Goes Without Saying - parasocial relationships & content creation: *validation dupe!*

Episode Date: April 30, 2023

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you might be getting a bit more used to us. I, surprise, surprise, I really like this episode. It was kind of a bit more used to us i surprise surprise i really like this episode it was kind of um a bit spur of the moment from us but as people who i guess create content on the internet we thought it might be nice to reflect a little bit about that how it makes us feel how it might make you feel and how we feel as people who also consume i hate to say a lot of content on the internet. It's our biggest hobby, some may say, is scrolling through the endless pits of doom. I hope you enjoy this episode. I think it will be really nice if you are in the mood for a nice chilled

chat about the ways that we move through social media, looking for things that make us feel better and oftentimes find things that end up making us feel worse. Enjoy. Thanks for being here. God, hi. Enjoy. Thanks for being here. God, hi. Hi. God, I'm excited. Yeah, I'm really excited. It's actually been a while for us. Might have been no time at all for them listening, but how long has it been? I don't know, but I feel like a different person. I do as well, yeah. Maybe actually we could start by talking about the fact that we were in manchester the other day yeah and we met people who listened and we just had the best time and i did say to stepher the other day and i still think it's true there was a moment where we were so

kindly invited to go and speak at manchester uni which we did last year for the women in media um conference and these women and media girls honestly are if anyone's killing it if anyone's a girl boss around here it's them it's them it's definitely not us and we went and we did a lovely little talk and i had the best time talking to you oh it was so fun there was a moment again when you were talking and i was trying to have to i was like trying to suppress a little smile because i was just looking at you thinking I know because she's speaking and like these people are listening I know I know like guys why are you listening I get it every day with you um but there was a moment where once we finished speaking we were getting a lot of nods and like really friendly faces in the audience

and I thought some of these people look like they're giving the impression here that they know who we are yeah i think it was halfway through the talk that i kind of realized stumble upon this well we went into it kind of thinking oh like there'll be like i don't know five six girls that kind of know us yeah that kind of know us and the rest will be from like the women in media conference yeah it'll be like girls from manchester yeah like stephanie wing what's that about oh whatever i'm interested i think i kind of realized because i was looking around at the faces and they looked like they were nodding enthusiastically they were very enthusiastic

and then in the q a bit there was like a sort of q a bit where everyone got to kind of ask questions and stuff as often happens in a talk like that and the questions were so nice and just like so like i was like oh you do you know i'm getting giddy thinking about it it was it was a crazy crazy thing for us and it's still crazy and actually like that moment where the talk finished great talk yeah great talk congratulations well done i thought it was great yeah performance of a lifetime congratulations on the podcast we left it all on the stage we left it all on the stage absolutely the moment where the talk had ended and then kind of the audience like rose from their seats and started kind of marching towards us to talk to us that was the last time i had a conscious thought like my brain has been switched off and just in a blur yeah since that

moment well it was also quite like crazy because then we kind of everyone kind of followed us outside we were like right we need to like talk to everyone we got like asked to move because we were like being too annoying and like loud and stuff we're like kind of disrupting the conference because it made me realize like it put into perspective okay like we need to get better at like everything really everything but almost like you know i had no like people were saying like oh i love the podcast and i would be like banging my head against the wall i need to get a bit better at whatever that was there was one point where you did just start banging your head like quite like dramatically against the wall at one point it was just

honestly like everyone there thank you so much because you have no idea how much it genuinely you do actually have no idea though you've got not scooby i remember i don't i can't remember her name now but one of the lovely girls that we met was like i'm impressed that like i'm quite surprised not impressed she was surprised with how sort of much this seems to mean to you like sort of like i'm quite surprised that you like care this much sort of thing and i have just been kind of laughing over the past few days of like i've actually taken days to like process this like it's actually had me like introspectively like having a few like days kind of in bed around

my house like i just need to process that it's like we've taken it so deeply into ourselves oh 100 i was saying like it's really like if any of you are familiar with the sims which i know some of you will be yeah um i felt like coming out of that event my aspiration meter was full to the brim even though i was tired and hungry and my needs were low my aspiration meter was full and i had all the aspiration points in the world to spend on potions and machines we love potions exactly um but i was saying i keep saying to everyone like that was really like people saying to us and i think regardless of whether you were there at the event or like you've just been listening for a long time you really actually have no idea if this podcast means anything to you yeah this

ever meant anything to you just know like you have to times it by 500 million thousand billion five thousand million thousand trillion yeah and that's how much it means to us to hear that from you and i was saying to everyone like this was it was really it's like a long-term life-affirming goal of mine that i never ever ever thought i would hear young women say that we've done something that means something to them and i know that's like really cringy and like we're going on now it's a bit annoying but I just honestly like it really really means so much and I never actually thought I would be lucky enough to have that in my whole life let alone like when I feel so young and sprightly it just it feels really nice and the fact that I get to do it with you and like look over and see

your smiling face is the best bit looking over and seeing your face made me laugh so much yeah there were so many moments like also the thing that it makes me looking over and seeing your face made me laugh so much yeah there were so many moments like also the thing that makes me realize that we need to get better at is that we came out of that and we were talking to all these amazing girls and they were saying and we were saying to them like was the talk shit like was it good enough like is the podcast shit like what would you change kind of thing and they were all like you need to have more confidence and it did make me think like we really do need to have a bit more confidence in ourselves. Yeah, we do.

Like, to the point that we encounter people that are telling us that they love us. I think we should try and believe them. Like, I almost think it's an insult to them that we're like, you don't. You don't. No, 100%. Like, we need to believe them. It's like, they do love us because we're having this conversation. I've seen it in their eyes.

A lot. But it's almost like, I know that feeling of loving people from the internet i know the feeling of loving fucking celebrities all of this shit i know like i'm fucking in love with who do i love you love everyone you know style like you is the first one that came to my mind like that meant a lot style like you yeah it's like changed my fucking life yeah if you haven't watched style like you videos among other things do you know what i mean and i think that's like the oh it's just it's amazing to have that connection with people it really was so cringe but like it's just that's like i i just i think as well something sorry i'm gonna i'm

wrapping my thoughts now but i don't think you need to like this is no this is the big revelation that i've had of almost like we do things and then we apologize for them so much it's like boring let's just say our thoughts let's be we're wasting time yeah no it's so annoying on our own it goes without saying i keep thinking this recently like when we're interacting with like just when we're doing stuff for the podcast and we like even for women in media like there had to be like a little um write-up that went out for us and like when like looking at like the way that like i keep thinking recently like god we self we have really self-made this podcast like we started this from nothing like we've edited every episode we've come up with every single concept like we published this when no one asked us to like we were out there googling like how to host a podcast like what's on rss feed like we what's in rss i still could do with an answer to that please anyone but it's like we

have been there just the two of us from the start and there's been no one out there's been no big strong man like helping us like put together the furniture we really have built this thing from scraps and i think that's kind of hitting me at the moment that as i see how much it's grown it isn't so much of a shitty little thing anymore and we did do it all by ourselves with the listeners and it just feels really special and i keep saying at the moment it's a women listened it is a women-led women listened podcast i love that i thought god i've struck gold when i wrote that because no you you said it's this generation's women's led women listened broadcast to be reckoned with and i agree i couldn't agree with myself put that on my gravestone but i think it is we are very proudly women-led women listened

and we have very proudly produced and edited and created the whole thing. And that's why it means a lot to us when we have positive feedback. And it means a lot to us when we have criticism. And we just, we take it really seriously. We really love it. So we just, thank you guys. Thanks for being here. Just if you've ever messaged us or kind of spoken to us in real life or anything.

Laughed a little bit on the tube or had like a shed of a tear at something we said or like but i yeah that all of that all of that like just it's insane i just also think i want to take like the the special moment for like if you kind of do ever get to sort of say hi to us and it's almost like i feel like we were really aware that we can't give the full version of ourselves because almost you know us intimately like you know this very full version of us in your earbuds every day that it's or every week and then it's like in person we can give you a moment of it and it always feels inadequate so i just if i don't know yeah no i agree whoever

you all get a special hi right now thank you yeah thanks and your your faces are burned into my brain for the rest of my life and almost kind of the people who were there that day and the people that we were lucky enough to speak to and anyone who's listened it's kind of i hope you all go on to have really full amazing happy healthy lives and along the way you'll probably forget about sephian wing but you will still be burned in our brains as so important and so meaningful to us and we will never ever ever forget the impact that you had on us and i hope you have long full hilarious amazing lives where we mean nothing to you but you will always always always mean so much to us

oh i think this episode is about parasocial relationships okay can i ask you a question well i've got it titled as daddies we'll come back to daddies we'll come back we'll do daddies but i just almost think look we've done 10 minutes here and i'm not opposed yeah 100 well we're not about to pivot to fucking daddies and boyfriends are we no let's give the daddies their moment let's get my dad is the time they never gave us yeah we will come back to the daddies as always um can i ask you something that i ask you all the time can i ask you a question how has your relationship to social media changed over time as someone who consumes content and someone who actually i hate to say it you do create content oh it's so funny because i don't in so many ways i don't

identify with that yet yeah like in a bit in quite a big way i don't think i identify with that yet well that's why i think but i think that's i think part of that is human because it's kind of the imposter syndrome and it's kind of like you know what what are we doing here sort of thing but i think it's also you know as young women we're undermining something major that we've done like this is a huge it's actually i'm not no one can take this from us it's a huge achievement to build something from scraps we had zero listeners we had zero platform yeah and we groveled um i think the technical term is grinded but i like to use the term groveled groveling at the feet of the listener in the industry yeah please let us in let us in um have we already spoken about the fact that we know that steve jobs

is dead we do know that steve jobs is dead we know people sometimes message us saying guys you do know steve jobs is dead it's like we know steve jobs thanks for breaking the news we're not that behind like thank you so much telling us we do know steve jobs is dead we're not that dumb um not that you're trying to insult us no but you know we know he's dead um and um how has your relationship social media changed and kind of like do you you obviously don't feel like a creator i don't want to put words in your mouth you don't feel like someone who creates content i do but i don't i think i'm beginning to feel the flickers of like something oh wow this is like an actual thing we do every week and we've got hours and hours and hours of

content on the internet maybe too much a hell of a lot yeah so i think i feel that i think it's changing that i am still someone that or like i've always been the girl that can sit on youtube for fucking hours like i could wake up at six in the morning and just go on youtube all fucking day like i 100 i'm right there with you youtube is the best such a good little idea i love you yeah it's amazing and i always have been like that would be the thing i would come home from school youtube like youtube youtube youtube yeah youtube like the best thing ever i find instagram as we've discussed i've literally talked about this so many times on this very you haven't you haven't just being self-deprecating really i think i have yeah i think it's a well

established point notion notion that i have kind of conflicted thoughts about instagram as a platform like and i think so many people do yeah you and who's army exactly it's it's objectively a it's objectively i think the most sour one like there's like a real what instagram was like because i think also both of us are still using our instagram accounts that we created when we're like 14 like our same little is the instagram that i've had and all of my posts that like i'm sure we went right down to the bottom you can scroll back you could it's like me at school like it's me in my fucking school uniform i think i actually have archived a lot of them like from the years gone by but almost it's this it's like i i can look at the way in which a post used to be um kind of the most

rainy little random pot of strawberries i think that's what i like the random things yeah that you would post and now it's a dump and it's it's you know like you gotta have it all right like it's so fucked and i don't like it lots of ways yeah there's a lot of things i do like about it and there's a lot of things that i feel really conflicted about it like i'm still trying to work out my relationship with that particular social media and i also have the awareness that i do feel like instagram's on its way out as well like i definitely feel like i can feel i go i go on it at the moment it does feel like fucking tumbleweed on there and it's like oh okay there's no one really here other than kind of creators it's just like a weird kind of marketplace now and i'm not

i'm not really seeing the benefit for like a general consumer of things yeah i'm not seeing why you would want to be on there really because it's just advert after advert and even it like the posts that aren't directly an advert are still an advert essentially for that person's quote-unquote brand like i'm just not yeah i'm not seeing any like appeal for it really acas 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,

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and monetize their podcasts everywhere. ACAST.com But then I also have an addiction. You know, it's a whole fucking thing thing i'm a human in the 21st century like the record blah blah i definitely think my ideas of social media have changed like massively in the way that i consume thing is though i don't have twitter i don't have tiktok i fucking you wouldn't see me dead on facebook anymore like like the only real ones i use i use instagram and then like privately i use youtube day in day out privately but like i don't have a like you're

not it's not come to my youtube channel it's just me going around on there not yet not yet can i ask you a question then off the back of that well i wanted to know what yours was well hang on i'm still grilling you look we know that i don't have any thoughts i'm just a mirror for you to bounce off your your identity and your structure of this it is in my mind no that's not in reality well i think okay maybe this does fit into a parasocial relationships kind of conversation that i'm definitely aware of the fact that I need to build up some sense of like self-worth and identity and kind of have the confidence to come to an episode and say green is my favorite color today without the fear of people being like well green is ugly yeah like that was the color

that they wore in the uniform that slaughtered with those children and the do you know how can you say green's your favorite color when you're using an iphone because did you know that a child made like do you know what i mean like i think parasocial relationships and i think my relationship social media actually to answer your question one of the ways that it's impacted me is that it's made me even more like i'm even more of an overthinker and i before i speak will be like just dismissing myself and like censoring myself or like kind of viewing myself through the lens of someone who hates me and is gonna respond saying like that was really dumb when you said that sort of thing it's made me a lot more conscious of my wrongdoings and my flaws and and my like humanity and just the silly little things

that I say yeah and it is hard for me actually going back to Manchester. There were a lot of moments where I felt. And this is kind of something that I've been thinking about more recently that I hadn't really thought of in like a long time. Like years. I was such a shy child. Like. I find this so funny. Like really young.

Yeah. Like really, really like, you know, a small child. Like I would hide behind my mom and i like wouldn't speak to my relatives and i was very shy and quiet and i still am kind of in different ways in different like settings and when we were in manchester and like people were being so nice to us you're so not shy in that context. Thank you. But no, when we were, that's funny you say that because I felt so much like I was that child. You were literally banging your head against the wall.

Like you were doing like bits. Like that's so funny. Yeah. It almost, the presentation, how you present is as like the literal court jester, the joker of the gang. Like you're doing like gags definitely doing gags look i'm funny i've developed a sense of humor but i just i really felt like a lot of

moments where i was being shy and like i could let people were talking to me and looking at me and i would like when they would finish their sentence or like almost like the conversation would like you know calm down and come to nothing I would like look away and like kind of like look around the room I didn't sense this from you at all I just I really felt like and in a way I felt really proud of like look you're a shy child and now you talk for a living like that's really nice that's a really nice like full circle thing and I think that's nice it's a nice sentiment for the girls and then to learn that like you know you have a voice and you can use and then to learn that like you know you have a voice and you can use it and you can speak and you have a place here and all of these things

but i do feel aware of like somewhere in me is a really shy child and i think social media amplifies for me my awareness of myself and the things that i might say that might upset people or rub people the wrong way like i'm just such i know i say it all the time such people pleaser my worst fear is people being like I don't like that or why have you done that or it's not good enough like things like that um which is why this is the most affirming thing because it feels really meaningful and it feels like it really brings something valid to a lot of people's lives but it also feels risky because i take it incredibly personally yeah but i wanted to ask you on a more positive note what is the most fun you have on social media youtube are you like an eight-year-old boy watching minecraft like i genuinely think it's kind of

it used to be a bit of a running joke that like if my friends wanted to have a nap they would like set up youtube like at uni they'd be like just watch youtube for like an hour like i definitely think the most fun i have on social media is when i'm watching like more long form content on social media i think one of the most so what do you get from that what's the relationship with the people that are making the content i think the relationship that you have with people on i don't like look i'm not tied to the platform of youtube if there was something else like i think tiktok does a great definitely not being paid to say this by youtube i wish we were but like i think video content seems to mean a lot more to me and i also think like an audio content what is the next best thing or to be honest it's a parallel best thing

but the relationship you get from kind of youtubers or like the sort of watching someone's life and the intimate thing of like watching them make a coffee and then watching them kind of talk about something then they're doing their hair and then they're going to the shops and blah blah i think those are my favorite interactions i have on social media maybe or like but with that it's kind of there's a format there that you like you like something along where you can like bury yourself in deep like get into someone's pits like really be yeah in and up close and personal with them but surely there's another layer that it's like you must seek out or you must naturally gravitate towards a certain type of content creator influencer whatever like what

are the qualities that you're looking for that draw you in with someone i think it's the basic shit that we always talk about because actually now i'm just thinking i don't think i'm actually tied to anything i just said about youtube yeah because i think it's more about the person definitely because i'm thinking now can we maybe cut like some of that youtube lover it just became an ad for an i heart youtube t-shirt what's all this merch you've got on all of a sudden but i also think i'm ignoring the huge bit of like podcast and like audio shit that i've loved for like for my whole fucking life or like yeah all of the shit like and a vlog doesn't mean half as much to me as a like actual conversation or like and i think it comes down to authenticity which is like really the only thing i look for in any kind of quote-unquote creator or like person that

i'm interested in or like even just like writer artist anyone that i'm kind of looking at in my life i think the only thing i really ask for them from them is that i'm getting they're giving of the product that they're giving is like real and it reflects them and i think that is often the people that i gravitate towards in life and then in like parasocial relationships is someone that is offering like a real look into like their lives or something that they're thinking about here's a topic that's going to be like because i love like a sort of round table discussion sort of vibe yeah when they're being really honest i love it i love all i love a story time yeah give me give me real

real shit be real and this is why i think my problem with instagram is that it feels like the antithesis of that well that's what i was gonna say is almost it's intriguing to hear that you look to authenticity so much when you're so fake not yeah no that you look to authenticity so much because how can we tell basically and i you can though you can though but also is it authenticity and then it's also authenticity that you like because there will be a lot of authentic people that are super authentic and we don't like them because well you can't just be authentic you can't be authentic is so yeah authentic is so important like apparently like we're all being told like being honest and being real with your audience and being authentic with the people on social media and being authentic and how you represent yourself is really important but i often it's kind of the conversation we had before of like

emma chamberlain burps so i think she's authentic but i know nothing about her sort of thing love her but almost what does authentic look like because i think it's kind of beauty is in the eye of relatable yeah but kind of like i think it's more so about what is authentic to you in the sense of what things do you find important like what kind of little pockets of humanity do you feel connected to that you're not seeing represented because what you think is like really authentic will be really authentic i'm sure but it will be authentic to something that means something to you versus like a little boy could watch loads of the stuff that we watch and be like so fucking forced and it's not authentic and it's meaningless and he might find

stuff that's authentic that we look at and think what the fuck is that about blah blah blah or someone who's going through something might find that someone who's gay might find something about sexuality particularly meaningful and it might read as particularly authentic to them someone who is muslim might find that extremely authentic to them in ways that that crossover might not happen because it's not just about being authentic it's about reflecting something back in you that you think is true to humanity so if you're not someone who burps all the time which i know you're not if you're not someone who burps all the time which i know you're not actually i find them quite repellent actually then i think see a burp isn't going to be something that you look for i however i'm quite into a burping life and if i saw someone burping i'd be like cool that's

really relatable sort of thing but i think that's the difference between it being authentic and relatable in that it's like people love emma burping because it's like oh she's so down to earth and all of the thing and that's why people are annoyed at her that now she's at like the met gala and it's like oh she's not um relatable anymore but i still feel like it's authentic like it feels like you can track a journey there like i think i'm not necessarily asking for direct a direct reflection of my of my life even though those are the bits that obviously but surely that's what hooks us do you know that that is the hook definitely like if you can see yourself in someone or like oh that person there spoke about a struggle that i also have i feel more connected with them

that's a huge that's a huge part of what draws us to like um creators and people online but then i also think oh i don't know what i think i think it is really important that it feels real like same but i don't know what the measurement of that no there isn't one there isn't one i think that's why it has to feel real like i there is no way but then it's just down to the consumer did it feel real to you yeah i think it is like really interesting i think it has to be that you are getting something that you because you don't want something like, someone could tell me, oh, this is so real. But it's like, yeah, okay, I'm sure Andrew Tate is being so fucking real to himself.

But I'm not, I'm personally in my life, not looking for someone that is authentically a cunt. I'm looking for authentic kind of traits that I like in people. A kindness, a funniness. I I want all this stuff I think you can smell out um a performance like and almost maybe it's like just the performance that I don't like the look of like I don't like something that looks yeah I think that's a big part of it honestly it must it has to be but I think something that I do look for is that I do really want things to feel real and yeah there's definitely no way of knowing that they don't then put the camera down and then they get

out their Andrew Tate sort of handbook and start going through it with a little note with a highlight but like I do want things that feel um yeah like you're speaking from the heart and that you are someone that like oh I believe that when you stop talking you continued with those thoughts like it's like that you're I'm getting a sense of like I'm seeing a window into like your true thoughts your true life like of course you can't show anything it's the classic we film love island 24 hours a day you're only seeing one hour of it like how can it be real but it's like yeah but i i believe that when i'm seeing your hour that you decide to record today this hour that we're recording now it's like whilst it's not wholly representative of us it feels like it it is i'm we're not performing relatability we're truly just being super authentic yeah we're being like

if you happen to be amazing if you happen to burp i're being amazing if you happen to burp i never would but if you happen to burp and someone then was like oh i like burping or whatever people definitely shrek's listing he says oh i love that he says oh i loved it when you did that and he would be like and then he would relate to that that's a different thing to being like i wouldn't i would never burp i personally find that to be grim but a different thing to being like i wouldn't i would never i personally find that to be grim but i can still agree with you i can still think that whilst i don't relate to it i can see that that's real for emma and i do love it definitely but i think sometimes we're told that authenticity is the main thing but like you were

saying if andrew tate's being really authentic i don't fucking care like i'm not interested sort of thing and i think you hear a lot of people be like oh my god this person's so authentic or like this is how you do it you grow something and it's because it's authentic but i feel like there's another element of it that is actually much more focused on the person listening and it's much more about what they are needing in that moment there's definitely we were saying this at the talk do you remember this you you said this i think this was ages ago that you said this but i've always loved it and you said it again at the talk in our kind of um post-talk talk to the camera you were saying like i think i said it in the talk too did you you yeah you were just yawning

away at that point you told me off at one point because i didn't tell you if i just said i saw that because you looked in my eyeballs and yawned in my face that was in the post-talk talk i didn't that was in the post-talk talk on a kind of stage to just pretend i didn't see that i thought it's, let me acknowledge that, you know, we both know that you just yawned in my face. I stifled it, I stifled it. So badly. The problem is, I know your stifled yawns more than I know your yawn yawns. Because I always try and hide them,

but look, I'd just been talking for an hour, then I was in the post-hoc talk, that I'm going to have to get yawned out. I'm never good. I also needed a wee the whole time. Like, it was quite um horrendous actually um what was the point that you said that you were saying that um the things that you like in a podcast or the things that you relate to are actually just part the parts that you like of us

are actually just parts of yourself that you like yeah and it is so fucking true like whenever the bits that feel relatable or whatever that in a content creator that you're like oh i like for example i like style like you videos because often they talk about body image i love that because that's something that i need to hear and when someone talks about something like this i'm in i'm hooked i love i love it as a topic all the stuff but it's actually like what i'm seeing in these people is their vulnerability their sort of genius in the face of patriarchal shitness and actually that's just maybe a part of myself that i want to elevate or um feel like the whispers of inside me that i just wish i could

bring out more and this person here helps me bring out that more and i think that is so hopefully what people are getting from us like so many of the people that we spoke to were saying that they got a feeling of confidence from us which is everything we'd ever want like that is every moment i know oh my god no but that's why amazing i think it's it authenticity i just think is it's everything 100 but it's also nothing without because it it i think the onus needs to be put on the listener and or the watcher the consumer you know you listening not just with this podcast but with how you interact with social media you don't necessarily i don't think i don't believe that you just seek out authentic people i think you seek out yourself and it's kind of what i was talking about with the

gay person the muslim person or maybe a gay muslim who knows that you're looking for parts of yourself to be reflected back at you and that's why i like watching emma chamberlain burp or i like watching her at the met because it's aspirational and it's beautiful and I like and I'm interested you know there are I think it's so much more than like someone being real with you I think it's someone showing you something in you that you wanted to give more space to yeah no I completely agree and I think that's the kind of the Taylor Swift thing sorry no go on I think that's kind of the Taylor Swift thing of like all these young girls feeling connected to someone and taylor swift i would say is objectively incredibly intelligent and very talented and all of these things but also subjectively must be in a lot of ways reflecting back a lot of experiences that a lot of people are having and that's why people are connected

yes i think she's very authentic but i think most importantly is that it's almost this kind of um universal luck or like coincidence that she would be sharing things that a lot of people are connecting to obviously there's a part of that kind of implied that if you're more authentic you're going to be showing more of yourself which then gives more to connect to more than for people to see reflected back in themselves but i just i think the biggest part of it is that we are all interacting with social media through our own kind of biases which means that we seek out the things that make the parts of ourselves feel good and at the same time we seek out the things that make us feel shit and it feels so personal and it feels like such a personal failure when you see someone

doing something amazing on social media or looking amazing in a certain way that you feel like you never could it all just feels so personal because it's all coming from us you're the one scrolling you're the one like spending your time there there's so much obviously like responsibility i guess that the creators are putting stuff out there but I think it's all on us in the ways that we navigate through what we're consuming and how connected we feel to people. Yeah, I love that. I think that's perfect. Thanks. That's genius. You're perfect. Thanks. But I really do think that's it because I just know when I feel

connected to something and when I like someone, it's because I feel like they've given me something. And kind of why people might like this podcast is because i feel like they've given me something and kind of why people might like this podcast is because there's certain flickers of a conversation or a thought that you might have had a couple of years ago or a certain experience you might have had that like you haven't had the opportunity to speak about properly or a certain emotion that comes up for you that you don't necessarily know how to deal with and in a perfect way that you want hearing other people talk we're talking shit here a lot of the time and like i don't want to undermine it but we are just we're talking freely we're speaking from our own experiences there's no scientific formulaic genius going on

behind the scenes no it's it's about the listener and what they're going through and the things that they feel the parts of them that they want to draw more attention to and that the parts of you that feel unseen or like unheard or underappreciated but then i think as well there's reasons why there's almost like collective like pockets of the internet in that there's no formula formulaic genius whatever you said behind this we haven't sat down and thought oh okay like we can tap into this kind of thing here we haven't thought any of that but then the reason there are pockets is because of all the kind of groups that make up the world there's a huge group of kind of women that listen to this and it's like it's because of a collective experience we haven't thought oh well that women like this women like this and it's the thing with

taylor swift she didn't think oh loads of my audience have just gone through breakups or in love or whatever those are happening to women collectively on a large scale throughout the world that's why people relate like it's not that there has been it's not just that it's not coincidence that like lots of i don't know how i'm trying to say this but like it's kind of there are universal things we all go through yeah and like but there are also niche experience like this is largely based on the experience of being a young woman in 2023 i think it's 2023 now yeah i think i think it's friday i think it it's April like I'm literally checking the date don't know where we are yeah like like I don't know what my point is but you know when it do you know what I

mean I know perfectly like without me saying my point do you just like know my point oh I'm there yeah I'm right there with you yeah yeah no it makes perfect sense actually I just put it perfectly yeah no you did you're so articulate and eloquent you put it in a way that i never could have genuinely genuinely though but again like final no i think it's why taylor swift is important i think it's why i'm not going to undermine us i think it's why this podcast is important there are like you said about body image there are certain kind of like you know i've not spoken too much but if there's ever any content around about like people's experience with muslim being muslim and childhood trauma and things like that i always jump on it

and i'm sure the creator is great but it's more so because i'm just looking for myself i'm trying to find myself and i'm looking in all the wrong places. I'm looking on Instagram, I'm looking on YouTube, I'm looking on social media to find myself. But I think that's what these exchanges are, is we're circling through the internet, scouring through, watching people grovel, to find ourselves. I'm falling in love with them in the process, which is amazing. And I think it builds something really affirming and i especially think when it's between like young women it's really really important and really special but i think that relationship is just the kind of consequence or like the response to the actual exchange that's happening which is someone just trying to find themselves i think it's a really nice and they

found us in the process sorry it's perfect because it's like if maybe there's aspects of us that you like right now that you're listening maybe there are aspects you hate but if there's aspects that you love loving us it's like oh i love when wing does this one thing it's perfect when she does that thing it's like it's very likely that that's an aspect of you it's like you're actually when you say oh we love you guys you're actually just saying you love yourself yeah no i i 100 i believe it more than anything i really do really stunning i think it's really nice yeah genuinely and i think like just keep things in mind when you're you know um walking the trenches of social media just keep yourself safe keep your wits about you

yeah it is a weird place like i think also because we're in such a little bubble of it in our world in like kind of the the pocket that we the echo chamber people call it it's like we do forget that they're like when i hear of the andrew tate worlds and i i'm confronted with that like more often than I'd like like Andrew Tate unfortunately is someone that I hear his voice far too much for my liking um it's almost like you forget that it's like okay we are in a particularly nice bubble like oh we're in quite a soft nice friendly bubble it's like no bubble it's marshmallow land in here yeah it is the internet is crazy so I do think like looking for creators that you can find yourself in i mean a lot of

young boys have found themselves in someone like andrew tay not to get too much into him let's just leave his disgusting name out of this any further but like it's quite nice to know that there are lots of young girls that maybe see themselves in us i think we're relatively good people in the scheme of the world when i look at the state of it i do actually yeah and you can't take that from us no no you can't tries like there are people spewing literal hate around here so it's almost like i think it's actually quite reassuring to know that okay so if there are people that can see themselves in us i wouldn't mind a few more wings in the world like i wouldn't mind that no i'd love more seffies in the world that's to be honest that's exactly what we need it's exactly that's quite nice isn't it yeah it's lovely what i actually

think this has been a really nice episode i wasn't really expecting it like i haven't really got my thoughts in order as you may be able to tell i might leave that bit in where i say we're doing parasocial relationships okay let's keep going it's almost like we had like a whole different episode from men to social media yeah but we did next episode probably will be about we were going to talk about um men oh you know what let's let's no spoilers yeah well we said daddy cliffhanger yeah i don't even know what's gonna come up yeah we'll see we'll see what happens um what are you gonna do now god i don't know what i'm gonna do now i'm probably gonna Well, we said daddies. Cliffhanger. Yeah, daddy, who knows what's going to come up. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see what happens. What are you going to do now? God, I don't know what I'm going to do now.

I'm probably going to go and I might make a reel of this episode. Oh, that sounds good. My favourite thing to do at the moment is just sit, as you know, in the coffee shop, get loads of croissants, get loads of coffee and kind of drive myself nuts and just sit like making fun things which is really nice it's divine i love that i had one of the coffee shop i had a pan of chocolate yeah but you need the you need like almost the bespoke like kind of the banana one really i know you know i would they do put little

pistachio ones as well do you remember i sent you that one before i forgot about that obviously remember obviously remember that not a day's gone by we haven't thought about it but i remember that that was yonks ago yeah delish might have been last year right what are you doing after this you're having a fun time aren't you i'm just getting on a train in a minute i'm going to bristol for like a few days which will be really nice seeing some friends that i haven't seen since new year's eve wow like that's a long time i know it's a long time so i'm quite excited for that i'm very proud of us i'm really happy for you at the moment and yeah i just hope everyone's feeling good. Yeah, same.

Right, I'll see you next week then, I guess. Yeah, see you next time. God knows what we're going to do. Maybe we'll talk about daddies then. Yeah, who knows? I don't even like the title of it. It freaks me out even as a title. It's so creepy when I'm not sharing it.

Why I don't like that is because I actually call my dad daddy. Yeah, you do, which is fucked up and we're going to get into it. What is that fucked up? It's embarrassing, sure. Yeah, we'll see it's embarrassing sure yeah it's the world that makes that far yeah maybe right all right go on then go on then well if you don't hear from us if you don't hear from us assume the worst do you want to do the intro um not really i can do it if you want is it my turn i think it might be your turn but it doesn't matter it's up to you um you know what is it with i'm not really in the

mood okay ready i'm not in the mood i'm never in the mood to do the intro i'll do it you overthink it that's why because you're an actual. Because it's the first thing people are going to hear. I know, but it's fine. I get so stressed. I've realised recently that I say every episode is my favourite episode and I've been called out for that recently, so I need to start. You also say...

This is a great episode if you... Yeah, which I think is good because it's like, you are feeling lonely, aren't you? I can see it. I can see it, you guys. You guys are feeling fucking lonely as fuck. What have you clicked picture that called loneliness? Yeah. Right, let's go.

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