i think we said it in our episode about sexual violence that all of us here don't want women to get raped we all don't want women to get attacked we all think women have had a shit deal we all think the world is unfair we're all on the same team here let's please please please be kind to each other when we call out shit because it's like yeah we agree we agree yeah another thing that's important for us i mean for me in a mental health sense, but also just Sefi made a good point when we were speaking about it before, is I'm not joking about suicide to trivialise it.

I'm not joking about mental health to trivialise it. It's like, oh, I just have to think about suicide. What in my head do I? And if I cut out all of the dark jokes, there's no episode left. To me, I think it's important to hear like, you know, Sefi's, and Sefi said, every woman's big fear is being raped

or being sexually assaulted and all of this. And if you can't use that and find the comedy in that in your own life and just kind of be like, yeah, we're all floating on a fucking rock. Like that's pretty insensitive too. Do you know what I mean? Like that we need to find some lightness here.

Otherwise it is all dark. But I think it's like, even if we say it in a dark way, it's almost like if rape is women's biggest fear and also is pretty statistically likely to happen in your lifetime, but we're not allowed to talk about it. We're not allowed to talk about it

unless it is talked about in the most societally accepted way. Yeah, well, because that makes us worse feminists. It makes us worse feminists to talk about it if you want that kind of conversation that is um like incredibly gentle there are millions of podcasts you can listen to millions fern cotton's happy places they're waiting for you is waiting for you is honestly and i need that sometimes but but this is not that space to me I think there is space for Sephian wing. I think this is important. I think it goes without saying,

look, I would want it. And I'm pretty confident to say there's at least one person out there who would want it too. I think the crux of it is, do you want something real or do you want something fake and curated? Because we could easily kind of do a big,

we're sorry, we're problematic. We're gonna learn, we're gonna learn. But I think it goes without saying. And I do think it's like, do you want something that is real because i'm sure the conversations we're all having in our lives are real and i think this is what yeah do you want something real i think this is what this is it's a real fucking convo and i'm sorry we're we're not gonna kind of um dull it down i don't know if that's even the right word i don't want to um censor so much so that it's palatable to everyone i want it to be fair i want it to be kind i want it to be ethical and all the things we genuinely care about um but i'm

not going to perform kind of wokeness for the lens of who there we go no it's going to be real and we're going to talk about rape and we're going to talk about murder and we're going to talk about all of the fucking things god but i can't wait that sounds fucking great sign me up cool i wanted to so someone wrote in and they said let me read it word for word so it doesn't get butchered because i will butcher it okay they said i think you can be truly authentic online but it's all about perception and actually i think that's kind of the crux of it with social media and what we see and what we take from things is and even like our opinions on on everything is that even our opinion on that review or our opinion on this

podcast or our opinion on anything your perception is based on your own like lived experience so i know even like you and i sephie have had different views on like there'll be like someone's on a youtube video and you'll be like oh my god i thought that was so fake and i'll be like oh my god i thought that was the best thing yeah i really love you know we just we respond differently and and it's true it's if you um kind of who gets to decide whether something is authentic or not yeah completely only the person that gets to decide is the person doing it well actually is that true because i would say the person that gets to destroy decide whether it was authentic is the person making it but then it's also like do you have the awareness we just watched bo burnham's bo burnham's kind of new netflix special that we kind of were just talking

about before we started recording i feel like shit i feel like shit it is great fucking duffel bag of shit but it's like i'm sure that was authentic to bo burnham and it and it reads as authentic the whole thing like that seemed like for him, it was like a cathartic experience of making something through the pandemic and all of this stuff. And I'm sure that feels very authentic, but there will also be like an awareness

of performance in there. And then also one viewer can read that and be like, God, Bo is so fucking authentic and real. And the next person's watching it going, this guy is fucking acting his ass off. It is just different. So I don't think it's just down to the person creating it because it's the perception not only of yourself of every single person in the audience viewing you i think especially when it comes to social media as well

i love your point about sephi has this great like um it's kind of an analogy what is this of even though we know social media is fake it's still we still take it on as if it's real and she likens it to um being like watching a horror movie or being in the saw maze at thor park our favorite place you know that it's fake you know they're actors you know there's been a script there's been fucking producers there's a whole budget involved behind this thing but your heart's beating faster and your palms are sweating and you're trying to cave away from the screen you don't want to watch because how are we to know we're only human yeah you're in fight or flight almost your brain knows but your body doesn't know so it's like as much as your brain knows that this is a curated performance not only in a horror film but also on instagram i'm scrolling through kind of emily

ratajkowska's i know i don't know emirata emirata happy 30th birthday i'm scrolling through emrata's instagram and i know this is a curated thing but my body is going oh well why does she get that body oh my god why does she get it's like yeah because your fucking body is triggered in a fight or flight way it's not as simple as well we know instagram is a facade we know it's a curated facade no you fucking don't yeah tick done job done completed it mate you might know that intellectually but your fucking dumbo brain your dumbo body doesn't have a clue yeah you don't have a clue you could write a you could write your thesis on the curation of instagram and the effect that has on girls self-esteem and the next day post an aesthetic

photo of your dissertation with you smiling when you've been crying all day yeah we take part in it too like that doesn't make us any smarter do you know what i mean but i think this is a kind of i think the crux of the episode and what we were kind of talking about is what i said to sephie was i think we're seeing perfection so much it's like you see something real and suddenly it's fucking problematic oh my god it's a fucking this is horrific this is the worst thing i've ever seen it's we're so saturated with the same thing essentially yeah with something there's a real recipe there's a real formula to how you present as a human yeah it's almost there's a recipe an online recipe for being a good person and for being aesthetic and being beautiful yeah and being intelligent you must post a black tile you must put your pronouns in your um bio you must publicly

call out people you must do and it's like no that's got nothing to do with caring about these issues it's got fuck all to do with that maybe yeah that is one way in which you can be an ally to things that you care about but really no no some of the worst people i fucking know have done some of this shit yeah for sure and it's because it's just a lot of it is very performative and we know there's like optical allyship we know there's like being performative online but it's really got absolutely fuck all to do with being a good person yeah 100 i think the bits that i find so interesting is that yeah performing like ethics like performing goodness what does it mean to be good and being seen as that i have to be seen as good but then

also the thing that i think especially now with the way that social media looks at the time of recording this episode there's very much um it feels like a very manufactured effortlessness yeah it has to appear effortless so it's actually far more insidious because it's like you're you've taken hours to set up the shot that needs to look like it was happened. Oh, I took this photo by accident. Oh, my fucking camera went off. North took this photo for me. It's like you have to do it.

It has to look like you don't give a shit, but you've never cared more. ACAST powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. Nature. I've got a gay rooster named Francois. Is so gay. These rams are gay.

I'm studying gay animals. Does that mean I'm gay? So why don't more people know this? I'm Owen Ever. I'm Lane Kaplan-Levinson. And this is a field guide to gay animals. A podcast about queerness in the natural world. The animal kingdom is queer and we are a part. Find a field guide to gay animals on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.

ACAST helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere a cast.com yeah you've never ever cared more and you've been taught to care i completely agree with manufactured effortlessness that is exactly fucking it and also even with the idea of um not even like your beauty and your aesthetics but even with the idea of um not even like your beauty and your aesthetics but also with the idea of like your inherent goodness must be completely effortless you must never have you never learned anything you just came here this way yeah it was never taught you never fucked up you were born knowing exactly what pronouns you should say when someone asks you how you identify it's like no we were taught that like three years

ago that's a new discourse yeah we're learning this discourse and it's fucking crucial that we learn that discourse it is crucial but it's also new and i think that is the thing it's almost like you must know all of the good things to know instantly like you must know it like that and it's like no these things take time it's kind of yeah if i was going to explain that to my grandparents they would be so fucking confused yeah that doesn't make them bad people they would be so fucking confused it means they've got a lot of learning to do but it's also like they they wouldn't survive a day on the internet they wouldn't survive a fucking day they'd be cancelled but before they even got here yeah and it's important that people are cancelled like it is very very important not even cancelled it's

important that people are learning i also think some people yeah fucking should be cancelled louis ck cancelled mate sorry bye bye like yeah cancel culture it's not as simple as that as far but i think it's the emphasis on you can learn but you have to learn in private all of us have been learning in private look we already know it so why don't you and i think that's just why the like something like that kind of review saying that we're problematic is funny because it's like i'm going about my waking life as if i'm like i'm i piss people off so much because i'm like really bringing like anything that i'm learning then is informing my relationships and the majority of people are like huh yeah but if i went if in

layman's terms if i walk into a fucking classroom and i say to all the kids they put their hand up and say oh it's two plus two five and i go no you fucking idiot and you can't come back yeah how dare you bring that like yeah that's really that's a really good analogy that is unacceptable that is truly unacceptable it's like well he's fucked now he's gonna look i'm gonna make a dark joke here he's gonna come back and shoot the fucking school up like it's not gonna go well he's not gonna learn yeah he's gonna hate me and then i've divided us and now i've caused a real problem so one that i liked they said um social media is better than it used to be but it still sets me up for failure failure why can't i say that failure rather than

perfection and i think that's true that social media does absolutely set you up to fail and also kind of the definite definition of failure why can't i fucking say failure failure i had this earlier with what word you know why i'll just quickly say failure because i was thinking on the phone to my therapist all i wanted to say was i feel like a failure but what i actually said was i feel like a mess mess is like we can clean up a mess we can tidy that failure is like that's a bit too deep even for me and you laura i can't be that honest with you i love that it's like we're censoring ourselves to our therapist because we can't say the word even a therapist i know it's silly but go on i agree and i think that i agree that i feel like a failure and i

also agree and i also agree that social media sets you up for failure and even the idea of failure fucking hell even the idea of failure that is i hate to say it it's resounding on social media it's that that failure is worse than any other failure because you're cancelled it's like it's not just you can fail and it's an f in an exam and move on it's like you're done to fail on social media is to commit like social suicide social suicide it is yeah it's not just oh right you're oh you kind of fucked that up didn't you it's like oh you got fired from your job it's like no the world hates you oh you silly billy what are you like yeah no the entire world hates you it's like quite a big failure if i've ever heard of a failure yeah i think it's also about a failure of like actual real justice systems in the sense that as we say there's a time and

a place for people to be held accountable absolutely but i think it's because there is really no um i'm sure most of us here would agree there's no real um like law or sense of justice that we really feel like is 100% flawlessly upheld in our nations for example so when you see someone and i'm gonna use shane dawson even though i think he should he is someone that should be held accountable like i'm not upset that he's cancelled but it's the kind of thing that you we i think we have so much frustration in the sense of we watch so many people in power, powerful positions that I probably, I assume Elon Musk is a pretty shitty guy. That's my husband. Do you fucking mind? I'm sorry. Don't take it personal. But that's the thing. It's like, I think we've seen,

quote unquote, bad people win so much that I think there's, we get so frustrated and it's like, no, you shouldn't. And I agree. You shouldn't have this platform. you shouldn't be able to do that you shouldn't have that but sometimes then i think we misstep as we do we're humans it's just all a bit fucked hey hey hey now hey now this is what um speaking of like the bad people quote unquote the guy who made Snapchat, is his name Evan? I literally have no idea. All I know is that he's fucking Miranda Kerr and I love Miranda Kerr. Really? I love her, yeah.

Do you not? Or are you saying really they're together? Last I heard Miranda Kerr was with Orlando Bloom. Orlando Bloom? Get with the times. Back in the day. Who is now with who shit? Katy Perry.

Is that Orlando Bloom? Huh? Yeah, he's with katie perry um getting his dick out on canoes really oh seffy where can i find this the internet.com no yeah honestly welcome to the internet um anyway anyway let's not yeah look it's his own private life miranda kerr was saying that you know they have a child together so she's with i don't know if he's the owner or the creator or the ceo or whatever of snapchat and they were saying that the intention is i believe his name is evan evan's intention is that they will not let

that child have social media until they're 18 and i to me that's alarm bells ringing i'm thinking well if you know you designed this thing you know this thing better than anyone and you don't want it for your child well what the fuck am i doing here then this can't be good it's so fucking true this cannot be good alarm bells are ringing honestly get the car running the guy that made this when there's kid here yeah that's mental snapchat is particularly kind of insidious to me i think though oh well that really sets you up to fail yeah yeah that really sets you up to fail all evidence removed i don't think so this is not looking good bad news let's give that to children photo messaging that sounds like a good idea for children mental it is yeah mental i remember when i first heard of snapchat it was in a science

lesson right by the bunsen burners someone was like to me oh there's a thing called snapchat and i was like oh it they're like oh yeah your picture disappears i was like oh so it's for nudes then yeah for sure and they're like well no not necessarily and i remember i couldn't wrap my head around like well it's obviously for nudes well what else is it for then my fucking lunch exactly it's like well duh yeah but i remember them being like no why would it be about that it's like it obviously fucking is obviously it goes without saying it goes without saying yeah for sure it like may have been co-opted by children kind of marketed now at children but duh it's obviously obviously was made to send nudes yeah i mean fucking what's the name evan almighty evan evan almighty yeah this was you created this and you made it for kids to send

nudes you fucking freak yeah yeah but absolutely shield your child from it that's fine absolutely your kid is not sending any dick pics in your like million dollar mansion yeah for sure i mean what the hell that's depressing isn't it when when the people that made the internet know that oh no my kid's probably not going to be on the internet it's like what you're joking well it's hard as well because then i was thinking right well i can't you know my kid's never getting an ipad for sure oh my god i'll never put my kid on an ipad but you have to be in a very privileged position to even first of all be aware of that conversation being had yeah and then second of all like what you know if you're parenting alone and your kid is like crying their eyes out and you've got this kind of miraculous mirage of this hallelujah beaming light this blue light that can shut your kid up absolutely what you're gonna refuse to give that to them it's so

hard it's also very guanapatro to be like oh yeah i'm not gonna my kid's gonna not have this and also i was actually speaking to my mom about this this morning on the way to the river oh um to go and take a little dip so stunning but i was talking about like we're talking about like kids that have like limited screen time and i was making the this is honestly like seven in the morning it's like jesus must be hell to be in a car with me i'm honestly like give it a rest fb fucking hell where's get the microphone out jesus christ just woken up i was making the case for i actually think that limited screen time is like counterproductive gonna make you want it more you mean not even i think you miss out on like cultural like milestones because i know someone that like um who's like a little kid that wasn't allowed to watch like star wars or harry potter

because like oh we just don't really do screen time well you can't listen to goes without saying he's not gonna unsound any of the jokes well they would be playing sort of star wars yeah you're not gonna be culturally literate not gonna sound a word but yeah they'd be playing star wars with their friends like pew pew pew not knowing who darth vader is it's like he's missing out he's missing out on his own game how do you live with yourself it's like what are you imagining your child doesn't know who darth vader is you don't know his voice like it's a yeah you're it's a bizarre thing it's like you're missing cultural marks that your kid needs to hit to be able to fit in with society at a certain age yeah well it's like what your kid doesn't know who who fucking pikachu is

is it even an option anymore to not have your child be a part of social media is that does that really work how does that work i mean in the western world obviously in a very very privileged sheltered life like does that work they've got no chance not a clue yeah if they want to get involved in capitalism which boy oh boy the society will be telling them to do they've got no fucking chance but i mean you definitely it's definitely a statement isn't it like if you could if we had children now sephie you had one and i had one and we met well let's say we had two together we had twins little um fred and george yeah you birth one i birth the other so cute and one of them just goes on we just sling them on the ipad peppa pig all day whatever no worries no judgment here by the way

like listen if i could lay on my fucking bed covered in what's it crumbs watching peppa pig all day and no one's got an eyelid you better believe that's my daily routine sounds like fucking heaven heaven bacon sandwich on the go heaven oh that's where you lost me the other twin we're not gonna let them have any social media blah blah blah blah i mean you're definitely setting them up to be um different different right yeah so are they gonna be are they gonna be the ceo of the next snapchat for example because they they will have they'll be different to the whole generation it's definitely a move but i think that's the difference between entertainment and social media because the case i'm making for star wars and harry potter's like yeah these are huge

cultural cultural phenomenons i'm not so much making the case for even pepper pig i make the case for pepper pig within reason but like there is the difference between your kid turns 12 and i remember when i was like wanting bibo and um facebook when that was like yeah when that was like arising and all of the things it's like no i understand why my mum almost not put up a fight but was suspicious of like what is this you're joining for sure i understand it and even now it's like your 14 year old daughter is like i'm gonna be an influencer and it's like we're not cut out we're not cut out we're 24 10 years older than the fictional 14 year old girl 14 year old girl that wants to do like what's in my handbag videos that is so outdated sephie what's in my bag i love those

it's not even it's like get ready for school tiktok no but i'm doing me as a 14 year old right okay but even think of how much it's changed even but yeah go on but it's like we got one bad review and there's two of us doing this together and we're like, oh my God, oh my God, are we shit? Are we shit? Are we problematic? Yeah, we are problematic. Oh, is that okay to be problematic on the internet?

Yeah, you can have a spiral. 14 year old little Katie can't do that because it's fucked. Well, and no wonder everyone's depressed. But we can't talk about having depression because you're mocking something and it's totally unacceptable that's word for word quotes i'm just quoting the the great reviewer anyway just something like that i have no idea what it said something along those lines no i'm look it's honestly whatever i think also which is why i wanted to talk about it because i i feel in the

weirdest way i feel so close to so many people that listen it's very intimate and we've said like in so many episodes these episodes are like you end up knowing things about us that people in our close to us in our real waking lives have no idea about yeah at the same time obviously you listening have no idea about lots of things going on our lives that people in our waking lives may know about right so it's just why i wanted to bring it up because i think i don't want to come to the episode feeling censored or feeling like i don't want to share with you anymore because i do so i just wanted to be open to that and say look i'm coming here feeling like actually i want to be a bit guarded but i don't want to feel guarded with you so that's the kind of dichotomy that i was having this morning but it's fine because it's kind of who's the guard

if the guard that is kind of less letting us speak if it's kind of a really unjust person that's like right no you must get everything right take one go say everything perfect it's like oh fuck well i'm screwed for sure but then i also think we we absolutely have responsibility as a platform. Like, I would never deny that. But I also think, well, my responsibility here is to give you something real, to give you something entertaining, to give you a bit of... And something fair, like... Yeah, just give you a bit of company for an hour, honestly. I think it makes it sound like we're the most probably, like,

we're saying crazy shit and everyone should be able to say crazy shit. We're not saying anything crazy. Fucking tell me it's wrong. I'll probably agree with you. What are you clicking on? Are you on a little spreadsheet right now no i'm like on garage van i'm like making sure i can see it's still recording oh fair enough this is boring though now should we end this yeah yeah that was such a boring response yeah someone wrote in i really love this they said well i hate it but i love it it's quite common around here um they said

that they feel a constant pressure for their life to be perfect so that it looks perfect online and if it doesn't look perfect online then it can't be perfect oh that's good i would love to say that i don't relate to that but i do that reminds me of something in the bo burnham thing if anyone hasn't watched this or doesn't know what we're talking about there's a beau burnham who's kind of i guess a comedian singer fuck knows um singer personal figure he's in promising young women our fave film and he did a special that's called inside it's on netflix if you don't want to talk about but there's a bit in that where he says oh my god what is it it's like it's kind of we we view the real world like you'd view it like in an apocalypse you enter the real world gather what you need gather what you need so you can come back and like be on the safe internet side so it's like

you go out get your kind of your shopping or you brought it all like in an apocalypse you get your like sticks and your medical equipment then you go back to the safe internet world and it's almost like that's what it feels like we use the real world as oh you can go to this concert get this photo so i can post it online then i'll do that so then i can look like this online and then i'll have this experience so then i can tweet about it it's like we use it we flipped it out of it's out of whack slightly like it's the real world should be the real world and then it should be the accessory to the real world is this is social media but no we have it that the real world everything we do is gathering equipment gathering everything that we need so our avatar

self can look more perfect. Yeah. And what kind of currency is that? What kind of currency is that online, your online life looking perfect? Okay, maybe, well, actually, that's kind of the problem is now it is a currency. It pays. Yeah, it pays. I was just about to say, you know, that's no currency. Likes don't put food on the table, but they do. But it doesn't pay everyone. L likes are a currency to a minute few but to the masses everyone acts as if likes are a currency when actually they're not all your the

currency you're getting is validation but you're putting all your life and soul into this as if the currency is fucking great british pounds it's not you're not getting a penny no for sure and also the thing that you said about we flipped it you go outside to like do your little things that you can perform for the in you know the internet world zoe sug i think like essentially ceo of the internet of the internet for like this generation yeah said when the internet and i remember this she was like when the first you know we were first going on the internet fucking my space times i remember that she was like you know you would go on the internet and find a niche or you'd go on the internet to escape your problems in the real world and now yeah you're on the internet

and you have to escape to the real world to avoid your problems that are on the internet yeah it's no wonder we have it's a social media detox what suddenly social media is bigger than anything we have ever known and we know nothing about it it's so fucking true we have no control yeah even this podcast that i can't if they could end this tomorrow we'd have no what the fuck do we do literally none of this is in our control completely i think that's so fucking true because that's why we need to do kind of i mean a few episodes ago well it was probably about 15 episodes ago i was like i took four days off the internet fucking great four days i haven't done that since not in the same way i've taken like a day or an afternoon off the internet or stuff i haven't taken that like a four day or

like even a week or even a fucking month or anything off the internet in that way and it's like it's crazy how good i felt off the internet for that time happy to come back but also i mean the feelings of freedom they wear off pretty fucking quickly when you're back it's sad that we need to take time away from the space we've created as in not me and you but the space collectively as a universe we've created on this online thing all kind of jeff bezos fucking what's the name evan almighty that you just said and all of these people that did snapchat whatever it's like yeah we need to take time away from your place so no wonder you're not letting your little precious little baby boy on it

because i know for a fact i shouldn't be on this because i feel shit when i'm on it but i love it yeah and we're addicted that's the crux of it is we're yeah we're addicted i cannot give this up i can't no and i don't like that but what do i do because not even just i can't give the podcast up no goes without saying can't give the podcast i don't want to can't give up my fucking scrolling i can't give up the doom scrolling exactly it's who i am it's not the productive things and i think we kid ourselves we absolutely kid ourselves i know like social because i think someone actually wrote in i don't know what this was but someone wrote in oh i use social media to connect with people but it's like no you don't no you don't because you have a phone you have a phone that you can connect with people with i know you might be saying oh no i'm collecting connecting with

fucking miley cyrus paris hilton i want to follow yeah no you're not connecting with her there's no connection there really the way people scroll is not connection because you felt connection in your life every time that you've had a great conversation with someone or you pass someone in the bus stop and you just have an eye to eye thing you know connection you know what that feels like scrolling alone in your dark room with a blue screen on your face that is not connection that is the absolute fucking opposite of feeling connected that is that isolation. So don't kid yourself that you're here to connect because you're not. You're here to feed the beast of your own addiction to Instagram.

Honestly, yeah. Yes, yes. And me too. Me fucking too. Yeah. Hashtag me too. Honestly. It's the me too movement.

So how do we solve the problem of social media, Sefi? I hate like take regular breaks and blah blah but i did feel fucking good like i knew i felt good there we go yeah yeah but i can't i've never even an afternoon i don't do that the only time i take a social media break is if i do it completely by accident and it's like oh fuck i haven't looked at my phone well is it well it's breakdown times almost yeah but sometimes it's breakdown times and i'm glued to my phone yeah because it's comforting totally because it's the biggest comfort well it's just familiar it's just it's because there's so it's such an extension of your body now it's like i rarely look at my hands without my how often do i look at my

hands without my phone in them oh that's horrible the the majority of the time that i'm looking at my hands is when i've got a phone in my hand that's horrific i completely agree though that's how you see yourself but you know what i mean it's like you never see yourself without it when i look down on my hand something missing that i'm putting rings on washing them like putting fucking sun cream on it's like i'm never not looking at them with a phone in them it's how you see yourself it's horrible i know i know i don't know i don't know if there's an answer because i think it's like it's built to be addictive it's more and more addictive like i don't think you can opt out of a phone without opting out of society and that means it's like okay well i'm gonna go

get a fucking cabin in the woods like there's literally in this like western world for sure yeah no yeah i'm talking about kind of in the world that evan almighty has created yeah absolutely you can't how do you escape you can't or even things like um apple pay and things like that now it's like yeah okay we know it and also but then i hate this conversation because it's almost it's the conversation that fucking like boomers have you're all addicted to your phone but it's like they're kind of a bit right with that like we all are they don't understand we're also right when we say they don't understand oh for sure they don't understand the internet because they're playing fucking candy crush like they think that's the internet it's like well at least i'm addicted to instagram i'm not addicted to candy crush you fucking loser but

maybe that's more yeah what would you rather i think i would rather be addicted to candy crush than addicted to instagram goodness what's on instagram candy crush is a lot more reliable you're not going to get triggered by candy crush but you're going to get triggered like 70% of the time on, or like 30% of the time on Instagram. Yeah, literally. Maybe there's not a way to solve it, but I think the way that we are kind of trying to like make our bit of section of the internet is this real space.

Because I think part of the thing that's so fucked is the falseness of it. Because yeah, okay, if we're going to be addicted to something, I'd rather be addicted to something real than something false. So I think just as much as me and you can do in our own thing, it's like if we make this kind of agreement within ourselves of like,

no, we're going to do this real, we're going to fuck up publicly, we're going to do whatever, blah, blah, blah. I mean, we've heard it a million times. But I would rather be addicted to something that kind of does feed my soul and it kind of is like, okay, this is a real space this is a

real two real humans talking then oh i'm addicted to um watching david dobrik's vlogs like that's fucked up for sure but that's the kind of the thing is is what does authenticity look like on the internet when something curated or something manufactured on the internet looks like something authentic so the stuff that looks authentic is actually manufactured and the stuff that is authentic looks like a problem looks out of place looks like something that needs to be fixed but that's why i think it's let's look like problems then well for sure yeah i've got i've got no alternative i am a problem that's just what i think you've gathered by now if you listen to this podcast you are listening to something real and you're either in it or you're not that's fine like you either like that

or you're not like or you want to listen to it sometimes or you don't and it's that's what i'm saying is it's absolutely like it's not i know we joke about the external validation but i want you more than anything to have the autonomy to turn us off when you don't like what we say and don't come back like i don't i don't want you to i'm not i'm not holding you hostage to listen to like our horrific spiels yeah that i i want to encourage more than anything people being able to step away from the internet but i know myself that i can't and to get away from her but i think you're so right with the things that look or the things that look authentic are curated if that's what you said but the things that the things that are real look like a problem yeah they fucking do they look like the biggest

fucking problem you've ever seen because you're making the scene you're stepping out of line stick to the status quo but i think that's because most things in reality are problems it's like you look at most people you know yeah i don't know anyone that i know in my real life that i think you just get everything right you just are the creme de la creme of human like you've never made a mistake in your life no because everyone fucking has and that's what i love about them for sure and i would love that in my in my people that i love online because unfortunately all i have is kind of these saints that i look up to and no wonder then you look at them and go you are just so everything you're perfect you're perfect you're

perfect it's like no i want to see i want to see all of your fucking mistakes i really do and that's why i think we love those kind of celebrity documentaries in that way because you get to see the raw oh my god bones of like taylor swift or like demi lovato yeah is katie perry crying about her divorce with kind of cream coming out of her tears it's like this is everything to me give me more more more cover me in cream i love it never seen anything better so cover us in cream we've never seen anything better okay i wanted to ask you as an ending thought can you talk to us about how your identity is wrapped up in your online representation of yourself how much of your own how much of the way that you see yourself is actually just the way that you see yourself online if you don't mind me asking

that's a really fucking good question i mean it's changed recently i think when you do because obviously i feel like this podcast we've been talking about the podcast but it's kind of we're very meta yeah in a meta way so we're jim piece to camera every day breaking the fourth wall truly because having this um as like a public thing almost the the relationships in my real life have changed as a result of that like people my real friends want to talk to me about the podcast and want to talk to me about you and things like that so it's almost like oh i'm not your real friend well i mean with you i feel the same but it's almost like people are like oh so what does erin think about that people that never met you and it's like she's a celeb a little celeb everyone wants to know

your opinions but so I think people people as people's view of me changes my view changes of myself in that way yeah it's inevitable that the way I present myself online feeds into how I act in reality but that's quite fucked up I kind of hate that because i do think i have quite a strong sense of self in myself like i've always kind of had a strong knowledge of like who i am so i do think there's that that kind of just like always there and in the background and i do know that there's kind of i feel like my social media thing is does feel very separate to me but then the podcast doesn't feel separate so then i feel like there's people's perceptions that come in there because it's like oh no that is your perception of a real or like a real thing you know what we were talking about recently because i think it links into that

thing of feeling like you know you've got all of the knowledge that we can be so self-aware of i know this is fake but it still feels a certain way and i was saying to seffy the other day that i had a bit of a thought and i was like i want to say it on the podcast i love when you do this because it's so important and amazing not but it was just it's a bit of an epiphany it's a bit of a nobody's coming Harry or it's a bit of a kind of your feelings are valid oh and you know I love yeah you are the authority in your own life I love a mantra but the thought that I was having what or the realization that I kind of came to is just the classic thing if you hear these things all the time but sometimes the one that you needed to hear at that time

just hits you different when you need to hear it. But it wasn't really that I heard it. I just kind of thought it to myself in my solitude in my own room with my phone glued to my hand. But I was really thinking, just because you know something, just because you think something

doesn't change the way that you feel about something. So no matter how much you can intellectualise something, I know that doesn't matter. I know that's just external validation. I know that that doesn't matter i know that's just external validation i know that's just fake i know that's just this i know that's meaningless i know why i want this so bad and you know it's not actually going to serve me you can intellectualize it all you want you can think all of you want don't change the way that you feel because how you feel is just how you feel in that moment just because you know that your friend didn't mean it like that and that comment is nothing it's just diet culture she didn't actually

mean it like whatever it doesn't change the way that you feel you can't think yourself out of your feelings sometimes just let them be feelings just because i know it's one silly review or whatever everyone's valid to their own opinion doesn't change the way that you might feel for 10 minutes on a bad day when you're fucking home or whatever yeah like yeah it doesn't change the way that you feel you feel the way that you feel right now and you might think you know it fucking all and i'm sure you do we can be so self-aware we can have all of the knowledge it's not going to change the way that you feel can't smart your way out of this one buddy strap in right round of applause that was fucking genius it's so fucking true i was never not Smart your way out of this one, buddy. Strap in. Right?

Round of applause. That was fucking genius. It's so fucking true. It's not profound, like it's never been said, but I think it just resounds. I think it will resound for all of us. If you're one of those people like me and Sefi where we try and get ourselves,

we try and smart our way out of a feeling. Just feel it. You're trying to intellectualise it. You can write as many blogs as you want. You can write as many blogs as you want you can write as many fucking dissertations as you want about um and intellectualizing this no you don't have a fucking clue you feel it just the same just feel it feel it just the fucking same whether you understand it or you don't and there we go bars are we ending i think that's the perfect ending

point i also think that's a fucking real so if i don't see this on the instagram i'll be gutted well maybe i looked really ugly while i was talking so i won't but i know that that's just i got that's just my body just more that's just something talking that's not actually me no but i'm gonna feel it anyway let's see what happens but look thank you more than ever for listening honestly i hope this has kind of hit you in the right place i kind of have a bit of fear that this hasn't hit you in the right place you're like these fucking girls they're on the defense it's like no we are a bit defensive but we're also just really like wanting to make a nice thing well look if I'm sensitive then I'm sensitive I'd rather be sensitive and feel it all than be numb and feel nothing yeah I think you can tell that we care and I think you can tell that we're real

and I know that a lot of people talk exactly the way that we do and would love to hear it in a podcast so honestly grateful more than ever to have you listening and just honestly strapping for the ride we're going on stealth i fucking love it i hope that you guys are good i really really hope that you're feeling good in the last episode actually we said about um look up where are you right now yeah soak it in it's like we're kind of pouring out our trauma and you're like feeding the cat soak it in soak it in soak it in where are you what are you up to it's fine love it kind of send us a i love most of all when you send us pictures of where you are yeah maybe like send us pictures of where you are when you're listening and things like that

that's what i love i love to be on in the background of your stunning line it's like i'm in my office on the phone to fucking off said writing a complaint about you i don't know how you could complain about us to offset but anyway if you don't hear from us i'm gonna say it. I don't know how you could complain about us to Offside. But anyway, if you don't hear from us, I'm going to say it, reviewer. Don't be scared. I'm going to say it. Three, two, one. Assume the worst, baby.

Assume the worst, baby. But actually, I'm fine. But also, mental health is real. Bye. Bye.