Life Uncut - Is Woke Branding Dead Or Just Being Recalibrated? Victoria's Secret Is Bringing Sexy Back!

Episode Date: October 21, 2025

Hey lifers! First up, we address the reports that the future of the podcast is unknown.  Britt has a friend that received a message from someone they went on two dates with. If Britt hadn't seen it with her own eyes she would have said it was a fake story! Last week we told you about the ridiculous reason Keeshia and Delilah ended up at the vets and today we share the silliest reason your pet made you have a vet visit. Halloween is around the corner. Do you get the treats for the kids or do you pretend you’re not home? Britt wants the kids to tap dance and Keeshia wants dog ‘trick and treating’ to start. Victoria's Secret ditches ‘woke’ rebrand and returns to 'unapologetically sexy' roots. Last week, the new and improved Victoria's Secret Fashion Show made its return to Brooklyn for the second year in a row. They have reversed their "woke" rebrand and they’re moving back to a more traditional, "sexy" image after a period of declining sales, after the reaction to the failure of its inclusivity-focused marketing.  In 2025 is woke branding dead or just being recalibrated? We unpack how virtue signalling and brands undergoing impurity tests may have contributed to consumer fatigue. We speak about whether we still want advocacy for social justice issues in marketing and whether this ‘nostalgic’ return to advertising might have more to do with more conservative politics than anything else.We speak about the notion of ‘go woke, go broke’ and the more recent American Eagle campaign with Sydney Sweeney and Carl’s Jr with Alis Earle.We referenced a reel by @carlzjsoda You can watch us on Youtube Find us on Instagram Join us on tiktok Or join the Facebook Discussion Group Hosted by Britt Hockley & Keeshia Pettit  Produced by Keeshia Pettit Video Produced by Vanessa Beckford Recorded on Cammeraygal Land Tell your mum, tell your dad, tell your dog, tell your friend and share the love because WE LOVE LOVE! Xx  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This episode was recorded on Camaragal land. Hi guys, and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut. Oh, I forgot what I was going to say. That's it. That's it. That's it. And that's the end. The podcast is finished.

The podcast is over. I don't even know what to say. Hi guys, and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut. I'm Brittany. And I'm Keisha. Yeah, and Britta, it was really nice to find out that the podcast, My Job's Finished, we're all done from the Daily Mail. Yeah, Daily Mail broke the news.

Podcast is finished. Over. See ya. No, there's people right now listening. They're like, what are you talking about? So guys, we have been receiving a lot of messages. There was a Daily Mail article that came out that said, the podcast is finished. Life uncut no more.

Not in so many words. It wasn't that far off, to be fair. It wasn't that far off. No, I think they said something like life uncut in limbo. I think there's some alliteration in there. It's quality journalism. Yeah, yeah. We do like alliteration.

Yeah. But what we do want to say is we have been receiving a lot of very panicked messages about the future of the podcast. We have said before, and I don't want to say that the podcast is never going to finish in the history of time, but the podcast, I promise you, is not going anywhere. The podcast is absolutely fine and we'll be continuing on like normal. That's what we want to assure every single listener. We love it.

Like it's going to take a lot for this podcast to finish. Trust me. So Kisha, you still have a job. Thank you. I like that security. The headline was the future of Brittany Hockley and Laura Burns life uncut podcast uncertain after they part ways with ARN following six successful years. Yeah, look, I mean, I just will promise you that the podcast is staying as is.

We will not be taking this content from your ears. I assure you that. Anyway, with that out of the way, one of my good friends, I've got a few friends that single and dating and I just I love it for them and I hate it for them at the same time because I just want them to find their penguin but since I've been off the market like I used to bring this shit right and since I've been off the market I feel bad that I heavily lean on my friends but the stories that they are coming with are just so good that I cannot bring them to the podcast and I want to preface this with we got a message the other day to be fair it was only one but we

got a message that says can you guys not shit on dating so much like it's really hard and we want to you know I want to be able to find my penguin and I want to have some hope we want you to have hope too you know I met Ben online dating I met Jordan online dating Keisha you met your partner online dating my sister got married off tinder like online dating is also great but it would be remiss of us not to highlight the actual turds as well but also it's kind of funny it's like like I get it I do I genuinely do and I think when you're in it and you're actually living it you're like I don't also need to be hearing just the horror stories because like I want to hear the hope as well yeah and I've always said that you know a lot of people shit on online dating but

like you said we wouldn't have met our partners but I also think that it opens you up to a whole realm of people that obviously you wouldn't meet otherwise which can be a really really good thing because it can mean that you will find people with similar values to you and I had this conversation on the weekend as well with a friend who's dating and she was like like where do I go what do I do where do I actually go and meet these people and I was like well unless you're the type of person that you know you got to fish where the fish are right and unless you're the type of person who wants to be going out drinking I don't know if that's like that's where I tried to find people and look at how it turned out but even then even of course you're going to meet people when you go

out drinking but that might not be the kind of person you want to meet either yes and so she was like I dropped my daughter to school I go to work she works in a pretty female dominated industry like not exclusively but mostly it will be women and she's like I go and I pick her up from school and then I go home like where am I supposed to meet people and I was like online that's like the best option that you do have it is and like we tell you the success stories I want you guys to have so much hope and I do want you to enjoy online dating I mean you go through phases right you're crazy if you don't have your highs and lows in online dating remember the joke used to be here for me one of many jokes but it was how many times I downloaded and deleted online dating like I'd

be like I'm back in the game baby and after three days I was like fucking deleted it I was like cannot face it that's normal it's normal to have your highs and lows so I want people to have fun with it you guys would be bored shitless if we came on here and kept saying hey guys another success story like you don't want to hear that but you want to hear what I'm about to tell you so if I didn't see this off my friend's phone in person I would have said bullshit like if somebody wrote this into the podcast as like their I don't know just a story a dating story I would have said it was made up but I've seen it with my own eyes and I just it's just hard for me to fathom that this is where we're at so my friend was on this on the dating app she'd met this guy and he was 40

it's a stable job seemed great they were talking for two weeks online and it was seemed great right so they met up for a first date first date went well not like not like huge sparks but not terrible enough to be like yeah let's see each other again so a week went past and they had a second date and they weren't you know like in between it's only a week or so you text once or twice whatever so they went on the second day which was also fine again not like oh butterflies this is the one but not terrible. Not fireworks, but you kind of go, well, maybe I should be going for the slow burn. There was just not a lot there, but seemed like a normal, nice enough guy. Anyway, she then had to go overseas for two weeks. So just bad timing for things when they're flowing.

So she went overseas and on the first day that she had left, he had messaged and just said like, Hey, how about a third date? Come to my house. I'll cook for you, whatever. And so she was like, I knew that obviously that's the sexy time date like that's and she said I just knew at that moment that it wasn't for me like I wasn't excited by it I didn't want to I didn't see a future with him and no part of me wanted to go whatever and so she just didn't write back she just was like do I owe him something like we've been on two dates I just breathed in then because I'm like you could have replied but sure continue so she figured that out so because she's a really good person but she just got overseas and she thought about it for a day or two and then she got busy

with her family and friends two weeks went past and she'd realized wow it's been two weeks I probably should have messaged him like two dates in and so she felt bad like originally she thought two dates I probably don't need to she slept on it for a fortnight and then she came back and she was like yeah okay she wrote hey I'm so sorry for the delay I've been overseas with my family and time just got away from me and I just want to say that you're a really great guy and I had a lot of fun with you and you know I just don't see a connection and I just don't see it going anywhere thanks so much like a really nice breakup message she did apologize that she had taken two weeks to respond and she by all accounts I think did the right thing nothing he blanks her he blanks her

for two weeks blanks out she moves on with the life it's a month a month goes past and this has just happened on the weekend so a month has gone past she just thinks it's done and then she gets a message from him i'm just gonna play it for you because it's a voice message so one month we need to disguise this no you don't need to disguise this you absolutely do not need to disguise this so no communication for a month she'd send a lovely breakup message and this is what she gets back fuck off that's not real that is not what a 40 year old man sent

10 seconds of fart in response to a breakup message he's a 40 year old man imagine being I was thinking that we were going to have to disguise his voice because, like, we can't really out people's voice on the podcast without them knowing about it. When you go, do we have to disguise it? I'm sorry, I think it's the funniest thing that I have ever seen. Did she send one back? I said, please, let one rip back.

You need to fart back. And she's like, I can't bring myself to. I was like, fuck him. She's like, what's he going to say? Show all these friends I farted? I was like, man, he's a child. That's incredible. In the worst way.

But imagine being that butt hurt. You've been. Literally. Yeah. Pun intended. Your butt is hurting. But would be after that. You need to relieve the fun.

After that, imagine the hemorrhoids. Imagine just like. That is insane. That is madness. How do you, how do you, after two dates, you're still thinking about this after four weeks? I'm just going to formulate the best response. Let me think about it for a month. And that's what you come up with.

I wonder if he had conversations with his friends and it was like a group decision, like a bit of a deliberation and they were like, what's the funniest thing that you can send back? It is pretty funny. But the funniest thing is funny. But it's insane. The funniest thing is it's on WhatsApp so he knows she's seen it. Comes out with the blue tits.

Anyway, that's the response and I just thought I was in hysterics. I could not breathe and I said, I'm so sorry I'm laughing. I was like, cause I know this is grim for you that this is what the dating, she thought it was funny as well. Funny, but like, you're like, come on. I just think. I'm speechless. I know.

It's hard to believe. And this is what I mean. If somebody wrote this into the podcast, there's no way. I was like, there's no way a 40 year old man is farting at you in response to a breakup message. That's just not happening. But it truly did happen. But I just think like all he's done is reiterate that she made the right decision.

A hundred percent. Like all you've done is be like, oh, cool, I'm going to double down. Do you think you'd feel that way if the response was immediate or do you think it's weirder that there was a month in between? It's weirder. It's so strange. I almost get it. I hate that I'm going to say this.

I almost get it if she sent the message and he went and just farted back. I would have been like, okay, psycho, but whatever. But the fact that he's sat on it for a month and he's formulated this brilliant thought-provoking response. I think it's because it goes from being immature to both immature empathetic because you're like why are you still thinking about that after a month's time ben i told ben this morning because i was just it was just so funny to me i told ben and i played it to him and he laughed he's like it can't be real and i said no it is i've seen it on her like

this is a very close friend and i was like i saw it on her phone i saw the whole message shape and ben's like it's just weird that a guy would be thinking about this after a month after two dates you didn't even hook up like you didn't even sleep together it's kind of that thing when you're messaging back and forth with someone and it's like one two one two one two it's really quick and then all of a sudden they take hours and hours to reply and so in your head you're like well I'm also going to take hours and hours to reply and so he in his head he's like she's taken two weeks to respond to me at all I'm going to take a month I need to be longer so that it looks less desperate but that is about the most desperate thing you could ever send in return

the thought of like I'll show her the fact that there are like 40 year old people they have jobs You could be friends with someone who thinks that it's a good idea to, like, imagine finding out that your friend who's 40 thinks it's a good idea to send a fart voice note. I know. I feel like the only good thing about this is that she'll be able to use it as like a dating horror story. Well, she didn't hear that. Like, she could add that to her profile though.

You know, like, I'll know you're the one when you don't take a month to send me a voice note of a fart because that actually happened. It's one of the funniest dating stories I've heard in a really long time. So please, like we're always going to say online dating is amazing, but if you have these stories, you need to send them to us because we are never going to stop talking about them. Well, something else that I absolutely love that people sent through was last week, Britt and I told Laura the story about the very dramatic and very sad 36 hours that I spent

with Delilah when I thought she had a tumor growing from within her gum that turned out to actually be a dreadlock that had lodged itself onto her gum somehow calcified and become firm you need to see the photos though because people laugh and they're like how did you mistake a dreadlock for a mass yes but you really did it almost like emulsified and melted into her gum I actually had a vet message me as well and be like I can see where the confusion was however most people were like I can see where the confusion was if you're just looking at a photo I don't know how the vet didn't actually investigate more on that later we'll get to that a later time when I've gone back to that yes so we actually asked you guys what silly

thing did you end up at the vets for some of these had me in hysterics he ate a dead bat I had to take it to a facility so they could test its brain for viruses what's the end was there a virus yeah it's COVID 2.0 I thought my dog was going blind $700 to tell me he had dust in his eye we're not laughing at the illnesses here but they're fine no of course not of course all the dead bat as it turns out so I thought my puppy ate a sock five hundred dollars later I found the sock tucked under the rug okay this one Delilah has been guilty of this you guys will know because I've told you about it my border collie had a really bad limp turns out he fakes it to get attention eight hundred dollars later dude remember when Delilah did that recently I took

her to the vet. I also sent it to Dr. Chris Brown. I sent whole, sorry, Dr. Chris. I sent 12 minutes of video footage of her. She wouldn't go up and down the stairs. She couldn't get into bed. She wouldn't get in the lounge. Took her to the vet. She ran on in there, got a treat, ran out. I was like, what? They were like, sometimes they do this for attention. I was like, this dog has more attention than Kim Kardashian. Yeah, than anything you've ever known. We had our eight-year-old dog to sex because he had a lump on his balls. It turns out it was just a mozzie bite. my dog strained her tail from wagging it too much this one was a bit sad i thought my dog was having a seizure i rushed him to the vet turned out he'd been asleep too long and his legs just had pins

and needles maybe that's what delilah had maybe it wasn't attention she'd just been sleeping too long oh oh this is funny this is something that i think buster would do laura's buster his red rocket got stuck outside of his penis i'm pretty sure i i don't want a defamation case from buster but i'm pretty sure buster's penis has gotten stuck before ness ness thinks ness lived with laura a long time you reckon his penis got stuck yeah and it was an expensive vet trip it was a horny boy how do you get that dude you haven't seen how you get that back in you have not seen a dog's penis more than buster's penis it's always out i feel like laura's not here to defend him and i don't want buster to be embarrassed you know the funniest thing is because he's only got three

legs in photos the leg the leg can't even block it it's just on display it's just like it's just there this one was my dog ate an entire box of essential oils oh no that would make it so see do you reckon they were calm do you reckon it calms them or do you reckon that they fart smelt like peppermint probably poison instead of um what am i doing saging the dog just walks around farting and it's fine what are those diffusers it's just coming out of the dog instead okay last one and i am guilty of this as well i'm a vet nurse and a lot of people bring their dogs in for ticks but they're actually nipples this one came in a lot i found out that apparently male dogs also have like nipples i didn't know that i thought that the female men have nipples why

wouldn't what that is the dumbest thing you've ever said but i've always just thought that do not scoot through this how did you not know that a male dog has nipples do women dogs have Women dogs, lol. Female dogs have more or do they have the same amount? Don't try and ask smart questions to deflect from what you just said. To deflect from sounding like a dickhead. At the time of the year that it is, are you walking around and a lot of houses have their Halloween decorations up?

You know what? A few. My area is pretty, I'm in Bondi and there are some areas that like smash it. My street like has, I think, two houses currently. Oh, really? Okay, so I've moved to the inner west, which is more like family zone and there are heaps of houses decorated with Halloween stuff. And I absolutely love it.

You guys mocked me last year because I came with my ghost spooky buns. I'm thinking I'm going to do a bit of a version of that next week, an elevated version of ghost spooky buns. If you need an easy hairstyle for your child, I will send you the link to how to do it. I think, do you know, I think the podcast is going to come here. I think we're going to. Okay, we're going to do a Halloween episode.

I think so. So I've come up with a bit of a different idea. Obviously, I'm a new mum, but to a dog. And my dog can do lots of very good tricks. now I've never really been the type of person who has like treats for kids that are doing trick or treating just because usually it gets to the day and I kind of forget about it and also I'm not really I'm just not really the type of person who wants heaps of people knocking at my front door but I think this year because all the houses are getting involved I'm gonna do it I think I'm gonna

buy lots of like chocolates and little individually wrapped things terrible for the environment but play on oh I'm terrible I like close the blinds pretend I'm not home I like stop drop and roll behind the lounge I'm like don't move they'll know you're here so I'm wondering you know a lot of people these days we're talking about the fact that our pets are actually our children and some people roll their eyes at that but I'm realizing that there's a gap in the market and it's for dog trick and treating hear me out dogs get dressed up dogs go to the houses that are decorated dogs do a trick for a treat okay I think that's a good idea but do you think it's brilliant yeah Dog Halloweening.

It's exclusionary of the human children. You can bring a cat. No, I mean the human children. You can bring whatever pet you have. Okay, you can bring a goldfish for all I care. I think that we've been excluding the pets for far too long and I think the pets are actually the ones who do the tricks and therefore deserve the treats.

A lot of pets dress up. I just don't think they're being made to do tricks. But here is where it bothers me, Halloween. I can guarantee you kids are not doing tricks for treats. that it's like christmas kids just associate it with presents like there's no meaning behind anything anymore and people forget that you used to have to do like kids were supposed you know that it's the opposite it's the threat of a trick it's trick or treat it's if you don't give me a treat i will come and play a trick on you oh i thought you had to do a trick do a backflip

fucking tap dance for me tap dance move those feet maybe like earn your violet crumble but i Yeah, okay. This is where we're going. You've got your idea of making dogs do tricks. Fuck it, kids. Tap dance for me or you're not getting your chocolate. You need to be doing a trick to earn your treat for sure. You guys might have seen last Wednesday we saw a new

and improved, quote, some people don't think it is, a new and improved Victoria's Secrets runway show come back for the second year in a row. So they've had a bit of a hiatus since like 2019, 2020, took a couple of years off and they're back. And now they are back with some of the OG angels again. So we've got Alessandra Ambrosio, Adriana Lima, and Jasmine Tooks. Now Jasmine Tooks, she is an OG angel, but she actually opened this year's Victoria's Secret show and she's heavily pregnant. I think she must be eight months. She's nine. There you go. She's nine months.

She's literally about to pop. She opened the show and she was smoke show hot, but we had some new additions as well. So we had Angel Reese. Now, I don't know if you guys know who Angel Reese is, but she is one of the best players in the WNBA, like the Women's Basketball League. I actually watched a doco on her not that long ago, and she's brilliant. She's beautiful and brilliant, but she's an athlete. And we had Iris Law, which is Jude Law's daughter. So there's a lot of people saying Nepo Baby, but she's also a beautiful model. And Sunny Lee. Now, Victoria's Secret has reversed its woke branding. So back in 2019, 2020, we did see, and we discussed it on the podcast back then, we did see them, I guess I want to almost say adhere to societal pressures

to have a show that was more diverse and more inclusive and for want of a better word, more woke. But the reaction to the show wasn't quite what they had hoped. And they just saw marketing absolutely plummet, which is why we saw them take a break for a couple of years. so now Victoria's Secret is back and it has reversed its woke branding and it has gone back to its more traditional sexy image that it had many many years ago and there's been a lot of reactions off the back of it that are going both ways and I say this because Keisha and I we even had different reactions when we were talking about this originally I sent some reels to Keisha on Instagram and I sent reels like wow like look at this show look at these women

they are incredible like they're beautiful the fashion how extravagant it was it was back to being over the top and high-end glamour and Keisha said I don't even want to open it you're like I don't want to look at it and we had vastly differing reactions to be honest when I saw them I just didn't have any emotion I didn't care I didn't feel the need to look at it I didn't feel the need to swipe through the photos and I think it's probably because like being honest going back to the whole 2019-2020 when it was initially taken off because there were so many allegations of sexual harassment, even sexual assault. There was so much misogyny. That was when the company was under the leadership of Leslie Wexner and Ed Razek. We actually spoke about this on the

podcast. I feel like it must've been just before the show actually came back last year. And we talked about this whole, you know, how are they going to come back? Can they actually rebrand from what they used to be? For me, I don't think I can actually get past the fact that so many people had issues with diet culture had issues with their own body image that I think directly stemmed from Victoria's Secret and whether that's you know me being a little bit bitter towards them probably but just think that you know they went from being this whole fantasy super sexy and then because the way that culture was moving and people were saying we're really tired of this was tired of the male gaze we're tired of this hyper sexualization of women alongside the fact that

we found out there was so much harassment happening behind the scenes them then pivoting and trying to like really tone down the sexiness of the brand and they went into like athleisure they went into plain colored pajamas and they really pulled it back and they had kind of more normies you know walking the runway rather than these supermodels I wasn't surprised that a lot of people were like this is virtue signaling and this is woke washing like you're pretending like you care about these things. You're pretending like you care about diversity. You fucking don't. You actually care about sales and you think that this is the way the culture is going. So I wasn't surprised when that change and the whole pullback of this sexy, luxurious style of branding actually

resulted in a lot less market sales. Yeah, but I have a few things I want to say to that. Firstly, the question of can a brand recover and do we hold a brand accountable when there are certain people in charge. There were so many problematic things happening behind the scenes when it was under their leadership. And it's not anymore. It's been revamped. There's new leadership. Hilary Super became CEO in late 2024. And it's under her that they've pivoted back to this unapologetically sexy Victoria's Secrets runway show, which we will get into. So for me personally, I can happily look at that brand now under new leadership. I can attribute a time under a certain leadership and not necessarily carry those thoughts through for the brand because I can

understand that there were two problematic men behind the scenes then. Now there's a woman. So I can happily relook at a brand and say, hey, they're taking a new direction. I'm not going to just hold on to that association of what they were. Secondly, in terms of woke washing, this is where I start to get a little bit of a, I mean, there are going to be people that disagree with me, but it's pretty problematic for me when we pile on a brand, for example, and I'm not just using Victoria's Secret. It's like, it happens all the time. Society piles on a brand and says, be better, have change, be more inclusive. We want to see it. We're sick of seeing this shit. So the brand does it. And then we say, oh, but you don't mean it. You're not doing it well enough.

Like you don't want, you're only doing this because we told you to. What did you want the brand to do? Because you've said to them, be better and be more inclusive. So they do it. and then you say it's not good enough. And that's where my problem comes because you can't push and demand change and then it happens and then you still fuck them off. Like it doesn't work like that. There has to be a level where you're like, oh, cool. Okay. So they're trying, maybe they haven't nailed it, but at least they're working in the same direction. The problem is now because we pushed back on that as a society and said, bullshit, you don't mean it. You avoided that brand, their marketing plummeted, their sales plummeted. So they're now like, fuck you. We'll

go back to the way we used to be. We tried, it didn't work. We're going to go back to this unapologetically sexy, pulling away from woke-ism, but still being inclusive marketing. And I think, I mean, it's early days because it's the shows only just happened. I think they're going to see sales skyrocket. I think that, you know, I probably have to hold my hand up and say that I would be someone who's guilty of doing what you just said. Like for me, I was like, this feels so inauthentic though like stop pretending to be something stop pretending to have the morals of something that you don't have just because you think it's going to convert into sales but isn't it better that they pretend quiche it because at least but then then they make how does change happen if

change doesn't happen so you want the change you can't then say don't pretend isn't it better that as a society everyone whether they believe it or not at least it's happening and from the outset we're seeing these campaigns in windows we're seeing them on tv that is 10 times better than for me than seeing, saying, no, just be honest, show us how fucked you are. Like that's not going to change anything. I think it's more so because I think that they're doing it as a way to misguide you or mislead you so that they can still get your sales. Like for me, it feels misleading. Yeah. We live in a consumerism environment. Yes. And it turns out we actually might be at a point of consumer fatigue, which is what we wanted to talk about today. And whether this is not

actually specific just to Victoria's Secret, we're seeing it happen amongst quite a few different brands but are we at the point now where we are so exhausted from this purity culture and brands sharing their social justice messages or you know having values that we may or may not align with and us needing to figure out which side of politics they sit on are we so exhausted from that that it's actually quite refreshing to turn back to this more nostalgic sex sells type of advertising or are we kind of pushing the feminism needle back in the opposite direction now like you said Britt this show it wasn't like they completely went back to just being the skinny white haven't eaten in three weeks potentially has had plastic surgery supermodels they did still tick quite a

lot of the diversity boxes like you said they had a nine-month pregnant jasmine toques open the show they also had their first professional athletes get their wings so there was uh like you said angel reese but there was also suny lee now she is a gymnast they had a trans model in alex consani and there were models of all different sizes all different skin tones you know i think that they still did a good job of representing different categories of people and I'm not going to criticize them for that they also had multiple angels funny that we call them angels but it's cute they had multiple angels in their mid-40s so it wasn't just ageist either yeah now in terms of the actual lingerie that's really where we've seen the biggest change we've got the double push-up

bras back we've got more bling we've got really sexy garments huge wings elaborate show and that was very, very deliberate. Hilary Super, who became the CEO last year, she came out saying that this rebrand is going to focus on very sexy. It is unapologetically sexy. And it's kind of led Brit and I to asking the question, is woke branding dead or is it just being recalibrated? Now I listened to a really interesting reel from a creator called Carl's J Soda. She actually has a master's on beauty standards, AI and culture. We'll link that too because it's a fascinating look. This whole video actually went for three minutes. So I've cut it down just to save a little bit of time, but she actually made a comment in her caption that said, we've spent

years watching brands and institutions embrace diversity, not as something meaningful, but as something performative. Inclusion became a marketing strategy. Now, interestingly, this video was actually from August and it was in response to Sydney Sweeney and the American Eagle campaign. But it's really interesting to me that it is so relevant right now. The era of the woke rebrand is over. This consumer exhaustion is a combination of years of surface level branding that talks down to real people. The woke industrial complex started as a response to the 2016 Black Lives Matter movement and broke into mainstream around 2020 during the pandemic. With so much civil unrest and the unsettling rise of cancel culture, the capital class believed that brands

needed to embrace social justice issues and push progressive ideology to maintain their market share. And in their defense, this was backed by consumer research, which showed the next generation would only purchase from brands that aligned with their values. But the truth of business always remained that people rely on brands to solve their problems, not to preach about ideology and serve up everything with a side of guilt. This era of wokeness encouraged delusions, turning marketing into activism and activism into a spectator sport. It rewarded outrage, mob think and performative victimhood. And the result was a new arm of cancel culture zealots emerged, hijacking comment threads and cancelling brands for every possible misstep.

Everything from the internet itself to our purchase choices and who we chose to associate with was subject to an ideological purity test. The problem with that being the horizon kept shifting, which meant you could not be ideologically pure enough. And the result? Consumer fatigue. People are exhausted by it. What Wokeness did culturally is tell people, don't bother. Don't try to be fit, to be beautiful, to be excellent, because it was elitist and exclusionary. I think she's brilliant. I love the way she articulates it. I could not have, I mean, yeah, I couldn't have even read it better myself. Like I could have read her words. She articulates it really, really well. And I think it just goes back like on a really dumbed down level,

goes back to what I said at the start, where it's like a brand can do something and it's still not good enough. And that's exactly what she has said in a smarter way. She's saying like, you've pushed the brands on this with the woke cancel culture. You've said be better. You said do more. You said we don't want to associate with you unless you're, you know, you have these ideologies where you're contributing to a better world. Then they do it and it's still not enough. We still want to continue cancelling them. And I think that we have 100% hit consumer fatigue. We talk about it ourselves in our friendship circles. We're exhausted by it. The last couple of years, for a multitude of reasons in society, has seen like the highest level of this cancel culture

that we've ever seen and this constant attacking of people online whether you're a brand whether you're an influencer whether you are an everyday person and it doesn't matter what level of brand you wear either it's not just the victoria's secrets of the world it was like small independent brands too the problem is there is a part of us that doesn't want to just look at the same mundane normal every day there's a part of us that wants to look at a bit of a fantasy unachievable world as much as we want to look at the regular every day. And I say that because you think of shows like the Kardashians. The Kardashians are the most famous people in the world. The entire family, every single one of them, what they deliver every single week for the last, I don't know what it's

been, 16 years or something that their show has been going. There's a reason that they are so popular and so famous. And it's because they are so unrelatable and unachievable and they live a life that you can only, like you can't fathom. You cannot imagine what it would be like to even have one day in their life. And there is a part of us as a society that wants that. We want to see how the other half live and we want to have these fantasies and you want to have something in a way to, I guess, be striving for and working for and bettering yourself. But I do think that we got sick as a society of just, like Kylie said, not having something to strive for or work for or be inspired by in a way. I understand what you mean by this whole like aspirational thing.

And I think I probably sit a little bit more halfway with the whole accountability versus impurity test. You know, like I do agree with the fact that if a brand, especially a small business was coming out saying, we're trying to, you know, focus on our carbon footprint, we're trying to like be environmental. The next question would likely be, well, what are you doing about something else? You know, like, and I do feel as though there was that level of like, you could never be doing anything good enough.

And so people kind of stopped trying. They just got to the point where it was so exhausting to keep on trying to do the right thing. I think for me, I do want to live a bit more halfway. If I find out that some big brand has really big issues with the way it treats women or the way it uses slave labor, I want them to be accountable for that. And I want them to be canceled for that. And I don't want that to go away.

But I do tend to agree that I think these things kind of did get to a bit of a saturation point where I rolled my eyes going, oh gosh, this brand is now wrapping themselves in a rainbow and pretend, you know what I mean? Like it just felt inauthentic and it felt as though they were just kind of trying to slap their brand on any type of social justice cause for the sake of it. You know, whether it not be related to what they actually did or whether they actually didn't embody those values. You know, I really, I became exhausted by it the most when I found out that the values of the company didn't align with what their marketing was saying that they were. And that probably goes all the way back to Victoria's Secret. But I wanted to bring two

examples to you. One of a brand this year that is being described as go woke, go broke. So Jaguar, a couple of months ago, came out with this ad that felt quite disjointed from any of their previous marketing. So it focused on social justice issues that had to do with gender identity and electric cars. And like the ad felt very strange in comparison to what Jaguar had brought out before. And it caused uproar in their traditional customers. I want you to think about the type of person who was more than likely to purchase a luxury car being a Jaguar. Now their sales have gone down by 97%. It is not just because of the ad though. They did face a significant pushback because of this ad. However, they've stopped making those type like older production

models of the cars and they're going to focus more onto like electric cars. So it's hard to actually get data as to whether it was a case of go woke, go broke, or whether it was just the fact that they've had this halt in production and you mentioned American Eagle before and Sydney Sweeney and she's an interesting example because she brought in a million new customers for American Eagle her jacket in that campaign sold out in a day her jeans sold out in a week unequivocally it was a brilliant marketing campaign and now you guys will remember the controversy around that because a lot of people are saying there were themes of genetic superiority and this white beauty norm because she is a stunning blonde haired, blue eyed woman. And they use the puns

with jeans and jeans. We don't need to rehash that. The whole world was talking about it. I'm not convinced that their success in marketing was because they used Sydney Sweeney. I think their success in this product and this ad was off the fact that it was so controversial. And we know that controversy sells. We know that with on every level from a small business to an online influencer to a company like this. Once you get people talking, they say like any publicity is good publicity. And I think she was a really good representation of that. Yeah. But even seeing this pushback, like I know Alex Earl was part of the Carl's Junior Burgers commercials and they've been traditionally very, very sexy. And there were comments on the

new one of that saying things like, oh, finally we've got a hot girl eating burgers back on our screens. Like finally we are going back to this traditional marketing that is just meant to be very good looking people that we aspire to either be like or be with. And we're not saying that that's right too. No, I don't think that this is happening as a coincidence. I think it is very, very much happening because Donald Trump is back in power. We're seeing these conservative values touted, you know, all of the DEI and the LGBTIQ plus rights being withdrawn from America.

We've seen a lot of companies over there stop doing their pride celebrations. We've also seen a push into like this nationalist style of advertising. I'm not sure if you guys have seen these types of things on TikTok or Instagram, but because of the tariffs that Donald Trump imposed, a lot of American companies are coming out with this national messaging of we are American, born, bred, made here, spend with us because we are American and that is superior. So I don't think that these things are happening by coincidence. I think that we are seeing a very deliberate shift back to, and I'm putting this in Air Buddies, nostalgia of male gaze, conservative, sexy advertising because we are, and again, Air Buddies, sick of what the last five years did to us. So I think with all of this considered, Britt, do you think that we have reached a point of consumer exhaustion of social justice messaging and advocacy kind of being, some people would say, pushed down our throats? do you think that woke branding is dead or do you think that we are just kind of having a shift in the way that it's being done I think woke branding is shifting for sure I think there's

an amalgamation now from being extreme and woke to people saying hey you know what we see through it your virtue signaling and we know why you're doing it and I think after four to five years of seeing woke branding and cancel culture to the extreme we are going to see a really meet in the middle kind of marketing and branding where people are still going to be inclusive like Victoria's Secrets was here but they're not going to pretend anymore because people can see straight through it and I think we went as a society we went too hard for too long because I know so many people in my life that have had enough every time they see something or hear something they'll send it they'll talk about it in our friendships groups and be like fucking

they're like I've had enough of this stuff like let's just go back to being able to be literate in what we consume and what we believe and make your own independent choices instead of having things thrown down our mouths and in our faces consistently online, which is what we have seen for the last five years. How do you feel? I think most people, myself probably included, we will feel a little bit refreshed and we will feel like a little bit relieved that this is not the only type of marketing that is coming towards us. It makes me slightly concerned that this is because there are conservative powers that are kind of ruling the world right now, because I think that we could push the needle too far back into the other direction where we get back into

these problematic areas of like only having a certain type of hot, only having a certain type of person that we aspire to be like. And if you can't see it, you can't be it. So I do kind of sit halfway in between where I feel as though we need a little bit of a recalibration because it did become exhausting, but I don't want it to disappear entirely. I think Victoria's Secrets have nailed it. If the pendulum swings too far left, it always comes back right. And the same thing. If it goes too far right, it comes back left. I think they've almost stopped in the middle. And the reason I say that is they have managed to produce this fantasy, aspirational, inspirational, very sexy show that has also been so inclusive. It has had models in their mid-40s. It has had

pregnant models, people of color. It has trans models. It has athletes. It's ticked the boxes without trying at the end of the day we do want representation and inclusion and I think we have nailed that with the Victoria's Secret show because it shouldn't matter if a brand really means the messaging that they're saying or they're just presenting the messaging because at the end of the day we want to see it on our screens so if they're doing the job and the everyday person is looking up and seeing themselves represented does it really matter if they truly believe it for me it doesn't. It's more important to see these people in our screens. And I think Victoria's Secrets have done a really good job of meeting in the middle. It's time for Accidentally Unfiltered.

So last year, I went as Ray Gunn to my friend's Halloween party. Beforehand, I was at my new friendship group's house for pre-drinks. I met my other friends and family there and another friend's boyfriend for the very first time. So she's gone to this new place. She's obviously trying to impress people. Being ray gun, they wanted me to dance. I did the typical ray gun moves and then did the worm. When I finished one of my worms, I went onto my knees and a huge fart came out. It was dead silent and everyone just looked at me to make it worse. My friend filmed the whole dance and the fart was included. I'm still best friends with them, so lucky. My moves must have wooed them. That is so funny. It makes me think when I was on Dancing with the

stars and I think I told you guys once I was doing a practice and it was silent and just I just farted queefed in Craig's face it was like properly in his face as well oh yeah his head was down there and I queefed I think what's worse and it was the worm reverse worm oh that it must be the worm it must like do something to your guts the air but you're like suck you yeah I think that uh I think that in this situation the thing that's worse for them is the fact that it was filmed because you could kind of try and get away with it and be like no it wasn't that bad it wasn't that bad there's actually like video evidence of it you're like it was my knee on the ground it wasn't you farted all right let's do second sweet quiche you want to start do you know what I actually I know that

this is like a kind of against the rules I'm so hesitant to have a suck this week and it's because I have had such such a really good week I think the only suck I could say is that it's felt very busy we've had a lot going on but it's all been really good stuff and so I want to be very careful like complaining about that and saying that you know that was my suck because it kind of wasn't and my sweet this week is that I'm having kind of like a recalibration of what feels really, really important to me. And I've had a lot of these moments throughout the week where I've just been like, fuck, this is what life's about. Like this is it. Kish, this is the longest I've ever heard for you to say you don't have a suck. This is the longest I don't have a suck.

Oh, that's your sweet. So my sweet has been that like, I genuinely have had quite a few of these moments in the past, probably two weeks where I have, I've been able to zoom out and kind of acknowledged that this was a life that I dreamt of you know I know that and there are some things that we got to interview Teddy Swims that's been a big thing for us for quite a long time like there's been some really good professional things and things that have seemed a bit out of reach at one stage where I've realized that now we're actually living it but it's also been really I guess you could say basic things that I am having the evaluation of the fact that that is like where I get a lot of purpose out of life I had this moment a week ago I posted about this

where I was swimming with Bonnie, my new puppy and Delilah and two of my really, really good friends on a Saturday morning. And I just had this moment where I was like, this is a life I dreamt of. Five years ago, if you had have said to me, what type of life do you want to live? This is it. Like I've actually got these things in my life right now that I spent so long wishing I had. And I think that I can, I think everyone can be guilty of this, but for some reason I think that I can be particularly guilty of it I really don't stop and smell the roses I don't stop and acknowledge that you know these things that I have right now are what I always wanted and so I'm trying to be a lot more present in that and trying to acknowledge it and

interestingly they're not coming from the things that I thought they would they're not coming from the massive career goals or getting to do something luxurious or really really cool they're coming from the smaller moments where I'm realizing that all I actually ever wanted on a Saturday morning was to go swimming with my dog. And that's been really heartwarming for me. And I know that this might be a little bit of like deep and meaningful, but it genuinely has been kind of consuming me this week. And I've really been thinking about how I can focus more of my attention and my energy on those small moments and having like a lot of gratitude for them well that must be nice no no I was gonna say like we Kish and I had this conversation

in real life yesterday as well because I said to her like I had the same week where I thought in my personal life am I where I want to be no of course I'm so happy I married the love of my life but it's the life I envisioned for myself wasn't seeing my husband every three months and living day to day on my own that wasn't it but I had the same thing yesterday where I said fuck i am living a dream life for what i always wanted for my career and my suck this week it's a good suck i just had the most awkward moment with when we interviewed teddy swims right so he was also a sweet but when we interviewed teddy and i we walked out to the lobby to meet them and he came with his entourage so it was teddy and he had all his pr team marketing team and a

videographer and his best friend that he travels with and there was like an entourage and at the forefront was his security guard who was this very big scary intimidating man like he was hot it was very good looking he was hot and um he was actually also at the his backstage after party the other night which lucky enough to go to like sorry I have to drop that I was such a groupie I was like fuck yes I'm going backstage anyway I was like do you know what I'm gonna walk straight up to the security guard and introduce myself first you know to put him at and like didn't even go to Teddy first because the security guard was first right so I wasn't gonna like push past him to get to Teddy I was like I'm gonna break the ice anyway I went straight

out to him with like this big smile on my face and put my hand out and I was like hi I was like I'm Brittany nice to meet you put my hand out I have never been looked at the way that this security guard looked at me his hands did not move his side don't fucking touch me he's he looked at me like I was pulling a gun on him like with my hand out as if like you know how you're not supposed to touch service dogs you know how like the rule is like drug dogs at the airport service dogs you're not supposed to touch them or distract them that is you're also not supposed to touch security yeah so my hand was out and it was the longest it felt like two minutes and then we were just staring at each other and I was committed I was like I don't want to make this any more

awkward but I just held my hand out and we made eye contact and I was like who's going to blink first and he looked me up and down like so angry his face was so angry he looked me up and down for a couple of seconds and obviously deemed me not a threat put his hand out really quickly and gave a shake did he give you a shake because i hugged most people i thought you were gonna say you hugged the security no i got to the security guard last so i had kind of hugged everyone and to be honest i didn't really it didn't tell me he's a security guy i went to i went sorry i'd had five hugs before that the first one was our friend thomas who works for warner music and i was like security Teddy, I went to shake Teddy's hand and Teddy kind of indicated he was a hugger,

which I loved because I'm also a hugger. Yeah, but this guy looks like The Rock. How were you confused? I was just – it was all happening in the moment. The pressure was high and I kind of turned to him to be like, hello. And the way this man looked at me, I was like, you're not a hugger. You're dead. And then, yeah, then I just turned around and walked.

Maybe that can be my son too. When we got to the after party and I was leaving, I saw him in the corner and I waved at him and smiled again and he just gave me nothing. And I was like, oh, okay, my damage is done. My suite was also work-related this week. So I got to interview Teddy, which you guys know is a huge thing for me because he was like my wedding song, et cetera, et cetera. A huge fan.

But this week I got to interview five absolute Hollywood heavyweights. Arguably the most famous person in the world. Yeah. If not one of. Top five. I would have to say. Yeah. You'd have to say.

But these were five, yeah, five Hollywood superstars, absolutely iconic people. And I cannot wait to tell you about it. It was not for the podcast. it was for something else but we are going to use whatever I can get on the podcast but it was a it was a moment where I sat there after it I just got goosebumps I was like how have I I shouldn't say how have I gotten here I've done 800 podcast episodes and literally hundreds of interviews so I know how I got here I worked hard for it but there was a moment where I thought this little girl from Port Macquarie who was just a bodyboarder that like I was like I just

interviewed these people and this is amazing and i felt i was really proud of myself for getting where i had gotten and the fact that i got to do it and it was just like it was cool it was just a really cool moment and i just can't wait to share that with you guys yeah i'm excited as well i want the audio so that we can put it on yeah let's get out of here um please keep sending your accidentally unfiltered zine and your um ask uncuts everything any funny story that you think we're going to want to know chances are we want to know it and please remember youtube go and hit subscribe you can watch all our videos the longs the shorts make sure you're leaving us a review if you haven't already we would really appreciate that and you know the drill

we love love